Welding 101

[testpilot58d]

Holy CRAP!

I just arc welded my charger to a padlock!

If you are scratching your head right now...all I can say is I KNOW! 'WHAT THE HELL?'

So my chager has this Krakken cable that comes out of it. With multiple plugs for various applications and one of them (which the other day I said to myself 1) 'What the heck would THAT be used for' and 2) 'That doesn't look very safe') this thing looks like a 3.5mm stereo plug with a 5/16" steel nut on the plug...its weird looking.

So anyways...I have this Kraken cable dangling over the side of my footlocker and there is a padlock on the footlocker. I've got 2 Kongs in my hand that I am plugging into the Kraken in series. I plug the two batts into the series plug, and right as I plug the series plug into the Kraken I see a bright light, hear a 'BZZZZZZ' 'SHHHHHHHHHHH' and smoke is starting to fill the room.

I freak cause I think my lipos are exploding so I rip them out of the charger and throw them out the door, disconnect the leads from the charger, and thats when I see it....

That stupid plug had touched that steel lock hanging on my footlocker. Spot welded itself to it, and the insulation on the wires to it had melted off!

SO....

I check out the charger, everything seems ok. I cut the melted wire set off of the Kraken, terminate them with some shrink wrap, and I'm currently charging another battery ok.

The kongs have been sitting outside now for 30 min. I can't see any physical damage on them whatsoever. the smoke and flash obviously came from the welding and melting of the wires. What's the consensus here? Should the Batts still be good? How long should I keep an eye on them before attempting to charge?

*shaking my head*

[muppetman0]

The connector that you mention sounds like the kind used to charge the glow plug warmers used to start nitro engines.

Not sure if the batteries will be OK. I guess you could try to charge one and see how it goes. You might want to do this outside if possible.

[testpilot58d]

Muppet,

Yeah...I think that's the route I'm going to take. Thoroughly examined the batteries and there is no visual damage to the wrappers. (when I initially saw the flash and smoke, I thought it was a LiPo going ballistic) Neither battery is swollen. So far I have charged 3 other batteries on the charger and It's all checked out ok. I'm pretty sure the damage was isolated to that part of the Kraken dongle that was shorted.

Going to put the power supply by the door and charger and battery outside just to be safe.

Thanks for the input.

Brian

[psilo]

ROFLMAO!

Sorry Brian, shouldn't laugh but I did similar when I hadn't realised the crocodile clips on my Imax B6 (used to connect to 12V battery) were live with 18V when on mains power, didn't quite weld them to anything but scared the hell out of me when they shorted out on the biscuit tin!

With regards to the Kongs, I would try them, they are supposed to be able to recover from some severe overcharging anyway, but as stated above, maybe charge outside (certainly away from any padlocks ;) ) just to be on the safe side.

Gerd

[testpilot58d]

Oh, no...trust me...it's funny now!

I about crapped my pants when it was taking place though!

[Ian 777]

Excellent! still more Environmental awareness ,well done old chap:YeaBaby:

[muppetman0]

Hey Brian, did those kongs survive?