Battery Blowup

[2B4Him]

I've never seen anything like this before.
Yesterday, I was visiting our storage facility and driving around it on our golf cart. After a short stop to check something out, when I pushed down on the accelerator, we heard and felt a HUGE boom!
I started to get out and saw a stream of 'acid water' flowing out from under the cart.
When we opened up the battery compartment, we saw that one of the six batteries and exploded.
Have you ever seen such a thing?

[KHoes203]

Thats bad. Yes I have seen it before. Pretty crazy!!

[41Chevy]

Yea, when I hooked up jumper cables backwards.

[Codypatt1]

I had it happen with a lawn mower battery. After charging for 6hrs, hooked it up and thankfully I had the seat down which shielded me from getting hit. It actually sounds like a shotgun blast when it blew.

[manwitaplan]

Yes I have read about it and it happens. A couple of causes but the main being your water was low and hydrogen built up as you drove it then when you stopped got compressed and as you drove again a spark or current caused the explosion. Have you checked your batteries in a while? If you look at the other batteries and the water level is low then you you know what happened.
The other cause could of been loose plates that touched somehow and caused the explosion. You were very luck you were not hurt.
Also could of been a loose connection that caused the surge.

I maintain my batteries monthly, corrosion, clean, water level , and loose cables.

[Bowtechlady]

Yes this happened on my sisters car. Thank God she did not get hurt.

[ladrones]

Yes I have seen it a bunch over the years. I was in a gen-set a couple months back and one of the batteries blew up. The terminals were loose.

[Reelthreat]

I had one blow up on my boat and I found it a week later. Sucks to have brown battery acids stains on a year old Haynie.

[2B4Him]

Yes I have read about it and it happens. A couple of causes but the main being your water was low and hydrogen built up as you drove it then when you stopped got compressed and as you drove again a spark or current caused the explosion. Have you checked your batteries in a while? If you look at the other batteries and the water level is low then you you know what happened.
The other cause could of been loose plates that touched somehow and caused the explosion. You were very luck you were not hurt.
Also could of been a loose connection that caused the surge.

I maintain my batteries monthly, corrosion, clean, water level , and loose cables.

We've got our manager on a pretty regular maintenance schedule of brushing off corrosion, checking connections, checking water levels, etc.
This had just been hooked up to the charger for a couple of hours before use and this particular battery was one of the oldest two we had (from 2009).
Scary to think about what would have happened if the battery weren't located in a covered area.

[Buckwheat]

Have seen several when charging and some jack leg walks over and causes charge clamps to spark. Boom!!!!!! Seem one blow in a truck one Time also.