Fire Hazard: Recall on Dewalt/B+D Battery Chargers

[Nicholas Carey]

Originally posted by Concordia41:
DeWalt 12 volt, two batteries - nothing new there, but do NOT, I repeat DO NOT leave your battery charger plugged in for any period of time.
We're good about pulling all the plugs before we go home at night, but came back one day from a lunch/Home Depo trip. The Husband asked me to hand him down a fresh battery - reached for it and OUCH! it was in the process of melting. Dave recalled the same thing happening at work with a DeWalt charger. Don't know if the brand is prone to it, but anyway, a good lesson learned without permenant damage

Actually, there's a recall out on DeWalt/Black&Decker chargers. Certain models don't shut off and overcharge the battery, thus posing a fire hazard. It sounds like you've got one of the bad chargers. See

* http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml01/01057.html

* http://www.dewalt.com/us/articles/printable.asp?ArticleID=230

for the details. The recall is for

* Dewalt chargers models DW9107, DW9108

* Black & Decker Industry & Construction™ (97015, 97016) brands

You can also call DEWALT toll-free on 866/543.3401 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET Monday through Friday for more information/details.

[PilotArt]

Interested in expert opinions on this.

As far as I knew, the more expensive chargers would go to a 'trickle' rate as battery reached full charge.

My battery charger is of the cheaper type. I watch out for the temprature of the battery as it is charging and have not seen them ever get past warm.

The six/two amp will start on six amps with a low battery and after overnight will be back to two or three amps with the selector still at six. If you then select the 'two amp' mode it will show only one amp or less.

The other one is a 24 volt, ten amp that I use on two 100 amp/hour deep cycles and is often unattended for several days. It will begin at seven or so amps and will stabilize at two or so when batterys are charged. Again, I have never noticed any heat from those batteries.

One last point to mention about charging around boats, seem to recall that if boat is in the water, it was recommended to disconnect the negative terminal when not in use to prevent electrolisis damage to underwater metals. This precaution would be even more important if a charger were involved.