Had my first battery almost explode
 

I was charging my pack that had 10-12 charges through it that i used for racing. I thought i would try a Integy 3800 matched pack bought new and worked fine and was a pretty good pack. So it's charging and i'm at home at the pit table doing other things and i hear this sizzling and i'm like wtf is that noise, took about a second to figure it out and by the time i got it unplugged the one cell was huge and was smoking. so i yell to my woman "open the patio door" i'm running through the house with this thing thinking its going to explode. so i get it outside and a little while later i go get it and check it out. ugly. I always check my battery bars before i start a charge to avoid something like this and i also checked my battery settings on the charger and they were set right. I'm 29 years old and been doing this since i was 11 so i know a little something but it was kinda scary. I thought what if this happened while racing, it could have hurt someone in the pits. I always talk but i don't go far if i'm charging.

I've seen first hand and heard about so many NiMh cells blowing up/smoking up so much in the last few years. What do you guys think; is it the cells themselves or the way we are charging them?

I bet u you would`nt have that accident if you were running nitro, electric`s DANGEROUS GUYS!!!!

so far in the last 6 months i have seen 2 nimh packs blow up and have heard of 2 which makes 4 total. Lipo's zero. i currently use both.

yep, i've exploded 8 cells and melted 6 into my bench... not my parent's best freind atm when it comes to charging! they couldn't refuse my offer of a peak charger for christmas.

Unfortunately, I have been the cause of one of those in pit battery blow ups....

Got some cells from a fellow racer and proceeded to charge them. Well, my mistake was to not discharge before charging. Ironically, I was in the middle of a race on the stand when it all went down. About half way through the race....KABOOM!!!!!! I couldn't believe it was my pit!!!

Two lessons learned...

1. ALWAYS DISCHARGE BEFORE CHARGING.

2. Don't run too many classes on a weekday club race. Concentrate on one class to not rush myself....

Thankfully, only damage was a little pride hurt and a heck of a mess to clean up...

Recently I had a Rx pack blow a cell. Small cell, small pop!