What button are you talking about ?
Breaking the tube causes an implosion which intern will cause the broken glass to fly out.
If you are in front of it you can be hurt.
Breaking it with a metal bar and getting a shock, I never heard of that.

 

So right now I'm the only one who says disconnect both battery leads and jumping them together is a more positive way of discharging the energy in all the ECM's in the car.
Any other thoughts on this or is it a dead matter ?

 

You mentioned the power button in your post #1.
the TV sets causing injury was, what an adult warned us years ago.
Touching the positive and negative terminals , that’s what fried my radio in Aug 2019.
In an HHR , I cannot recommend this practice!

Cat Man , you are welcome to test this theory with your own HHR , and report back to us.
Bare in mind , you will be responsible for any damages it may cause to your vehicle.

 

On a laptop or PC you still have to hold the button for at least 15 seconds. I've been supporting computer systems and servers for over 25 years. I don't know anyone that's held the button to discharge the capacitors. Remove the power source and walk away for ten minutes if there is a need to discharge the capacitors. Same as I've always done for a car computer.

 

I guess one could argue that "all condensers are capacitors but not all capacitors are condensers."

That is a firmware thing to avoid unintentional switching. Not discharging caps. The "wait 30 seconds before turning it back on" saw is for that.

 

Please explain how the radio was damaged when you connect both cables together when they were not connected to the posts of the battery ?

 

The RAP system discharged and fried the radio.

 

Perhaps the difference between allowing it to discharge naturally, vs forcing it to discharge?

 

I believe the cables touched when I lifted the battery up and out. It wasn’t intensional.

 

This is why I like the experienced advice here. I say another forum(not HHR) that recommended wiring the positive and negative terminals together for awhile after removing, and I thought, “WUT?”

If simply removing the negative terminal for 30 minutes is proved to work, I don’t see the problem. I kinda think it shouldn’t make any difference which terminal was disconnected, other than with the positive terminal were removed instead, it would be easier to accidentally close a circuit between the two terminals by touching it to anything grounded.