Lipo charging safety in gymnasiums

[gbjets]

Hi everyone

I'm trying to find a safety procedure that could be used to prevent a fire at school gymbnasiums for indoor flying, something that could be easily implemented and affordable. I use a pouch called an LP guard, the manufacturer claims it's made of the same material used for firefighting but I never had a fire in it, maybe someone could tell me if they really work. We could ban charging batteries at the school, that would require more precharged batteries but is it the right thing to do. If someone has better ideas, I'd sure like to know.

Thank you

Gaston B.
Hanmer
On.

[Ken Currell]

You can contain the fire and the explosion but:

YOU CAN'T CONTAIN THE SMOKE WHICH IS REALLY BAD TO BREATHE!

http://www.liposack.com/video.htm

[propnut]

lipo's just scare the crap out of me... plain and simple. I'm sure if properly dealt with they are quite safe and don't just randomly explode, but for me (and this is just me I'm talking about... not suggesting anyone else should follow)... but for me, any benefit of using lipo's just isn't worth the risk.

[gbjets]

Ken

Thanks for the video, it sure is an eye opener for me, the smoke alone certainly looks nasty and if a trace of it stays in the school till the next class or when someone shows up, that could be the end of the indoor flying, at that school anyways, we must also remember that news travel fast nowadays. I certainly don't want to create a panic but a solution is needed and unless it is found very soon, I might ask our members not to charge lipos at the school. I know there are other dangers associated with lipos besides the charging but this one seems to be most pressing, all it takes is one fire at one school, we would all be affected eventually.

Gaston B.

Hanmer
On.

[Ken Currell]

Ken

Thanks for the video, it sure is an eye opener for me, the smoke alone certainly looks nasty and if a trace of it stays in the school till the next class or when someone shows up, that could be the end of the indoor flying, at that school anyways, we must also remember that news travel fast nowadays. I certainly don't want to create a panic but a solution is needed and unless it is found very soon, I might ask our members not to charge lipos at the school. I know there are other dangers associated with lipos besides the charging but this one seems to be most pressing, all it takes is one fire at one school, we would all be affected eventually.

Gaston B.

Hanmer
On.

Your quite right about bad news spreading fast.
Lipos can catch fire even 20 minutes after they are charged. They are getting better than they use to be but care is still required.

If you have an emergency exit in the building you could set up a charging staion at the exit. Although it may be inconvenient you could mandate that all batteries MUST be charged using the balancing connetors while at the charging station and no higher than at a 1C rate. Also that they MUST be in a fireproof bag and on a heat resistant surface. How about using the battery bag and a metal dust pan to put it on. If there is a fire carefully pick up the dust pan, open the emergency exit door and drop the battery outside far enough away that the smoke won't get in the door. You might want to have a pair of oven mitts handy to pick up the dust pan.

Make sure that the balancing connectors are being used. That way no individual cells will be overcharged. The 1C rate is also for safety. There are chargers like mine that can safely charge at 3C but I never use that setting as it is hard on the cells.

Maybe there is something there that you can work with.

Good luck.

[gbjets]

Ken

Thanks for your suggestions, we'll look at all the options but whitin a couple weeks we'll refrain from gharging at the school, I'd like to give them a chance to buy spare batteries.

Gaston B.
Hanmer
ON.

[morse]

Hi all after looking at the video . I wonder if i should store my lipo

outside on the balcony when its not in use being in a condo thats

my only option and i guess the winters months say no to that .

Any ideas would be of help thanks. Larry

[Tmaxx4ever]

Dont charge your lipo batteries on the wrong settings and you'll be fine... or do something stupid like charge them on top of something flammable.

As far as lipos not being worth while?....imagine how bad indoor electric aircraft would be if we were still using nimh and nicad batteries. Theyd be underpowered, over weight, and fly for 2 minutes.

Although it may be inconvenient you could mandate that all batteries MUST be charged using the balancing connetors

Why? before balancing became available we charged lipos no problem... for like 4 years.

[gbjets]

Tmaxx4ever

I totally agree with you but mistakes do happen and they are most likely the cause. If everybody was perfect, I wouldn't have had to post anything.

I just read something funny the other day, a person said I don't mind being a nobody because nobody's perfect.....please don't take this the wrong way, it's just a joke.

[ddruck]

We flew last year and this year in the gym and virtually no one was charging in the gym.
We only have a couple of hours and with average recharge time of one hour there is actually not much time to charge. we all seem to have enough batteries for the night. It is not a rule, it just works out that way. I guess this would be an issue if you have more hours per session in the gym.
Dan

[gbjets]

ddruck

We also use the gym for only two to three hours and you're right, it's not worth charging them at the gym.

[Pangaea]

Besides the video with setup explosions and advertisement for the Lipo Sack.

