Ebike fire

harrisonpatm

10 kW
Joined
Aug 8, 2022
Messages
736
Just saw this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxr1iXEf9lY

My favorite @ 10:25: "It's not on fire, it just overheated"

Brand new bike, just bought it for $6000, first ride on it. Yikes
 
OMG !
 
It's not on fire, it just over heated :lol:
 
I read through the comments a bit, looks like he bought it from someone going by MM or TheOtherBike, in PA, USA. Any info? An ebike going up that hard and fast, on the first ride, with no abuse, suggests some serious issues from the getgo.
 
From the stuff you can see as it starts, and then later as it flashes over when he opens it enough to allow fresh oxygen inside, it's probably a battery fire (vs just a wiring fire).

If so, there's a number of possible reasons it could've happened, but my first guess is cells that cannot handle the current delivery required by the system, overheated, began venting, and heating other cells to damage them, etc.

Second guess is the cells were not well-matched, so at least one group was far enough below the others that under load after a while it went negative (cell reversal), or otherwise dropped so far below minimum that it became damaged enough to overheat and start venting, then heat the other cells.... And that the BMS (if it had one) didn't function to shut off at LVC.

We'll never know, though.
 
Looks like "TheOtherBike" is this seller:
https://www.ebay.com/str/ebike1com
https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=TheOtherBike,+in+PA,+USA.
probably one of these bikes
https://www.ebay.com/itm/173844499781

No detailed battery specs available, just general info, so can't tell what the battery is actually made fromor how it is setup. None of the really important info, such as cells, configuration, BMS, interconnect type, etc, is present.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/rtUAAOSw-ndiEZHI/s-l300.jpg
s-l300[1].jpg
Item specifics
Condition:New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging (where packaging is ...
Modification Description:Graphics
Wheel Size:19” F , 16” R
Bike Type:Ebike
Maximum Speed:50mph
Color:Alloy
Material:4130 Chromoly
MPN:Trellis Frame
Gender:Unisex Adult
Modified Item:Yes
Brand:Ebike1
Brake Type:Quad Piston Brakes
Suspension Type:Front & Rear (Full)
Voltage:72v
Model:TheOtherBike
Motor Power:3kw Can Do 20kw
Features:Volt meter, Light kit, Fenders
Country/Region of Manufacture:United States
Frame Size:Adjustable
 
Just wondering ...
New owner in the video states several times about how cold it is.
Clearly he is holding the throttle wide open for most of the first test ride.
Is it possible the high discharge rate and the cold temps combined to create an internal short in a battery cell ?
 
Possible, but unlikely. I'm not as familiar w lipo specifically, compared to Lifepo and Li-ion, but as far as I know, low temperatures affect charging, not discharging. Most chemistries I've looked up have low temp cutoffs for charging, but discharging is still fine and quite low temps. And as cold as he says it was, I doubt that it was -10C or -15C, where actual damage would happen. Plus, the damage that I've read about that occurs because of low temp charging, has to do with cycle life and capacity reduction, not necessarily physical damage that would lead to a thermal event. I dont know for sure, just an educated guess.

It seems to me like it was a case of low quality lipos pushed way past their discharge limits.
 
The bike looks to be built on a Le-Bui frame - https://www.facebook.com/Lebui70/ . Pure speculation on my part ; I am thinking first ride on fully charged battery with lots of throttle activated regen.
 
Admittedly ... I'm no expert on this topic but ... Here's a copy paste paragraph from a "Battery University" article.
The article doesn't explicitly mention an end result of "fire" but rather "failure".

{ Matched cells with identical capacities play an important role when discharging at low temperature and under heavy load. Since the cells in a battery pack can never be perfectly matched, a negative voltage potential can occur across a weaker cell in a multi-cell pack if the discharge is allowed to continue beyond a safe cut-off point. Known as cell reversal, the weak cell gets stressed to the point of developing a permanent electrical short. The larger the cell-count, the greater is the likelihood of cell-reversal under load. Over-discharge at a low temperature and heavy load is a large contributor to battery failure of cordless power tools. }

The article here :
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-502-discharging-at-high-and-low-temperatures
 
Yeah he said it was less them 30 when he started. Wonder if his bike was left outside all night? Would have guessed something would have happened sooner?
 
