Battery drop Kind of

[dunk]

I have an E scooter, Emmo Hornet x, it's a new scooter less than 100 km with a Lithium 60v 50 ah battery, The wind blew my sitting scooter over and the battery popped out and landed on it's end. I don't see any damage

How are the odds of it being damaged?

is there a way to test it for internal damage?

Do you think it's safe to try and charge it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[amberwolf]

Odds of damage are small, but consequences of damage that *could* happen are potentially high.

If it is possible to open the casing and carefully examine the interior pack construction, wiring, etc., it would be prudent to carefully do so, taking good clear well-lit high-resolution pictures of everything at various angles, and posting those here in the thread, may help us help you see if there is anything that might've been damaged.

If the casing is glued/sealed shut, it's probably better to leave it sealed.


If you can't open it to check it, but suspect there is an issue, you may wish to charge and keep it outside away from structures/trees/etc just in case there is a future problem.


With no external casing damage, then most likely any damage it might have would not be (immediately) dangerous, but instead would be a problem with broken interconnects between parallel cells that would reduce pack capacity and range/performance, possibly stressing the still-connected cells and reducing lifespan. Or connections between series cells causing the pack to not function (no output).

 

[dunk]

Thank you so much, I am new to this. so please excuse my ignorance.

So if, I don't notice any performance issues, and it takes a charge, Is there still a chance that it may have an issue after further charges?

 

[amberwolf]

Depends on how it's built inside, and what form of damage happened (if there is any).

There can be a lot of internal wiring and connections in some types of batteries (like those made from many small cells), and they can be completely broken or just made higher resistance by damage. A completely broken connection usually makes for some obvious symptoms, but depending on the severity of the higher resistance and in what part of a circuit, it can be subtle enough to not show a symptom for a while, at which point performance issues may start showing up (lower range or issues on highest power levels, not charging fully or taking longer to charge than normal, or "finishing" charge more quickly than it should).

 

[dunk]

Dang, so there is a potential for it to blow up and burst into flames even if it takes a charge and seems ok?

 

[amberwolf]

There's a potential for that with any battery of any kind even if it is undamaged. It's just very very unlikely---just like having a tank of gasoline in a car; it could blow up...it probably won't. It's all concentrated stored energy that *could* be released unintentionally rapidly.


The very small potential for problems in your case are likely performance/etc related (which if allowed to reach extremes can stress cells enough to cause damage, but that takes time, usually a lot of it for small problems).

 

[dunk]

Well I really appreciate you taking the time to educate me on this issue. still not sure how I will handle this yet because I am in a unique situation where I cannot charge it outside. I am leaning towards just replacing it.

Again, thank you so much. I really appreciate your expertise and time.

 

[dunk]

Just a quick follow up, I have charged my batter several times now without incident and there doesn't appear to be any degradation yet. Thanks again amberwolf, without your assistance I never would have had the balls to charge it..

 

[amberwolf]

Glad there aren't any problems so far.