Batteries are so ordinary now, so basic to our experience of the world that we hardly even think about them. Your main thought about batteries and your industrial control system may be astonishment when you find out that you need to change your batteries every now and then.
But batteries are, when you think about it, reactive agents in a solid housing. Take chances with them and you can be looking at some serious safety issues.
Avoiding explosions
Here are the battery safety lessons you need your team to know:
- Don’t try to reactivate discharged batteries by heating them.
- Don’t try to charge batteries that aren’t designed to be recharged.
- Don’t try to take batteries apart.
- Change batteries only with the power off and the control voltage on.
Rexroth safety materials also remind us not to throw batteries in the fire. We don’t think we have met anyone stupid enough to throw a battery in the fire, but these warnings usually make it into the manuals based on one very simple fact: somebody, somewhere, did this.
So don’t throw batteries in a fire.
The main reason for these rules is this: batteries, being reactive agents in a solid housing, will explode if they get riled up. So don’t rile them up.
Call us for repair or reman of any electric components, rather than trying to DIY.
Disposing of batteries
Batteries that arrive in any Rexroth electric motion control component should be considered hazardous for land, air, and sea transport. This is mostly because of the aforementioned propensity to explosion. They also can be an environmental hazard.
Remove batteries before recycling the metal components. Dispose of batteries separately from other waste. Your local recycling center may accept batteries for recycling.