dodged a bullet

Maybe someone can benefit from my experience. After last trip plugged in the built in charger same as always, next day come out to find a battery cap in the floor of the boat. Looking further found we had an explosion. Trip before that had noticed a slight acid smell when i came out the next morning and thought to myself probably should check that out but waited one trip too long. Researching this on the net find it's become all too common, a deep cycle battery can develop a short and spark internally, it doesn't take an external spark to make this happen. Keep a watch for safety sake as well as avoiding a major clean up job. And if you hear of some nut washing out the bilge of his boat on a freezing Christmas Eve it's ok to pretend you don't know me. The folks at Wally World thought i was trying to corner the market on baking soda.

Glad it was no worse than what it was. Thanks for the heads up. Batteries are a very important part of our fishing success and one of the least looked at parts of boat maintenance for most people.

glad it did not eat a hole in the bottom

Always had mine in the plastic boxes just for that reason,, glad it was not a fire u came out to,

I have had 2 to explode. First one was in my wife's car. She had gone to lunch from work and when she tried to crank the car at the restaurant she heard a muffled boom and smoke came out from under the hood. The hood was buckled and the underside was covered with acid. Believe it or not the place where we bought the battery paid for the repair on the car and replaced the battery. It was only a month old.
Second one was a 6 volt golf cart battery in my motor home. I used two in series for the coach components including the generator. Went to start the generator one day and heard a boom and one of the Interstate's blew it's whole top out.
Lucky like you that I was not in the line of fire (or acid). These guys can be really dangerous in the right conditions.
Glad it was not any worse for you.

Never seen that one before...always sumthin. Hope it didn't mess up your boat...that acid is nasty stuff to deal with.

I've never had one to "explode" or blow out the side like that, but I've had several batteries, all in the cars "short" out. Car or truck would start fine at the house, go to work or somewhere, try to go to lunch, etc., and the engine would just barely start to turn over, then everything went dead, no dash lights, no radio, nothing. Everytime its been the battery shorting out internally. All of these events were with older batteries, usually 4 yrs + in age (out of warranty, etc), all it took was a new battery. This type of event happened to my wife when she took her car in for some recall/warranty work to the dealer where we bought the car, she tried to start the car to pull into the shop area, and nothing, the battery had shorted out right there at the dealer.

Unfortunately, batteries are built to last the warranty and no much more these days, so if something doesn't start all of a sudden, I just go buy another battery and I'm on my way again. I've come to the conclusion its best to go ahead and replace batteries when they get about 4 yrs old as they seem to go out on me and I do this just to avoid the inconvenience of it happening. It won't guarantee a no problem trip, but reduces the odds imo anyways.

Had one blow up about a month ago ,my cranking battery right after I charged it up was told I should have let it set for a while before I tried to start it up. Like Steve alot of baking soda hope every thing is ok in the boat. Mine threw pieces out of the boat on the garage floor Glad nobody was here that day!!!!!

:yikesnot a boat battery but.... last winter after deer season my dad had brought the fourwheeler home to change oil and do other maintence, nice polaris 500 with a toolbox on the back rack. got it all done load the wheeler on the trailer to head back to the property. well dad had a fresh 6volt battery for a trail cam, and he put it in the tool box for the trip down to richwoods. well we didn't know it, but the battery turned over and leaned on to a small pruning saw, that we also had in the toolbox. with the bumps and vibrations of driving, the saw slowly cut through the insulators on the battery's terminals, eventualy connecting the positive and negative (and permanently welding the saw to the battery). well, we were about 5 miles from completing the 45mile journey when another pick up was tailgating us and flashing his lights. we pull over on a driverway and he pulls up next to us, hey!! your fourwheeler is on fire! we jump out and sure enough, the plastic toolbox is smokin' and melting and a few seconds from a-blazin' lmao!!!:help:yikes so we poured our coffee on it, then our soda's and lastly, our few beers we brought along. the other guy comes up with an old fire extinguisher that barely worked, but between them we cooled it off enough to open the toolbox and empty the contents. only ruined the box and the plastic rack luckily. could have been much worse!

Seen a guy come back to the boat ramp on Nimrod lake one day when I was just finishing putting things away for the drive home. He banked his boat, ran to the truck while pulling off clothes. "Hey, can you give a hand?" He was soaked. It was not a warm day, but far from freezing, I believe April/May. He had a tiller outboard which put him in the back by the batteries which were open to the air. He said as he was chugging across the lake he heard a loud pop. His trolling battery exploded spraying his back and neck with acid. He smartly jumped in the lake to rinse it off, then headed straight back to the truck. He had to sit in the truck for a while to warm up, the more he calmed down the more he shivered.

More and more batteries are maintenance free (i.e. maintenance impossible) and this is a problem because you can't add water to keep the electrolyte above the plates. This occurs more often with automatic charging systems. For example, the U of MO hospital in Columbia has such a system and their back up generators are powered by big Caterpillar Engines which are started by big D/C batteries. A few years ago, they switched to the MF type battery and very soon had 3 - 4 of those big batteries blow up.

They had a very rigid maintenance system that required them to check the electrolyte monthly which they could no longer do. If you have a similar "float charge" system on your boat, make sure you have plenty of ventilation (a battery box with a lid is not) and don't charge too fast.

Speaking of battery boxes, most of them are made out of a plastic that will burn like a torch. A battery with a dead short will melt down to the plates and go out. A battery box will flame up and spread the fire to other things (gas tanks?). It is a senseless shame that some states require you to have your batteries in plastic boxes that are actually a hazard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by got crappie

Had one blow up about a month ago ,my cranking battery right after I charged it up was told I should have let it set for a while before I tried to start it up.

---

Here is a Pic of Dave's Battery; lucky guy! Old batteries build up gas (LIKE SOME FOLKS I KNOW:Rofl) due to less liquid so more room for gas to build.....let them air out!