Re: Battery selection?

[David Stanton]

quote Tubs:

Pick you poison.
http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/archive/how-batteries-can-explode-and-how-to-avoid-it-3930

Good info in that video, and, as they conclude, battery compartments should be vented, but beware that venting alone will not prevent all battery explosions. I’ve had two explode back in the 1990s. One under the hood of a 1968 Pontiac The car had been run about 20 min before and when the key was turned to start it again, it exploded. The other was in a 1951 Buick, in my garage, with a 4 Amp charger put on in the evening and it exploded sometime during the night and the hood was up. The only common factor between these occurances is that both batteries were 8 to 10 years old but were still starting and running these cars. Neither were AGM batteries – both had vented caps. Maybe when a battery gets really old, a connection inside corrodes thin and eventually breaks with a spark? or maybe there was just enough hydrogen coming out the vents and a slightly corroded terminal made a small spark? I will never know, but I now clean all battery connections on boats and cars once or twice a year, and am thinking about replacing batteries when and if they get to a certain age. I should probably replace my pontoon boat battery – it came new in 2003 in a new Ford truck, was moved to the pontoon in 2007.
Dave