[RE-wrenches] Battery based hydrogen incidents

[Darryl Thayer]

Just another note, a friend was checking connections, explosion, blowing top off battery putting acid in his eyes, he had water near by, then to the hospital 5 days of eye washing he has most of his vision back, but went through a lot of pain.  no other burn marks.  
 
One of my cases is when I was at site, the batteries had been charging, I was in a hurry, I put on my goggles, shut off the charger, waited a few minutes, then proceeded t check the connections, bam! top blew off L-16 flooded, I covered my face and hands with snow, ran into house and washed.  I was lucky, I did not get acid in my eyes, thanks to splash resistant goggles, but lost all my clothes.  
Darryl

--- On Wed, 12/15/10, Randy Brooks <Randy at BrooksSolar.com> wrote:


From: Randy Brooks <Randy at BrooksSolar.com>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Battery based hydrogen incidents
To: "RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2010, 12:48 PM


Fellow Wrenches, 


I'm aware of one incident of an exploding battery.  I helped a friend install two solar powered remote controlled gate openers on his ranch.  These systems came with two small PV modules (5W each) and no charge controller.  A 100 amp hour battery was recommended.  During the winter, one gate went unused for an extended period.  The systems are located at 7,000' in Colorado that has cold, sunny winters.  When my friend tried to use the gate opener in the spring, and it didn't work, he opened the battery container and found the deep cycle, flooded lead acid battery had exploded.  We immediately installed small charge controllers and the problem has not reoccured.  I no longer accept the rule-of-thumb that a small PV module will not overcharge a large battery.  No matter how small, every PV system gets a charge controller. 




Randy Brooks
Brooks Solar, Inc.
Solar Power for People
140 Columbia View
Chelan, WA  98816
509-682-9646
Randy at BrooksSolar.com
www.BrooksSolar.com


On Dec 15, 2010, at 10:13 AM, Dana wrote:




I am not advocating for no box or vent as the corrosion factor is high without box and vent.
Just if and how many incidents have occurred.
 

Dana Orzel
Great Solar Works, Inc
E - dana at solarwork.com
V - 970.626.5253
F - 970.626.4140
C - 970.209.4076
web - www.solarwork.com
 
"Responsible Technologies for Responsible People since 1988"
Do not ever belive anything, but seriously trust through action.
 


From: re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Kent Osterberg
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 10:21 AM
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Battery based hydrogen incidents
 
Sounds like, in general, that the off-grid industry has been fortunate to not have hydrogen explosions.  That's good.  No explosions here either.  But one shouldn't take that as evidence that it couldn't happen.  I don't believe this is a circumstance where it is better to be lucky than good.  That's why I recommend doing the calculations.

Kent Osterberg
Blue Mountain Solar


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