Does anyone have first hand evidence of these batteries catching fire or exploding at the field or home?

It's just a simple question for information if such a thing occurred so that frequency of these batteries exploding can be determined. Not a question to discredit the video.

I left the hobby in 2005 but still dabble with electric and Lipo's in a park setting. I really don't want any unexpected surprises.

Thanks for any replies with actual unintensional explosions from charging.

Cheers.

[astrofler]

first, lipos do not explode, ever.

They can catch fire however and burn violently, so violently that some people think it's an explosion, but this doesn't happen often. And when it does it's severe operator error or equipment failure.

I'm sure I'll get all kinds of squawking about how wrong I am, but think about it. If they're as much a hazard as people believe, how come much of the modeling community hasn't been burned to death, or had their cars and homes burned down. Lipos are everywhere in the hobby now. How many of your friends and fellow flyers have been vaporized recently?

And, frankly, have you looked at how some of your friends and fellow flyers are handling their lipos? With the paranoia I see posted once in a while, I'm surprised some of you still go to the field with those guys. after all, they might explode something close to you.

Even so, with all that sloppy lithium handling, they keep coming back to the field week after week. funny about that. nobody missing from my club lately. Yours?

I've seen two lithium incidents. One I caused myself when I stupidly shorting out a pack. Lots of smoke and heat inside a closed plastic tackle box, but NO fire or flame and NO explosion. Except for the smoke, nothing much different from shorting a similar capacity nicad pack. the other one was not mine, but a pack that had never been balanced that I ever saw, so either that or faulty charger. One cell fired off first which makes me suspect bad cell imbalance and the resulting overcharge. The other two cells lit off one after the other with a big hiss. flames and smoke. NO explosion.

Just use some common sense as with ANY rechargable battery. Never charge them on cheap equipment, never leave the house when they're on charge, and never never charge them on or near a flammable surface. Use a flameproof container if it makes you feel any better.

Any battery charger can fail and ANY rechargable battery hooked to it could give you some very nasty results. How many set their transmitter on the workbench right in the balsa dust and shavings, plug in the charger and then take the missus out for supper. think about that for a second.

and yes, I've seen the lipo videos on youtube. Every one I've seen has had someone deliberately and violently abuse lipos to get those shots. Not typical of lipo use at all.

[Pangaea]

Hmmmm....just one person (Astrofler) with a Lipo accident.
I'm sure with all the RC Flying clubs thru out Canada that there more un-intensional incidents of Lipo's catching fire and the circumstances of how it happened.

I'm trying to understand why....so that I don't duplicate the event and charge and fly my model safely.

[gbjets]

astrofler

I admire your honesty but your story is a reminder that mistakes do happen, you're not the first one and most likely not the last for this to happen. Unless someone would have to spend a fortune in batteries, which I doubt since most indoor airplanes use smaller batteries, it's not a bad idea to precharge a few before going to the gym. I'm aware that helicopters are different, I have a one and the batteries are not cheap, I have a couple and precharge them at home. We had a fellow who had a similar incident resulting in a small fire not long ago at another club in our area and it worries me. I'd rather be blamed for starting a controversial thread than myself or someone in our club starting a fire resulting in a loss of priveleges at our local school and believe me, if that happened, many others. I do appreciate your comments, I'm just trying to keep flying in the winter time, I wish I could afford to go south but like the majority, I'll be freezing my butt again for the next few months.

[gbjets]

Hi everyone

I just received a phone call from Dennis Pratt and what he said reassured me, he will most likely post his thoughts on the subject, so I'll keep it short. At his club, they have been using lipo bags for years without incident but they have also implemented other procedures which make a lot of sense to me. This is the kind of information I was looking for and I'm sure everyone will benefit from his vast knowledge.
Thanks for all the responses.

[Propworn]

If one of these batteries decides to self destruct (which is unlikely) there is not much one can do to stop it other than contain it so it will not damage anything around it. You will not be able to control the smoke either but a ceramic, metal container or something sold for the purpose such as a lipo sack is the best option for controlling any collateral physical damage.

All batteries charged in the same area (easier to keep an eye on)
No damaged batteries allowed period.
All batteries charged in an appropriate containment device no exceptions.
Good size electrical rated fire extinguisher on hand.

Recommended is a containment device for storage. If one is so concerned about the handling at a site how do you store your batteries at home? I use an ammo box. Simple solution for lipo storage. I set up this ammo box not only is it safer but the storage is easy and organized. I charge up my batteries the day before I go flying and they sit in the bottom dividers with the connector wires facing up. When storage charged they have the connecting wires facing down. Batteries that need attention (charging or balancing) are placed in the top tray. I use the nomex lipo sac when charging my batteries. The dividers and top tray are just 1/8 door skin or light ply CA'd together to isolate the batteries and other stuff from the metal ammo box

Dennis

[Ken Currell]

Besides the video with setup explosions and advertisement for the Lipo Sack.

