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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Intelligent battery charger turns phycho!


Mike B

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My old man bought an "intelligent battery charger" and a lesuire 12 volt battery for our electric fence.

 

He put it in his garage, connected it up, got in his prized R34 and went to the gym; he came back to devistation! The battery exploded in a pretty convincing manner.. there were bits of it everywhere :eyebrows:

 

He's done this before in the good old days but thought he'd got round the problem by taking any brainpower needed out of the equasion by buying halfrauds finest intelligent charger. Maybe he engaged phyco mode by accident.

 

Either way he was glad he had gone to the gym and taken the car out of garage..

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There's been a recall on some of the Halfrauds battery chargers, see here: http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&langId=-1&catalogId=10151&productId=242802&categoryId=53251

 

wasn't one of them was it?

 

Oh bollocks, just checked mine, and it's the one affected. I also notice that it's been recalled since July 2006 - Good to see that they have had big notices up in Halfords to that effect.

 

:shrug:

 

Mike

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I think it was!

 

"We have identified a potential safety concern with the HALFORDS FULLY AUTOMATIC BATTERY CHARGER. It is possible that when charging a defective 12 volt battery that the charger could overheat."

 

overheated in a big ball of hydrogen fueld flame.. lol

 

It is also quite possible the battery was dry. Maybe the next charger needs to be astute enough to point this out in the form of some friendly verbal advice.

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oooh bugger. I have one of those too. Just checked and the barcode matches up with mine.

 

I've charged batteries in my kitchen with it loads of times!!!

 

And I've never seen any recall notices in Halfords either.

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That battery has exploded due to a spark igniting the hydrogen given off when it is charging. Maybe it was OVER charging, but without a spark the hydrogen would just float skywards from the vents. Not convinced it was a charger fault. maybe the croc clips were not making a good contact and a spsrk ensued? Nothing good ever comes from an exploding wet cell battery. Be thankful neither you nor anyone else was near it, sulphuric acid in the kisser or eyes is not at all pleasant.

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He did blow one up in days of old, at point blank range, the spark from removing the crock clip set it off. He was in the shower pretty sharpish. Same as this one - there were bits of it all over the place.

 

I'm not a big fan of electricity at the best of times; I was struck by lightning at the age of 17.. our familiy is best kept away from all thing electical to be honest.:rolleyes:

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......a spark igniting the hydrogen given off when it is charging......
and that's why you switch the charger on after connecting it to the battery, and why you connect the negative jump lead last (and disconnect it first), and don't clip it to the battery terminal......
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Were the bungs removable or was it a "sealed for life" job? They still look in place to me.

 

 

 

I think the bungs were removable, so they must have had a good seal. There was nothing in the garage that wouldn't have taken a good white wash of sulphuric acid.. luckily!

 

I don't think he quite accepts just how lucky he was taking his car out when he did.. it is immaculate as well - '99 R34GTR with 30,000 miles!

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