Cautionary tale

[Roger Long]

While picking people's brains about batteries today, I learned why I haven't seen a friend of mine around the waterfront in a while. He isn't in Florida.

He was bending over the battery in his boat a couple months ago when it blew up for no apparent cause. In addition to acid burns, the force of the explosion threw him against the bulkhead of his boat so hard that he broke ribs and punctured his lungs. He's been laid up for weeks.

I don't think wet cells have any place on a boat except maybe one that is large enough to have a dedicated battery compartment.

[ 03-15-2005, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: Roger Long ]

[Charles Burgess]

Better give that dedicated battery compartment some good ventilation ports (with a brushless fan if you want a fan) to vent out the build up of highly explosive hydrogen gas.

[ahp]

I once had a battery blow its top on starting in a Dodge Aries. It turned out that it had been overcharging without my knowing it.

[willmarsh3]

On my big cruise I docked in Stuart, FL and noticed my cabin lights were dim. After checking that my sunglasses were not on, I investigated and found that my gelcell batteries were hot, hissing, spilling acid, and swollen. I was thinking that they could have very easily exploded. It turned out the voltage regulator had failed causing a full voltage from the alternator. I spent the next three days in Stuart adding guages to monitor the alternator output, new batteries, rewiring, and getting the alternator fixed. I was P.O.d particularly since the boat store did not sell an overvoltage alarm. Since then I built a custom case to permanently mount the guages and check the alternator output current and voltage after I start the engine and periodically thereafter. This new panel is shown here
http://willmarsh3.home.att.net/lg/panel.jpg