EV Tech had a Lipo incident

[maytag]

Found out from the TF board that EV Tech (where I purchased my Puma) had a Lipo fire incident and sounds like they lost some TF and Ebike inventory because of it. I'm just passing on the info that I read so it may not be 100% true but it does sound like a typical Lipo fire while on the charger scenario. The cause was said to be a malfunctioned charger while charging/equalizing a Lipo pack. Just glad to hear nobody was injured from the incident.

This is the very reason I decided to build my Ebike pack using Emoli lithium cells. I can pretty much sleep peacefully while the GT is on the charger in the garage. (smoke alarm and fire extinguisher on standby just in case :wink: )

 

[Ypedal]

http://groups.google.com/group/Tidalforce/browse_thread/thread/d47aaa39ac73cd69/426d35378649113a#426d35378649113a


ouch..

 

[miro13car]

Despite all that appluses about EV Lipoly it was never clearly said what exactely kind of Lipo is it?
Cobalt I assume.
MC

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

A charger malfunction can happen with any battery.
The exact same thing can occur charging lead-acid.
i.e. a spark ingniting a hydrogen explosion while boosting a car.

Poor electronic design & quality control scares me more than any risk from lithium polymer.
Lipo has been around long enuf that the verdict is in & they're about as safe or dangerous however you want to look at it as any other concentrated energy source.
In particular compared to gasoline & the number of fires it's responsible for.

As far as lithium polymer goes, it's time to put the boogie-man to bed & place the perceived danger in its proper perspective.

 

[markcycle]

I just read th TF forum and it seems that it was a charger NOT a battery that caused the fire. This isn't the finale conclusion but that's the talk from someone who talked to Doug


Mark just had a chat with Doug and confirmed it looks like a faulty charger.
So I would recommend (As I always have) to monitor your packs & chargers
during charging and do not leave them on for more then the recommended time
(4hrs I think?) And if you don't have a volt meter then it's time you did.
The new Drain Brain sounds sweet if you're in the hunt. And maybe just buy
a timer and be done with it. Why mess around.

 

[Lock]

I'm charging a lipo pack right now... it's just under this keyboard, in the laptop...

 

[solarbbq2003]

would be very interested if anyone can find out what type of cell it was, iron phosphate supposed to be very safe, if it was an iron phosphate would put a bit of a spanner in the works. Couple of lithium pack brands the have caught fire that I know of 1. cyclone taiwan: poor bms board 2. early crystalyte supplied 3. wuxian china ( made chinese tv news with a fire which injured an ebike rider)

 

[miro13car]

from all my readings on that forum I know those LiPoly from Doug are not iron phosphate, no way, they had been offered for close to 2 years now.

 

[miro13car]

Advice in one of the posts in this thread on TF forum to to keep disputed LIpOLY on charger only that long 4hours sounds like real hazard, what if somebody forget to disconnect the pack.
Imagine asking tradesmen on construction site to remember to disconnect packs after say 4 hours. It is designer/manufacturer responsability to design the circuit in charger to be idiot -proof, save beiond everything.
Cobalt and graphite based batteries are real danger and their safety relay only on protection electronics. Safe chemistry is safe chemistry no matter what, combained with electronics can be put in hand of un-educated people and abused and still safe -example- Milwakee packs.
MC

 

[solarbbq2003]

the lithium packs I have on my website, turned out to be cobalt type, thanks for the guys on this forum for pointing out that 3.7volts means cobalt type. I was told by manufacturer they were iron phosphate, but alas they lied basically!!
Anyway the good thing to come out of it is the packs do have a very good bms board and charger combo. The charger will indicate when batteries are charged, and if not switched off it will turn off the current itself. Also I had one person put 240v directly into a pack to charge it up!!! oh dear, bms seems to have protected the cells, but alas bms gave its life in the process.
rip bms

 

[Rebel with a cause]

If you think about it, with all the lipos common in everyday items (cellphone, laptop, ipod, etc) its amazing this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. If all it takes is a faulty charger pretty much every household has many potential risks plugged in on a daily basis.

 

[Uplink]

I talked to Doug the other day -my $1500 paid-for order was lost in the fire - and he said that the battery was finished charging, and he left the unit doing some kind of equalizing charge, and that the fire apparently came from the charger. I don't know squat about equalizing that kind of battery, but I know that equalizing lead-acid is a kind of controlled overcharge. Maybe thats a different kind of equalization.

 

[Ypedal]

With lithium it should be a function of the BMS.. NO ovrcharge permitted with lithium

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

Well turns out (preliminary) that the Lipos are guilty of nothing more than being in the same room as an ignited propane bottle. Even the chargers had no part in the cause. The batteries didn't explode or even contribute to accelerating the fire. But propane we all feel good about. Don't so much as bat an eyelash at how dangerous it is to have sitting about & the number of deaths it's responsible for, dwarfing lipo by comparison.

