<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><DIV>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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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, <SPAN><SPAN>bam</SPAN></SPAN>! 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. </DIV>
<DIV>Darryl<BR><BR>--- On <B>Wed, 12/15/10, Randy Brooks <I><Randy@BrooksSolar.com></I></B> wrote:<BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><BR>From: Randy Brooks <Randy@BrooksSolar.com><BR>Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Battery based hydrogen incidents<BR>To: "RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org><BR>Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2010, 12:48 PM<BR><BR>
<DIV id=yiv24423889>Fellow Wrenches,
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>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 <SPAN>PV</SPAN> 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.
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="WIDOWS: 2; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; TEXT-INDENT: 0px; BORDER-COLLAPSE: separate; FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'; WHITE-SPACE: normal; ORPHANS: 2; LETTER-SPACING: normal; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); WORD-SPACING: 0px" class=yiv24423889Apple-style-span>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman">Randy Brooks</FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman">Brooks Solar, Inc.</FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman"><B><I>Solar Power for People</I></B></FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman">140 Columbia View</FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman">Chelan, WA<SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> <SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN></SPAN>98816</FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman">509-682-9646</FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman"><A href="http://us.mc393.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Randy@BrooksSolar.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:Randy@BrooksSolar.com">Randy@BrooksSolar.com</A></FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 12px 'Times New Roman'" size=3 face="Times New Roman"><A href="http://www.brookssolar.com/" rel=nofollow target=_blank>www.BrooksSolar.com</A></FONT></DIV></SPAN></DIV><BR>
<DIV>
<DIV>On Dec 15, 2010, at 10:13 AM, Dana wrote:</DIV><BR class=yiv24423889Apple-interchange-newline>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN style="WIDOWS: 2; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; TEXT-INDENT: 0px; BORDER-COLLAPSE: separate; FONT: medium 'Times New Roman'; WHITE-SPACE: normal; ORPHANS: 2; LETTER-SPACING: normal; WORD-SPACING: 0px" class=yiv24423889Apple-style-span>
<DIV lang=EN-US>
<DIV class=yiv24423889WordSection1>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext; FONT-SIZE: 14pt">I am not advocating for no box or vent as the corrosion factor is high without box and vent.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext; FONT-SIZE: 14pt">Just if and how many incidents have occurred.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext; FONT-SIZE: 14pt"> </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext">Dana Orzel</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext">Great Solar Works, Inc</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext">E -<SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN><A style="COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://us.mc393.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=dana@solarwork.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:dana@solarwork.com">dana@solarwork.com</A></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext">V - 970.626.5253</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext">F - 970.626.4140</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext">C - 970.209.4076</SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: none; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: none; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: none; BORDER-TOP: rgb(181,196,223) 1pt solid; PADDING-TOP: 3pt">
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><B><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">From:</SPAN></B><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, sans-serif; COLOR: windowtext; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN><A style="COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://us.mc393.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=re-wrenches-bounces@lists.re-wrenches.org" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:re-wrenches-bounces@lists.re-wrenches.org">re-wrenches-bounces@lists.re-wrenches.org</A><SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>[mailto:re-wrenches-bounces@lists.re-wrenches.org]<SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN><B>On Behalf Of<SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN></B>Kent Osterberg<BR><B>Sent:</B><SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Wednesday, December 15, 2010
10:21 AM<BR><B>To:</B><SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>RE-wrenches<BR><B>Subject:</B><SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Re: [RE-wrenches] Battery based hydrogen incidents</SPAN></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; FONT-FAMILY: serif; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">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.<BR><BR>Kent Osterberg<BR>Blue Mountain Solar<BR><BR><BR></DIV><PRE style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"> </PRE></DIV>_______________________________________________<BR>List sponsored by Home Power magazine<BR><BR>List Address:<SPAN class=yiv24423889Apple-converted-space> </SPAN><A style="COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://us.mc393.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org" rel=nofollow target=_blank
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