E-bike safety

Cephalotus

10 kW
Joined
Jun 18, 2012
Messages
755
1st rule for a safe battery:

Do NOT use old cells with unknown abuse history. One internal short from a formerly deep discharged cell will be able to burn your battery.
 
Use a Fire Safe Charging Area with Smoke Alarm.
Monitor while charging.
Use a DC type Circuit Breaker.
Use Quality charging equipment.
Keep pack balanced and monitor the balance.
Use quality cells with high current drain ratings.
Test used cells thoroughly and cull out all weak, suspect or unmatched ones.
Avoid damaging cells by overheating (soldering).
Follow manufacturer's instructions for the cells (charging, discharging, installation and interconnecting).
Use sufficiently low resistance interconnects to handle the necessary current without heating the pack.
Insure that pack assembly has adequate protections against physical abuse, insulation failures from vibration, etc.
Monitor pack temperature during charge and discharge.
Keep your fire insurance up to date.
 
Drunkskunk said:
There have been several members of this forum who have lost their bikes, sheds, garages, and even homes to battery fires. we have collectively learned our lessons the hard way. What Alan B posted should be taken as an absolute set of ebike battery rules.
Thank you
 
As far as I know, there have been zero battery fires in a Tesla car. that uses supercharging too. I'm quite encouraged by panasonic cells for that reason. It would be interesting to know which kind of battery had the most garage fires on the forum. I think it's the RC cells, and fast charging, that caused the most problems. I try to keep things so that the most likely battery fire would be on the road when discharging, rather than slowly charging.
 
zzoing said:
As far as I know, there have been zero battery fires in a Tesla car.
There have been several Tesla car fires but they do a good job of keeping it quiet. Same for Zero motorcycles. Considering how many of these are in use, the percentage of involved in incidents is extremely low.

Bike batteries are another story. Frequently lacking in safety features and often poorly constructed or using B grade or worse cells. Hoverboards are even worse.
Dogman's fire thread has a lot of battery pack safety information: https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=87975
 
I didn't start that thread. This has been an answer to a question from someone else who wanted to build a battery out of old cells.
 
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