black mamba

That could happen with ANY pack.

black mamba

I store mine in ammo boxes and I never charge them in the house or garage-I only charge them outside.

qoisdhc oqina

My Feedback: (-1)

does i have a lipo bag its charging in? lol

black mamba

Me? Yeah, I charge in sacks...and store in ammo cans.

vpower

i wouldent store any charged batteries in a closed compartment first of all you actually increase the chance of a fire or explosion because of the trapped heat what i do is keep it in a place where it can get plenty of air to cool down and make SURE THERE IS NOTHING AROUND IT THAT IS PRECIOUS TO YOU...LOL and also try and put an protection around anything wood ...i use metal....and its always a safe measure to have a jar of water near by and even a fire extinguisher.... and for those too lazy to get water or dont have money for a fire extinguisher get a metal box and put it over the batt when its on fire to drain the oxygen and kill the fire

SyCo_VeNoM

errm water and chemical fires don't mix very well for the most part. In all truth if a fire did break out water might make it worst... but hell if it makes you feel safe keep that jar of water there

Safest way outside a chemical fire extinguisher would probably be sand to smother it out.

black mamba

Chances are nothing will ever happen..................but I feel much better storing my lipos in something, like my ammo cans that will (hopefully) prevent a raging fire if a lipo went critical while in storage. I keep my ammo cans on a shelf by the back door-where the temperature is the coolest in the entire house. And it's also where I don't have to go very far to toss the ammo cans out the door if feces hits the fan. Trust me, you do not want a lipo going up in your house, especially when you are not home to do something about it. It will likely burn to the ground if you don't have a sprinkler system installed. If you have kids in the house, it's a very wise idea to have those lipos contained in a safe and secure spot. On the flipside, there are guys that just throw their lipos on a table or toss them in the closet. To each their own. lol


The cans I use are these. http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Two-50-Cal-Cal...item25582399f9

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

lithium reacts with the water in the air, releasing hydrogen and heat which burns and leaves you with a chunch of lithium metal, so if you were to keep the batteries in a confined space ideally 0 humidity or air tight there's very little risk of fire, and pouring water on would only speed up and intesify the reaction,

vpower the the heat given off by a charging lipo battery is nothing to what it takes to explode them and cause a fire, so the insultion of the container is negligible, just because the fire isn't caused by heat but by water, so the only way heat could cause the fire is if the battery got so hot it started to expand, puffing it up then went boom, which happeneds but thats all from internal heat and pressure you'd be hard pressed to force those conditions with just heat,

the lug

d.k.v

lol now im sceared lol

i just leave my batt on the table in my hobby room when its charging.... and its stored in the same place the table

black mamba

You're more of a man than me. I don't have the cajones to charge mine in the house. lol

d.k.v

lol
i thought these were safe lol till now....

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

they're plenty safe, as long as you treat them right and don't over charge or discharge them too far, i charge mine where-ever and leave it around run it in snow, call my gutsy i just am confident that my battery wont' explode because i have a good charger and balance it often, granted now i am getting a new lipo because my charger overcharged it (didn't go boom tho) and now its looseing capsity and kinda puffed up, but as long as that lithium stays in its cells its perfectly fine, i'd be more worried about the batts in your cell phones and ipods simply because they don't have chargers as smart as ours...

the lug

d.k.v

lol im using a $15 charger on a cheap as battery lol

Access

Yep like he said the water just makes a reactive metal fire worse. Pouring water on it just adds more fuel (and can cause explosions, cause it to move around, etc.) Unless you have the proper equipment (and a bucket of sand can do the job) you really can't fight a reactive metal fire, you just have to try to contain it and let it burn itself out.

Practicing proper fire fighting technique is vital in fighting those types of fires. Now mostly lithium-ion batteries aren't too bad b'cos the lithium is in ion form (not like the lithium-metal batteries that are typically not rechargeable). It's generally only when those batteries are abused (shorted, overcharged, etc.) or started on fire by another source that the lithium can plate onto things and cause problems.

