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Hi All,
A
few months ago a friend of mine was working on an underwater electrical
device that he was experimenting with. He had a plexiglass container
in which he put a 6 VDC motorcycle battery. The battery was covered in
mineral oil and a lid was covering the top of the container, on top of the
lid he had a vapor lock, like a bubbler for fermenting wine. he ran leads
out of the container from the battery and started discharging the battery by
running a fan motor. As he was observing the battery he noticed that very
small micro bubbles were coming off the battery (hydrogen) the micro bubbles
formed a sort of foam and were not exiting the vapor lock like he had
planned. Worrying that this could be a dangerous situation he wisely left
the area. The fan continued to run off the battery discharging the
battery. Its possible that fan was discharging the battery at a rate that
was too high. In any event my friend went in side his house. After
about 5 or 10 minutes an explosion ensued which defoliated a near by tree, shook
the house, and rained down pieces of battery on the other side of his house and
left a small crater ! Needless to say, we are both a bit leery of
how to proceed with an oil filled battery system for a sub project we are
working on.
I'm wondering if there could be a big difference between mineral oil and
dielectric oil as far as foaming characteristics, also I'm sure his vapor lock
was simply not functioning, The foaming phenomenon sounds like a recipe
for disaster. Also the accelerated discharge rate was also a contributing
factor.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Brian
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