Yes, cell reversal is a possibility with any pack of non-well-matched cells where the BMS (if one is present) does not or cannot shutdown output when a cell drops below a safe point above empty.

The possibility exists of cell damage during such an event that could then lead to a fire during subsequent charge or discharge, or even such an event directly causing a fire, if the cell then begins heating internally enough, assuming the cell damage changes the cell resistance enough to increase heating in it in that specific pack design and usage.


Since many (possibly most) cheap battery packs are not made of well-matched (or matched at all in some cases, even wildly mismatched in the case of recycled cells, which is not just a DIY thing), and cheap poorly-designed BMSs can easily fail stuck on so they cannot protect against this failure, it's not terribly unlikely for a cheap pack to have such an incident occur at some point in it's usage. It might not cause any problems other than that cell (group) no longer properly contributing to pack performance / capacity...but it could.

Whether any of this applies to the bike in the video, we will probably never know, but it's possible, and a suspected cause of other fires.



Sufficiently cold temperatures change cell behavior, differently for various chemistries and cell models, so they might also contribute to problems.

I don't know the specific conditions the pack in the video experienced, but I would expect that if the pack was cold enough to cause sufficient increase in cell internal resistance, the BMS (if operational and properly designed) would have either prevented pack usage due to temperature, or shutdown pack discharge from greater voltage sag under load.

Later on in the ride, the pack should have warmed up normally during usage enough to operate normally, but it appears to have greatly overheated at least one cell before the problem spread to the rest of the pack.
 
One possibility the battery was just built out of the box never properties cycled and or balanced as the cells weren't of the same capacity or voltage on the first run he drove the cell to the bottom and reverse polarity.
Why because they didn't check the cells before assembly it's only a guess and he must have 220 cells or more.. and he was definitely going more than 30 miles an hour probably 48.- 55mph tthat thing was flying
I want to know what happened did he make a dispute did he get his money back it seems that things made in America with Chinese parts and where did that battery come from ?
It's hard not have enough information about how the bike or the battery was put together.
 
999zip999 said:
It's hard not have enough information about how the bike or the battery was put together.

Yeah, that's why I thought I'd bring up the thread, knowledge is power and all that.
 
The guy that builds TOB Bike is named Mike. I’ve watched his YouTube channel for a while now. He seems like a solid dude. Hopefully he replaces that person’s bike! I’ve chatted with Mike briefly about his battery but I can’t remember the specs. He builds the battery himself, and also the frames.

I would be surprised if that person doesn’t get a new bike. Especially if that really was the first ride and the person didn’t open the battery or anything like that.

But if they do get a replacement bike, I don’t know how much I would be trusting that battery :shock:
 
Mike Moser ( the builder) is a friend of mine. I talk with him two or three times a month at least. I have had alot of other friends ask me my opinion on this. The bike was a fully custom made trellis frame with some skill...but pooor execution in some areas of design in my opinion. He has played with the notion of using packs I build in his TOB bikes.. ( " hey when are you gonnna build me a battery for a TOB?")

Bottom line, its a sad day, Jaimie ( the buyer) should get a new bike, and we may never know what happened.

Mike has built many bikes... and one at the start of the life, of the bike, means something was fluke, faulty, and wrong and Mike might have / might not have caught it. He is not to blame, Jamie is not to blame, being an uneducated buyer, there should have been more protection and fail-safes, I dont know yet if Mike bought or built the battery, a young ebike enthusiast just wants to buy, ride... not worry about the bike.. and its not the buyers responsibility to make the bike safe... Buyer assumed he was buying a safe item.

So I dont think anyone is at fault, and statistically, one is a fluke, two is a pattern. Mike has never had a bike burn before this.

However, I hate the way he builds with pigtails everywhere and huge banks of sub-par quality lipos to people who dont know any better....I smashed my bike in a semi high speed accident and my battery did not care.... can you say that about a HK lipo? No. They are known dangerous. Compared to a highway approved and tested in long term vehicle use cell.

If I was Mike, I would ship Jamie my own personal bike.... as a temp replacement while I build him another. Jamie should not have to pay a dime more. Mike should eat the cost.Mike has a good rep, and if he does not let the buyer down... the community will see and Mike will still be held in good regard.

