Recommendations for a spring-loader center punch

I was surprised to find my local HoPo didn't have any spring-loaded center punches. Anyone have one/used one they could recommend? Primary use is to punch out car window if trapped in a flood. Since the 100 year floods appearing to be coming every 2 years now, I figure it's time to put one in the glovebox. Not sure what happens to fancy power doors and locks when they're shorted. I know when floods reach certain levels, car horns start to sound, which I assume means the harness/electronics failing or that cars really do have souls and "scream" when they drown. Either way, I think it's prudent to carry one to pop a window if it ever comes to that.

I pay $100's for insurance that won't actually be able to do anything very helpful during an underwater situation so I figured I could spend $10 or $20 on something that might prove useful in what I hope is an extremely rare situation. (And that I could use in the shop, too!) I've only seen it flood that seriously here before once in . . . well, once in my life, really. With the bridges of the country in disrepair, who knows what will happeno?

I've seen EMT's use a combo device that slits belts and punches windows, but belts are manually operated and wouldn't lock up in a flood situation so that's probably overkill. I am sure a new dollar mart rectangular letter opened with a guide slot would work wwww

Any other suggestions?

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green
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Why spring-loaded?

It's not a question of whether the belt "locks up" as much as whether you can get to the release and operate it. Then again it's also a question of whether in that situation you could get to the emergency tool.

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There are also versions with a flashlight and such.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

All the cars I've had with power windows and locks had fairly hardy circuits that did not run through the computer (likely for exactly this reason). I would be very surprised if they didn't work underwater for a few minutes at least. I think I remember someone running tests on this (Mythbusters maybe) and it wasn't usually a problem.

On the other hand, I wouldn't lose much sleep over paying $2.50 for a punch just in case...

Reply to
Larry Fishel

I agrree. Water and river water aren't perfect insulators but they don't carry current as well as wires do. At least once I've had a non-waterproof flashight under water, and it worked for the few minutes I used it. Then I dried it out and it still worked. .

OTOH, who knows when the windows will stop working, and the window has to be open a little to let water in to eventually open the door.

Of course unlock the doors when the flooding starts.

After a colllision, when everything is scrunched together and the person may have broken bones, it can be hard to get to the seatbelt latch, but during a flood, it shoudln't be much harder than normal, except you may be floating off the seat an inch or two.

Reply to
micky

All the cars I've had with power windows and locks had fairly hardy circuits that did not run through the computer (likely for exactly this reason). I would be very surprised if they didn't work underwater for a few minutes at least. I think I remember someone running tests on this (Mythbusters maybe) and it wasn't usually a problem.

On the other hand, I wouldn't lose much sleep over paying $2.50 for a punch just in case... _______________________________________________________

Thanks to all that replied. $2.50 is cheap at twice the price. Plus, you never know when you'll pass by a wreck where someone needs to be pulled out. A window punch is a good thing to have around.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

I'd be worried about being able to swing a hammer with enough force to pop the window in an emergency situation. The spring loaded jobs are what I've seen EMTs and firemen use.

I can slip a small spring-loaded punch in the console or even with a magnetic mount.

Looks interesting - thanks. I'll pick up the HF one, I think. Not as worried about the belts as I am about the windows and doors not opening.

If I end up being hung up in the seat belts, you can be assured I'll die thinking "RJ was right!" (-:

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Can't believe I forgot about our good friends, HF. The only problem buying stuff from them is that I usually spend $20 for every $1 worth of stuff that I really need. (-:

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

This from the country that brought us the Titanic. I'll punch the window out LONG before the damn car goes all the way under.

Reply to
Robert Green

I dunno. I distinctly recall seeing a program about a flood and people watching from a tall hotel building. When the water reached a certain level, the horns of the cars in the hotel parking lot began sounding.

While I believe that most door and window circuitry is rubber-booted and generally weathproof, I'm forever cleaning corrosion off my allegedly weatherproof charging cables. In the winter I keep the cars on trickle chargers that are in the basement and feed 13 VDC out to the cars through 12 gauge stranded cabled. Both cars have a weathproof connector and fuse leading from the battery to the front grille so I don't have to even pop the hood to put them on charge. Turned out to be really useful the night the door was iced and didn't close fully. The battery would have been dead by morning without the charger. The are allegedly waterproof but they get green mighty fast. That reminds me to get a small round file and some WD-40 to clean them up again before the New Ice Age sets him. I'm betting that the eggheads have it all wrong and that in 20 years we'll be well on our way to Snowball Earth II.

