GCinDC's Giant DH Comp

I think this is THE most popular topic on Ebike today!
At least we can watch and support your new build again!

downside:
new controller nd batteries nd all the effort...

on good side:
rear end of your bike seems alive! so maybe you only need front end of frame replaced?
gopro case might have survived?
front fork might be fine if you take that to service...
MORE timelapse video!

gd luck!

Glad you and the bulk of you possessions are ok. Sad to see the bike go. It looks like it was a very hot, but very localized fire. It always amazes me how fire works.

Hope you got the smoothie cleaned up,that looked harder than the garage.

Clay

Oh no..

That sucks man

I'd like to help. Is your paypal same as the email?

PS was it a strawberry smoothie?

Didn't offer any of us smoothies.....

Bummer on the bike. I'd check on the insurance payout also. Pay in for years and then we are brainwashed into never using it, how smart is that?

Positive side is "new bike stuff!"

Tom

Oh man didnt expect to see this Buddy?? so sorry man that really does suck balls...but I want to know how the flip nothing else burned? it must have smouldered maybe? a few things positive to take from this, I think the motor and the forks are totally OK to use again considering how you ride not sure about the frame it depends on how hot it got, to be safe you probably have to write it off.

I cant believe it didnt do worse? losing the bike is nothing to loosing your house, someone up there was looking after you Greg and they did give you warnings, its an odd coincidence Greg but last Friday I parked my bike up at home and left it in the garage over the weekend, the pack was almost flat, I came back to the bike on Monday and saw the controller was still on I forgot to unplug the pack for sure all cells were down below 2V per cell, however this pack is 3 years old and did have a few cells that were not up to the mark and like you I had been thinking of getting new cells, this totally forced my hand, I sat the batteries in clear space on the concrete garage floor and got straight on the HK for some new ones, a day later the new cells had arrived.

I always have charged my batteries off the bike for this reason on a fire proof blanket under a smoke alarm, I only ever charge the batteries on the table in a brick garage and only when I am within earshot of the alarm, I know a lot of folks dont like the batteries sitting on the rack on the back of the bike but my main reason for doing it is so I can take them off for charging and safe storage, so what if the handling sucks a little.

I have always worried a little about the metal tray surrounding the batteries on your bike buddy and have worried about the pack or the wires being cut or damaged by the edges of it, its very hard to know for sure what has happened here as the evidence is all but destroyed I have been using the same charger for many months now with no problems what so ever however I dont trust anything when it comes to anyones charger and always charge off the bike.

One of the things I was going to do was to fit a baby alarm in the garage when I am out of earshot of the smoke alarm, I am now going to get one its funny how these things tend to force your hand.

I am so sorry about this buddy and in the spirit of Jay will be sending you a little gift from us here to help along with the new bike/batteries, jeez the amount you put in to this hobby and for all of the entertainment you create with your videos you deserve it, If i lived just down the road I would be there every night helping you clean up and get back to normal too 8)

Take care Greg and if there is anything else I can do to help you just let me know.

Knoxie

Hi Greg

Just sent you $200 towards your new bike / build / batteries hope it helps, your videos in entertainment for me are worth that and more, so if anyone else has enjoyed Gregs videos and input on this forum please chip in, Greg doesnt post up his email address but if you message me I will pass it on so you can help.

If it helps put a smile back on your face then its worth it.

thanks for all the kind thoughts guys! i'm touched. it warms my heart to know how much support i have around the world from you all.

but hold on with the paypal. let's see what happens with insurance. i talked to my agent and she recommended a cleanup service and a guy's coming out tomorrow am to give an estimate. i know y'all think my garage is not the cleanest and most organized, and the truth is that it's sometimes unnavigable! but these folks clean everything and charge insurance, and that would be well worth the deductible.

my only concern is that they're going to say the fire was caused by an uninsured motor vehicle and then will refuse to pay. or come up with other reasons.

so anyway, let's see what happens. please don't send any money. seriously. that's a very nice thought.

kids are finally down, so i think i'll go out and take some more pics, see if we can find out WTF happened...