The maker of the cells should give a refund for a battery that worked 1 time... too.. if the cells were bought with warranty. This would helm Mike replace the bike ( cost) but really it is just a sad day.

Jamie is under no obligation, express or implied.

You are supposed to put battery in item easy... not a user thing that he needs to learn.. every battery compartment in the world.. clearly labeled.. Lol... Imagine if walkman batteries blew up when they were put in backwards... we wouldnt allow them to be sold to the public. It is the responsibility of the electrical designer to make it as safe as possible for the error - prone uneducated end consumer ie the buyer ie the user.

Yes. The thing is... user should not be blamed at all in my opinion. You should not be selling anything if it does not have either an " implied warranty of merchantability" or a general " express warranty"... and if you offered no warranty, that is an easy lawsuit for d3efective product. Win for plaintiff.

If it had a ( written) EXPRESS warranty, mike might not have to pay.

IF it had a " IMPLIED MERCHANTABILITY" mike would have to pay for the defective item. Take it to court, plaintiff would win. + damages.

Just like the electrician signs the permit and inspector follows up and does the same... before a township releases a occupancy permit...Whenever ANY home is built in the USA... Skilled, trained people making sure everything is ok, everything requires no user to touch any " hot " thing... and a whole codebook devoted to people NOT getting burned.

Jaimie should not have to pay a dime... In my opinion. Bike lasted 9 min. Was supposed to by a turn-key purchase. Should not have relied upon his skill, to make work, when Jamie was just a buyer wanting to ride.

Wrapped up with blue posterboard? Or something and taped to the edges. The dangers of a pigtail parralel charged lipo on a bms.
I think you can see the tops of all the packs in one of the frames. Mike says he " only uses lipos on my personal bikes" but that means he was useing a junk, unproven (GTK?) battery manufacturer that was offering him a deal cause he builds so many ebikes.



"The reliability of any electronic device depends on how well the hardware protection circuits have been designed. The end user (consumer) is prone to make mistakes and it is the responsibility of a good hardware designer to protect his hardware from any mishappening. There are ample types of protection circuits each with its own specific applications."

(sic)

Yup. Yeah Mike should build him a whole new bike and just eat the cost. I think that is the best thing to save his reputation.. even though he has sold many of that design of bike and has people willing to pay stupid money for the bike.... with such sub-par items as disk rotors cut from pit bike brake systems... and ghetto-welded to bicycle iso brake rotor mountings... poorly. ... yeah needing assembly by someone who doesn't know these things. Im not gonna get on their shit though, they are hurting enuf I'd say. Mike can. just build another and eat the cost.

premade batteries? I’m only guessing that’s a GTK battery then. I have one that didn’t test to capacity. Pulled it apart and found all sorts of wrong with it!! 2nd hand cells, unpowered bms, inadequate terminal connections… they’re bad.

Cardboard..... this pack was encased in cardboard.

Lol I have tried. Ive warned about big HK lipo packs and the quality. Not hard to heat up a lipo, or break a cheap wire.

Smoked out the whole block. In the open air. Like a military grade smoke grenade. Lol. Fire is crazy thing.. sometimes it spreads fast, literally.. and also ( funny thing? ) online, where the current "anti-ev sentiment" propels it.

I am building a pack for a friend right now... but this is his 3rd or fourth ebike so he knows and got some experience... Plus I am building it .. lets just say a little bit ( quite) differently... the thing.. Mike has probably build 20-30 retail junk quality Hobbyking lipo powered bikes. he knows what he is doing, and on e of the tough things is showing ( teaching?) a buyer how to use the machine. Its dangerous. Pitgtail lipo charging. On poor quality BMS. No. Dont do it. However, this bike did not burn on charge, makes me think it was a user assy error, or a poor quality pack that had a cata strophic fault.

I think it was a cheap retail " GTK " pouch cell pack, dont know the BMS, dont know the quality, Mike is kinda " blaming " Jaimie for using: or not using: a certain piece of foam in the right spot... Jamie is pissed and saying that is no excuse. Which it is not. Item ( bike) should have been safe when arrived. I got pics of the pack. They are all over Facebook. Pack looks like a joke, honestly, posterboard, tape, soldered lipos on a board with slots,, spaggeti wires, and XT90 ( not even antispark)... tape ( did I say tape? ) ...for a QS180 motor and 200A+ controller on a 60mph+ bike.... IDK.

