Lipo Charging Fire

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.