Lipo Charging Fire

Your description of the damage did not prepare me for the photos and very sorry you experienced this. If you imagine how many Lipo's charges occur each year by UK modellers, your experience is probably one in a million but it shows that charging near combustable material has to be avoided. Its easy to understand how complete garages and houses could be destroyed.
PS - some people suggest that if you charge in an ammo box - it should be vented in such a way to disperse the explosive effects in a safe direction.

So what are the chances of two people at our club having a similar incident a week apart? Luckily the other one was outside on a patio, not in a shed or house.

Not you as well Chris?

No not me, Phil and Andy had a shot a bit of video of a LiPo on fire and smoking like crazy on their patio, I was shown the video on the Saturday when we had the council guys up, and I think it was a battery they were charging in readiness for that day. It prompted me to start looking at how I charge and store my batteries, but like an idiot it took your unfortunate incident to actually get me to pull my finger out and do something.

Just seen your post Jon! Sooooooo sorry to see the damage done by the fire.
Iv seen the damage done by a lipo fire first hand before,as a few years back a mate of mine lost his double garage,two cars and 28 models!

I've heard several similar stories before and since my incident, it is easy to think it will never happen to you, I now know differently

Can you confirm the following, Jon.

What program were you using on your charger (normal charge, fast charge, balance charge...)?
Did you have the balance lead attached?
Did you check the voltages of each cell as soon as it started to charge? ie. all cells were about the same voltage before you left it charging?

Well for what's worth, Phil Williams has had two batteries go up in the last few months, that's taking a rare risk a little too far!! There are now LiIo (lithium Ion) batteries that have an internal circuit inbuilt that do not need a balance board - Jeti for one - furthermore think of all the LiIo batteries on rechargeable tools, drills especially, which have used LiIo batteries for many years now and no balance leads required. That technology has been around for years. Maybe it's time we all looked more seriously at using LiIo batteries instead of Lipos?? Not sure how high capacities go to but an investigation would be sensible.

MikeSeale wrote: Can you confirm the following, Jon.

What program were you using on your charger (normal charge, fast charge, balance charge...)?
Did you have the balance lead attached?
Did you check the voltages of each cell as soon as it started to charge? ie. all cells were about the same voltage before you left it charging?

Hi Mike

Standard balance charge at 1c using a Thunderpower charger, 610C. I didn't specifically check each cell voltage but the charger will not start if the individual cell voltages are too different, I know this as I have had this warning come up on some old packs previously, the charge wouldn't start until I had reduced the imbalance.

Dante wrote: Well for what's worth, Phil Williams has had two batteries go up in the last few months, that's taking a rare risk a little too far!! There are now LiIo (lithium Ion) batteries that have an internal circuit inbuilt that do not need a balance board - Jeti for one - furthermore think of all the LiIo batteries on rechargeable tools, drills especially, which have used LiIo batteries for many years now and no balance leads required. That technology has been around for years. Maybe it's time we all looked more seriously at using LiIo batteries instead of Lipos?? Not sure how high capacities go to but an investigation would be sensible.

Dante - think you will find most power tool Liion batteries have built in PCB balancer / low voltage cut out. However that technology has historically not delivered the equivalent Power / weight / volume advantages as Lipo. This is changing but at a cost.