Hi everyone,
I read the responses to the 'Battery leakage and cleaning...' posting, and the last comment about toxicity prompted me to let you know about the following incident that happened to me a couple days ago.
I recently bid and won an HP-34C on eBay which was in good condition. [The HP-34C holds a dear place in my heart and there is a lot of history that goes with it.] The seller included a set of rechargeable alkaline batteries with the machine, and claimed that they worked with it. He had recently bought the machine from someone else who also claimed as well that those worked with the machine. The machine came with a charger that didn't work and the seller sent me a 'good' charger. He e-mailed me some instructions in which he mentioned that the rechargeable batteries needed to be charged about 10hrs in the machine. That seemed a little odd but I thought I would give it a shot!
I installed the rechargeable batteries in the machine, using the indicated polarity [and plugged the charger into the machine].
After about half an hour I heard some loud noise coming from my office (while I was in the living room), checked in there but nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Or so I thought. After about five minutes I heard another noise, which was similar to opening a beer can. I checked again and noticed that the batteries of the HP-34C had leaked all over my desk and some paperwork. The batteries were eminating a 'fuming' sound and they smelled. I immediately grabbed the machine - mistake - and unplugged it from the AC. I tried to take the batteries out with bare hands as quickly as possible but that was hard. (Apparently they were a tad longer than regular AA batteries.) I then used a pen for that, but I had acid all over my hands. I cleaned the machine in and out from the acid (or whatever that liquid was) and plugged a set of new batteries in after a while. I got an 'Fr Error' message, pressed CLX and the calculator seemed to function correctly.
My concern at this point is about the acid that came off on my hands and possible fumes (as well the marks on my desk from the acid, I guess.) The batteries that exploded were Alkaline Rechargeable, made in Korea. The name on them is 'charge.ables' and the brand is LENMAR. The company is based out of Westlake Village, CA.
It looks like either [the charger was bad again, or] the battery contacts were rebuilt incorrectly, or the batteries were bad. Who knows?
Next time, I should either buy from reputable people through the HPMo, or at least ask a lot of questions on the board before I buy. [No HP-34C now. I guess dreams are expensive.] Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Andreas