Thread: Meet my 90, and share the adventure.

Hi Mitch. Long long ago when I was an Apprentice Electrical Fitter we used to to put shrink insulation on our shifter handles to prevent arcing. Just a thought. Also again stating the bleeding obvious. I hope you ventilate your Battery Box for a while before you go at the terminals. I once saw a bloke blow himself quite a distance doing that. Mind you it was 200 times the Battery you've got, in a space you could fit into twice.
Cheers, Billy.

That is a good idea indeed.
As for the battery gases, I've used 'ignition protected' fuses / fuse holders where possible, but conversely, the battery box is fairly well ventilated from the top with the sliding plate which clips down. With Hydrogen being the primary gas produced by lead acid batteries, and being much less dense than air, I hope I'll be OK.
On top of that the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) of H2 in Air is around 18% by volume- so just spitballing, but I might even be pushing it to be able to even contain that much light gas in that space, even if the batteries were significant'y venting.

Yep. You are probably correct. The question would then be. How fast would Hydrogen rise amongst a lot of other light gasses? It's just a thought Mitch.
The bloke I saw was standing in an opening 2M square, but to be fair, it was a massive bank of batteries under heavy charge with all caps off cells.
Sorry but they drum this stuff into us in Maritime Collage as well. I've probably been made paranoid.
Cheers Billy.

Originally Posted by cuppabillytea

Yep. You are probably correct. The question would then be. How fast would Hydrogen rise amongst a lot of other light gasses? It's just a thought Mitch.
The bloke I saw was standing in an opening 2M square, but to be fair, it was a massive bank of batteries under heavy charge with all caps off cells.
Sorry but they drum this stuff into us in Maritime Collage as well. I've probably been made paranoid.
Cheers Billy.

The answer would be 'faster than a helium balloon floats to the ceiling'.

I decided to dive down the rabbit hole, and do some research.
This came across as an interesting paper. Seems to have some interesting points.
[ame]http://www.battcon.com/papersfinal2008/odonnellpaper2008proof_6.pdf[/ame]

In short, explosions are a very real risk, however I don't think my setup is any more dangerous than the next person's. I've mitigated the risk of sparks from fuses and fuse blocks, using 'ignition protected' fuses or fuse holders. I do have 2x more batteries than some though... but ventilation happens when the lid is lifted off the battery box in any case.

Having a massive bank under charge would lead to some H2 gas generation, however this would be exasperated under an overcharge situation.

Thanks for the paper Mitch. You have successfully allayed my fears.
Cheers, Billy.

1 CB Radio Speaker with a massive long cord... $0.00 (supplied with the vehicle)



15 minutes of disassembly, de-soldering, cutting wires and tinning them... $0.00 (plus some consumables I already had)



Attaching it all back together with new soldered connections, and feeling pretty darn good about a cheap and useful fix for the problem... $0.00



Having to re-do it all because I forgot to pass the wire thru the rear case BEFORE I soldered it all up... Priceless.




I always seem to get into 'the zone' with these simple kind of repairs / mods.
Usually I'm not 100% focused on what I'm doing and always seem to forget something like this. Be it the order it needs to be assembled, or putting heat shrink onto a wire before soldering.
But nevertheless, a worthy way of spending a hot afternoon with a cold beer.

Also had a "Derp!" moment when I installed the Hi-Lift jack mount and shovel holder on the roof rack this afternoon.

I bought a totally bodacious fiskars shovel from bunnings, as it was all steel construction, and the colour was almost an exact match for Orkney Grey! (hard to tell in the below pic).



I did my research before on the max handle diameter what would fit in the holder, and measured it up before purchase...

But I neglected to measure BOTH holes on the Kaymar carrier... the front bracket hole diamater is about 3mm too small!

So looks like the holder will soon have a hot date with a plasma cutter

Today some mates and I had a day trip to Warrabah NP.

The park is approx 40 minutes out of Manilla NSW, or about 1.5hrs from Tamworth. Nice national park with some nice swimming holes and some decent facilities.


Departed from Tamworth approx 10am, shot up to Bendemeer, then west on the Halls Creek Rd. The long, but scenic route.
Map link >>Here<<

On the way notable moments were:
Horse on the road
Getting a hektic drift on a dirt road on a steep section, right near a cliff
This chap on a floodway (followed shortly after by 2 wallabies jumping around)


Arrived at Warrabah around midday, to the Gum Hole camping area. Cooked a steak, drank a beer, and had a swim.



Spotted this bloke rustling about our stuff after a swim, looked like a lace monitor (at base of tree, in shadow).


Gratuitous landy shot: