ICE-MAN

Here is a compliation of other stories.. **LINK**

Posted by Olly P on 21/06/2013 13:14:35: Finally - I don't think it is a tough question, where in my regime is the root cause of a lipo going into run away? It's a matter of what each individual feels comfortable with. In your regime I admit you should not have a problem, and I don't see any root cuase, but I would be only 99.99 % sure of that. (I should say I would only be 99.99% sure that you won't have a battery catch on fire) Edited By ICE-MAN on 21/06/2013 13:35:03

Posted by Olly P on 21/06/2013 12:55:10: Posted by Olly P on 21/06/2013 12:45:53: ICE Man - what would cause the Li-Po to go into thermal run away?   To force a battery to go into thermal runawy you just need to NOT adhere to the very strict way these batteries need to be charged (of course properly handled by a good charger, a mix between constant voltage and constant current amongs other things). For example I burned up a 3s Lipo by supplying a constant 12v to it with a 5A current limit. You can also trigger it simply by puncturing one of the cells, as you can see here Edited By ICE-MAN on 21/06/2013 13:13:42 Edited By ICE-MAN on 21/06/2013 13:16:08

Posted by Olly P on 21/06/2013 12:45:53: ICE Man - what would cause the Li-Po to go into thermal run away? I manage my Lipos carefully, charge on a piece of heat proof kitchen tile, and observe during charging process. I then transport them inside a double layered carry system, with the rest of my field equipment so nothing will pierce the sides, and they have female connectors so cannot short on each other or the case. The only remaining cause of thermal run away would be if I left the case in direct sunlight or a hot area. Given I transport the lipo containing case generally in the passenger footwell of the car, to prevent the case damageing the aircraft in the back, if it is warm I'll have the blowers on my feet, and if anything did hapen I pull over open the passenger door and throw the case out! I am still struggling to see where such a device has an application, and how a properly cared for Lipo will enter thermal run-away. This is a very tough question, you can see stories on Internet where fires start wtih no aparant cause, ie not even while charging. I'm sure in tens of thousands of cases most people will not have a problem, but the issue is the uncertainly, ie the fact that no one can really answer your question about how the fire starts. Hence it's just a matter of playing it safe and mitigating the risk. Just look at the recent Dreamliner issue with thieir batteries. With all the funding they must have to find out definitively what went wrong. I'm sure they've now made other changes, but they also have the batteries in a steel box. Also regarding the charges, is it really the case that these can never go wrong? A dodgy charger and you're in trouble too.

Ceramic is a very good material. Ceramic melting point : around 1,000 to 1,600 C Stainless Steel mleting point: starts to melt at around 1,400 C Aluminium melting point: 660 C LiPo fires can get up above 1000 C A tin with ceramic tiles sounds a good way to go provided there's a way for the gases to escape, ie some holes drilled into it otherwise you have a bomb. This is the problem, you need holes to vent the pressure but you also don't want fire to escape - or at least try to limit that. Not much you can do about the obnoxious gases. (Note that LiPo's generate their own combustion gases, so there wouldn't be so much point in putting them in an oxygen free enviornment).

Burning Lipo's can get to very high temperatures. I wouldn't be too happy with aluminium.

I take your point, but I've tried to make a LiPo battery burn by shorting it out, without success. I'm not saying it can't happen but when I tried, the solder inside the battery melted and disconnected the wires.

Yes exactly. Laser cut holes and two sliders to lock the lid on, and limit external fire. (Stainless steel, not aluminium) Edited By ICE-MAN on 21/06/2013 10:23:30

Just a heads up on a new battery bunker very shortly to become available: BL-LiPoBN

Video stabilization vid:

Some nice video in this BL-3GRC independent review

Great video! Shows very well the effectiveness of the gyro. I would just like to pick up on a comment above about the Gyro positioning. It does need to be close to the CofG. (The closer the better but doesn't need to be directly on it). The aircraft control surfaces act to move the plane about the CofG, so they need to know exactly what to do based on correct information.

You can take a look at the BL-3GRC gyro, it has a special take off mode. Ie you can set the gyro to have very high gain on rudder at take off for a limited time.. RC Model Flyer Magazine has a test report about this gyro that specifically talks about this take off mode feature Edited By ICE-MAN on 25/04/2013 05:17:41

Gyro saves Mini Icon after Spy Hawk collision..     Edited By ICE-MAN on 23/04/2013 04:32:58

We will soon be releasing version 3.0 of the firmware. Main changes are:   - More than doubling internal processing speed (from 5 to 2ms), thus allowing the all important 400Hz mode for multi-copters (in fact we can go up to 500Hz, which is the maximum of a lot of the good ESC's units out there) - Tri-copter and Bi-copter support - Gyro function invert with POTs mode (no PC necessary) - Multi-servo aircraft, 2nd servo range adjust on all 3 axes - Differential Aileron (to reduce induced yaw during turns due to down elevator drag) - Pass through mode: We'll allow each input (6 in all) to go directly out to the outputs with only the addition of the gyro action to each output. We'll also allow each output (individually) to be able to reverse the gyro action.   I would also like to share with you some recent multi-copter test videos. A professional UAV pilot did the flying for us: Quad: **LINK** Hex: **LINK** The pilot was pleased with the performance. Also please check out a full review of the BL-3GRC for fixed wing aircraft in model flyer magazine   Edited By ICE-MAN on 05/04/2013 05:48:54