Kinni420
100 W
posting a pic of my 6s battery that went bad last week. Turnigy, 6s 5000mAh. 290 cycles. it now sits in a bucket of sand surrounded by nothing flammable for 10 feet. No fire yet.
Lipo fire- no one hurt- my fault
- Thread starter BikeFanatic
- Start date
You must first discharge the pack completely by putting a low load (never a dead short) across the pack such as a motor, light bulb, or resistor, or (discharge with a charger on a low amperage _ TMaster). and let it sit until the pack reads zero volts. Then use a new # 11 blade to slice a very small incision through the outer pouch along an edge where you can not stick the blade into the plates. ONLY THEN- drop the cells/pack into salt water. You may see a few bubbles appear in the water and maybe not. Let it sit for 24 hours (not until the water evaporates!) and you can dispose of the cells/pack in the trash __ Quoted from Fred at fmadirect
Kinni420
100 W
Eek! sounds scary. Big O Tires is gonna dispose of it for me 
dnmun
1 PW
why not open it up and see what is wrong before destroying it? i dispose of my old dead, puffing, leaking, and broken tab lifepo4 pouches by burning them in the woodstove once i get the box really hot. they put out a huge amount of heat for such a small amount of electrolyte. but during the rest of the year they just go into the dumpster. it all goes to sealed landfills any more, so it cannot contaminate the groundwater like the luddites say.
Kinni420
100 W
went on its own last night.
Ykick
1 GW
Cell puff can and will distort the tabs enough to perhaps cause a short. Cutting back the shrink wrap on top of PCB might reveal more?
Icewrench
10 kW
Looks like it puffed till it popped.
No smoke damage, no melted stuff.
No smoke damage, no melted stuff.
Alan B
100 GW
BikeFanatic said:
I want to thank BikeFanatic again for sharing her experiences with us. We all can learn from each one of these stories, if we take the effort.
The take-away message that I think is important here is our connectorization for daily use should be fool-proof. No particular thought or attention should be required to do the daily chores. The plugs should only fit one safe way, and the order of plugging and/or unplugging should not be important beyond what is physically reasonable. In summary, our systems should be protected by engineering solutions, not by some policy we will forget one day, or someone else will violate unknowingly.
Make your setup SAFE!!
MattyCiii
100 kW
Agreed Alan.Alan B said:The take-away message that I think is important here is our connectorization for daily use should be fool-proof. No particular thought or attention should be required to do the daily chores.
Make your setup SAFE!!
EC5s can make things pretty fool proof. Other solutions work as well or better too. A little forethought and the right connectors can make it (near) impossible to mess things up.
t3sla
10 kW
Puff the magic Dragon
So puffed the pcb has a bow
http://db.tt/5M62Wpjx
Tick, tock.
So puffed the pcb has a bow
http://db.tt/5M62Wpjx
Tick, tock.
t3sla
10 kW
.
Hillhater
100 TW
Curious if there was any "unusual" events leading up to this ?Kinni420 said:
any over discharge /charge ?
any damage ?
any thing at all that may have initiated the puffing ?
I have a similar 5Ahr, 5s, Zippy pack that has one cell slightly ( 50% =3 mm) puffed, but has been like that for about 2 years (after a dumb over discharge by me !).. with the only side effect being that it has recently started being the first cell to hit LV .
dogman dan
1 PW
If the remaining cells in that pack are still ok, haven't been below the limit, etc, you still have a good 5s pack. Just cut away the blown cell, and move the wire to a new terminal for a 5s pack.
BikeFanatic
1 kW
John the lipo burst into flames and I somehow got off the bike no explosion but flames and gas like
A BIC lighter and an aerosol can of hair spray.
I think the issue was a connector issue and I am planning a fool proof solution.
Kinni-any smoke or flames from that pack. My experience there was a lot of smoke.
A BIC lighter and an aerosol can of hair spray.
I think the issue was a connector issue and I am planning a fool proof solution.
Kinni-any smoke or flames from that pack. My experience there was a lot of smoke.
etriker
100 kW
BikeFanatic said:
I bought one of these to mount up front in a bag for my light.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-9Ah-Lithium-Phosphate-Battery-LiFePO-/150983459868?pt=US_Rechargeable_Batteries&hash=item232750c41c
Here is the light.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-15W-LED-Day-Light-Motorcycle-Car-Truck-Van-bicycles-boat-Off-Road-Headlight-/321044289082?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4abfbb163a&vxp=mtr
I ride to work in the rain sometimes too.
When one of my packs burns up I hope I have the nerve to show pictures of the fire.
I am really scared to let that happen !
Thank you for sharing you ebike experiences.
dnmun
1 PW
dogman said:
i agree with the dogman. you had one pouch with an internal short and none of the others should be affected, except for the heat, so you should have at least 4 good spare pouches so you can cut them into the next pack with a dead pouch. i bet you end up using all 4 as replacements.
Kinni420
100 W
when I looked in the bucket, there was no scorch marks so no fire. It seems that the gas is flammable so if there's no spark, there's no fire.
All i can say about the battery is that it was 9 months old with ~210 cycles on it. I ran all the 3 batteries I purchased through Log view and one came out bad. Not really that bad as it lasted about 150 cycles before it started to swell. Got a refund for charting it.
this was the third charge I put on it. It never really maintained a good balance with the other cells even though I balance charge every battery every day. I knew it would go.
I have another battery that started swelling after about 140..same thing, never held a balance in cell #1.
I noticed something today after my commute. I had little scorch marks on the balance plugs.
they cant possibly be from the charger..... I hit a good bump and i short something because I dont think about the balance plugs being prone to that, I gotta fix that. might have had to do with some battery damage.