Does anyone have first hand evidence of these batteries catching fire or exploding at the field or home? ...

Cheers.


Yes Here are three photos of the event. The batteries were being charged at the time of the fire. Unfortunately they were still in the plane.

http://i399.photobucket.com/albums/pp80/batteryguy/LipoFire1.jpg

http://i399.photobucket.com/albums/pp80/batteryguy/Lipofire2.jpg

http://i399.photobucket.com/albums/pp80/batteryguy/LiPoFire.jpg

[YAKFEVER]

OK,

Failures can happen with anything and yes somethings are preventable but not all.

To make things short, let skip the charging but what actual flying. Is there any risk when using lipo's?

I have a failure this summer where I was flying my 3D Hobby Shop Yak (outdoors).

Battery was a 3 cell 11.1V 2200mah from Ace power. Good batteries if you ask me. I use lots of them.

Anyways I was putting on a demo for my felow co-workers and all of a sudden there was smoke, and lots of it. By the time I said, "oh hey, electrics dont smoke" and sai @#$% I quickly braught it dont for a landing, lost control and belly landing into the ground. Due to the hopped up risk of Lipo explosions I waited for the smoke to clear and checked it out.

My Speed controller failed, shorted out and caught on fire. Burnt part of the fuse and it turn damaged the lipo. There was sing of heat in the lipo to to mention that the wires got so hot that the deans connector fell off and in turn the 2 wires joined together and shorted out the battery.

So what do we do? Not use speed controlers???? Not use Lipos???

My opinion is that there is risk with all indoor & outdoor equipement. We are human, it turn everything is made by humans, if mad by a computor, I human designed it?

Maybe we should all stop driving our cars! ???



Well, I think that preventative action should be put in place, proper equipment, "lipo bags" ect.... but if handled like a PROFESIONAL, we can reduce the risk and handle a failure properly in the rear event of failure.

GBJETS, I am glad you made everyone one away of the popential risk, we all just need to be careful and watch what where doing. I dont think removing charging from a building, or charging outside is the answer, if somebody needs to charge a battery then so be it, but let be careful.

I know i was a little all over teh board here, but realy the risk is there but very small.

Thank you for all how placed a post, very good information and everyone opinion is great.

I little better know how can go a long way!

YAKFEVER

[Tyler P]

Coming from a car racing background, I really find it amazing that I hear so many stories of LiPo failures in the airplane world. I haven't heard of too many catastrophic LiPo failures in cars. And any time I have, it has always been someone who didn't treat the packs properly. In racing, we've seen many more NiMh packs explode than LiPos catch fire. And when a NiMh cell fails, it goes with a BANG!

One of my fellow racers got smoked at almost point-blank range in the hand by an Intellect Sub-C cell that decided to let go while charging. These things have more power than a .22 shell. His hand swelled up huge, although I think he escaped any broken bones.

Like anything else, you have to treat the packs with respect, LiPo or NiMh.

[gbjets]

Hi everyone

I have to work out of town for a week and will not have access to the internet, I'm happy to see all the posts on the subject, no matter what they are, they are all appreciated and eventually I'm hoping, some sensible solutions will come out of this. Please be nice while I'm gone and don't be too hard on me, I'll be back......

Thanks everyone

[Ken Currell]

I had a Nicad explode while charging. It too was like a rifle being fired.

The cells was not being abused. The cause was likely a plugged vent.
Most Nicad and NMH explosions I am aware of have occured in batteries charging at high C rates. The vent can't allow enough gas to escape and the cell explodes. Usually the end is the projectile.

Ken

[skyad]

This is from an article I found ,interesting ,take out the human error of entering the wrong cell count with a good charger

There has been much discussion lately about lithium battery fires on the Internet and in print publications. Just about all agree that the surest way to ruin a lithium battery and, in the worst case have a lithium fire, is to start to charge a battery of a given cell count on a charger set for a higher count, then go do something else. So I was very curious to see if the Accu-Cycle Elite had any protection against this most-common cause of lithium battery damage.

At first I thought that there was no protection for incorrect lithium battery cell counts, since there’s no mention of such a function in the manual or the ads for the unit I’ve seen. But after some correspondence with Hobbico in which I told them this lack was a serious drawback, they asked me to take another look. I put a partially depleted 2-cell pack in my fire-resistant charging container, set the charger for three cells and started a charge cycle. What I saw was interesting: Instead of ramping the charge rate up to the selected value (in this case 1.0 Amp) over about one minute as it normally does, the charge rate stayed very low – 0.1A or so – for a total of 5 minutes. At the end of 5 minutes the unit shut down with a “voltage too low” error message and chime. The chime sounds until you press “Enter”, it doesn’t stop after a few cycles as the end-of-charge indication does. After this, I switched the output back to 2 cells and restarted the charge, and it proceeded normally. I tried it again with a similar 2s pack that was nearly full (initial voltage of 8.32V) with the same result.