Lithium has become a convenient scapegoat & favorite whipping boy whose perceived danger is totally out of whack with other much more hazardous substances & activities we put up with everyday. As is my wont, I have to wonder if there's a fine hand of some vested interest playing up negative incidents in order to keep us puck-shy & slow our embracing a cleaner technology.

It's reaching the point of urban-legend status, just like with memory in nicads. The one kernal of truth that is the very real hazard specific to lithium 'non-polymer' ion is blown-up (p.i. ) out of all proportion & now tarring it's brush with a wide swath across anything containing lithium. There was a fire at an EV dealer, so it gots to be the lithiums fault, regardless of the particulars. Most people are just gonna see the heading of this thread, make their judgement based on that & not bother to sift thru the ashes to get the full story.

 

[xyster]

Lithium has become a convenient scapegoat & favorite whipping boy whose perceived danger is totally out of whack with other much more hazardous substances & activities we put up with everyday.

Well said. Gasoline-soaked rags piled in a garage heating up by the exothermic process of evaporation until they spontaneously ignite comes to mind. Most people have learned from the experience of others not to leave piles of fuel-soaked rags sitting around. Likewise, there's a few simple precautions to prevent lithium battery fires. The one, very rare exception is the mis-manufactured lithium-cobalt cell exploding without warning despite all sensible precautions. The rags don't spontaneously ignite without the fuel.

The next-generation lithium iron phospate, lithium manganese, and other lithium chemistries are hopefully (and probably judging by their improved general safety) less susceptible to catastrophic manufacturing defects.

 

[solarbbq2003]

I think its a huge problem lithium fires, and we will never know what problems manufacturers/sellers have, just not in their commercial interest to make that info available. Their are many retailers continuing to sell lithiums they know some will catch fire at some stage, its very unfortunate but that is what is happening at present. Hoping very much that iron phosphates will resolve that issue but I think its still too early to say. Manufacturer data is not always honest so I think is still good to be cautious even with iron phosphates.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

define 'huge'.

 

[markcycle]

Well Doug posted on the TF forum and reported the cause of the fire.

IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BATTERIES OR CHARGERS.

ALL THIS FALSE SPECULATION CAUSING YET MORE UNFOUNDED FEAR

THE OIL COMPANIES LOVE THIS STUFF WE ARE KILLING A BATTERY TECHNOLOGY OURSELF WITHOUT THERE HELP AND SETTING BACK EV'S
FOR MAYBE YEARS.

The fire was due to a box fan (lets ban box fans) sitting on cardboard which then set off a propane tank thats right propane tank.

None of the LiPo batteries caught on fire even though they were exposed to great heat.

So lets stop this bull and fear. Lets promote the proper care and use of batteries and stop the hysteria

 

[miro13car]

Yes, it was radiculous to blame battery fire just , because fire happened in EV company.
However speaking of day-by- day precations on Cobalt based batteries:
"to charge them with constant supervision..and in fire=proof .... "
The point is that that precations ask for too much of the hassle for average person.
Such precautions will FOR SURE keep many people from considering high energy density Cobalt and graphite - based batteries meaning giving up on attractive range of average EV.
So not so histeria, rather hassle and too small, much too small safety Margin
Why is nobody asking for such extremes while charging Lithiums by DerWalt or Milwakee?
MC

 

[Instant Karma]

Submitted For Your Reading Entertainment>>>>

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209187

Here's a boatload of horror stories and pictures of Lipo failures in RC
use, yes the RCers run them to the max but they also use small voltages and amp hour capacities compared to e bikes.

 

[markcycle]

No comparison

They don't use BMS circuits
They drain them to low voltages
They charge them way to fast
They crash them into the ground at high G's

What other extreme abuse do they do

If you throw gasoline onto a fire it explodes OK lets ban gasoline its stupid to compare there use and ours

Its better to look at the Laptop use of the batteries and even though there are problems with defective cells causing problems. I would rather carry LI-ION cobalt cell as a energy source than propane, gasoline, or almost any other energy source that has the power to weight ratio that the LiPo cells have.

I don't think you need to take any more precautions with LiPo cobalt than you need to take with any energy source of that power to weight ratio, be it liquid or solid such as a battery or gasoline.

A battery short will in most cases cause a fire and when the battery is of very high energy the fire will be spectacular. Poorly made batteries,no matter the chemistry will fail in a dramatic fashion

There are 100's of million LiPo cobalt cells out there, yet the ratio of number of cells to fires is almost in the noise statically almost zero.

Now look at the number of propane tank fires for back yard barbecues, or gasoline fires in cars, I'm sure the ratio of number of cars to car fires is much greater than LiPo cells or packs to fires are.

