On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:29:06 GMT, wrote:


I do not know if you can charge them or not but I would think there is
probably some preventative in them to stop it.

And from a practical point of view using the crappy normal chargers
would appear foolish unless you put said batteries and charger outside
where they could burst into flames harmlessly.

It would be an interesting experiment though.

In the 1990's there was an HSE report on an incident, possibly in the
USA with a non-rechargeable lithium cell that was accidentally
'charged' when if I recall correctly a forensic examination indicated
a blocking diode fitted the wrong way round. Despite it being the
size of around half a PP3 cell it destroyed a substantial sized room
with the resulting explosion. Internal cell protection devices have
improved significantly since then, but fiddling with something you
don't have intimate knowledge of can be very dangerous.

Even if you *think* you know what you are doing and have done
something similar many times before it can still go very wrong, I
'exploded' a Nicad pack a few years back when I had a very senior
moment last thing at the end of a very long day regarding charge rates
and ampere hours and a newish bench power supply. The big 'bang'
happened overnight when no one was around but I didn't destroy the lab
with an explosion...I instead contaminated the place with cadmium
residue.


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