Battery explosion [RE-wrenches]

Matt Tritt solarone at charter.net
Thu Dec 2 19:40:02 PST 2004


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  Hey Ray

  Speaking of loose connections, I just "repaired" a battery post on the 
positive terminal of a big IBE industrial set. The post had melted enough to 
form a large amorphous blob of lead on top of the battery - but with no 
explosions or fires, thank you. When I checked the connection I found the 
bolt to be very loose and the contact only partial.

  The intersting thing about this is that the owner had heard a loud buzzing 
coming from the battery area for "several weeks" prior to the event. Did she 
tell anyone? Of course not. These batteries are part of a 
solar/generator/Trace SW system that I put in a few years back that has 
experienced  charging weirdness from time to time in the form of a very 
noticeable cable vibration while charging through the inveters.

  This seems to be a 60 cycle vibration, (I've measured  "phantom" 60 cycle 
AC with a non-true RMS meter on SW cables before) or pretty close to it. I 
have seen this happen before in other SW installations when lots of 
generator activity is going on, and remind my customers to periodically 
check all the bolts on the bat's for looseness. In this case, I had 
re-torqued the whole set about 6 months prior to the melt-down, but nobody 
had bothered checking afterwards.

  I'd like to know if anybody else has observed this type of problem in 
other SW installations, or if this is merely some miserable poltergeist with 
nothing better to do than loosen bolts.

  Matt T

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Ray Walters" <ray at solarray.com>
  To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
  Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 3:40 PM
  Subject: Re: Battery explosion [RE-wrenches]




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  Hey Randy;

  That's a scary story. How big was the battery? Was it sealed or unsealed?
  The only battery I ever had blow, was a golf cart battery on a golf cart.
  Those carts often are unfused and a combination of a dead short and a 
loose
  battery terminal connection caused the lead terminal to melt into a blob
  then into the plastic case where it ignited the hydrogen. After a few
  exciting hydrogen fired seconds it was over.  A friend siliconed up the
  hole and kept using the battery.
  Your account sounds much more dangerous. I can't believe 300 milliamps
  could blow anything up, are you sure it was due to overcharging and not an
  extremely high rate of discharge? I've heard of internal battery shorts
  that create so much heat in so little time that the case blows.

  Ray




  >After having a battery explode in a solar gate opener control box when 
the
  >gate was left unused for several weeks with a 5 watt uncontrolled PV
  >module, I now always install a small charge controller.  The SunGuard is
  >cheap insurance and peace of mind.
  >
  >Happy Holidays,
  >
  >Randy Brooks

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