Tried to burn up my battery pack, car, and garage today

[John Bryan <jbryan4@mindspring.com>]

	I guess it had to happen sometime. Whenever a human is 
involved you know that things will eventually go wrong. I got
home from the store around noon and decided to juice up my
car quickly with my Badass-Boy Charger. It's similar to a
Bad Boy Charger, only it runs on 220 and has the ability to
take out my car's pack. The car was only down 8.5 Ah, so I
planned on only leaving it plugged in for about 20 minutes 
and then letting the onboard system take it from there. I
checked the E-meter and saw 18 amps flowing into the 192 Volt
pack before I left and basically didn't come back.

	This pack is made up of 16 Optima YellowTops that
are 6 years old this September. They have powered my trusted
daily ride for the last 5 years. The problem today is that I
was really tired from getting awaken all night by exploding
powerline transformers. My stupid alarm clock can't handle
the noise, so I got up and reset it at 2:30 and again at 
around 5. So I was really tired when I sat down and started
having lunch - already having forgotten all about the car.

	After I finished eating I sat down in a really 
comfortable chair and started reading a fine book. Meanwhile, 
my battery pack was heading for record voltages as it continued 
rapidly charging even after becoming completely filled. As the 
batteries eventually started into full thermal runaway, I closed 
the book, set it down, and settled into a nice peaceful and 
restful sleep. I woke up a couple of times, only to go right back 
to my badly needed slumber. Suddenly, I cracked my eyes barely open, 
then I...remembered. I felt my eyes go wide like saucers and I just 
literally flew out of the chair and ran from the house.

	On my way to the garage, I came to the Badass Boy Charger
about halfway between the house and the garage. After yanking 
the plug and holding the cord that led to the garage, I wondered
what I would find at the other end. The car had been on charge
for 2 hours and I fully expected to find a terrible mess and a
ruined pack. I was amazed to find that although the batteries
were all very hot, not a single one of them had vented. I'm sure
they were extremely close though. I started sniffing around to
see if I could detect any telltale aromas, but all that I could
smell was clean, hot, yellow plastic. They were around 110 deg.

	As they cooled down I kept an eye on them and put them
on float with the onboard system holding each module at 13.8 Volts.
I have the feeling they are going to live! If anything they seem
to be even better than before, judging from the extremely long
off times that I'm seeing with the chargers. Times that I haven't
seen for a couple of years or so. I consider myself very lucky
and feel that I came just as close to that line as I could without
stepping over it. It'll be interesting to see how the pack performs
on its next run. The solution to this is obviously an automatic
shutoff, another of those things getting higher and higher on my 
list of things to do.

Seeya,
John