Exploded battery - why?
This battery was wired in parallel to it's twin. Water level was last checked 60 days ago. This is in a 2014 Lance truck camper - I'm second owner and assume that this is the original equipment ...
Forum Discussion
I am a ship's engineer by trade and until the depression, I earned a good living working on performance and other cruising sailboats. These all require significant battery banks. (Shipping out here has been dead for years.)
During a typical season, we got called to deal with the aftermath of between half and a dozen battery explosions. Single battery explosions are so rare that they are not worth mentioning. But 12V batteries in parallel are the regular culprit. If the batteries did not come off the line together or have been ignored, it is so common that it is scary.
There is not enough energy in the properly filled cell to do more than blow the caps off. But is a cell shorts internally (this can be detected after the fact with a simple meter) the heat will drive the electolyte to high temperature and because of the cell design, it can flash all at once. This is the common explosion that ends up looking like the picture. It can happen to a single 12V jar, but that will usually happen when it is loaded heavily - like to crank a big main engine. Parallel jars can just go off at any time.
I like them. The owner's insurance company gets to pay us lots of money to do the clean up and repair. We used to carry strainers and boxes of baking soda just on GP. The gloves and disposable cloths were already aboard to do epoxy work.
Matt
During a typical season, we got called to deal with the aftermath of between half and a dozen battery explosions. Single battery explosions are so rare that they are not worth mentioning. But 12V batteries in parallel are the regular culprit. If the batteries did not come off the line together or have been ignored, it is so common that it is scary.
There is not enough energy in the properly filled cell to do more than blow the caps off. But is a cell shorts internally (this can be detected after the fact with a simple meter) the heat will drive the electolyte to high temperature and because of the cell design, it can flash all at once. This is the common explosion that ends up looking like the picture. It can happen to a single 12V jar, but that will usually happen when it is loaded heavily - like to crank a big main engine. Parallel jars can just go off at any time.
I like them. The owner's insurance company gets to pay us lots of money to do the clean up and repair. We used to carry strainers and boxes of baking soda just on GP. The gloves and disposable cloths were already aboard to do epoxy work.
Matt