I am told that the Accu-Cycle Elite uses a battery voltage slope detection algorithm – that is, it watches how fast the voltage of the battery under charge changes – and it decides if the battery is healthy, or in this case if it has the correct cell count selected, based on the rate of voltage change.

I also tried a single cell on a two-cell setting and got the “voltage too low” error message immediately. I did not try charging a 3-cell pack on a 2-cell setting, as this error is benign.

So, the Accu-Cycle Elite does protect against charging lithiums with the wrong cell count selected. This is good news as I simply cannot recommend a lithium charger that doesn’t protect against this simple error now that this capability is available in a number of chargers.

For added insurance you can use the new Electrifly LiPoly packs, which have a safety circuit in them to prevent overcharge. But if the unit performs as it did with the unprotected packs (and it did so with the one Electrifly pack I tried) the voltage will not get to a level where the protection circuit “kicks in”. I do not know how the Accu-Cycle Elite will get along with the separate Kokam Safety Guard, the PolyQuest PCM Guard, or the protection circuit built into some recently-made Thunderpower packs. However, since it seems to work safely with unprotected packs, I expect it will be fine with protected ones from any vendor.

[Ken Currell]

I bought an Ammo box today at Princess Auto.

$6.99 plus taxes.

[Toolbox]

I'm surprised still how many people are terrified of lipo batteries. Most Lipo explosions/fires happen because of human error. Just like anything else, if you take care of them and don't abuse them they will be good to you in return. Has anybody in this thread seen one explode 'live'? I sure haven't. Still mistakes/defects can happen, so it's always good to use precautions. As the previous post, I have a Accucycle Elite, excellent charger that will detect most mistakes in programing and/or connections (and I've made them, it made an excellent job of detecting my errors). I also bought an amo box for storing and charging all my batteries. I will always charge my batteries, Lipo, Nimh and Nicad, in the box, wether i'm inside or outside. If you follow the basic recommended common sense procedures for charging batteries, you should be able to enjoy the benefits of batteries for a long time without ever seeing any of the 'sidefects'.

[Ken Currell]

This is a link that was in my post on LIPO FIRES.

It gives information on LiPo fires.

http://forums.all-battery.com/index.php?showtopic=1282&hl=Triton+charger

Here's my favourite one.

Pack balloons during charge, burns while under water

[gbjets]

Hi everyone

Once again, thanks to everyone who replied, it looks like the ammo box is a popular choice and I'll look for one. It also seems that many people have made a mistake while charging lipos, including myself, some are detected by chargers and unfortunately, some are not, an ammo box would be an added insurance. All I wanted is some ideas, it's not a very popular subject and I hope I didn't upset anyone
.
Thank you

[Flypaper]

Had one go off at the field last winter. Went off like a fireworks pinwheel. Scooted across the ground like a weak rocket for a half a second. Charger was set for lead acid.

[Ken Currell]

Had one go off at the field last winter. Went off like a fireworks pinwheel. Scooted across the ground like a weak rocket for a half a second. Charger was set for lead acid.

I bought the FMA Cellpro 10s partly because it will only charge Lithium type cells. You must use the balancer to cahrge all cells. That way it can properly sense the number of cells according to the number of balancer leads attached to the pack.

I can make those kind of mistakes with my other chargers but not with the FMA.

[Sandy]

I destroyed a LiPo in my basement, by discovering that NIMH is NOT the correct setting for a lipo on my Triton...pack swelled but didn't burn.
But, last weekend at a contest, while charging at night in the motel room, my room mate's pack went "pop wheeeeeeeee" We got the pack outside the motel to the lawn where the pack went Roman Candle..He was charging in a lipo bag so inside the room was limited to a little smoke.
The lawn outside fared a little worse for wear..

He thinks, since the pack was very new, that one of the three cells must have been bad

[1THEPALMER]

Love all the fear surrounding Lipo's. Been in the hobby since Ambroid glue and tissue.
Can recall a time when CA glue was the new kid. The old hands were afraid of that also! (dangerous fumes, brittle joints, epoxy is best) The same group was spraying K and B epoxy paint inside thier homes and that product is/was poison on several levels.
I have Lipos from 2s 500Mah to 4s2500 Mah. Own a good charger and a better power supply (A/C @ Club) Balance charge evey time so cannot use wrong cell count plus also use the charge time limit and capacity cut off settings. Yet to cook a pack on charge.
Bottom line, treat a Lipo like a full gas can. It contains a lot of energy and if you let all of it out @ once things will get a bit exciting.