Anyways, after charting all three batteries and running the bike into the ground LOL...not really but it got ridden, not stashed in the garage, nice trips up the hills and such but Id always (95% of the time) monitor all the cells voltage every time i hooked up to my iCharger. One went, then the other. I kind of expect that from the cheapest batteries you can get and I had a lot of fun killing them.
Just be safe with your batteries...I saw these coming, so i monitored their health and when they went bad I didn't have a fire. take notes, if a cell is off even by .04 volts, it might be bad. My perfect batteries are never off by .02 V.
All i can say about the battery is that it was 9 months old with ~210 cycles on it. I ran all the 3 batteries I purchased through Log view and one came out bad. Not really that bad as it lasted about 150 cycles before it started to swell. Got a refund for charting it.
this was the third charge I put on it. It never really maintained a good balance with the other cells even though I balance charge every battery every day. I knew it would go.
I have another battery that started swelling after about 140..same thing, never held a balance in cell #1.
I noticed something today after my commute. I had little scorch marks on the balance plugs.
they cant possibly be from the charger..... I hit a good bump and i short something because I dont think about the balance plugs being prone to that, I gotta fix that. might have had to do with some battery damage.Anyways, after charting all three batteries and running the bike into the ground LOL...not really but it got ridden, not stashed in the garage, nice trips up the hills and such but Id always (95% of the time) monitor all the cells voltage every time i hooked up to my iCharger. One went, then the other. I kind of expect that from the cheapest batteries you can get and I had a lot of fun killing them.
Just be safe with your batteries...I saw these coming, so i monitored their health and when they went bad I didn't have a fire. take notes, if a cell is off even by .04 volts, it might be bad. My perfect batteries are never off by .02 V.
icecube57
10 MW
I hear nothing but slander from this guy etriker. From several people's experience HK has about a 15% dud rate. This is to be known and accepted before forking your money over. I do admit this is unacceptable but with my charging and discharging setup and me being able to graph and check my packs have caught these packs before they got put into service. I promptly informed hobby king and ordered new packs and they gave me a store credit without having to send anything back. But for the &itchers and the moaners that never go through this and just plug and go i pray for you. When i screen my packs.. any pack that is not giving the rated capacity by a long shot on the first cycle gets set aside. Trust me ive had 5AH lipo give me 4.2AH. If this wasnt cought this could have easily been a fire. If it almost gives capacity like 95%+ it get cycled again under slightly better conditions. Slower charging of the pack and warming it up a bit.(House is kinda cold some times) they normally perk up and fall in line with an addition cycle to prove either more increase in capacity or holding steady in what its gain. If it still isnt up to par its get put up for sale on the forum with the discharge paperwork for some lucky soul that has the patience to pluck around with it. Any cell thats graphed that doesnt perfectly make a nice curve with its fello buddies gets set aside. Ive seen some give near full capacity but their discharge curve loooks like garbage. If you put in the weeks worth of work to personally certify your packs alot of this can be avoided. My last hardcase mega pack i discharged tested 28 pack 4 of them were duds that were rejected and sold to buy more packs to complete my pack. If you take the time and make a simple fool proof harness that omits all of this plugging and unplugging. I have a respect for lipos. My pack has 12 6s 5AH batteries. I can series and parallel these mofos in a minute flat. Because Im careful I have a nice harness and I reduced alot of my connections. I built a more stable pack by cycling and verifying my pack and paralleling the groups at the cell level. I charge them all in parallel as a 22v 60AH pack. All the balance taps are sitting on my desk in parallel. My cell logs says i have 3mv deviation on my pack. I take them out of parallel plug them into my harness and im off. Alot of this can be avoided with a well though out plan but i see firestarters on here taking short cuts and all I can do is SMDH. I know one person real close to me that i pray to god nothing happens to him. If you take the time and plug a battery in correctly. This can be avoided. Trying not to over charge and over discharge lipo things like this can be avoided. I have a 66v 20AH battery. I try not to pull no more than 18AH on a full discharge. Dont get me wrong. Ive tested that the full 20AH and then some is there but I dont make it a habit to over discharge my packs. I carry more AH than I need. Im not running high amps. Each individual pack at most 5-10AH discharge rate which is 1C-2C. Alot of the time its quite less than that. This is tickling the packs gentle discharging.I see peeps try to get away with the bare minimum they can use in HK. Some people not even having a 15-20 watt meter. They just out there diding raw relying on the controller LVC. Bless them baby Jesus... Keep them safe. I balance my pack to much I admit this but it gives me a piece of mind.I bet if i break down my pack now not one pack is 5mv out of balance. Not checking your batteries with a cell log before riding and charging. Problems can be avoided. Its 5 seconds. Color coding your plugs so you dont pluck up... Accidental KFF can be avoided.But to blame the manufacturer when they do honor their warranty and bad mouth the chemistry and batteries in general and run a smear campaign that puts evs in a bad light is outrageous. I call shenanagins!
TheBeastie
1 MW
I have bought a few bags like this from Ebay, and they claimed it was 16-17cm long which is perfect length for a lot of Lipo packs, but they are kind of fakes as in they were advertised like your one above but are in fact 12.5cm in length, making them useless.BikeFanatic said:
I just emailed them the pic above and at least one asian ebay seller has been kind of WTF? there must be kind of mistake.. I got a refund, but I think some of these ebay sellers them selves have ordered a new lot in and not noticed the smaller size as they are selling this item along side many other items in the 1000s of items they sell.
Its been annoying for me as I waited like a month for it to come in mail and its kind of useless.
