[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by beemusicgeek

in pre season this year a few of us stupid people in the team decided to stick a threaded metal rod on the two terminals of the batery. The next day it led to a short that melted the battery, the wires, when it cooled, were then stuck inside of the casing.

You have to be extremely careful when dealing with components like this. We tend to take these things for granted but these batteries are nothing to shake a stick at. They are capable of extremely serious current output and can be very dangerous to yourself and everyone else. A good rule of thumb is to treat the battery as if it could attack at any moment: don't make any sudden movements, and certainly don't encourage it (like prodding it with a threaded rod for instance )!