Lithium Battery Catastrophic Events - Summary Thread

This thread will stay sticky in Battery Technology for the rest of 2014. Ideally there should be only 1 post on this thread per incident. It is a summary thread.

2013 Li Battery Catastrophic Events - Summary Thread is available here: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=47012

What should be reported here are catastrophic Li Battery events that you have personal, and direct knowledge of.

The Poster should:

1) Put a title in his post that describes the battery and manufacturer, for example: 36V 20 AHr A123 Pack
2) Describe the incident from first hand knowledge: bla bla bla and add pictures. Describe the conditions that lead to the event, perhaps: manufacturing, abuse, or other. Identify who the cell vendor was, and if a battery, who the battery vendor was. If you built the battery, then identify the cells and other pieces parts used.
3) Start a separate discussion thread for the incident and place a link to it in this summary thread. (t would be good to duplicate the information in 1 & 2 in the incident specific thread.) This second thread is where all the discussion and give and take should be.
4) When the Suspected Root Cause is determined, the Original Poster comes back to this thread and edits his post to add the best probable root cause right in the original summary post. Adding the corrective action would be a good thing also.

MattyCiii summarized his view of the process this way:

I would imagine such a sticky thread work as follows:
One post per "event". The poster makes a thread to discuss the incident, throws in a link to that thread, and briefly summarizes what happened. So most of the talk about that one event goes on in its own thread.

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We don't want the detailed give and take in this thread. Just summarize the incident, and then come back and summarize the root cause and corrective action.

This thread's intent is to improve the design and manufacture of both commercial, and DIY Li batteries; and to help the community identify reliable and safe Li Battery design techniques, materials, vendors and systems. It was summarized here http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=46748 and a poll taken to see whether it was a good idea. It seemed to have over 97% support. Hopefully I have added all the suggestions for improvement above.

I had a "event" last night I recently bought a evg global it had a 7 cell lipo I have been using it for sometime without incident well last night it flamed up while I was sleeping huge fire and almost burnt down the house. I was able to grab it while it was smoking and throw it outside but my hands and feet got a little burnt from molten plastic and whatever the batteries are made of no damage besides my hands and feet I will post pictures soon I saved the carnage. It was terrifying the fire and smoke was violent. Well I guess that a BMS would have stopped that but oh well lesson learned

B grade 2s1p 5000mah hardcase lipo.

Used for a few months.
Rode home today and at the last mile my ride ended so I thought something had happened and used my real muscles home to settle things at home... All lipos ok, charged them all... The 2s1p first didn't state its voltage on both its cells, only one. Twiggle the wire, both seen... Charged.. Fully charged i was to investigate reason for turn off earlier. Aseembled 22s1p. Connected wires, no spark. Checked wires OK. I disconnected one battery and connected my main connector, two trees little sparks came from the 2s1p pack when I seried the last battery. I removed the pack, tried medic, nothing, tried 8s checker. Checked as 1s cell, no heat, little bit stressed what can happen now and checked with bc charger. One cell only. So i guess its disconnected within itself so it lies inside a lipo protection bag right now not to be used anymore.

No apparent damages etc...

Well, I'd call this one catastrophic:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=50104&start=1400

Chalz said:

Yes the bike caught on fire while charging. The charger was purchased through BMS battery. I was balancing them, then bulk charging. Here are some pics of what the bike looked like and damage. I'm happy to save someone else that hassle I went through.

This bike did 50mph with a range of 30 miles. I really loved it, and plan to rebuild it someday soon.

I only charged the bike when I was home, so I caught the fire before it took the entire building down and put it out with a garden hose.

Chalz

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Wow that's terrible hope you can salvage that beauty it sure was a sweet ride

Chalz said:

I was balancing them, then bulk charging.

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rookie mistake: Cell voltage was not monitored. Nothing that prevents a cell from overcharging... that's russian roulette in my eyes... People who don't know how to charge should simply let off lithium.

