exploding battery

Video or it did not happen!

Wow I have heard of this happening but its fairly rare, unless of course the cables were reversed.

There had to be a spark somewhere. Batteries don't explode unless there is a spark to set off the vapors.

If the battery was low on electrolyte, it is possible there was an arc jumped across the exposed plates above the liquid and if the battery has any kind of vent the drop in liquid level could have pulled some air into the hydrogen atmosphere.

Ohh yeah thats a Real eye opener, I was jump starting a fuel truck before and boom!!! scared the **** outta me and about 12 people that were in the vicinity. Anyway did you make out on the water?

I've seen it happen once when I was a young boy. Must have been about 35 or so years ago. My father was trying to get the F150 started in - 20 celsius dead of winter January. Had it on the battery charger for most of the morning. Near as he could figure in the frigid weather with numbed hands he accidently sparked the positive terminal & lit some hydrogen gas. Caught a small piece of battery shrapnel in the lower right eye. That has been the only time I have heard of a car battery exploding. Then again batteries were less safe back then as well.

Saw one pop in auto shop back in high school, 30 years ago. Guy was charging it, hit the starter and POP! Woke us all up and made quite the mess.

I had one blow in my Z while driving, voltage regulator died, alternator overcharged the battery, Chernobyl under the battery tray eating a hole through the wheel well.

Holy crap! glad your ok. I've heard of this happening aswell.

I seen the results of it on my dads old Volvo 770 when we did a battery change in Chicago over by I think the name is Lake Station..
It wasn't as much of an explosion as it was acid spray everywhere making a huge hazardous mess. The tops of the battery cell where covered and we changed out 4-6 truck batteries.

Wow, I always spark the negative terminal with the alligator clip to make sure I am charging. Guess I won't be doing that anymore.

I think Jeff Foxworthy might like this one....
Years ago I owned a 72 dodge with a bad heater fan.
It only ran on high.
I got tired of hearing the fan so I drilled a screw down into the top of the battery
Figuring that if the screw was about halfway across the top of the battery,
I would get 6 volts instead of 12.
Hey, it worked. Fan was now much quieter.
Went around a sharp corner and the screw temporarily worked loose.
At the next stop sign the screw made contact with the plates inside the battery
and caused a spark. "BOOM"

How would it make 6 volts? Are the plates not stacked?

I think he means he picked up power by letting the screw touch a plate halfway across the plate stacks where the voltage would be half of 12V from + to - posts, as each cell gives 2V.

I just had a battery explode two weeks ago. I have deep cycle marine batteries wired to battery backups for my servers. Every Wednesday in the morning the backup generator starts up for it weekly test. Right when it happened I was out of my room when everyone in the building heard a big bang. It blew the lid off the case it was store in and the top blew off the battery. I had it under a table and there was acid everywhere. Went thru two big bags of baking soda to clean up the mess.

Methinks you used two bags of baking soda to make a foamy mess, then you cleaned up.