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cousin of the:

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and close friend of the nickel famine:

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But, as always, I digress . . .

If you can even open the door. I'll have to look more closely next time I'm in the van. I think they may operate manually. Since I am getting a new battery this weekend, it would be a perfect time to run the "can I get out with no power test."

What if you're a drunken Ted Kennedy? (-: (Sorry dead Teddy, but you *did* let Mary Jo Kopechne die to save your reputation). I am not sure in a flooding situation (deaths are actually more often caused by people trying to drive through water of unknown depth) I would have the presence of mind to unlock the doors. I believe I would be panicking. (-:

When I said flood I should have also included driving off into the water for some odd reason. I spend a lot of time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and it's not as hard as you might think to end up in water very quickly. It's pretty marshy country.

Even if they proved one car didn't fail, there are an awful lot of car door variations out there. I would assume the circuits are "battle hardened" just because they're exposed to pretty wide humidity and temperature changes. My cars are getting fairly old and rubber gets brittle, etc.

Exactly. I just ordered a fancy carbide tipped one from Amazon and will pick up one for the other car when next I visit Harbor Freight.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Why would watert short the horn relay, but not short out the battery so the horns couldn't sound. Why wouldn't the headlights go on, and the trun signals, etc. Why the horn?

Perhaps the weight of the water on the steering wheel horn button is what made the horns sound.

I'm not saying anything is weatherproof, just that copper conducts electricity better than even dirty water.

Another question related to this I have long entertained. Why does throwing the radio or electric heater in the bathtub kill the person in the tub? At least in the movies. Why doesn't the current go through the dirty bathwater to the metal drain, and from there to ground, in the days when some drains were metal. Why would enough of it go through someone's body?

If this does happen, I wonder if people pick up the heater and hold it as they toss it from the tub, making their body a required part of the path to ground. Wwhen they would be better off getting out of the tub while leaving the heater, etc. in it.

Reply to
micky

You're right that you shouldn't bet on all cars opening underwater, but weather/waterproofing is not really an issue. Switches, relays and motors (even the locks usually use motors) usually work just fine under water at 12 volts without any protection, probably for hours to days (until something corrodes too much). The battery will probably leak down before the circuitry fails (maybe not if the computer is involved).

Reply to
Larry Fishel

Beats me. All I remember is the survivors making a point of how eerie it sounded in a hotel without power and not much noise when the car horns started going off in the rising waters, one after the other. Then they starting gurgling as the water reached the horn's diaphragm and finally went silent. I know they're relay controlled so I suspect that's the component that caused the horns to sound. How, I couldn't say.

I'd rate that scenario "not likely" I'm afraid.

That doesn't matter, though, in something like a PC circuit board or perhaps even a relay. That's why so many cellphones die when dumped in the sink or worse. Flood waters on city streets are probably a hell of lot more conductive than clean water.

I think I first saw that in a James Bond film 50 years ago. (-: It sounds like the Mythbusters might have tackled something like that already. I sure as hell ain't doing the research!

Clearly questions for the theoretical physicists of the group.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Regarding the car horns sounding during flooding: Some cars have a metal ring within the steering column that connects to the horn button. This ring turns with the steering wheel. Below and touching this ring is a small, spring loaded contact, fixed to the non-turning portion of the steering column. The horn button typically completes a ground circuit. Because of the bearings etc. the conductive path from the contact through the ring to the horn button and then to ground is not a very good one, so the relay that is used needs only a very very tiny current to close and actuate the horn. For the same reason, the small amount of current that can flow from the contact to the next nearest ground when it gets wet is also often enough to close the relay too. This is an older way of wiring a car horn. More often today, cars use a "clock spring" harness or cable assembly, which is a kind of wiring harness that resembles its name, and allows a reliable connection for the buttons and switches that are sometimes found mounted on the steering wheel.

Reply to
Larry W

I'd guess it had to do with car alarms.

To prove a point I've already put a working video game pc board into water and it kept working. The trick is that I didn't get the sensitive parts like the clock/crystal wet. That will stop it from working, as I eventually demonstrated. And just for the record, the pc board worked fine again after it was dry.

