Today my grandson was driving my CC 6-seater electric golf car and a battery exploding under the back seat. He called me on FaceTime and showed it to me. Everyone was ok and he said it would still run and he drove it home. I maintain the batteries well. Water was proper and all cable connections were clean and tight. Charge was up. The batteries were 5+ years old and they wearing down, but worked. I see that the terminal melted and probably arced and set off hydrogen gas that blew a piece of the top of the battery off. I’ve never seen something like this before. Has anyone had an experience like this before? I’m in the process of building a Lithium battery pack. I guess I need to get back on that now.
See pictures attached.
Yep- It happens. I don’t pretend to understand exactly what causes this sort of thing, but it seems there was an arc between the plates that lights the gasses inside of the battery. I doubt a spark outside would start a flame front all the way inside (through the cap). The cap would be exploded too.
The melted lug may have been partially at fault if it melted inside too. I wonder what would happen if a lead drop fell across something important inside?
For a terminal to get hot enough to melt, it means there was a bad/dirty/loose connection or crimp (under the shrink tubing). You might want to consider some new cables or at least some new ends on your next build.
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Fvck yeah! Buy your son a beer and a cigar! That’s way more epic than the one i blew up.
I had the #1 battery on my eM go kaboom. A 6v 280Ah AGM Leoch… too much regen.
I was driving it around on the AGMs, when I bought the truck from Dave, i asked him to turn the regen up to max for the lithium pack. But had to take it out so i was coasting and all of a sudden, BLAMMO! Sounded like a 38 being fired in the cab. My first though was “Shyt i thought i settled all those debts…” 
Just kidding, my first thought was “Fvck, i hope I’m not on fire, i don’t have an extinguisher. ..”
About 1/3 of the top of the #1 battery was peeled up like a tuna can… your boy blew a hole in that one. Damn, thats tallent.
Good times. Good times
Serpentine! Serpentine! Serpentine!
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