Near Disaster - Dewalt Cordless Drill

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

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

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

Thanks Mark!!

I went out and looked and sure enough I have one of these time bombs. At
first I didn't think that I did, but when I looked on the consumer product
safety commission web site the numbers for the Dewalt chargers are :DW9107
and DW9108 with date codes of 9616 through 9752. You possibly saved me
injury or property loss, I never would have known about the recall
otherwise.

Thanks again,

Monty


 
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