Warning: EBike battery in flames!

T

Tor

1 mW
Joined
Nov 27, 2015
Messages
16
The battery suddenly caught fire after a few minutes riding :(

I bought this 52V 14Ah Dolphin ebike battery

No signs of damage or heating before it happened. Normally such fires are due to short circuit within the battery.
However, the battery only delivered 9,5Ah and not the 14Ah as promised - I have a couple of triangle batteries from China and they are also far below the promised capacity.

I don't want to risk any lives or my house - so my next battery will come from someone with a reputation for quality and customer service. I guess Lunacycle.com and em3ev.com are solid?
 

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Yikes! :shock:

Hopefully you weren't burned?! :(
 
all it takes is just 1 cell to be week and it can flip and cause what happened to you

watch this vid and the next few of his if you want

[youtube]RAfMq_EZ4oA[/youtube]
 
No injuries- thanks
But I am glad it did not happen in a garage!
 
Tor said:
No injuries- thanks
But I am glad it did not happen in a garage!
Click to expand...

Good to hear, and thanks for posting this to warn others!

IMHO, NEVER go the "cheap is good, cheaper's better" route, only buy from known suppliers.

Hope the frame on that bike isn't trashed!

Is it aluminum?
 
Just curious, how long was burning with that intensity shown in the first picture?
 
The 52v 14Ah battery I bought from, caught fire and burned.
Also the battery did not deliver more than 9,5 Ah, less than the promised 14Ah. Actually, none of the low cost batteries I bought from China delivered the Ah's as promised.

My next battery will come from someone who is known for quality and customer service.
From what I hear Lunacycle.com and em3ev.com are solid?
 
Sorry for your loss. Hope you were unhurt. Lucky that happened outside.
That's some crazy pic you snapped. Looks like you caught an explosion.
There is a battery fire thread, you may want to post that pic and your story there too.

Good luck with your next battery.
 
According to my friend it burned until he used the fire extinguisher.
It was like fireworks. Seems like the aluminum frame might survive.

I have built seven ebikes - this last one I helped a friend build of parts we ordered together from China - including 3 motors and 5 batteries.
The motors were from Paul at em3ev.com- great service and products. More than I can say about the batteries, that were from another company.
 
Tor said:
According to my friend it burned until he used the fire extinguisher.
It was like fireworks. Seems like the aluminum frame might survive.

I have built seven ebikes - this last one I helped a friend build of parts we ordered together from China - including 3 motors and 5 batteries.
The motors were from Paul at em3ev.com- great service and products. More than I can say about the batteries, that were from another company.
Click to expand...

I would be very cautious with that frame, especially if it isn't a heavily built (lots of reinforcing gussets and such) frame as now that it's been exposed to that pretty extreme heat, it's bound to have affected the frames' ability to flex with out cracking, for that matter, a high quality steel frame designed to be extra stiff and light would be equally risky after this kind of "heat treating". :wink:
 
Adverse Effects said:
all it takes is just 1 cell to be week and it can flip and cause what happened to you

watch this vid and the next few of his if you want

[youtube]RAfMq_EZ4oA[/youtube]
Click to expand...

Nothing in this video would help, or is even a good ideal to be doing with can cells. Soldering cans like you've done means any of them could now have thermally induced latent defects to fail catastrophically at some later point.
 
Thanks for your good advise guys.

I am currently looking at batteries from Lunacycle.com or em3ev.com
 
Thanks for sharing this. Sorry the bike got toasted but at least it was outdoors with little collateral damage.

Any power source can get hot. Cheap usually ain't good but expensive can have faults too. Best thing is to keep shit tight with close eye things. These factory battery packs can make it hard to do that...
 
I will minimize risk of battery fire by trying to find a supplier with reputation of delivering quality.

I probably made a mistake when I went for the lowest price

See attached photos
 

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Attached another photo of burnt bike battery.
 

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Ah yeah that's all done.
Hope your bike is covered under your home and contents!
 
The action shot with all the flames and incandescence of ejecting bits of foil and things looks awesome.

Not all bad that way, imagine if your bike burned and you didn't get to have that cool photo. :)
 
I should probably pay more attention to this sort of thing with my hand soldered 95 cells but so far all the parallel chains are staying in balance and delivering promised capacity.

Anyone carry a fire extinguisher ON the bike? You never know when you could have a fire, especially if you crash and the battery gets damaged!
 
liveforphysics said:
Nothing in this video would help, or is even a good ideal to be doing with can cells. Soldering cans like you've done means any of them could now have thermally induced latent defects to fail catastrophically at some later point.
Click to expand...
i was not talking about the soldering

i was talking about how 1 weak cell almost burnt his system down and it would have if he had not put fuses on each cell

and the next one or 2 vids he shows what happens if a bunch of cells with charge in them are hooked up with a bad cell it almost caught on fire it got hot enough to scorch paper

this is where cell level fuses are really needed
 
I wouldn't limit your supply to Luna and EM3EV, there are plenty of useful builders.
 
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