I never thought I’d see the day that someone would try something as wild as using small household batteries in place of a car battery, but here we are. And I love it. YouTube channel Garage 54 — a channel known for doing wild shit — actually experimented and found out how many AA batteries it takes to start a small engine.
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Garage 54 started out by gutting a standard car battery, cleaning it and then filling it with batteries. It started small, using 2 rows of eight batteries to try to get a starter motor turning. That ended up taking 24 batteries; 32 only tripped the solenoid quicker. Once the battery had 40 AAs inside, they decided to stop and move the starter to the car to see if the batteries would turn the engine over.
What followed was a wild trial and error period, where Garage 54 tried to get the engine to start, upping the battery intervals by eight at a time. There were a few times where the engine’s fan slightly moved. But for the most part, it took a long while before there was actually indication the engine was close to starting.
Eventually, the car ended up taking 308 AA batteries putting out 12.7 volts, which was enough to start the engine four separate times. Just in case you were wondering, if you used the cheapest batteries you could find, it would cost a bit more than a basic car battery. I found packs of cheap Amazon-branded AA batteries which are sold in packs of 100 for $26.99. Buying three of those plus one more pack of eight for $6.04, and you’re just under $90 bucks for something that may not work for you. A better and cheaper bet is a basic car battery from a place like Walmart for just under $60.
If you want to check out the full experiment, head on over to Garage 64 to watch the full video. Its worth it.