Reply to
Tony Miklos

You're right that you shouldn't bet on all cars opening underwater, but weather/waterproofing is not really an issue. Switches, relays and motors (even the locks usually use motors) usually work just fine under water at 12 volts without any protection, probably for hours to days (until something corrodes too much). The battery will probably leak down before the circuitry fails (maybe not if the computer is involved).

Every scenario is not the same. If the car lands askew, sometimes the door is held shut by debris or the bottom. And sometimes, shit happens, and it's YOUR car that won't function underwater.

I am/was a scuba diver, certified twice, instructor once, and completed hard hat commercial diving school. I've spent more time in a decompression chamber than most people have spent underwater.

The scenario of drowning in a car is overblown. If you have ever watched a demonstration of actual escapes, you will see that you have quite a bit of time to get out. And popping the window early on with a wall of water just outside waiting to hit you in the face with all those tiny glass particles isn't the best idea.

The proper procedure is to follow the air bubble up, and when you are about to run out of air, pop the window.

DON'T FORGET TO EXHALE SLIGHTLY ON THE WAY TO THE SURFACE, or you'll die from an air embolism rather than drowning.

Panic is the cause of most deaths in this scenario.

But yes, a spring loaded center punch is worth it's weight in gold in that scenario.

Steve, NAUI CERTIFIED, NAUI INSTRUCTOR, OCEAN CORPORATION OF COMMERCIAL DIVING GRADUATE WITH SIX YEARS COMMERCIAL DIVING EXPERIENCE

Reply to
Steve B

That's my feeling. It's so little cost for something that could have great value.

It's not a common way to die. I wonder if some agency tracks death by drowning in cars.

Best I could do is:

That will put you in a bad situation very quickly.

Good point. I hope I can remember it while panicking. Unfortunately, the best way to insure good, non-panic performance is to train and that's not too practical.

Doesn't that still push some glass in? I assume it won't be nearly as much, but it's probably still a good idea to turn away when popping the glass. I had a huge piece of ice break off the car ahead of me at 65 mph. It disintegrated the window on the passenger side. I don't think I would have survived had it hit on the driver side.

From that shallow a depth? (I am assuming 10' feet but 5' could cover a car.

That why the God of War, Mars, had two attendants, Phobos and Deimos. Deimos or (Deimus) was the god (daimon) of fear, dread and terror, and his twin brother Phobos, of panic fear, flight and battlefield rout. Panic's a proven killer in a *lot* of scenarios, like the Iroquois Theater fire. Sometimes, one person who can keep their wits about them can save an awful lot of people from death.

I'm convinced. I've seen people try to break out windows without one and it's a lot tougher than it would seem. They flex but they don't break.

What do commercial divers do? (pardon my ignorance) Bridge support inspection? Ship repair? Offshore oil rig work?

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

"Robert Green" wrote

The temperature of the water is the critical thing. There's a HUGE difference between cool water and very cold water when it hits you all at once.

You can embolize in three feet of water. Ever see someone breathing through a reed to escape the bad guys? Go sit in your pool with a hollow rod until the top of your head is under water. Now try to breathe. You can't do it.

All of the above. Ship inspection. Laying pipelines. Inspecting behind other companies to assure things are right. Setting explosives. Sometimes as simple as cutting ropes out of propellers or hooking on to something someone's dropped overboard. Like a car or a forklift. Or hundreds of lengths of drill pipe.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

That's the trouble. I can never get a volunteer. And I myself am very busy this week.

And Tony, you've heard of washing computer keyboards in the dishwasher?

No soap, NO HEAT on the DRYing part of the cycle.

They say it works well.

Reply to
micky

"micky" wrote

I have heard this before, but didn't try it. It was not until now that I heard the NO HEAT part. Maybe that's a good thing. ;-) Mine's so dirty, I may just run it through the delicate cycle on the washing machine with a couple of pieces of lingerie.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

The water is not conductive enough to dead short a car battery. Eventually it would go dead but not instantly.

Why the horn? Because the people who related the experience couldn't SEE the cars. Odds are other electrical anomalies were going on, but those are visual. Sound travels around corners and through walls. Light does not.

Reply to
mkirsch1

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