Again packs need to be assembled with care. With NIMH or many cylindrical cells you need to pay special attention b'cos the outside case is the ground and the little button on top is the plus. This button isn't as big as with the AA consumer batteries we are used to, in most cases of cheap packs there is just a little paper seperator between the button, the battery bar, and the rest of the case. The cell is then covered with a thin plastic label. So if this seperator goes, which can happen if the bar is hit and/or deformed a bit, or just over time with humidity, corrosion, etc., a short across one cell is the inevitable result. There was a time when hobbyists were buying their own cells, matching them, and assembling the packs themselves. But now most of this knowledge has been lost and most packs are asembled in some foreign country by cheap labor, questionable workmanship, and in unclean conditions.

john01374

When I first started using LiPo's I was scared to death of them. I read all the horror stories and watched all the videos but I already had a few NiMH and NiCd packs explode on me so how bad could it really be........ After 3 years of use and zero problems I'm now much more comfortable using LiPo's than NiMh. A couple of years back a LHS here did a bunch of Lipo safety classes to get people familiar with the new packs. They went over all of the basic handling, charging, balancing, etc. Part of the class was dealing with a Lipo when something does go wrong. In an attempt to start a fire they smashed, punctured, shorted, over charged and over discharged a couple of packs. They did manage to make the pack puff then caused it to smoke nicely from being punctured with a nail of all things.. In all of their attempts the worst that happened was a smoke show. Sorry to disappoint but no fire.

In my personal experience over the years I've managed to smash a couple of packs as well as puncture one and short out another all in normal bashing. The worst I have ever seen was a spark and some smoke. I've spoken to numerous people over the years and no one has ever seen a LiPo fire in person. Sure there are stories and those wonderful Youtube videos but who knows how true any of that really is or what was done to those packs to cause them to erupt.

What people don't talk about is how common NiMh explosions are. Like I said in a previous post I have had two IB packs explode within a couple of weeks of each other. Both where reasonably new packs and neither had seen any type of abuse, damage, over heating etc. IB packs where considered one of the better packs at the time so the "stay away from cheap packs" does not play into this. Over the years I've also had a few NiCd packs explode. They where some time back so I don't recall the details but I know that I use to run Trinity packs back then so again, not cheap packs.

As for charging. I normally charge everything in a steel container I made from scrap I had in the garage but I am guilty of charging on the table while i'm working once in a while. In either case you should never leave any kind of pack unattended while charging. In reality you should keep an eye on them for a few minutes after charging as well as a few minutes after they are run the car. If anything is going to go wrong it will most likely happen during these times. As far as putting out a battery fire goes. If you don't have the proper extinguisher then you're best friend is a bucket of sand.

As for storage. I do take somewhat extreme precautions to store packs while i'm away (I have a mother, girlfriend and 5yr old in the house and I don't want them to have to deal with my batteries). I store all of my batteries in there own plastic bag. This prevents the pack from touching anything and possibly shorting out. Each pack is placed in the metal box. There is a large heavy plastic bag filled with sand on the bottom of the box. The packs are placed on top of this bag then another bag of sand is placed on top of them and the box is closed. The idea here is, If the packs get hot enough to melt the plastic they will get smothered in sand and the box will contain any fire or explosion. It's extreme i'll admit but after the NiMh explosions I have a lot more respect for these packs.

I really would like to see NiMh go away and I personally feel they are a lot more dangerous than LiPo or LiFe. They also have so many down sides when compared to LiPo /LiFe that there really isn't a reason to use them any longer.

I can honestly say I've bought my last NiMh pack... Goodbye 1990's

Access

At the ISC one of the bikes had a LiPo fail. It was like you described, just a lot of incredibly foul-smelling smoke for 15-20 minutes. Most of the fires are youtube vids that were induced in some way, putting a nail through it, plugging it into a wall socket (120 VAC), putting it into a microwave, etc. Venting with flame was much easier to do back then (years ago) than it is now.

