Battery fuse? I'm con-fused.

[Chuck Craven]

Larwin
The hydrogen will vent but the oxygen will sink down giving you a high concentration. Oxygen will start fires and the two oxygen and hydrogen mixed will go bang. When cutting steel with a torch the oxygen is what does the cutting. It can get over 5000 degrees. The only thing hotter on earth is lighting.
I work with inverters on big UPS systems and they use special chargers to charge up the batteries after a brown out. I know the difference but have used the inverter word for years and it’s hard to stop!
I know of a person who used batteries for welding! One day he came in to work with acid burns on his arms, neck and face. Asked him, “been welding?” He answered yes but the worst is I burnt down my house! He would take two old 1000 amp hour batteries put them in series and weld with them. One day he was welding and got the rod stuck and there was a big bang soon after there was fire going up the wall. By the time the fire department got there the house was half gone.
The batteries got hot enough to start wood on fire. What do you make your tear out of?
Chuck

[Nitetimes]

I still don't think it's that much to get excited about, a lot of guys put their car batteries in the trunk and it gets bounced around plenty, it's sealed at least as tight as your trailer and it gets much hotter in there, I've never know anyone have one explode on them.
Way too much ado about nothing.

[bledsoe3]

We had a guy in auto shop in high school blow up two batteries. One his junior and one his senior year. Both times he was charging them and removed the leads with out turning off the charger. You would think he would learn after the first one. I don't think he had all of the dots on his dice.

[GeorgeTelford]

Chuck is dead right on the fuse and battery issue, maybe you never will get that concentration of gas and the fuse melting (and sparking as the field collapses) at the same time

But its far simpler to use encapsulated fuses, reason they only rarely pop under the hood is that engine bay is virtually a wide open space, in UK we have vent tubes on leisure batteries to divert the gas outside, makes things a fair bit safer.

What a Pity the US doesnt seem to sell properly vented leisure batteries.

[cracker39]

I had thought about two vents in my battery box, and this discussion has prompted me to make the decision to use two on the battery end. I'll probably get two of the small round soffet vents and install one at the boittom and one near the top. That should provide air circulation to prevent gassing buildup.