battery fires

[Brian Hammond]

Does anyone have any details of a battery fire in South Ashford as it was in the local rag but probably out of all proportion!

[ken anderson.]

someone got  'charged' i was told........

 

 sorry brian.................ken anderson   ne..1.

[Chris Bott - Moderator]

You mean This news Brian?

[Myron Beaumont]

Bet it wasn't proper fuel !  My smileys have come back

[JayCee]

Blimey better take my Lipo's out of my sock draw

JC

[Brian Hammond]

Yes Chris but I wonder if it was LIPOS or something else?

[Tim Mackey]

There is also no indication of what caused the problem either - perhaps the models were being recharged at the time, or maybe they had been left "ON" and the cells dropped too low, maybe there was damage to the cells from a crash etc etc etc.....

[Brian Hammond]

It would seem the modeler does not look at these pages!

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

He's probably busy filling in insurance forms and avoiding his missus! He'll be doing the washing up for the next twenty years for that.

 

BEB

[Bryce Allcorn - BritFlight.co.uk]

There is nothing to say it had anything to do with a battery, just because it is said to the press it is believed it was caused by a battery and could just be hearsay by the wife - could easily have been an iron left on ( my Dad used to have to share his hobby room with the ironing board!) and Kent Fire don't mention the cause at all so don't get too hot and bothered by it.

 

 

[Brian Hammond]

you are probably right, the press allways blow things up and out of proportion also they hate us modelers!

[Bryce Allcorn - BritFlight.co.uk]

Lol!  I've been to enough fires to not be surprised at the story written in the press a few days later and how little it resembles the job we were at!

 

Been to a garage fire that was reported in the paper to have been a fire in a 1st floor bedroom, a car fire (renault megan) that was reported as a Ford Focus with a photo of the burnt out car in the article and many more.

[Andy RMTimes]

Hi, I'm the editor of the romney marsh website above. It's a local blog website covering local news and events, not one of the "local rags". I'm also a modeler although haven't been active for while sadly.

 

As Bryce said Kent Fire don't always provide all the details but where possible I always try to confirm the information and will happily correct stories if new details subsequently emerge (one of the benefits of being online instead of print). If any of you know the details behind the story I'd be happy to update it.

 

Likewise, if any of you have any events in SE Kent area you want publicising drop me a line - very happy to help.

 

Edited By Andy RMTimes on 01/12/2010 11:57:52

[Brian Hammond]

Sorry Andy,but there was a piece in the daily mail last week about a 42 year old t/v with a remote control which had never gone wrong and as I was a t/v engineer since the early days I new it was  incorrect so it clouded my judgement!

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

I think the reach of this forum is absolutely amazing! I also think its proof that we modellers get everywhere!

 

Well done for posting the info Andy. And a warm welcome to the forum - hope to hear more from you.

 

Oh yeah - and stop skiving and get back to some serious modelling - you know it makes sense

 

BEB

[Stephen Grigg]

This year a club member lost his house  and everything when he left a lipo on over night

[Bryce Allcorn - BritFlight.co.uk]

I'd just like to clarify that the papers I mention cover the area of Hampshire I live/work in and I'm not suggesting the stories I mention have anything to do with Kent. 

 

Also sometime we are very difficult to get a press release from!

[Peter Beeney]

   Stephen,
                With great respect, if the loss that your fellow modeller suffered was due to a lipo fire it’s very difficult to see how it was simply due to being left on charge. A lipo charger only ever has one voltage output and that is 4.2 volts per cell; as soon as the battery voltage reachers this level then the charger stops charging. Kirchhoff’s Voltage Rule, ok!  It’s a constant voltage configuration. I’d have thought there must have been a fault somewhere.
   In the lipo beginning, there were all sorts of rumours to this effect so I left a 3 cell lipo permanently on charge, for a month, in the back of my car, on two separate occasions, just to prove a point. Strictly speaking, it was rather more simply just connected to the charger, if you connect two exactly equal voltages together, pos to pos and neg to neg, however much you try to jiggle it, no current will flow between the two sources. So it wasn’t actually being charged, the voltage was just being held at 12.6 volts.

   Chargers can and do go faulty, I’ve related the story of my friend who nearly had such a fire, this was related to a flight-box battery charger. This was due to a combination of perhaps inferior components and to some extent design, but mostly due to poor construction of the charger. As I’ve said before, I did report this to the manufacturer, but without any response. With some simple precautions this could have been prevented; in the right circumstances, even a rx battery can have enough poke to make the battery wiring get hot enough to catch the insulation alight. I’ve seen the result. This though, was due to the usual operator error, and for this to happen someone would have to be present anyway.
   Oddly enough I did come across a news item later, about a fire where there was some considerable fire damage done to a building, and the Fire Brigade had reported that it was due to a faulty battery charger, used for some decorative lights.
   It did occur to me then that I ought to send them my report, to compare notes, so to speak, and find out if, coincidentally, they were the same unit. In the event I didn’t, it required an effort to do so, and I thought there was a very great chance they wouldn’t reply anyway. I would very much imagine all this stuff has to remain confidential.

   As it so happens, it’s possible that our present system of batteries and charging systems is a little bit prone to operator error; and so, with the best will in the world, operator error might still well be the main cause of these incidents.

   PB           

                                      

[Brian Hammond]

I remember a friend put a lipo on charge and a while later saw smoke coming from his shed,it would appear that the default charging on his charger was NI/CAD and he had not set it to lipo!

