Battery Charger explosion and cleanup.

Factual Questions
1

First, the background.

I’m sitting at the computer, reading (what else) the SDMB.

I hear a loud noise from the living room. I go in there, and as best I can tell, my sleeping wife dropped the TV remote, which hit another remote on the floor.

5 minutes later, “POP” #2. I go back in there, and once again, nothing is unusual.

about 10 minutes later I hear “POP… POP” I go in there, and find her wide awake.
“What did you do?” I ask her.
“Nothing. I thought that was you!” She answers.

About that time I hear sizzling. “Dammit!” I realize that my AA battery charger was plugged in too long and all four batteries have exploded inside, and the battery acid is now sizzling. I throw away the batteries, but am left with a sticky mess inside the charger.

DOes anyone know the best method of cleaning the battery acid off the inside (They were Rayovac rechargable alkaline batteries)

I’d like to use this thing again, if it’s not completely destroyed.

2

Forget it, the unit is no longer safe to use. Even if you could clean up all the battery fluid, the electrical stresses from the overcurrent might have degraded parts inside to the point where the unit now poses a potenitial fire hazard. Toss the charger, it’s not worth losing your house over.

3

Honestly, I wouldn’t use a charger like that in the first place. I admit that my charger is a hyper-intelligent ultra-expensive (well, 80$ CAD is expensive) one, but none of even today’s cheaper once’ll do that.

I recommend Nickel-Metal Hydride myself. They last quite a while in my halogen bike light.