When bulk charging: Always use a BMS that monitors cell voltage an that can cut the charge power if one cell is beyond 4.2V .


Incident on the 7th of March 2014

1) a 10s2p zippy pack with 4x 5s-5ah cells burned today. BMS: Oz890 smart BMS. No enclosement (just ducktape)

2) It started in my room. dropped ~90cm from the place it was charged on a steel tube. I was fast enough and ran on the balcony with it in bare hands .. I used a powder extinguisher to stop the fire.. after some minutes i put it into a plastic pucket and put lots of sand on it.

3) no separate thread yet

4) I guess that an XH balancer plug got between the first lipo cell on top and the steel tube when it dropped. This may have tapped the foil

the worst to clean up was the powder from the extinguisher.. this could have ended much worse

All my other packs have a 2.5mm ( 0.1 inch) thick PVC encasement. This was the last pack that did not yet have this kind of protection. The last pic shows an identical pack but with the grey encasement and pasted up with duck tape.

crossbreak said:

Chalz said:

I was balancing them, then bulk charging.

Click to expand...

rookie mistake: Cell voltage was not monitored. Nothing that prevents a cell from overcharging... that's russian roulette in my eyes... People who don't know how to charge should simply let off lithium.

When bulk charging: Always use a BMS that monitors cell voltage an that can cut the charge power if one cell is beyond 4.2V .


Incident on the rd of March 2014

1) a 10s2p zippy pack with 4x 5s-5ah cells burned today. BMS: Oz890 smart BMS. No enclosement (just ducktape)

2) It started in my room. dropped ~90cm from the place it was charged on a steel tube. I was fast enough and ran on the balcony with it in bare hands .. I used a powder extinguisher to stop the fire.. after some minutes i put it into a plastic pucket and put lots of sand on it.

3) no separate thread yet

4) I guess that an XH balancer plug got between the first lipo cell on top and the steel tube when it dropped. This may have tapped the foil

the worst to clean up was the powder from the extinguisher.. this could have ended much worse

All my other packs have a 2.5mm ( 0.1 inch) thick PVC encasement. This was the last pack that did not yet have this kind of protection. The last pic shows an identical pack but with the grey encasement and pasted up with duck tape.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing this. Very glad you are ok and caught it!

As for that Chalz fire, he made a couple mistakes. Charging indoors, no cell monitoring safety system. I can't really understand if he was (bottom) balancing them, then bulk charging them?

I had a little issue with Lipo's. I use 4 x 6s HK lipo packs in series. I use the 5.5mm bullet connectors they come with to connect them in series.

A few days ago I was getting ready to go for a ride and preparing my battery pack in my garage. i had my youngest daughter contantly trying to talk to me while I was connecting the batteries up, then my wife came into the garage and started also talking to me, all that got me distracted, I was not careful and ended up connecting the last positive and negative leads of my 24s lipo pack.....together. Shorting 100 volts of fully charged 25 C lipo's....makes a big big spark.

Cost me a few fingernails. This is my first incident with Lipo's since I started using them 3 years ago for RC applications. Normally I am quite careful. It takes but a moment of distraction to have an accident.


Wishes

Wishes said:

I had a little issue with Lipo's. I use 4 x 6s HK lipo packs in series. I use the 5.5mm bullet connectors they come with to connect them in series.

A few days ago I was getting ready to go for a ride and preparing my battery pack in my garage. i had my youngest daughter contantly trying to talk to me while I was connecting the batteries up, then my wife came into the garage and started also talking to me, all that got me distracted, I was not careful and ended up connecting the last positive and negative leads of my 24s lipo pack.....together. Shorting 100 volts of fully charged 25 C lipo's....makes a big big spark.

Cost me a few fingernails. This is my first incident with Lipo's since I started using them 3 years ago for RC applications. Normally I am quite careful. It takes but a moment of distraction to have an accident.

