Forget it, Jake It's Chi-town...

[bobechs]

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news-chicago/7/71/610600/battery-may-caused-ashburn-fire-killed-93-year-old-man

"An electric wheelchair battery could be to blame for a fire that killed a 93-year-old man Tuesday...

Authorities think a lithium battery used to power an electric wheelchair started the fire, Chicago Fire Department spokesman ...

 

[Nobuo]

welcome to the forum, scary presentation

That kind of news always put me anything strange in my mind, like fear about all the cells around me are like little bombs :x

If they would knew the chemistry it would put things consistent

 

[999zip999]

Their are not all little bombs silly. Just one of them.

 

[burningwings]

Got any gasoline for the mower in the garage ? You think batteries are dangerous , try gasoline ! Gas is so common we all forget how dangerous it is ! Deaths from gasoline vs deaths from batteries , no contest.

 

[dogman dan]

Any battery can have a wire leading from it short, and burn whatever. A 12v lead battery shorted and burned my truck in 1977

So the problem could easily have been the wiring from the battery. Not much info in the story, so no reason to jump to the conclusion a cell had thermal runaway. All we know now is something on the chair burned first.

 

[dnmun]

i would put money on the charger failing or short, 50:50.

 

[TheBeastie]

Who knows maybe he tried to save a couple of bucks and some one loaded his chair up with HK lipo cells B grade and topped them up with a dubious ebay parallel balance charger.

 

[dnmun]

i was surprised to hear it is a lithium battery. usually they are 12V SLA. i would not believe a manufacturer put lipo into a wheelchair in any case. without a wheelie bar too.

so it has to be lifepo4 and so i would expect it was a short, but chargers do shoot flames out sometimes and if he had clothes or something flammable adjacent that would do it.

 

[amberwolf]

I don't have them anymore, but before the fire cleanup where so much went missing, I had some 18650-cell LiCo packs that were for a light wheelchair motor system, all in-wheel. I also had a breathing machine (cant' remember if it was CPAP or oxygen concentrator) with similar LiCo 18650 packs.

So some manufacturers have used them.


I don't know anything about the charging or motor system for that wheelchair unit, as I only had the packs.


I also still have some NiMH ones for E-Motion wheelchair in-wheel system, whcih actually have a BMS in them for cell-level monitoring.