GCinDC said:

thanks for all the kind thoughts guys! i'm touched. it warms my heart to know how much support i have around the world from you all.

but hold on with the paypal. let's see what happens with insurance. i talked to my agent and she recommended a cleanup service and a guy's coming out tomorrow am to give an estimate. i know y'all think my garage is not the cleanest and most organized, and the truth is that it's sometimes unnavigable! but these folks clean everything and charge insurance, and that would be well worth the deductible.

my only concern is that they're going to say the fire was caused by an uninsured motor vehicle and then will refuse to pay. or come up with other reasons.

so anyway, let's see what happens. please don't send any money. seriously. that's a very nice thought.

kids are finally down, so i think i'll go out and take some more pics, see if we can find out WTF happened...

Click to expand...

Please do. Did they say anything about covering the bike? That would be a pretty awesome bonus. .
You don't have a back up bike anymore, right?

tough to say. some bottom packs were way puffed, and stretched the metal box...









pulling out one of the 4s booster packs:


the stuff that fell to the floor, more less how as it lay:








the psu:






controller wiring:


a vid of the cell removal up soon..

Greg, I was devostated when I saw those pics. Lucky your OK and it was just your bike. Good to see you still have a sense of humor about the fenders all the best to you and getting back on the road.

[youtube]bq03hA0Zk78[/youtube]

Are lithium fires hot enough to weaken your aluminum frame I bet you take a good brush to that frame and rid yourself of all the dead shite in the middle, you'd have a lot of useable bicycle leftover.

As far as causes, we can fairly assume that it pretty much began when you took a pic of that 0.00V #6 cell. Proceeded to bulk charge minus a few V's to compensate for the baddie. Turned the bike upside down to inspect/repair your front gear ring, which could have caused a short or disconnect. You left your bike charged unattended. Those are a few off the top of my head. I sound like a negative Nancy now lol. Anyways, live and learn, no one was hurt. Hell, if your quick enough you might even keep the wife from stumbling on the crime scene :wink: .

I always enjoy your thread updates as you provide nice entertainment via video and pics. But your leave yourself open to criticism. I'll have a stab at you: Your messy, you make shortcuts, and you take a lot of risks. I think your next build should emphasize the opposite of this one: clean/secure wire harness, safety LVC/HVC circuitry, a cut-off timer on your charging system, etc. I think that is your next step.

Jeez. I wish you got that fire on film. It would have been glorious!

Looks very sad.. Needs something like Street Spirit for soundtrack.

Hope the insurance works out for you!

Meantime I'll ask knoxie for your paypal

holy crap !!!!!!!!!

that sucks so bad... but it could have been so much worse........

dont inhale that black dust man, gloves and particulate mask.... you can fix your bike, hard to fix broken lungs. :wink:

but wow....

that frame is toast.... for sure.

Owch..
Do you think the dud cell was partly to blame? how bad was the dud - do you remember?

Maybe a cargo bike full of lifepo4 is in your future..

oh man, I feel for you! My condolence for your burned bike.

Very much looking forwards to what you are going to build after cleaning up....

I have no words in english Greg...I firstly feel scared of it and next, whooo you avoid the worst, Life is make of Ups and downs, hope you get up soon on a new bike, what about making an endless-sphere inssurance for fire, paypal system, the main contributors of the E sphere need reconnoitring...

melodious said:

As far as causes, we can fairly assume that it pretty much began when you took a pic of that 0.00V #6 cell.

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There is no #6 cell. i charged 5s8p and 4s2p at the same time, so no #6.

could the runt cell have been stressed by constantly being paralleled with a stronger 25c pack cells, and thereby effectively getting overcharged each time the pack is paralleled?

melodious said:

Proceeded to bulk charge minus a few V's to compensate for the baddie. Turned the bike upside down to inspect/repair your front gear ring, which could have caused a short or disconnect.

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i take battery out when i flip it.

melodious said:

You left your bike charged unattended.

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it would have caught fire anyway. just done less damage. i loved my new bag, but if i could have seen the packs, maybe i would have noticed something different. i do not plan on attending future charges either, fwiw, whatever other safeguards i adopt.

melodious said:

Hell, if your quick enough you might even keep the wife from stumbling on the crime scene :wink:

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i'm not sure how i would explain all soot in the garage then, which will take many, many man hours to clean off every single thing, including the bike that she will not be commuting on today because it would ruin her clothes!

melodious said:

I always enjoy your thread updates as you provide nice entertainment via video and pics.

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glad to hear it.

melodious said:

But your leave yourself open to criticism. I'll have a stab at you: Your messy, you make shortcuts, and you take a lot of risks.