Wishes

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Woah! That' the best KFF I've seen yet! Glad you're OK... I'm guess those bullets just vaporized?

Vaporized indeed. Here are the 2 connectors in question.



With that much metal vaporized, my hand was completely black. I didn't know if I had just charred my whole hand. After standing there stunned for a few seconds staring at my completely mat black hand, the next thing I worried about was the lipo. I was sure it was going to catch fire. But I was in my garage, with the garage door wide open, so one handed i managed to disconect the rest of the serial connections and run outside with the burned lipo. I then took the time to wash my hand once to asses the damaged and applied some polysporin, thats when I took the picture.

After a few more washes and cleaning up, it doesn't look as bad lol. But I thought the picture would make a good shocker and a reminder to always, always treat these batteries with the respect they deserve. It takes but a split second of inattention.

Surprisingly the HK lipo pack didn't catch fire and survived. It didn't even increase its internal resistance lol.



Wishes

Wow this looks awful.
Hope your eyes are ok? These sparks can make blind.

Sorry i couldnt figure out how to start a new event thread

1. Batteries caught fire while charging.

Burnt complete pack, melted down controller wires-- to the grommet.

Mistakes: I sold this bike to a complete noob and even though I cautioned him many times to monitor his charging, "outdoors and off the bike"..... he did not.
Could have been a disaster because it was in his gas station garage resting on the tire changer right next to 5 gal of gas and a case of brake cleaner when it went off.

Root cause: Improper charging

Lesson learned by me--dont sell to noobs--im noob enough..
Lesson learned by noob--get a different battery system.

It seems the investment in time and a few coins to add solid formed connectors to all battery leads would make a much safer experience. Eliminate connecting incorrectly, protect life wires. etc. Alligator clips seems pretty scary. Just an accident waiting to happen if a clip slides off and sends sparks off.

I think those fingers need some medical attention.

I touched a battery lead to my charger body and burnt the skin of the tip of my thumb. It was a little black spot, nothing like that!

Show me more!

As you can read above, this thread is not for discussion. It for posting catastrophic events. Please start new threads for discussion.

pkirkll said:

Root cause: Improper charging

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Is it so diffuclt to plug a plug? With proper BMS life can be easy. They cost about 5% of the rest of the pack so..why exactly should i not use a BMS? I dont get it. Really stupid to "monitor charging" lol.. real stupid to bulk charge lipo. You can read on any manual that this is strictly forbidden...for a reason

I always charge my lithium batteries in my bathroom.
There's not so much to burn in a bathroom. Just stay away from resin/plastic bathtub.

This is a great thread to remind DIY folks that high energy battery packs are a serious subject requiring a lot more respect and caution than just the typical cut, drill, and bolt something together. Clearly, well engineered commercial battery packs are safe. Just when no or little engineering ala DIY happens danger is not around the corner, it is in your daily living space. No lecture here, just a post it note on your face saying batteries are dangerous.

I had to chime in.... I dont get it. I have been abusing the snot out of lipos in my hi powered helicopters since the hobby adopted lipo technology... maybe like 10 years now. I have owned probably 50 lipos in this time and when I say I was hard on them I mean it. I would drain a 5ah pack in 4 and a half minutes and slap it right back on the charger and grab another one and do this rotation with 4 packs non stop. My new 48v Trex600 will go through two of these 5ah packs in 5 minutes. I am on a few r/c boards that have thousands of members world wide and in the last 10 years I have only heard of a couple fires. I, personally, have never had one little issue or sign that anything was wrong after 10 years of abusing them.

What is going on in the ebike community? I seriously dont get it. The level of paranoia here towards lipo is incredible.

