Quote:
Originally Posted by john.wigley
I personally have had a battery EXPLODE while on trickle charge in my garage. It threw part of the casing the length of the garage, and the spilt acid did no favours for the bench on which it was standing or the toolbox on the floor below. Not much I could do about preventing that one, but I was very glad that I was not in the garage at the time!!
Regards, John.
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Many thanks for your glowing endorsement John!
I've picked out one particular bit from your post that warrants further comment IMHO, i've known several batteries go "BANG" while on charge (one of them wasn't even on charge but trying to start the new car to which it was attached at the time) but the worst one for me was having a battery explode in my face while on charge. Luckily just the one, none of its neighbours followed!
The situation was in the generator hire industry and part of my job was looking after the batteries on the sets that hadn't been out on hire for a while. Every couple of months i would charge and rotate the batteries so there was always a battery more or less fully charged on each set. As such i had about a dozen batteries on the bench (i say bench, it was a purpose built charging bench, space for a charger and a battery in each area with many areas) that i had previously checked for SG, level etc and all just needed a top up charge. Periodically during the charge i would check the charge rates and switch off those that were fully charged (they varied in size/capacity) and i had just walked into the "charging room" when the battery nearest to me took its chance to explode.
Ended up with acid in my eyes, luckily there were several eyewash stations in there so i grabbed a couple and phoned my boss on the internal phone for help while washing my eyes out.
Had a few days off work to rest and recuperate my eyes but was seriously lucky not to have been effected worse than i was.
As you rightly point out, cars are beset with hazards, some minor, some major/near fatal. Coolant can be nasty as it scalds instantly when hot.