"Very Strange"....but true!

AMF posted:

I have added a siding and work area to my layout.  In my addition, I needed to drill a hole using a hole saw.  The hole had to be large enough to get a 110 volt plug through.  I used a cordless drill with an 18 volt lithium ion battery.  I was drilling though two 2 by 4's so about 3 inches in depth.  The drill was having a tough time, and at one point the battery overheated and stopped providing any electric to the drill.....so I changed to a new, fresh battery to finish the job.  Put the overheated battery on the charger.....and the battery seems to have accepted the charge, once it cooled down.

Here is the strange part:  The next day, I decided to run a train (Proto1 cab forward with BCR).  The train got near the area that I drilled the hole, and started running very erratic.  I checked the rollers and all looked good.  Put the engine on a different part of the layout, and the engine ran fine.  I tried the same with another engine, same results.  Poor running in the area near where I drilled the hole in the wood.  Out of curiosity, I cleaned the track and lo and behold both engines ran fine.  Could not see anything on the track, and even cleaning the track didn't net any serious dirt on the track???  Keep in mind, I clean my track pretty regularly and both engines worked fine all through the layout prior to drilling the hole.

When the lithium ion battery overheated, could it have produced anything into the air that perhaps coated the track even though the track didn't seem to have anything on it?  ( I used denatured alcohol to clean the track, which is Atlas)

Just a thought but, did you try cleaning the track in the area you were drilling, in order to test if you experienced the problem again?

I know that breathing lithium ion can be harmful to your health, but can a small battery such as what is used on cordless drills produce some kind of invisible fumes?  I was obviously breathing this stuff, but don't feel any different...no breathing issues or any other issues that I can see or feel.

Any chemists in our group?  I have been running model trains for many years, and this is a first for me!

 

In typical use there is unlikely to be anything 'escaping' from a Li-Ion battery, however the first thing that would is hydrogen gas.  This is pretty much the only thing that will come out of the battery if it is not severely damaged.  I would lean more toward saw dust on the track, or possibly a residue of smoke from burnt wood if you had a dull drill.  

Here's more than you ever wanted to know about Li-Ion batteries:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

JGL

Thank you for your replies.  This still makes me wonder though.  The hole that I drilled was down low, about the height of an electric wall outlet, and pretty much shielded from the table top.  In reading the article about lithium ion batteries, it doesn't seem likely that anything leaked, so as John said, it was most likely saw dust or something acrid from the wood heating up from the saw blade not being as sharp as it should have been.  The battery worked fine after a cool down and a charge.

It's an amazing hobby, with always something new to ponder!  Thanks again.

Maybe there was a fluky track connection that got vibrated by drilling a big hole in the table. And the pressure of wiping the track clean just happened to "fix" it. What about sawdust from the drilling, didn't that get spread around?