BasinBum

My Feedback: (2)

Gordon,
I couldn't get past your first paragraph which after reading three times still made no sense to me. Then the quoting and posting style almost made my head explode like a lipo on a nicad charger. Maybe I'm to stupid to understand and I should rethink my ability to use lipos.

MHester

My Feedback: (1)

They don't burn as hot or violently as an atomic warhead either. What's your point?

-Mike

ChuckAuger

My Feedback: (12)

The "dire consequences" of the wrong TX charger would be if he took off with what he thought was a fully charged TX and crashed with "dire consequences".

Calf Rope.

I give.

I'll just set back and let the chips fall where they may, I just don't have the ambition to argue any more about batteries.

If the AMA decides that Lipos are too deadly for me to use, so be it. If they decide they are OK, so be it. If the AMA and the battery industry can come up with a workable solution between themselves, so be it. If something better and less deadly comes along, so be it.

rmh

better and less deadly= 10 turns of 1/8" rubber .
You simply can't expect those with low aptitude for things that go whirr to accept that rules don't fix anything.

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

No sweat, Chuck, I have seen your posts for awhile, I get them.

To me, I am looking beyond this one issue to the overall risk tolerance of the AMA/Insurance Carrier (I lumped them together for a reason). I think it is obvious to everyone that certain people within the realm of the AMA/Insurance Carrier see a wolf around every corner.....now don't get me wrong, being paranoid does not mean there is not someone out there trying to get you!


The funny thing I saw from the turbine ruels experience is that Dave Brown seems a bit more concerend than some of the other parties involved. I am not sure if this is good or bad in my mind. If Dave is right it is good. I am not so sure any more. I mean we do live in the most litigious society ever on the planet, and we can come up with dozens of large liability awards for silly things (ie something that someone with reasonable common sense should not have done), so I do not think one can easily dismiss Dave Brown's concerns as simple paranoia.

To top it off, it concerns me that on the one hand, the AMA seems to get blamed for setting up the Safety Code as a list of insurance exclusions (which I think it should be) and then on the other hand I cannot identify a single case of the AMA/Insurance Carrier NOT paying when a violation of the safety code existed (but I have not looked that hard)


I think some sort of Risk Management Plan needs to get formally codified, in order to bring the thoughts and ideas of many out on the table in an atmospere more condusive to rational discussion. As it stands now, safety and risk managemet is too "issue driven"......we do not talk about it unitl some weird rules (tail touch, speed limiters, combat, tail touching, burning batteries) issue starts to get traction, and then all of the strategic thinking goes out the window.

the troll

Yes and you should

I reread a couple of times and seems to make good sense and points.

Jim Branaum

My Feedback: (3)

Yeah, but everyone knows you are smarter than all of humanity. If you question that, just ask yourself and look at your polls!



As for the danger issue it is clear that some have misconstrued the issue. The LiPo, in and of itself, a super hot torch nor is it exactly as explosive as many of the chemicals we use on a daily basis. What the 'problem' is that more often than not the LiPo is buried in the middle of many of those other highly reactive chemicals (read that as glow, gas, and Jet A). THAT makes it a hot spreading and possibly explosive fire starter. Couple that with not being 'watched' and we have a problem.

J_R

Mike, you hit the issue squarely between the eyes.

The petty bickering between personalities approaches the level of "stupid".

The parania is a little harder to observe. Seems like any time Dave Brown and the word "safety" are combined in a sentence, the parnoia level exceeds the temp of exploding Lipo's.

Guys, DB admits he is not an expert in his column on the subjet of batteries. The e-mail alert was written by Don Lowe, who is, apparently not an expert either. Mr. Lowe solicited the help of Fred Marks.

So, who the hell is Fred Marks? Well, among other things, he is the president of FMA Direct. I think most would agree he has no interest in banning a product he is in the business of selling. He has quite a history as an aeromodeler, for those that are not familiar with the name. He also posts in the e-power forum on RCU. I think those that are knowlegable allow that he be described as an expert on batteries.

ChuckAuger

My Feedback: (12)

I would think that Fred Marks would have a vested interest in seeing that the only packs sold per AMA guidelines with balancing circuitry incorporated in them are from FMA since Mr. Marks has recently purchased a proprietary balancing circuit for his packs. Coincidence??

J_R

Coincidene that Don Lowe solicited his help, and not the other way around? Probably.

ChuckAuger

My Feedback: (12)

Coincidence that FMA currently makes the only packs that meet the AMA guideline. "Say Don, been a lot of Lipo fires, you know I built the only safe lipo, let me help you write up an Emergency Safety Report" But hey, I'm just stupid and paranoid.

Ah, found it. See page 87 of June MA, Duralite advertisement. Seems as though some folks knew of the "Emergency" quite some time ago.

J_R

So, it's gone from a effort by DB to ban Li to a conspiracy to sell Lipo's.

Ok, Chuck, I will buy in.

Well, maybe not. Your apparently not familiar with the personalities of those involved.

ChuckAuger

My Feedback: (12)

Yep, never met any of them except Don Lowe, briefly.

Funny how things unfold, when I was concerned about a ban I didn't know that FMA and Duralite seem to have an inside track. So it seems unlikely that they would be lobbying to get their own products banned.