Click to expand...

you are right. i'll be the first to admit it. i'm not sure what in particular you're referring to, and there are too many ways to respond, like the frustration of designing for an ever-changing platform (building for 20s, then wanting 24s..), arguing the functional values of electrical tape vs. shrink tube... but i don't have enough time now, and that is always the case with me and the bike. never enough time... i mainly enjoy riding the build, but i have learned a lot over the years, often by making mistakes.

melodious said:

I think your next build should emphasize the opposite of this one: clean/secure wire harness, safety LVC/HVC circuitry, a cut-off timer on your charging system, etc. I think that is your next step.

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good ideas. thanks.

ps. i'll explain more about the conditions of the cells later.

someone with experience welding the aluminum may be able to tell you how much damage was done to the frame by the heat and can clean the frame for you too.

you would expect much of the heat to be conducted away because it is aluminum so it may not have any spot that was overheated enuff to damage the tubing. the top tube was in the flame from the cells but the 2x4 along the edge of the bench was also so you can see that the flames were hot enuff to ignite the wood but when the flames died out after all the electrolyte was consumed, then the wood soaked up the heat so it cooled and the fire went out again. so it may have lasted about 20-30 minutes.

the charger has a plastic case and that melted enuff to expose the shunt inside?

yeah, i think that frame will see action again. it's amazing how localized it was!

my neighbor's usually up late and takes smoke breaks in the garage, and can usually see in the garage. he's seen a lot of crazy crap going on, so maybe he thought it was a Frankenstein experiment.. the creation of a new being... or something being teleported..

the big mystery to me is still why it stopped!

how air tight is your garage ?, could the intense fire have consumed all the oxygen in the room and snuffed itself out maybe ?

GCinDC said:

yeah, i think that frame will see action again. it's amazing how localized it was!

my neighbor's usually up late and takes smoke breaks in the garage, and can usually see in the garage. he's seen a lot of crazy crap going on, so maybe he thought it was a Frankenstein experiment.. the creation of a new being... or something being teleported..

the big mystery to me is still why it stopped!

Click to expand...

The big guy upstairs got your back ?

the reason the flames died down is because the electrolyte was all consumed by the fire so there was nothing left to burn.

i find that when i put the ping pouches in the wood stove, they will burn the electrolyte by squirting it out the seams until it is all gone and then the cell will not really make more heat.

then it is just a big carbon and aluminum and copper heat sink. still hot but not capable of burning more. your plastic bag did continue burning though.

maybe the next project should be some kind of fire arresting hood and nomex shroud with a pump and water source to spray onto the fire as it burns.

use a small 120V pump with a spray nozzle under the hood. several 5 gallon buckets of water to supply the pump and a NO thermal switch set to go off at about 50o C.

then it would be able to cool the fire and keep it contained until the electrolyte is consumed and the heat would be soaked up by the water spray.

you wanna have the pump on a separate circuit from the charger so if the charger burns and shorts out then it would not disable power to the pump. on that circuit you would also put the smoke alarm with external speaker or even tie it back to the smoke alarms in the house. that would require a separate wire from the garage back to the house and attached to the alarms in the house. but it could be tiny. 24G would be enuff.

you have that 12G service from the service panel in the house so you could convert it from 120V to 240v and use one phase for the charger on a GFCI and the pump could be on the other phase. don't use a coupled 240V breaker though. leave the phases separated at the service panel. then install the GFCI in the box in your garage and the other phase could be a GFCI too. most likely required by code there in DC anyway.

neptronix said:

Owch..
Do you think the dud cell was partly to blame? how bad was the dud - do you remember?

Maybe a cargo bike full of lifepo4 is in your future..

Click to expand...

Right ? Easier to figure out how to build a cargo bike that will carry lots of lifepo4 than how to safely use cheap rc lipo. ?

Keep in mind when I bought these they came with a warning saying never charge them unattended.

http://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-Prismatic-Box-Battery-12.8V-20Ah-256Wh-10C-rate-without-PCM.aspx

Very sorry to see such an obviously beloved project in ashes.

If you are planning another build soon, a man of your skills could make quite a splash by putting an extended swingarm on an existing frame (like Farfle) and mounting a non-hub just behind the seat-post. John-in-CRs mini-monster is a beast, and only 5 inches wide, 7 inches diameter.

Extra-thin laminations, high quality Japanese high-silicon steel, good copper mass, 93% efficient. edit: I shall call your next E-bike..."Phoenix"