If you are waiting for a High energy battery that doesn't pose any danger of fire, you may be waiting forever and the oil companies will continue to abuse this country with there monopoly of transportation dollars.

This is my last statement on the subject and I hope safer longer lasting chemistries become cost effective and widely available.

A123 and others hold great promise. But short of taking apart a Dewalt battery pack, they are not really available yet at a reasonable price.

And when some idiot has a A123 battery short that catches fire the oil companies will promote this and cause undue fear that A123 system are unsafe.

 

[xyster]

Submitted For Your Reading Entertainment>>>>

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209187

Here's a boatload of horror stories and pictures of Lipo failures in RC
use, yes the RCers run them to the max but they also use small voltages and amp hour capacities compared to e bikes.

The great majority of these scary reports fit in the "don't leave a pile of fuel-soaked rags sitting around" category. In most uses, it's not spectacularly difficult to avoid:

1) charging your li-ion or lipo at far too high of a voltage
"9s pack catches fire while being charged at 10s setting. "

2) plunging your li-ion or lipo into the ground at 60mph, letting your dog chew on it, or stabbing it with an Xacto knife.
"Cell poked with exacto knife catches fire-
Dog bites pack, pack catches fire
Lexus burns after pack from crashed plane put in car. "

3) Shorting the cells.
"Pack Shorted putting connector on and burns"

Overdischarge rarely results in fire as the cell in a partially discharged state contains much less explosive energy, but that's easily avoidable too once one understands the limits -- as I found out by overdischarging some of my li-ions beyond 3.7 resting-volts.

It's not intuitively obvious that fuel-soaked rags will spontaneously catch fire without any ignition source except their own heat-of-evaporation. This knowledge was gained the hard way, and passed down through the generations. Occasionally I still see stories on the news of somebody's house burning because an occupant didn't know not to do that. Very rarely, homes and RVs explode from defective propane or natural gas apparatus.
Likewise, the knowledge of how to avoid most lithium fires is coming into public consciousness, having been learned the hard way by people pushing the technology beyond its limits and reporting their results in forums like these. The incident rate of user errors causing lithium fires will decrease, but there will continue to be rare reports of catastrophic lithium-cobalt fires caused by manufacturer defect.

Even if the newer lithium chemistries don't explode when overcharged or physically abused, the heat and sparks from a short can ignite nearby combustible material. Just like gas tanks exploding after an accident, this issue will probably surface as batteries and capacitors become a more common power source for larger vehicles.

Seemingly spontaneous human combustion rarely occurs too. One can't live life while worrying too much about very rare personal catastrophes he can't control anyways...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion

 

[TylerDurden]

define 'huge'.

9.6 million sony batteries, total costs exceeding $400M as of last Oct.

Chump-change for us big spenders, but the Sony paupers are crying in their sake.


Like BBQ said, the supply-chain don't like to talk about it.

At 400MiL (51B Yen), I figure Sony is hiding half the cost, if you include collateral damage (reduced sales $ to OEMs).

 

[BiGH]

unrelated to the fire, what battery chemistry are the EV tech packs? (i emailed doug, but don't expect a reply until they've fixed everything up)

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

define 'huge'.

9.6 million sony batteries, total costs exceeding $400M as of last Oct.

Chump-change for us big spenders, but the Sony paupers are crying in their sake.


Like BBQ said, the supply-chain don't like to talk about it.

At 400MiL (51B Yen), I figure Sony is hiding half the cost, if you include collateral damage (reduced sales $ to OEMs).

I'm not crying too much over Sony's loss of revenue, it was their mistake after all.
It's when it stings that you never forget the lesson learned.


how about in terms of lives lost?


There was another propane BBQ go off this weekend, burning down the house & the two 13 y.o. boys doing the cooking managed to escape without injury.
We get about a half dozen of these burger-bombs every summer, with at least one death resulting & this is a backwater town of around only a million.
Extrapolate that out to how many cities across NA?
These don't even make local headlines, just the odd mention if it's spectacular enuf.

I'm talking about context.

Within the larger tapestry of risky human activity, those RC battery failures appear as a small dot against the untold number of garages burned down by model airplane nitro fuel, let alone all the propane tanks, bottle rockets & what have you.
Somehow that all gets taken in stride, somehow gets excused.

Attaching a greater significance & focus on every lithium fire makes it appear to be a 'huge problem' where there really isn't one.
This shaping of perception (read propoganda) seems to go on at every level. EVT had a 'Lipo incident' to the same degree it had a 'wood-workbench incident'.

It reminds me of how the media kept calling the Rodney King beating the 'Rodney King trial'. He was never on trial. The four coppers were on trial.

Can anyone remember any of the names of the accused?
Do you even realize you've had your perception shaped?
Buehler?