Flooded light - Rechargeable battery still good?

[soamelt]

A buddy of mine flooded his UK Light Cannon. He said he gave it a fresh water rinse and dried it out, but couldn't get it working again. He gave me all the parts in case I wanted to salvage any of them since I also have a LC. What I don't have is a rechargeable battery which he gave me. The problem is there appears to be battery acid on it. I don't know if that's what it is, or something caused by the heat and salt water. I don't want to try it my LC if I think it's something that will kill it.

Should I pitch the battery, or can I clean it off and try it?

 

[gcbryan]

Get rid of it. I can't imagine a good outcome with a battery that looks like that.

 

[wquiles]

Get rid of it. I can't imagine a good outcome with a battery that looks like that.

+1

That looks pretty nasty!

 

[soamelt]

I figured the consensus would be to pitch it. I was hoping it was something I can just clean. I don't understand how a sealed battery leaks because of a little water. Are batteries not completely sealed?

 

[gcbryan]

I'm not a battery expert but they do leak under certain circumstances...some types are more prone to that than othesr but I would guess that it's the salt water (very conductive) shorting out the battery terminals that causes this reaction.

The fact that it looks like it does tells me that it leaked otherwise there would be nothing to clean up.

Once they do that they are generally shot. If you put that in your LC and it leaks it will ruin the LC. It probably isn't holding a charge now anyway but I don't know enough about the battery chemistry to be able to say that for sure. I also wouldn't want to try to charge it in that condition.

I've had other types of batteries that were able to withstand a flood in salt water (li-ion). Alkaline seem to be the worst in my experience. Your battery pack is nicad and certainly appears to be leaking. Leaking acid is not something you want to be messing with.

As an aside, you may be able to get the LC working again. Look at the circuit boards if there are any you can see and look for brown that should be there and using q-tips and alcohol scrub those areas. You are just looking for brown on circuit boards that connect or short two areas that shouldn't be connected.

It may be ruined or it may be fixable. It takes more than just rinsing off in fresh water although that's the first step.

 

[fmerkel]

The case is not sealed nor are the batteries inside. The batteries are semi-sealed with a pressure pop-off to keep the case from exploding should they get inadvertently over charged. It's possible that during pressurized flooding saltwater (and junk) gets inside the battery itself.

A bigger issue is the inherent low-resistance high-discharge capabilities of rechargeable batteries. Once put in saltwater it shorted and current REALLY started flowing within the battery all over the place > erratic dead shorts. This causes havoc and serious corrosion on the electrics in the light head and likely destroyed many if not most of the cells. It also can cause significant pressure inside the light during this electrical/chemical storm driving the results inside the battery itself.