Fire!?

If I put a number of AA,alkie,and Lithium, 123's and AAA's in a baggy for convenient transport and use during a summer camping trip, am I inviting some combustible adventure?

Not if you pack them well with steel wool

(I hope you do get an informed answer)

My initial thought was H2O thanks Donne (sp)

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by McGizmo:
Not if you pack them well with steel wool

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't forget to put a handful of aluminum, caesium, and magnesium shavings in the baggie along with the SOS pads.

I would honestly NOT feel comfortable packing around a box or baggie of loose batteries of any kind, unless I completely taped over one end (the flat end would be easiest) of every cell that goes in there, or lined them up side-by-side (positive end of every battery facing the same direction) and fastened them together so they stay that way.

For water entry concerns, I'd also go through the trouble of double- or triple-bagging them if there is any threat of a single bag becoming torn or punctured while in transport.

Buy some glad or zip-lock freezer bags (not the kind with the slider; buy the kind you seal by hand!); they're thicker than ordinary baggies. Might not even need to double them up if you use a thick bag like that.

Be especially careful with the lithiums as they can explosively combust in water

Brightnorm

I feel a lot better now that I have my Surefire SC1 spares carrier 6x123 cells and one lamp assembly.

I use Panasonic AAs and AAAs and they come over-wrapped in pairs. I put those in mini-ziploc bags.

I have been nervous about carrying 123s which was why I forked over $14 for the carrier.

Cheers,

Richard

I wouldn't carry them loose, without taking some of the precautions mentioned above.

Here's something funny that happened to me quite recently, that sortof applies (albeit, with 9 volt batteries, which are probably more dangerous):

I was doing the annual* battery changes of the smoke detectors in the house -- there are 9 of the miserable things, and we have high ceilings. After changing each one, I was carefully taking each leftover battery back to kitchen before doing the next one. But once I started doing the upstairs ones, I got impatiient, and just shoved a leftover battery in my pocket, and started on the next one.

Naturally, this one choose to be difficult; instead of having the smoke detector disconnect from the mounting, the mounting itself came loose from the ceiling. So I replace the battery, climb back up on the ladder and start screwing the mount back in, when suddenly I start to feel a sharp pain in my leg, where I'm leaning against the ladder. After a few seconds, it gets even more painful, and I stick my hand into my pocket absent mindedly to see what's going. Ouch! Ouch! I frantically scramble down the ladder (in the back of my mind, I'm thinking the 2 "dead" batteries are leaking acid or something), and once I'm down try to get them out of my pocket (ouch! ouch!).

Eventually I evert the pocket and the two "dead" batteries fall onto the carpet and skitter under a bed, where I have to fish them out.

Turns out the almost dead 9 volt batteries shorted out in my pocket, and darn near burned their way out. It took them quite awhile to cool down again, too. I saved the other 7 batteries for use in my PAL lights, but those two I threw away...


*I don't really change the batteries once a year; the detectors are primarily powered by the power mains, and the batteries are just a backup. As soon as the battery gets low, the detector starts chirping (very loudly), so I change all of them as soon as the first one starts to chirp. Which indicates that most of the batteries should have been fairly depleted.

BTW, you don't want to know what it sounded like when a water leak shorted out one of the smoke detectors -- all 9 of them were shrieking like unholy terrors [they're wired together], there was no way to figure which one was having a problem, and it happened in the middle of the night. There were 5 of them within twenty feet of where I sleep -- gads, I hate those things...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by eccentrich:
I don't really change the batteries once a year; the detectors are primarily powered by the power mains, and the batteries are just a backup. As soon as the battery gets low, the detector starts chirping (very loudly), so I change all of them as soon as the first one starts to chirp. Which indicates that most of the batteries should have been fairly depleted.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've got the same situation here. This place was all new construction, and the first winter I was here I kept hearing this occasional chirp late at night. I finally tracked it down to the smoke detector in the front hall by the front door. My thermostat was set lower in the middle of the night, and that particular area got a little cooler than the rest of the house. When the temperature dropped late at night the battery would drop below the threshold and trigger a chirp. After climbing up there and removing the battery I noticed the contractor had installed cheap imported generic carbon-zinc batteries. I pulled them out of all of them and replaced them with fresh alkalines. The one in my bedroom, was high above the bed on the vaulted ceiling. I had to move the bed in order to get a ladder to it. That one I replaced with a lithium. I shouldn't have to change it for another ten years, unless we have some extended power outages.

