cool to know, is there any other tricks for lithium thionyl chloride batteries? Like if you wanted to make a backup pack. I think its kind of cool to have a anytime 20 year power source ready to go, with like those D cell xeno's
I had a 4s string of AAA NiMH cells cook off like that I think, the wrapper on one of the cells looked wrinkly.
Interesting how the circuit behaves when you open circuit on one of the batteries lol, especially for HV strings.
I did make some lab power sources with D cells, but I fuse them, hope its enough, but usually if I am using that its for meticulous work and I keep my eye on them. Also a nicer form factor for carrying (i.e. testing trailer lights, testing a fan), and I can put whatever fuse I need for the load on the front panel, and it has banana jacks. I just put like 10x D cells in series with a fuse, but I usually don't use this thing for more then a few minutes. I made 9, 14 and 5V ones (approx). Also thought to make some smaller ones with altoids tins that use AAA's and maybe 9V cells for special applications, and maybe a coin cell bias supply that is HV. Kind of jealous how they used to have 60V batteries in the store back then, and now we are stuck at low voltages (when you need 500uA or something).
I really like it for trouble shooting bulky equipment that is worked on in a mechanical area, like a welding machine with a fan. You don't need to manage them as much as lead acid batteries too, those are obnoxious, never seem to work when you need em.
I don't put switches on these, I opted to make a banana connector plug in switch (you can even do double throw), because I figure that is going to break on me. Maybe for the small altoids tin ones I would put switches, but for the D cells they are a nusence. Just get banana plastic plugs to keep them isolated when not in use.