LiPos have had 10+ years of development in the hobby. When I first got into the hobby they had no balancing plugs and most tracks were still following ROAR so LiPo was illegal. LiPos had no balancing plugs, and they were rated under what a good NIMHs were (6C, 9C or 12C at best). Their only real advantage back then was weight. They were mainly used in aircraft or helis. At some point they got up to 20C rating. Shortly after balancing plugs or some kind of balancing mechanism became standard. That's when they started catching on with trucks. The modern batteries are safer than the ones 5-10 years ago, the chemistry has changed I believe.

Budman68

My Feedback: (4)

I agree, a lot of it is from misuse. I think we have all experience battery failure at one time or another. Some as simple as a AA expanding in a pack to smoking a battery from over-charging. My son noticed the 7 cell was acting strange and should have disposed of it. He continued trying to revive it with bad results. Who knows what caused it and I'm sure he learned a lesson. The lipo thing doesn't scare me, just about every hobby shop in America has a ton of them on the shelves without issues.

Brett185

My Feedback: (2)

I recently bought a Venom 8.4v 5000 hump pack to run in my Slash 4wd. Well I got it home, charged it on my Dynamite peak charger at 2.5 amps. ran it, and it did great. Well the next day I charged it again and ran it and it did great again......well I left it alone for a couple hours then charged it again. The charger beeped so I put it in my truck, turned it on, set it down to run it....and no power!!! The truck moved very slowly, so I picked up the truck, and saw that the battery was getting so hot that the plastic shrink wrap on the battery was melting!!! Pissed me off!!! So this battery only has 3 charges on it from brand new and now I've gotta throw it away....

Access

Not to be argumentative but why did the buy the venoms in the first place? 4 or so years ago I could get GP3300's $25. apiece. And those are quality batteries. I don't know how much they have come down since then but unless Venom is half the price I would not be touching them. Some people have had luck tearing down their packs and rebuilding them but for a $10. or $20. pack that is a lot of work just to get decent performance. The GP3300's have served me well and I am still running them today in the Summit. Can people who have bought venoms or other bad brands say the same?

Seriously I feel like if people on these boards are still buying venoms then we're not being effective enough at informing people what the bad brands are. A few years ago it seemed like everyone knew that was one of the brands to avoid like the plague. Maybe just too much bad advice in hobby shops or such. Remember that as a consumer you do have a choice and take the time to inform yourself about what packs are worth it and what packs aren't. Avoid impulse buys, do your research, etc. Not everyone should have to learn these lessons the hard way

Steve Percifield

My Feedback: (14)

I had a NiMh pack catch fire in my airplane while charging. I was able to get the pack out and throw it on the garage floor. The plane was damaged but fortunately i was there or my garage would have caught fire as well. I had left the battery on the floor to cool off, and about 2 hours later, it exploded and blew pieces every where.

There is no really safe battery.

steve

Access

Safety is a relative thing though. Some things can be safer than others. When you buy a battery pack, you are buying a manufactured product, so it's the component pieces and the design quality, worksmanship, etc. that determine how relatively safe it is.

rclugnut10

My Feedback: (1)

imo any form of potential engery is dangerous weather it be a rock over my head or a battery in my pocket they both have engery and it can be realeased either way i don't wanna be in its way when it does....

the lug

Budman68

My Feedback: (4)

As the Venom banner scrolls across the web page...lol. I've only bought a couple of venoms for ez starts, the rest came free with used cars. I've throw away 4 or 5 so far.

searlesy

Ihave to say, that it had never really occured to me the potential danger of these batteries(NiMh) (and given that Iam a chemical engineer, just goes to show how blase you can get about common things). I just purchased 3 small ammo boxes for charging and storing the batteries in, as at least if the battery goes whilst charging in my garage, it should be relatively well contained within the box , sitting on a stainless steel bench, and not burn my shed down, or blow up my car!