48V battery short circuit damage?

[acecard]

Kinda embarrassing........

I was fitting my new JK BMS and Victron Smart Shunt to my 48V LiFePO4 battery. Had the BMS out so the neutral wire from the battery was exposed. Should've taped it up. Was trying to loosen the nut where the battery positive wire connects to the battery isolator in order to make room for the new BMS when my spanner shorted the two wires and sparks flew! I was ok, but my spanner wasn't! Anyway, fearing that I'd destroyed my battery, I checked my battery voltage and it was at 53.3V, which seemed like a sensible value (not sure what it was at before) so I continued putting everything together very carefully.

Luckily, everything seems ok. As I have the JK BMS I can read the individual cell voltages and they all seem to be ok, none are reading low etc. I think I may have gotten away with it because I shorted the wires connected to the battery as opposed to on the cell terminals themselves. However, my question is whether I could have done damage that isn't apparent? Should I be checking anything else?

Any ideas much appreciated!

 

[BentleyJ]

Odds are in your favor, sounds like the incident was so brief no damage was done, at least to the battery. I would keep an eye on the individual cell voltages through the first couple of discharge/chg cycles and verify that none of the 16 are behaving abnormally. If everything checks out OK then just run the system and don't worry about it.
In the future, electrical tape or heat shrink wrap on your tools is a good idea. Alternatively composite tools.

 

[HammaMan]

The battery likely didn't even notice. The bolts / other hardware I'd bet is missing some metal. With a quick short like that, the metal turned to plasma rather quickly.

Here's a paper with more info than you'd ever think to ask

(PDF) Temperature, Overcharge and Short-Circuit Studies of Batteries used in Electric Vehicles

PDF | The paper presents the results of temperature and short-circuit research of battery types most commonly used in electric vehicles. Basing on... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net