jerry dycus wrote: >> During my overcharging experience, I got potassium hydroxide on my >> skin, and had it there for almost a minute. A equivilant amount of >> PbLA electrolyte would have eaten a hole in me.
Nonsense. The sulfuric acid in a lead-acid battery is dilute. It certainly won't eat a hole in your skin, no matter how long it is present. Your only symptom would be red skin, like a sunburn. Now, it *will* dissolve cotton, and so leave holes in your jeans. And it hurts like hell if you get it on an open wound. >> However, I had no idea about the aluminum thing, and it's making me >> very nervous because my entire rear battery rack is made of aluminum. >> Imagine a rear end collision that breaches one of my rear batteries. >> ... electrolyte leaks onto the aluminum ribs. Hydrogen is generated >> in large quantities, at the same time as sparks are flying from >> shorted batteries. First, you can get the aluminum painted or anodized. Second, the amount of potassium hydroxide available to react with the aluminum is small (unless it can puddle somewhere, like in an aluminum tub). Third, the reaction rate is slow enough that you won't be generating hydrogen fast enough to be an explosion hazard. The main risk is that potassium hydroxide spills will slowly corrode away your aluminum battery box, just like the sulfuric acid spray from lead-acid batteries corrodes away steel over time. Jon "Sheer" Pullen wrote: > The H2 problem isn't that bad anyway. LA batt acid does the same thing. Not to aluminum; it is pretty much inert to sulfuric acid. But it will attack steel, copper, zinc, and other metals, liberating hydrogen in the process. -- Lee A. Hart Ring the bells that still can ring 814 8th Ave. N. Forget your perfect offering Sartell, MN 56377 USA There is a crack in everything leeahart_at_earthlink.net That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
