foaming blue Lipo?

I had a Flight Power 4s Lipo go bad literally in my hands. I got this adapter from Cheap Battery Packs so I coud use a Hyperion Balance to balance my Flight Power packs. I'm not really sure what went wrong, but when I pluged it in it started smoking. It happed so quick it burned my fingers where I was holding it on the wire. First thing I could think of was to grab the balancer and run for the sliding glass door that leads to outside. As soon as I did that the lipo disconnected and dropped on the carpet with the wire still on fire. I was able to grab it and throw it the rest of the way outside. The tiny fire died out pretty quickly after that.

The pack was shinged on the inside. The tap wires were half there and half gone. After I got the smoke out of the house I thew it in some salt water. That was Yesterday. Today there is a bunch of foamy looking blue stuff in the water.

What I would like to know is how can I get rid of this water now? Is it safe just to dig a small hole and dump it in the back yard? Or, pour it down the drain? Or, something else? Anybody know?

[tallyram]

i think lipos are nontoxic. i'm sure someone else will chime in.

[Serum]

Yeah, i think Daf explained on how to dismantle lipo's.

Discharging them is a good start.
I would contact cheap batterypacks, apparently something was wrong.

[Mr.lst]

yea tell them they owe you a li-po while you are at it!
oh yea check your charger to make sure it is ok

[skellyo]

If you lit it up by plugging in the balancer, the balancing adapter was built wrong and it shorted or reversed polarity of at least one of the cells. This is why, to me, it's worth it to buy that brand of balancer to keep this kind of thing from happening, especially with cells as expensive as Flightpowers. If I were you, I'd see what CBP is willing to do since their adapter is what killed your pack.

[BrianG]

Wow, that is unfortunate! I am VERY curious about how this adaptor was wired to cause such a catastrophic event!

[glassdoctor]

Flightpower changed their taps at some point a while back. I wonder if CBP sold you an old version... or maybe just the wrong adater entirely. Seems that it shorted out at least one of the cells.

There may be undamaged cells in the pack so I would not toss it without trying to check it out.

[BrianG]

Not sure if it's worth it now that the whole pack was tossed in salt water...

[glassdoctor]

Oh.... I missed that part... hmmm...

If any cells appear undamaged and they are still +3 volts, they are probably fine.

btw, the saltwater thing is bunk. The only thing it is supposed to do is discharge the battery dead.... and there are better ways to do that than a salt bath.

A simple resistor is better... or a dead short imo :)

Yes, it's in salt water now. The pack looked melted and singed on the inside and I was kind of freaked out and pissed that it burnt my fingers (not badly though). Otherwise I would have discharged it another way.

I actually bought 2 adtapters. The burnt one looks like it was wired the same as the other. So it is kind of puzzling. Maybe there was some exposed wire or something.