Exploding NiCD battery!

[Scooter]

I recently got a Game Gear system for my collection. It came along with a PowerBack rechargeable battery. I was told it would hold a charge. When it arrived it was flat so I charged it. It seemed to charge up fine. The charge only provided about 30 minutes of power so I thought maybe it needed a couple of cycles to get back into good use. I put it on the charger this morning. About 3-4 hours later I heard a loud pop from the room it was in. It was at least as loud as a good sized firecracker. While looking around for the source of the pop I noticed some "fur" sticking out of the battery pack so I quickly unplugged it. As I was openning the case to investigate it popped again making my ears actually ring.

I quickly took the thing outside and removed the cell pack. I put it on the patio and it continued to smoke. After a while, I severed the connection between the cells to cut off any short circuits which may have been occurring.

I've never heard of a NiCD exploding unless it was drastically overcharged. I was using the proper wall charger. This was quite disturbing! I've just read that cadnium can be toxic so I've cleaned up all the residue, removed the trash from the house and washed my hands and the battery pack shell really well.

I'm now going to be paranoid of all NiCDs I have in the house!

Here's the destruction. The explosions were powerful enough to do the damage you see, when I severed the cells apart all I did was break the electrical connection, nothing more.

[superlarz]

whoa, you are lucky you weren't injured.

[IcKy99]

wow man, same here never heard of those types of batteries popping at all

[Dreamstation]

You're lucky that it did not cause an electrical fire and burn down your house.

[lordofduct]

not surprised...

as nickel cadmium batteries charge their temperatures increase (this is because the battery absorbs the heat during charging... but once full it dispells all the heat very quickly if still held in a circuit... note the unusually high temperature of NiCd batteries when playing handhelds). As the temperature increases either hydrogen or oxygen (depending the where the overcharge is coming from) builds up inside the cells and can rupture it.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was a cheapy charger... or just old charger that failed to notice... the overcharging of it. Also NiCd batteries have shortened life spans over time used which could of given off a false kill. Maybe only one of the cells killed which meant not enough voltage was going to the GameGear to run it... but another cell had charge left in it. In these scenarios NiCd batteries will overcharge accidently due to reverse charge from the semi charged cell flooding back on the dead cell. Again resulting in hydrogen build up. And a resulting "pop" or "BLEVE".