Mark Steitle wrote:

ACRE Members,
If anyone has a DeWalt or Black & Decker cordless drill, then this pertains
to you.

Last Saturday morning I was working on my project in my garage.  I had put
the rechargeable battery from my DeWalt cordless drill on the charger and
continued working.  A short time later my faithful & fearless dog caught my
attention, as he was alerted by smoke coming from my workbench.  What I saw
grabbed my immediate attention.  There was a plume of smoke pouring from my
charging unit & battery.  Some time ago I had heard of an instance where a
cordless drill battery had exploded during charging, but dismissed that as
a fluke.  I had visions of my project going up in smoke as well and for a
split second debated whether to run from the garage or try to get to the
plug and unplug the dragon.  I sure didn't want to be maimed or killed if
the thing exploded.  A second later I had jerked the plug from the outlet,
but the smoke continued bellowing from the unit.  With some recollection of
the hazards of putting batteries in fires, I vacated the garage for approx.
20 minutes.  I was still afraid of the thing exploding.  I also didn't want
to breath any toxic fumes.  Upon returning, the battery was still too hot
to touch.  Since the two parts were now melted together, I managed to get
the two of them out of the garage by grabbing it by the cord.  I have
decided from now on to charge all batteries outdoors.

When I got to work on Monday I searched the DeWalt web site for any
warnings, or caveats, but found none.  I then searched the Consumer Product
Safety Commission web site
( http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PREREL/prhtml01/01057.html ) and found that
there had been a recall of the DeWalt and Black & Decker chargers, model
numbers 97015 and 97016, in December, 2000.  There have been reports of
batteries bursting, resulting in injuries, supposedly due to defective
battery chargers.  DeWalt has agreed to replace the chargers free of charge.

If you have a DeWalt or a Black & Decker cordless drill, I strongly advise
you to check the model numbers to see if they are included in the recall.

Mark Steitle
Lancair ES - Turbo 20b

 
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.              Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            http://www.linux.org