I slammed my packs so hard in my time, with force, current and temperature.... and never had a problem. I pack my packs in very, very strong polycarbonate. I use 20g THHN made in teh USA, Panduit, Littlefuse, Bussman, and the like... I use electronics grade bus bar, I use pure copper construction, I use cells that scientist at the NHTSA studdied for a few years and said were OK for the United States roads. and Cannon gold for the contacts. Everything gets a fuse, a battery gets a bluetoof BMS, rated for at least 25% more current than the controller, and the battery can handle a direct short without toasting itself... Yes, you can zipper fuse a pouch cell for 1400~1500A and it will brick the pack, ... but it w3ont start a fire. Come the time you need that zipper fuse to do its thing.


I DO want to say that Jaimie is by no means laying all blame on Mike, and is still stoutly representing Mike as a stand-up guy who IS helping him with this problem. You can see in the vid he is devastated. It was an expensive bike. 6K$ is not laughed at, in our legal system. He paid for a bike, he should get a bike... or every dime back. One or the other.

Quote from Jamie:
f you were thinking about buying a tob, pls don’t let this situation deter you. This is the absolute first issue he’s had out of…I think he said 17. Ups ground, China or any number of things could have caused this and I hold zero resentment. One thing I’m convinced of tho, Mike moser put his heart and soul into building me a 1-off tob that’s rock solid.

That is all I'm saying for right now.
 
I think this is the GTK retail pack that burned. Caught fire. Did not perform.

This pack is built out of cardbord, and had XT-90 output, and what looks like a Deans 60A for the charge input. Not a fuse in sight. Loose black wire just kicking off to the side on one of the leads. What looks like packing tape holding the BMS harness tight to the top of the cell board. Open-cell foam ( not even closed cell foam) between the frame and a piece of cardboard holding the lipos... Electrical tape wrapped here and there.... like an afterthought.. or you thought you had to much... or something.... Tab-to-tab soldered-in-place with zero strain relief, series bank insulation, draped with wires... Fish paper being under the tabs cell to cell.... Not a structural material in sight... and... and...

Installed by a user, not a trained tech. Proceeded to burn the entire bike to the ground on the first ride.

Reasoning being. I think. I am telling you guys, this isnt the way to do it. I take one look at this pack and say "Noooope".
 

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It's unfortunate for the community as a whole, for sure. This gets out, and every talks about how dangerous and bad electric vehicles are. One bad apple, and all that. The unfortunate thing is that we aren't manufacturers with massive precision machining and huge budgets. So we make do.

In my opinion, if a consumer would like an electric vehicle, and they don't have the knowledge or skill to build one themselves, they should be purchasing one from a larger manufacturer with a proven track record. I don't like even suggesting it because of the secondary implications! What constitutes "safe and reliable"? Who gets to decide which builders can sell ebikes, and which ones aren't allowed to? Even though I suggested the idea, I still don't like it, I think it's a slippery slope.

But as a comparison. Someone above mentioned that this is the first fire TOB has had in 17 builds. 1/17= 5.8%. If 5.8% of teslas caught fire....

I certainly don't want to pass judgement on the builder. We've all been there. It's just terribly unfortunate that it was a two-party incident, a builder/seller and a buyer/user. If a rider built an ebike, which then caught fire, I feel like it'd be a different story.
 
Guy on the video "Oh flip what do I do?",

Step away and not inhale the toxic gases...
Feel bad for the guy,

Could it have been regen braking? looks like it begins to smoke as soon as he stops hard.
 
DogDipstick said:
...
That is all I'm saying for right now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ebikes/comments/ze24yg/i_would_die_if_this_happened_to_me_what_could/

I don't know any of these people but the story unfolding in those comments between Michael Moser and Jamie are painting a different picture. Taking a guess the convo started civil between the two and it's changed since then. It doesn't appear Moser has any plans to pay Jamie back or give him a new bike.
 
