is my battery trash??

[RCnick]

i took my new intellect 3600 out of the package and put it in my car and drove it around and i finished off that pack and discharged it. after it was done discharging i charged it and walked away. well about 10 minutes later i started smelling something and i realised that it was my charger that was smoking. by the way i have a 30$ 15 minute charger. i turned it off immediately and as i looked closer i saw that i soldered the wires on my charger the wrong way. i hooked it up to my car and it didnt do anything. is my battery trash?? please help. sorry for the long post.

[oldschooler]

We I would try to deep discharge / Dead short it over night first before I would call it smoked . but chances are its toasted. The cells have probably vented which is not good. Just my suggestion.

[SS Pede]

Regardless of whether that pack is fried or not, I would highly recommend buying a more sophisticated peak charger to reduce the chances of messing up other batteries. They'll perform better too.

Your post wasn't too long. You should see some of mine!! :)

[RCnick]

thanks a lot for the help. i discharged it once and then i charged it a couple times and it was good to go. good thing i caught it in time.

[Duster_360]

RCnick - glad to hear you got lucky and didn't ruin it. One other thing a good charger will do is check the polarity when you connect. If its wrong, an alarm or some kind of warning will go off letting you know immediately something is wrong. This type charger will not start charging as long a sthe batt is hooked up wrong, protecting you, the batt and the charger.

I try to stay with my charger for a few minutes when I hook it up to make sure everything gets started ok.

[highroller]

Even some high end chargers can cause problems, so any time pay attention and only leave for short periods if possible. I was using a 112A charging a 3800 pack, voltage was only 5.98 (4cell) figureing it was 3/4 charged I wasn't that concerned - even checked the length of time which display showed 28 minutes. The battery vented, chemical landed in a power strip causing it to short, luckily battery didn't explode or cause a fire (at track). A second Tekin had the same problem not sensing the voltage, or displays freezing at a certain point but charger was continuing to charge pack, one or two cells vented in that pack (4cell).