So sorry to see that Dantley. That would have been super hard to take. Glad u bounced back mate.
Levi

Holy crap! Is that 7 turbines I see that are burnt up? I bet the insurance company is not liking that, and neither are you! Wow, that sucks.

Nope Woj, in fact, they were pretty much all the cheapest cells/LiPos I could find!

Woketman, my guess is the charger was the culprit. I did double check the battery charge settings before I started the charge.

Levi, you can guess what happened my MIG-29. [&o]

Airplanes, my insurance company has been very good to me. They replaced everything.

Sorry this happened, but very glad to hear about the insurance!

Good deal for the insurance, but sorry for your terrible loss. []

Not so. UPS lost an aircraft to a Lithium fire with laptops in cargo. Just because the batteries are in a 'storage' state of charge doesn't make them safer. They're volatile in any state of charge.

Dave,

Seeing the pictures really puts things into perspective on how destructive these little jewels can be. My new Lightning has A123s. I just bought a charger from ED. I'm probably moving to A123s myself.

Andy

One thing I have noticed is that sometimes I catch a wrong cell voltage on one of my older packs after plugging in the balance plug before the charge. It reads on the low side of reality which is bad. Good thing is my Ultima seems to catch it. It wont charge if it thinks the pack is so unbalanced. I plug it in again, check the voltage to make sure it reads similar to the other cells.

I guess if I really do have a pack that is so far unbalanced, this charger will not accept it making it unusable. Maybe thats a good thing and time for the pack to be retired.

I beleive that most of the LiPo fires I have read about was when they were not being balanced charged. Has anyone have a battery fire when they are balance charging? I always balance charge and I'd like to know if others have had fires when balance charging.

Thanks

Read the first post of this thread

I bought 2 ammo cans this week! Feel like taking care of these Lipo's is worse than a two year old!
Scott

Ok, so that is one. Any more?

So true, most 2 year olds don't combust spontaneously! LOL

They have regular meltdowns though :-)

I store and charge all my Lipos in Liposafe bags ... However I like the idea of storing them in an amo box ... where can you get them from in uk?

Scott.

Found them on *bay ... £24 quid well spent I feel ... will give me peace of mind.

Lipo > > Lipo bag > > Ammo Box . . .

Scott.

Plenty on offer on ebay - just search for ammo boxes

marcs

Buy a small Weber-type grill. It also keeps things inside off the surface (carpet, grass, etc.) And you can cook some ribs when not storing/charging batteries!

I have been flying lipos since 2006 on the other site in the battery fourm you can find several sticky threads (lipo fires are real & complete guide to lipo batteries and failure reports part II )
The guys over there have done an awesome job of keeping track of pack issues and fires. You can read story after story of lipo fires.....
The one thing you will have a very hard time finding is a story of a lipo lighting on fire when it's just sitting there undamaged in a storage charge.... in fact you won't find one report. There is always something that may be an issue.
I'm not saying you should feel they are completely safe... there is danger with all fuel we use to power our planes.

Always balance charge
buy high quality chargers and lipos (almost all lipos chargers now have a built in balancer)
always charge outdoors in a safe area
discard all damaged and puffed packs or if you have one that won't stay in balance anymore get rid of them (don't be cheap..lol)
Keep packs in storage charge in vented ammo cans and lipo sacks

The beauty with todays fast chargers like the FMA power lab 8 is I can charge at 40 amps..... so I can show up to the field and start my chargers and have 4 -6s 5000 mah packs charged in 25 minutes. So by the time my planes are setup the packs are done.... I hardly even charge at home anymore. Maybe just a few to start my day and the rest at the field where its safer

LMAO!
my ammo boxes were $17, but my buddy has found them as low as $8
Scott

The DAY after Dantley told me about this, sad event, I bought one BIG fire safe and one little fire safe.

The big one to store all my lipo's and the small one for charging. Don't take LiPo's lightly. ALWAYS charge in a fire proof spot.

you can get Ammo boxes in any army surplus type store