I also had a similar, but not exactly the same experience. This was way back when my former S-10 Blazer EV pack configuration was 120VDC using 20x 6V T125 type PbSO4 wet cell batteries: 8 in the front in two racks of 4, and the other 12 in one large covered metal box behind the rear seat.
I had just grabbed a couple hour charge at a work site near Trimble Rd and Hwy 101 in San Jose, CA and was heading on Hwy 101 north at 55 mph a few miles to get home. I knew I had a few batteries that were using more water, and their tops were beginning to get discolored, but I figure they still had several months of life left. About half-way to my turn off, I smelt sulfur. I turned off the radio, and heard a slight hissing. The hissing sound increased as I demanded more with the accelerator pedal. I could not very well pull over right then to check, so I only pushed the accelerator down enough to try to keep a highway speed in the right lane (~45mph) with a plan to get off the highway asap. After I had shut down and parked, I feared I would not be driving the rest of the way home, and may need a tow. I opened the rear hatch window and lifted the heavy metal cover on the rear pack. Yup, a cell had cooked and another had reversed. There was acid electrolyte sprayed like a volcano eruption all over the insides of that battery box of 12 T125-type batteries. I called a tow truck and got my baby home. Later after neutralizing a lot of the acid, I cabled past the bad battery and was able to still drive my Blazer EV. At that time there were no other battery options for conversions other than PbSO4. I set up an appointment to bring in my EV, and I decided to spend the money to do several upgrades besides cleaning up the mess and replacing the pack. If this had happened today, I too would be considering upgrading to li-ion. As others know, there is a lot more than needs to happen than just switching the battery chemistry type. It would be nice if there was a simple off-the-shelf plug-n-play way to do the upgrade. But usually what is involved is a new charger, a BMS system that works with that charger, and then there is sourcing the li-ions. I found some automotive size 12V li-ion batteries that were designed to try to make it easy to upgrade http://www.lithiumion-batteries.com/products/12v-80ah-lithium-ion-battery/ But the terminals were different, may not be able to handle the current demand, and would have to be adapted to, as well as them being 12V so a serial parallel configuration would have to be considered to try to get about the same or more kWhrs as the original pack. But same as a long time ago when there only was PbSO4 available, which battery to want depends on what your racks were designed for. So you may have to add a new battery rack to the above todo list. >From what I read, it seems the best bang for the buck is to get some pih or EV packs, test and pull the best individual cells, and then build a rack around them. But that takes a place to work, and the time to do all of that. Whether you buy individual new li-ion cells or do the less expensive method (above), this upgrade should be well planned out ahead of time. If you have a dead battery now, the best solution to get back on the road so you do that planned upgrade so I suggest: stick with PbSO4 for now. I hope others will weigh in and give their corrections, opinions, and ideas. For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/Killed-a-flooded-battery-sizzling-and-steaming-tp4679596p4679604.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