Conspiracy?? Nah, more like a little insider info. I don't use Kokam LiPos or Duralite LiOns, so like I said, I'll just take whatever medicine they feed me. If this means pursuing other forms of flight other than electric, I'm OK with that.

I see you are a ProBro now, J_R!

MHester

My Feedback: (1)

Chuck, you're seeing moving bushes and black helicopters now.

You could very well be right about some of it, I mean this is America...and we KNOW that people don't take advantage of situations to make money, do they?

I'm just saying don't be fooled into thinking they are going to ban lithium batteries. They may require some safety precautions, but I don't see how that's a bad thing unless it gets ridiculous. And it could, I admit...but don't freak out just yet.

-Mike

ChuckAuger

My Feedback: (12)

LOL it's funny you should mention black helicopters (we had a surreal encounter on Lake Louisville a couple of years ago, but I think a passenger just needed to take a leak...)

Yeah Mike, J_R nailed it. An emergency safety warning wouldn't have bothered me. If it had been Don Lowe's name at the bottom, I wouldn't have cared. If Carl Maroney's name was at the bottom, I wouldn't have cared. But (cue bushes and Black Helis) there was never an emergency warning about tail touching, and BAM! It's in the Safety Code. Or was . So when I see the Dave chalking his cue, I feared the worst.

And it's all kind of silly. I just have had a BLAST flying my little 12oz foamy, the dangerous destroyer of worlds, and didn't want Dave Brown taking it away from me. Hey, it's just a toy plane, right?? So what if I can't fly it at an AMA field. Big deal. I'll survive, Lipos and all.

J_R

Chuck

Take a look at this. If you still believe after looking it over, that Fred Marks is in this for the money, I will fold my cards and not argue fruther.
http://www.modelaircraft.org/museum/bio/Marks.pdf
Try and keep in mind that some guys actually try to give back to the hobby. Hell, he might even make a buck doing it. Marks has been writing articles for a couple of years that I know of on batteries and safety.

Yeah, I joined the Pro-Bro Forum. First, I have been trying/doing 3 d since seeing it done at the TOC years ago. Also, it appeared to be a good time to do it. Someone PMed me and told me Mathewson had posted there and I wanted to see what he had to say. Besides, it's politically correct now, huh? ROFLMAO

ChuckAuger

My Feedback: (12)

Hey, there's nothing wrong with making a buck! As long as it's a level playing field and nobody has any inside edge, then it's all good. Whether or not this is the case (the timeline of Mr. Marks acquiring the balancing circuit rights vs when all this "Lipo Danger" came about is interesting...) has yet to be seen. I admit I don't know the man, don't know the particulars of the deal. Whether he is a forward looking visionary or just looking to add "saved Lipo use for all mankind" to his bio, looks like he has a quite an edge over the competition at the starting gate.

MHester

My Feedback: (1)

Yeah well, I just wouldn't get upset over it is all. There's only so stupid these guys can get before real people step in and snap them back to reality (see the revocation of safety rule #9). I am SO glad the wording got changed in that rule, even though I don't personally fly 3D. I don't believe in bans unless something has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's TOO dangerous. So far there's nothing in our hobby that has proven itself that dangerous, although I'm sure there have been things that got S* canned before many people even knew about it.

Some precautions are necessary with lipos, but as long as you know what they are, then you should ALWAYS be able to use them at your OWN risk. Do I think AMA should pay a claim if a house burns down NOW because someone didn't remove the pack from the plane? No, absolutely not. But the key is that people have to KNOW FIRST. In the case of Duralite Plus, upon it's initial release NOTHING was mentioned about removing l-ions from the aircraft, charging unsupervised, or even the remote possibility of fire. They were marketed as TOTALLY SAFE, and that's where I have my problem. Because a lawsuit was involved in the l-ion fire I mentioned, all of the packaging, brochures, and every page of the website was copied and is a matter of court record. Not ONE WORD about fires or danger, in fact it plainly stated PERFECTLY SAFE.....do you see the problem here? I utterly loathe frivolous lawsuits, but there's a point where a seller should be held accountable if he misleads the buyer INTENTIONALLY.

This is why I strongly support some form of mandatory bold print warnings, and further research into the safety aspect of these things. At that point we'd have no issue as far as I'm concerned. There's no need to declare the lithium batteries as unsafe and such, but people need to know how dangerous they can be if something goes wrong.

-Mike

J_R

Mark's has been sharing what he knows with anyone that will listen for a very long time. It's too bad Sandy is not holding the show in TX more often. FMA is always at the shows and talking to Mark's is always interesting.

I have a friend that is, in my opinion, a battery expert, who is in the medical field. His feeling is that the small number of users we have prevents making Li totally safe. It's basically a problem that could be solved by much larger sales. Other users (telephones, digital cams, etc.) all have thermistors built into the packs and a matched charger. The economies of scale make it cheap, unlike our very small piece of the market. Each charger has to be matched to a single pack type. Therein lies the problem. We change what we want every three days.

Since the best solution is not likely to happen any time soon, we (you, your friends, the AMA, Fred Marks, Red Schoefiled and on and on) need to make semi-experts out of everyone that uses Li.

Chuck, think of it as giving back to the hobby. Something I am sure you already do.