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Battery Meltdown

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mfaitak

Member
Anyone ever heard of a battery doing a meltdown? My friend has an '06 sporty and was charging the battery. The 'tender said the battery was good so he unhooked it. Tried to start but nothing. When he went to check the battery he noticed what looked like solder all around. When he got to the battery the solder turned out to be the negative terminal - it had melted off. Somebody told him that if one of the plates inside the battery touches another plate it can go into some kind of hyper mode (?). He got another battery and everything is good so far. He's getting ready for a ride and doesn't want to get stranded. Anybody got any clues? Oh, yeah he checked out the battery tender on his boat battery for a couple of days and everything is fine with it. Also checked it with a meter and it's putting out what it should.
 
I've seen this only once where the terminal had melted off the battery. IMO it was probably caused by a bad connection on the battery terminal. With the draw of the starter and a bad connection, it causes excessive heat and when enough heat is generated over time it will melt the terminal.
 
seen it plenty of times in other stuff as glider says is uaullay a bad connection .. but also a dead short can do it
 
If a battery is dropped or hit it can cause the plates to short and sometimes create a surge in voltage before it dies,or the acid blows out of it
 
Like Glider, I have only seen this result when a connection was loose.

Generally the loose connection causes a dramatic increase in resistance (read heat) and something has to give.

Be sure to have your friend check all the electrical connections, chances are if one was loose, there will be another loose.

Safe Riding

Jake
 
There is a condition called "THERMAL RUNAWAY", which is normally associated with NiCad batteries, but it can also be associated with lead acid type.
If anyone cares to do a Google search, there is enough information on the condition to keep you reading for days.
 
I came across it once when I was working on cars. This guy's car wouldn't start so he got it towed in. Battery voltage was 0. Not knowing what the cause was, we put in a new battery. Got the first terminal on and tight. As I touched the other cable to the battery it sparked, the cable got super hot and as I tried to hit it off the post, the whole post came out in this molten leady mass. Further investigation revealed a cracked starter which caused a dead short.
 
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