I heard a muffled pop 2 days ago and looked in the direction of the sound. Nothing but thick black smoke was filling the sky. A friend about 200 yards away had any car nuts worst nightmare. His battery in the 57 Chevy had gotten down so he put a charger on it...15 amp setting. He got distracted and went to his other building. He finally saw smoke comming from the small wodden structure with his 57 chevy, Willys pickup and conversion van in it. He saw it was out of control and got a wiff of the black smoke and was headed away when he passed out from the bad smoke. The battery in the trunk was the hot spot according to the fireman. When the gas tank blew accelerated by the melting NOS bottle it was all over with at that point. Fire trucks were there in 5 minutes. He knows the battery charger killed his rides and almost got him. DON'T go off a leave a battery charger unattended on anything but a trickle charge. It ain't worth it. Also the fire marshall told him that his trophys also added to the intensity. He told him one good sized trophy was like a cup of gasoline when they get hot. They are all petroleum products. His back wall was full of them. What brought tears to his eyes weren't the rides burning but the friends that showed up before the fire department did to help out.
God that is horrible. My condolences to your friend on the loss of the cars. Life will go on for him, so it could be worse.
two years ago a friend called me up to go to lunch. I picked him up and he was just putting a charger on his 36 chevy. Battery under the floorboard. We left it with the door open and the charger on. Hr or so later we saw the commotion as we returned. It seems the door had blown shut ,the charger cable was still melted in the sill, the car was toasted.
I've read you shouldn't use a charger to bring up dead batteries. Boost the car and bring it up to near normal with the engine running.
Very sad to hear about the accident, but thank the Lord he was not killed. As for dead batteries, I would not recommend letting the vehicle charging system do the recharging from dead as that kind of load on the alternator/generator could end up killing the charging system or at least shortening its life. They are not designed to recharge dead batteries, but instead to maintain the electrical system voltage level with a charged battery in place. I have replaced many, many alternators that died an early death because of excessive battery loads from old or nearly dead batteries that customers did not wish to replace. Best bet for dead batteries is a nice, slow trickle charge after making sure the electrolyte level is good. Less heat in the battery translates to longer battery life. Just some thoughts.
I feel for your friends lose. I hope he is ok and can recover from. fire is a loss that most people never thing about until it happens to them. Thinks you take for granted and always been around are gone after a large fire. But there is one thing that get me. The Fire marshall is an ass. I was a fire official for 12 years and now it is one of the courses I teach at the collage. I guess then we have gals of gas setting all around our houses. A TV must be about 1 gal. The coffee maker must be about a pint, Clocks must be a 8 ozs to a pint, I can go on. Any fire is fueled by outside products or it would go out on it own. Sorry I just got to rant when someone does not know there job.
Thank God your friend made it out of there alive. It might hurt right now, but all those "things" are replaceable, your friend is not! Anytime I see a fire that someone didn't die in I think "Thank God"... just trying to keep it in perspective.
Too many fire posts here lately...I always cuss the high-tech battery charger that I bought some time ago because it automatically shuts off when trying to charge a dead battery. I guess I won't be so quick to cuss at it now...
On the other hand........ The higher an alternator's/generator's output, the more heat that is generated. Automotive alternators can put out quite a bit of current Because of that some even have dual cooling fans(1 front, 1 rear). In spite of having high output capability, they can't continuously produce high output without overheating. For that a bigger, heavier, and more expensive commercial/industrial unit is needed. Some rebuilders include a caution in the box about charging dead batteries off the alternator. Probably most of us have done that. I have done it many times myself without a problem. But.... guided by expert advise you shouldn't charge a dead battery with a charger or the alternator. I guess if your battery goes dead you are just screwed? I know it's bad to charge a battery to fast. That fits with how my smart-type charger works. When it senses a dead battery it starts off with intermittent(and lowered power?) charging pulses. When the battery is up enough it switches to normal charging.
On a dead battery i was always taught to try and charge it as slow and low as possible I have a 1.5 amp trickle charger.. I take the battery out of the vehicle and place it in an open area of my shop and charge it for a day on 1.5 amps..if it doesnt take that I toss it..if it starts to accept that 1.5 amps i keep it on there for a while until i see it taking more..if it dont act right i can it thanks for the heads up
Where did that happen Jim? Not in Pensacola did it? Sorry to hear about this, sad to see these things happen. I had a battery explode in my 67 Camaro once, battery was discharging gas from the strain of a bad starter, spark somewhere(starter?) and boom! No fire, but a cloud of acid came from under the hood. Blew the top off the battery. I never use the 15A setting on the charger for the same reason that your friends garage burnt down. Call me chicken.
I'd like to know what happened to make the battery do that. batteries don't just ignite because there is a charger on them.
Always a good idea to remove the battery from the car, however, I've never done it. Guess I've just been lucky.
i have seen quite a few batteries that have blown up by an over charging system, the battery bubbles making hydrogen and oxygen and with a spark blows the top off, the lower the electrolite the larger the space for HHO gas, this happend more when people would try to adjust the regulator and had them over charging.
Lead-acid batteries can give off Hydrogen while charging. A single spark can set them off. Battery could have had a short, overheated and caught fire. Charger could have been defective. Always bad to hear of such a loss, glad nobody was hurt or worse.
Most battery explosions are caused by an internal spark setting off the hydrogen gas. That internal spark is usually a cracked post attachment inside the case that finally separates or a cell connector strap that breaks. The gases in a battery are quite normal but heavy charging, large loads or just plain high temperatures can make the whole thing worse. Quite often a battery explosion occurrs during a jump start attempt when one of the internal pieces crack & break allowing a spark to jump the gap. Smart chargers and battery tenders are the best thing to happen to lead acid batteries in ages.
Sorry for your friends loss just glad he's ok. Just recently I put a charger I have had for 20 years on my Bobcat loader to charge the battery and thankfully for some reason I had to go back in the storage shed later to get something and it was full of smoke and the case on the charger was glowing red. Should have blown a fuse? A close one but it's hard to just sit there and watch the battery charge?????
terryr, you should never do this. They are NOT, repeat NOT battery chargers. They are not meant nor designed to charge a dead battery.
Was the charger connected directly to the terminals on the battery, via some remote terminals, or via another means located at the front of the vehicle. If it's any of the latter, I'd likely place the blame on the wiring and not the charger.
My oldest son was driving an O/T Sunfire (POS) not 2 minutes after leaving home, the battery blew the top denting the inside of the hood. Shit can happen!
It is actually in Cantonment just about 1.5 miles south of the International Paper. The guy has two other shops full of cars. Metal buildings though.
ugh international paper , used to work for em , if you need a good charger buy a battery tender , i have one and really like it when battery is charged it goes into standby , if you put leads on wrong terminals it does nothing except flashes a lite to tell you , mine has worked well for years ,
guess there are a lot of bloody idiots, including me, that leave the battery in the car while charging. Some times it seems like such a big hassle for a simple process when you are in a hurry to do a basic start up. Yep, trickle/smart chargers are the way to go. in recent years I have put a master kill switch on everything and shut off whenever it will be parked for more than a few hours.
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