Never play Russian Roulette with a Semi-Auto
 

Or drop a tool across the terminals

This was a "return" from a Mi-Grid system. Since I charge all batteries before they leave here, I knew something was up. I also delivered the battery to the solar company.

Strangely enough, the battery is still working! And mostly charged! It was also suggested it might have rolled over. Not possible, since the lead splatter went onto the top of the battery.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1489177917.jpg

So you are saying the customer ****ed up and is not being truthful?

Looks like the result of a drunken golf course incident.

Yes, the customer is an effen liar! They are paying for the replacement. I don't like being jerked around with them saying "It came this way." We check and recharge the batteries before they leave, since I don't know how long it will be before it is recharged again.

I hate it when they think you are stupid.

Did you laugh at them, really, really hard? You should have. Big smile, lots of mirth.

The manager sent me picture and a note of "What Gives?". His workers told him "It came that way." He was pretty pissed off at his guys.

I wonder what the tool looks like, probably pretty neato and melty.

Reminds me of an incident on breaking bad. Sorta cool.

Could have exploded. Someone is lucky they did not get hurt.

My guess some knuckle dragger was using a Crescent wrench and dropped/touched both terminals and voila instant welder . Amazing it didn't blow !

It would have been worse with the better batteries. These batteries have more internal resistance than the next two better models we supply.

You should print up and zip tie tags to the terminal that say something like "Do not place anything conductive across the terminals unless you want to die a horrible and painful death"

They are packed with a Styrofoam protector on the terminals. The "better", aka more expensive, models have recessed threaded terminals. The only way to short one of those is to ground a tool on the recessed screw. I always use tools that are covered in plastic, making it nearly impossible to short out.

Oh look at that! "Spark-welding!" - the exciting alternative way to make metal do interesting things - LOL!

angela

We had an incident like that when I worked at the fuel cell place. The battery exploded and there was lead vapour in the air for a while. Luckily we have a fume hood in that lab and the place was positive pressure.

This could have been way worse.

Back when I was 16 and in a very cold Upstate N.Y. winter I removed the car battery from the car and brought it into our basement to thaw/charge . I hooked up the charger and walked away waiting for the battery to come up to full charge . This was back in the day of individual cell caps . It was several hours before I realized I had made a mistake , my dad had taught me to always loosen the cell caps to allow outgassing while charging . Being young , stupid , inexperienced I grabbed my winter coat and went downstairs to de-cap the battery . So picture this: a somewhat frozen battery had been thawing/bubbling from the charging process . Gasses built up in the battery . I was bent over and my face/head directly over the battery . I don't remember how many caps I had removed when the explosion took place , I remember a bright light and the huge explosion sound and that's about it . I was in a daze and the next thing I remember was someone grabbing my arm and the cold rush of water . My mom had heard the explosion , ran downstairs and saw what happened and she grabbed my arm and pulled me to the slop sink in our basement and started pouring water over me to get the battery acid off of me .
By shear stupid luck I was 100 % unharmed from the blast ! I couldn't hear for a few hours but that eventually came back . The jacket that I had put on had acid stains/holes in it from wrist to wrist the acid sprayed right up to my neck and across my chest . The top of the battery had blown off and the plates/fragments were sticking in the floor rafters/plywood decking !!! How it didn't kill me or blind me is still amazing to this day . When my dad came home from work he looked the carnage over and asked me what happened . He surmised that when I was unscrewing the caps one of my fingers or hands bumped one of the alligator clips of the charger , causing a spark and kablamoh as David Hobbs would say . I was a VERY lucky boy that day and have respected/feared batteries ever since . A lot of power stored in those bad boys !

^^^^ Wow....just wow....

I did stick my finger in an exposed outlet as a wee lad....never did that again :)!