You should be fine. The only time I've ever had a problem with is having loose batteries that didn't have the outter covering since they were taken apart from a larger pack.

To be on the extra safe side I'd probalby just cover all the + or - sides of each battery with a strip of electrical tape.

Todd

my cat meows if even the toast starts to burn...good kitty.

Empath: Yes, they nearly always start chirping in the middle of the night, after the temperature has gone down. Before we developed the current system, it used to be extremely irritating, because even the chirps are hard to locate.

If you think the one over the bed is annoying, I have one that's over a staircase, right in the middle of a bend. Can't reach it without a ladder, can't easily put a ladder there because there aren't two places to put the ladder's legs. I always end up putting a big box full of books on one step, and precariously balance the ladder on that and another step. And then I can only barely reach the smoke detector.

That silly safety device is going to kill me one of these days...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ted the Led:
my cat meows if even the toast starts to burn...good kitty.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Does it meow only when it smells something burning, or do you get a lot of false alarms?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by eccentrich:
If you think the one over the bed is annoying, I have one that's over a staircase, right in the middle of a bend. Can't reach it without a ladder, can't easily put a ladder there because there aren't two places to put the ladder's legs. I always end up putting a big box full of books on one step, and precariously balance the ladder on that and another step. And then I can only barely reach the smoke detector.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That one should get a lithium.

At first I thought this thread needed to be in the batteries forum, then quickly decided the Café was the place for it. It's not about flashlights.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Empath:
Does it meow only when it smells something burning, or do you get a lot of false alarms?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
no false alarms as far as the cat is concerned, if his food bowl is empty, that's an emergency!
with a cat you eventually get to feel the tone of the meow, a sense of how urgent the cat feels...
now how exactly did the expression "the cat's meow" come about ? I know it's supposed to refer to something especially good, but my cat's meows always sound either plaintive, or demanding...! http://www.mycathatesyou.com/catindex.htm

We've got a eighteen year old cat. From the time he was a kitten he has been very possessive of a very small teddy bear. It's small enough for him to carry around in his mouth, which he does when he finds himself alone, or if he wants to exchange it for a favor like a treat. He meows while he's carrying it around. It's like he counts it as an offering for whatever he wants. It's a dilapidated looking bear; it's eyes have long been gone, it's ears are worn down and it's a scrungee as can be. We've tried replacing it with a new one, but he won't accept a substitute. We tried naming the bear Pookie, like the one in the Garfield cartoon, but he prefers to call it Meow, or something like that.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> Originally posted by Empath:
We've got a eighteen year old cat. From the time he was a kitten he has been very possessive of a very small teddy bear. It's small enough for him to carry around in his mouth, which he does when he finds himself alone, or if he wants to exchange it for a favor like a treat. He meows while he's carrying it around.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My cat does the same thing. Except it does not seem like a trade or anything. She does this most pathetic meow and wanders up and down the hall with the thing in her mouth (in my case it's a stuffed mouse). If you give her a treat or try to pick her up she ignores you and continues on her whining quest with the mouse. I could never figure out what her motives are.

maybe the cafe needs a kitty corner for us to get moved to...don't mean to get off the topic of cats, er, I mean fire, but my ferret, Rita, had a rubber mouse I glued a bit of rabbit fur onto, with a bell in it. She would take it to bed with her at night. Sometimes she'd curl up to go to sleep, same time as I did, the lights would go out, and she would jump up suddenly , evidently realizing she had forgotten her '"teddymouse" -- and go dashing off to some hidden part of the house where she had last played with it..I would hear the distant tinkling come rapidly closer as she came runnning back to bed with the thing..

____________________________________________
" maybe the cafe needs a kitty corner for us to get moved to"
________________________________Ted the Led

Perhaps Ted's suggestion is well founded.

There was an article I read recently that indicated that cats have been selectively bred (unintentionally) to produce melodic meows, and to correlate the more demanding or frantic ones with the appropriate situation (hunger, etc.) Wild cats, without domesticated ancestors, don't produce the more pleasing meows at all.

My parrot, BTW, mostly immitates the more frantic kinds of meow (picked it up at the vets). She's quite (annoyingly) good at it.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mrdi:
____________________________________________
" maybe the cafe needs a kitty corner for us to get moved to"
________________________________Ted the Led

Perhaps Ted's suggestion is well founded.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OOH !! Miss Sharp, get back in the knife box ......

lightlover *smile*