{"id":334,"date":"2009-09-06T08:16:20","date_gmt":"2009-09-06T12:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2023-07-09T08:00:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T12:00:12","slug":"when-batteries-explode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2009\/09\/when-batteries-explode\/","title":{"rendered":"When batteries explode"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a picture of an exploded battery on a 45 KW backup generator:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"850<\/a>
850 CCA battery exploded during generator startup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This happened during a thunderstorm.\u00a0 The smoking crew was out on the back porch, during a thunderstorm (you have to have your priorities I suppose) and witnessed the entire incident.\u00a0 What was told to me was lightning stuck the generator.\u00a0 I find that improbable since there are many metal objects scattered around the area that are much taller.\u00a0 What likely happened was lightning stuck something close by, causing the power to drop out momentarily.\u00a0 This caused the generator to turn over.\u00a0 The battery was likely low in electrolyte, so there was an internal arc and the thing exploded in short order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These events happened in rapid succession, giving the illusion that lightning struck the generator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I removed the old battery and hosed the inside of the generator with copious amounts of water.\u00a0 There is nothing that can be done about the spilled electrolyte, since it was likely washed into the storm sewer during the storm.\u00a0 After the replacement of the battery, I tested the generator and all is well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a picture of an exploded battery on a 45 KW backup generator: This happened during a thunderstorm.\u00a0 The smoking crew was out on the back porch, during a thunderstorm (you have to have your priorities I suppose) and witnessed the entire incident.\u00a0 What was told to me was lightning stuck the generator.\u00a0 I … Continue reading When batteries explode<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[64],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tales-of-disaster","tag-generator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12070,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/12070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}