[kc]

Surely  we need the man from the Romney MarshTimes to follow up this story for the benefit of all - modellers and general public.  Lipos and battery chargers etc might be used in all sorts of home gadgets.  We need to know what went wrong if the info is available.   Get the real facts then publish and be damned!

[Peter Beeney]

   Brian,
          Yes, exactly so, this is precisely what I had in mind.

   There must be many millions at least, if not more, of lithium polymer batteries in use throughout the world, in the main these are charged/discharged in a totally automatic way, requiring no input from the operator. It’s not very often that problems with these make the news, if they were in the habit of going on fire I’m sure that would soon be common knowledge indeed! As soon as we get to the aeromodellers using lipos, where the operating parameters can be changed, we seem to get a steady stream of reported incidents, from the smoking shed to the complete house fire, which must be totally devastating! And I also suspect that the vast majority of these smaller happenings never get reported anywhere anyway!

   Perhaps we need to take a closer look the system, and consider how we might change it for the better; as long as we continue to operate as we do, I’m convinced the smoking lithium’s will also continue.

   PB        

                         

[Erfolg]

I remember that 20 years back that the problem was exploding Nicads. I have read of many instances of vented Lead acid batteries exploding whilst charging, when a naked light has been brought into the close proximity. Many battery types can cause fires.

 

It is by no means certain that a Lipo was involved in the reported fire. It is this thread that has made the leap to the battery type.

 

At present the actual cause and events is unknown to us.

 

 

[Steve W-O]

Posted by Peter Beeney on 02/12/2010 11:30:42:

   Brian,
          Yes, exactly so, this is precisely what I had in mind.

   There must be many millions at least, if not more, of lithium polymer batteries in use throughout the world, in the main these are charged/discharged in a totally automatic way, requiring no input from the operator. It’s not very often that problems with these make the news, if they were in the habit of going on fire I’m sure that would soon be common knowledge indeed! As soon as we get to the aeromodellers using lipos, where the operating parameters can be changed, we seem to get a steady stream of reported incidents, from the smoking shed to the complete house fire, which must be totally devastating! And I also suspect that the vast majority of these smaller happenings never get reported anywhere anyway!

   Perhaps we need to take a closer look the system, and consider how we might change it for the better; as long as we continue to operate as we do, I’m convinced the smoking lithium’s will also continue.

   PB        

                         

 

 

 

 

It was only a few years back that Nokia phones were "bursting into flame"

They blamed a bad batch of Chinese batteries, but maybe it was quite lucky that it didn't happen to any in the hold of an aircraft?

 

I see that the postal services will allow model batteries airmail now, as long as they are boxed and in bubble wrap, to prevent damage from "normal" handling.

 

 

I think if it was considered a major risk, insurance companies would be quick to include exclusions.

 

 

 

Although the media always say they are reporting events, and not looking for dramatics, this is not supported by the almost total lack of follow up on stories. Follow ups are "boring" and don't sell or increase circulation. 

 

 

It's like telling litttle kids in the bathroom "the jobs not done until the paper work is done"

 

 

Take that Cessna that crash at Birmingham a week ago, try and find any follow up!!!

[Peter Beeney]

   Indeed, I also remember the exploding nicads. In fact, I was so intrigued by one particularly horrendous conversation I overheard that I decided to experiment. I did manage to blow some, but it actually turned out to be more of a damp squib than a penny cannon and it took considerably more effort than you would normally be able to apply.

   Another very efficient means of exploding wet lead-acids are the sparks caused by disconnecting any load leads whilst the load is still switched on. So the car starter jump-leads are a strong contender here, a battery under heavy discharge can generate hydrogen gas in sufficient enough quantities to cause an explosion. I think many vehicle starter batteries have been blown apart. I once saw a remarkable film about static electricity, that has caused quite a few more. Welding close to gassing batteries…… And of course we mustn’t forget the fires caused by battery wiring that is not sufficiently protected. They must be a guaranteed source of ignition.

   It does seem as though lipos are now synchronous with battery fires. Any related conversation must ultimately veer in this direction, apart from polymers, batteries themselves don’t generally go on fire quite so easily. It’s the materials they’re made from, predominately the outer container. The lithium polymer battery case does burn fairly well on it’s own without very much help from the internal bits and pieces. I guess the thread leap to polymer is inevitable.

   Re. the cause and events, I think that’s exactly right, we have very little information indeed, so we shouldn’t speculate; and unless we get a first hand repot from the modeller concerned the chances of getting any more gen on this are slim indeed!

   I managed to follow the Nokia ‘fiery battery’ story quite closely at the time. There were eight recorded incidents, (from memory) and they were all phones that were actually in use at the time, they were definitely not on charge. In what must have subsequently been a pretty stringent investigation they all eventually proved to be counterfeit batteries. The Vice Chairman of Nokia had some serious stuff to say at the time. It appeared these were good enough to get through the Consumer Inspection Group, probably in Belgium and he thought they had to revise the procedure to ensure there was no chance of this happening again.

   Later there was a similar happening to some laptops, at a laptop show in Japan. There was very little info on this, that I could find anyway, but the was a lot of suspicion that this was also down to counterfeit batteries.

   I think this is probably a massive problem, it appears that there are good ol’ genuine fakes of just about anything in today’s world.

   PB

                                                                              

[Andy RMTimes]

KC: I'll make some enquiries and see what I can find out. If I find out anything I'll pass on the details.