Battery explosion?

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:00:42 GMT, "Roger Long"
om wrote:

Has anyone heard or experienced this?

On changing the battery in our plane the other day, the A&P said, "You had a
battery explosion." On looking closely, I could see that the box was bowed
out and rounded as if someone had tried to inflate it with air. I'd
noticed that it wasn't exactly square and the cover didn't fit very well but
thought it was just poor workmanship.

He said it probably happened during starting from hydrogen build up that the
propwash hadn't had a chance to blow away yet and the pilot thought it was a
backfire. No harm done except we'll need a new box because of corrosion.
It could have happened years ago.

--
Roger Long

I've seen it twice and had a close call on my own battery one winter's
day. I was an auto mechanic in another life and happened to be
watching a nearby Peugeot mechanic working on a dead car that had just
been dragged in. I think I helped push it in, in fact. I'd moved
away from the car and was about twenty feet off when the old dude who
worked on those things connected the charger to the battery. It
instantly exploded, scattering pieces of plastic and acid all over the
shop. The mechanic was scratched in a few places (painfully as the
cuts got splattered with acid) but was otherwise unharmed, including
his eyes as he was wearing glasses. He was lucky.

I saw another explode when a guy tried charging a frozen battery. I
mean literally, the acid was so diluted from being discharged that it
froze. That battery blew apart, but due to the ice, it wasn't a huge
explosion.

The time my own battery tried to explode, I'd removed all the battery
caps before attempting to charge it. I'd connected the charger,
making the negative connection away from the battery as you are
supposed to to lower the possibility of causing a spark near the
battery. I was removing the charger and failed to removed the
negative side first. This caused a spark and the escaping hydrogen
instantly blew up. But since the caps were off the battery, it only
resulted in a loud POP as the hydrogen ignited and it did no damage to
the battery or me.

There's a reason you are told to attach the positive lead first, and
connect the ground to something away from the battery. Problem is,
sometimes this results in such a poor connection that jumping the dead
battery is problematic.

Corky Scott