Lol @ " foam crushing a battery... "... I dont like the way this is going. That is supposed to be " ABS 1/4 inch boat plastic"...?!?!?! ... Lol I see heat shrunk plastic that is taped together... Lol... Mmmm Ok. you go build a boat like that.. and i will still be building the boats that BSECo has built for the Steamers we have been building for the last 40 years, pls. Yes, for a boat to be legally registered and sold... you need a boat engineer. I do not know the requirements to build and sell a bike legally, but this makes me mad, for as poor s I am and how Mike apparently has made and sold 17 of these... ( 102,000$).. while I am hungry and cold. I know how friggin hard you have to work to buy your first nice bike...

I try but falls on dead ears. that guy has purchased and sold more lipo bikes than anyone in the world, probably. I have seen him buy 5+ kWh of HK lipos at a time... Lol.. 30, 40, qty, pcs, 5, 10 and 20 ah packs.. 5s and 4s and 6s... More hobby grade lipos in bike than anyone else i have ever seen. Business model appears to work... for the bikes sell.

Damnn i wish I could drive cars. I wouldnt be here. i would be at work making money. Like I used to. Yes, I am bitter a little... but if you bought a pack from me back then, and it has died, contact me for your free replacement. But I can only build so many or else I have to charge, more, building packs for friends.... cause I take 4x longer than needed to make sure its safe and hardy for the user. End up making like 4$ / hour.. but it is something I love to do, so I do not mind. I got a list of 20 people waiting to talk bout the next pack I build.

I strap mine down with 3psi calculated on the surface area of the pack... Compression is a well known necessity of a pouch cell pack... 120 square inches / 2... ( 60 square inch surface area per side... ) and let me tell you.. this equates to 180 Lb force of tension in the straps ( / 4 straps, the tension-ing members ) on EACH SIDE to make the 360 lb force I need to get that 3psi of surface compression ( 180 pounds force across both sides). Yes, I have measured, calculated, and used real engineer ( with a real engineer's slide rule in hand, lol) to figure how many pounds force I have to crank my tension tool to get the correct compression psi...

Drop it smash it freezing smash it warm get it wet hit it hard its still gonna give you 10 years. This is a promise I give to my customers.. and it goes (comes with ) with a free replacement guarantee. Pick it up by the straps, set it down with the straps. Live outdoors, live indoors. Everything is triple insulated. Strain relief built into the case for wire exit... ( yank and tug test passed).. Permanant case, jointed polycarbonate,weather resistant, plated copper, real DuPont Kapton, ( I even got a 800$ roll, just for this stuff lol) and ZERO heat touches the cell for assembly... I have studied analog electrical design in the industrial age for my entire life as a hobbyist. My multimeter cost 1200$... even....cause i am such a dork.

I do not see anything compressing that GTK pack..Does not "look like" abs plastic ( plus when it burns, ABS and PVC release chlorine gas, too, lil extra fun)... ( polycarbonate does not... Somewhat less toxic than polyvinyl chloride) nor anything relating to its specs, or chemistry, or output / input. Numbers.

...makes me a little salty... that Jaimie has been an enthusiast for years and just wanted to buy a bike that worked.


See the differences in construction of these two packs? Eh? The GTK vs mine? You could hit mine with a hammer, for one, thing.

Mine probally cost less, too, for the buyer, watt hour for watt hour. Over 180 lbs of tension between these four straps. Yeah right a piece of foam was the cause of the fire... Yeah right it was the buyers fault. Bull. Quit blaming the buyer.

Ok, / rant.
 

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999zip999 said:
He was flipping switches on the gas tank area. I want to know more about the battery is it HobbyKing lipo or GTK stuff ?

I do believe it was this GTK retail pack that was shown in the pics I posted ( above the pics of my Chevy Volt cell pack) ( I pulled those GTK pack pics off of Facebook posts talking bout the matter.. ) . Poor, poor quality construction. ... Yes, malfunction,, is a warning, not to be dismissed. I think there was 2x of them on the bike? ... What cell, exactly whether it was solid electrolyte pouch (Li-ion) or a lipo pouch (polymer electrolyte).... We dont have any idea. We dont know how much it cost, how it was wired, why it was opened, or what the bike looked like ( wire diagram wise). Date unknown.. I have not seen any BMS installed in the pics I have seen too.. I dont know the specs that that thing had.

I do know my friends have toldme before that GTK packs are junk.
 
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