Lipo Fire on You Tube.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEtn5qKIC6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juiNt7KeT9I

This is scary. Anyone have any idea what may have caused this problem?

simple answer..... stupidity
If you charge at the rated specs with a lipo approved charger and use the lipo pack within its ratings there is no reason you should EVER have a problem. Let alone let it piratically burn your house down. You should always charge with supervision. If any of this had been followed he would still have everything but maybe a battery and charger. He could of put the fire out way before it spread that bad. Sorry for the rant just find these lipo tragedies to be absolute stupidity.

I gotta get a couple freakn ammo boxes....TODAY.

Thanks for the reply.
 

I agree. I would guess ALL of the major lipo rules were broken. I don't like the anti-lipo crap. I just got scared after seeing these videos. Do batteries need stored in fire safe containers, like ammo cans? I have seen people use fire boxes for paperwork and such. But those boxes were designed to save contents from outside fires, would they protect the outside from fire inside?

ok, looks to me those guys jsut threw it in a fire.

Alot of these "lipos will blow up the world" videos basically charge them way too high, heat em up, puncture em, dead short em.

If you follow the rules of lipo, you wont have a problem...you ever hear of a cell phone catching fire from normal use? NOPE

there was a nationwide recall of over 6 million sony produced batteries and the cell phones and laptops they were in. Of course manufacturing tolerances have changed and this is now extremely unlikely to happen, I have heard of lots of cell phones exploding from normal use.

Lipos don't just spontaneously ignite. They must be mistreated in some way. For example, charging a battery which has been overdischarged is quite dangerous, and any battery in that situation must be monitored closely whenever being charged or discharged.

I wonder if we can assume it was a hard case Lipo?

The problem I have is there is absolutely no info on what really happened. For all we know a screwdriver fell off a shelf and skewered a lipo.

yep. My sentiments exactly. He probably caused the issue with lead acid charger or something similar.

20.00$ lipo sack would have saved him alot of money.

or a $10 ammo box

I use both a lipo sack & a ammo can . I charge in the lipo sack . Then after my run i put them in the ammo can for about 20 or 30 minutes .

Or how about charging outdoors for $0?

Big issue I see with this video is that there are so many things over a wide area that are damaged but not much that is a complete molten blob of plastic. Looked like a couple of the bodys of the cars on the shelf where melted yet the shelf didn't look burnt. The DX3R controller that one corner of it was melted but the rubbermaid tote it was in seamed fine? Inside the house didn't look bad except the one room with a hole into the attic. Was the Lipo in the attic? Didn't show a burnt up ceiling in the garage. If the Lipo was in the attic it could have possibly gotten extremely hot. Lots of question and no answers in the videos. Hope everyone was safe though. One obvious problem though, VENOM Lipos!

I charge in a LipoSack, but store lipos in a metal cabinet drawer away from any flammable materials. That way, if they do go up, at least the collateral damage is contained.

But honestly, any battery (even NiMHs) can explode if not treated right. NiMHs have been known to explode, and when they do, the fact that they are contained in a metal sheath can cause harmful shrapnel. But these are worst-cases.

Even if lipos were as unstable as these movies portray, we would still use them. After all, we all want light-weight cells that have as much energy density/capacity as possible in as small a formfactor as possible. Can't have it all! If people are that concerned, it's time to either get A123 cells (and deal with the weight/size), or switch over to RadioShack/Tyco toys...

I must say I'm curious as to exactly what happened. Also there was a lot of money invested in this guy's RC collection, why didn't he invest in something to keep his LiPos in?

He was charging the bat with no sack and he was in the room when it happened so this could have been contained with ease......

as i said above - stupidity is the most reliable answer to this

In his YouTube comment, he gives us a bit of insight:

"i was in the other room ,no fire proof bag ,and chaging it regular way .had at low rate of charge as i always do. never shown any problems before over the last year of dealing with lipo"

I'd like to know what "the regular way" is and why he'd be charging it at a low rate. If he's charging them at less than 1C is it possible he's not using a lipo charger and taking his chances with an inappropriate charger by using a low rate to be "safe"?

I am really curious to find out more.

One other possibility could be a short of some kind. There's no way to tell if one of the leads have come loose or become frayed on the inside (unless pack is opened up). This happened to me with a zippy pack. The lead apparently shorted when I tried connecting the pack. Luckily no damage except for pack (no flames either). These packs do get bumped around quite a bit in an off-road vehicle.

Interesting- both videos have been removed by the user. Guess he got tired of being called a retard...

He couldn't take the heat evidently. I still wonder if he was balance charging.


Of course I did tell him that the battery didn't ruin his life. He did.

Yeah, lipos don't spontaneously combust. Every time it is due to a user error.

hah the guy probably got sick of hearing that he is the one who screwed up and not the battery so he took both videos down