MP3 Fan said:

I had to chime in.... I dont get it. I have been abusing the snot out of lipos in my hi powered helicopters since the hobby adopted lipo technology... maybe like 10 years now. I have owned probably 50 lipos in this time and when I say I was hard on them I mean it. I would drain a 5ah pack in 4 and a half minutes and slap it right back on the charger and grab another one and do this rotation with 4 packs non stop. My new 48v Trex600 will go through two of these 5ah packs in 5 minutes. I am on a few r/c boards that have thousands of members world wide and in the last 10 years I have only heard of a couple fires. I, personally, have never had one little issue or sign that anything was wrong after 10 years of abusing them.

What is going on in the ebike community? I seriously dont get it. The level of paranoia here towards lipo is incredible.

Click to expand...

Probably just properly using a balance charger? I figure some people using a balance charger but still having cells in parallel can still be a big problem because the two cells combined can be quite different if separated.

MP3 Fan said:

I had to chime in.... I dont get it. I have been abusing the snot out of lipos in my hi powered helicopters since the hobby adopted lipo technology... maybe like 10 years now. I have owned probably 50 lipos in this time and when I say I was hard on them I mean it. I would drain a 5ah pack in 4 and a half minutes and slap it right back on the charger and grab another one and do this rotation with 4 packs non stop. My new 48v Trex600 will go through two of these 5ah packs in 5 minutes. I am on a few r/c boards that have thousands of members world wide and in the last 10 years I have only heard of a couple fires. I, personally, have never had one little issue or sign that anything was wrong after 10 years of abusing them.

What is going on in the ebike community? I seriously dont get it. The level of paranoia here towards lipo is incredible.

Click to expand...

Probably just properly using a balance charger? I figure some people using a balance charger but still having cells in parallel can still be a big problem because the two cells combined can be quite different if separated.

Edit. ahh I double posted again, I knew how I did it too, when I hit "Submit" button it was taking over 4 seconds so I hit it a few times hoping to push it thru faster... now there are two posts.

Next lipo fire is coming:
http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=69249&p=415903#p415903

I burnd my house down with a lipo.
Was charging at night. I think charger dont cut off when battery was full.

Charger: BC168 Balance charger Charger can do 8A but was only set @ 2A because less fannoise
Battery: 6S 5000Mah zippy not old only ~ 20 charges and no un balans during use.
all wires are stock

Damage: the first floor complete gone including bedroom, hal with washing machine, toilet and my hobby room
With all my modelplanes and hobby stuff.

At the ground level everything damaged becouse of the water.

it was one big mess. I need a complete new roof on the house.

i now it was a big mistake charging at night. But over the years and charging 2x a day and 5 days a week you
get to easy with it.

The lipo got fire i used for modelplane but for the bikes i had the same.

Now i have new batterys from em3ev.com.

the new lipos for the planes go in a fireproof place. I learned the hard way.

but i am verry happy only material damaged. Me my wife and the dog are saf

Will add some pictures when i have a new computer.

sorry for the spell english is not my language. And my phone have now english spell check.

Erikjan said:

I burnd my house down with a lipo.
Was charging at night. I think charger dont cut off when battery was full.

Charger: BC168 Balance charger Charger can do 8A but was only set @ 2A because less fannoise
Battery: 6S 5000Mah zippy not old only ~ 20 charges and no un balans during use.
all wires are stock

Damage: the first floor complete gone including bedroom, hal with washing machine, toilet and my hobby room
With all my modelplanes and hobby stuff.

At the ground level everything damaged becouse of the water.

it was one big mess. I need a complete new roof on the house.

Click to expand...

Jee sounds serious, sorry to hear your loss.
I use the same charger BC168, its the only charger I use, now you got me more paranoid about it.
I hope insurance covers you well, good luck.

this is the second reported catastrophic fire from using the BC168 charger. how many houses will burn down before people learn?

i know other people have had fires that burned up their batteries and at work even but they never reported it.

people only wanna talk about things that make them look cool. how fancy their bike, how fast the bike goes, but never mention the balancing charger shorted out on the balancing leads and caught the house on fire.

eventually the insurance companies will refuse to cover losses. this has already happened to ZapPat and he lost everything.