In the spirit of hoping some good comes from this I wanted to share a post I read a little while ago from by a gentleman named Bill Bishop. He's a professional marine electronics installer and he's got a blog called, appropriately, "The Marine Installer's Rant". This particular post is about battery chargers run amuck...
http://themarineinstallersrant.blogspot ... bilge.html
In re-reading the post I followed one of the additional links and read about a service tech killed by an exploding battery. I also found myself recalling a friend's story of a battery exploding during a jump start. As a result of hearing that I've been turning my head to the side as I make the connections to any battery I'm jumpstarting. I'd forgotten why I had picked up that habbit.
It just takes one battery gone bad, with plates shorting or boiling dry, toxic and/or explosive gas being produced and things can go very badly. I know I'll be looking into the specs on my charger to see if temperature probes can be added. I feel awful for Henry but I'm hoping this lesson isn't lost on the rest of us. Batteries of the size found on our boats have enormous potential energy yet we tend to view them as rather benign. I know I'll be much more cognizant of the risks going forward.
Henry - thanks again for posting your story.
