The explosive nature of Lipo batteries

[freelanceshots]

With the concern of lipo batteries catching fire I did a little experiment with one of my brand new dji batteries. After getting it in the mail I made the mistake of clipping off the XT60 connector with a pair of wire cutters. Did both leads at once not thinking about the positive and negative grounding out. Ruined the battery in a few milliseconds. Anyways in my frustration I went out to the back of my house and smashed it into the concrete as hard as I could many times over until it was so deformed, smashed and ripped open. Then let it sit in the sun for the next day and then tried to light it on fire the next night. No such luck getting it to catch fire. About the only way to get one to explode is to charge it with incorrect charger not approved for lipo charging or I guess overcharge it for a prolonged period which with most of the current charges would be very hard to do unless you really tried to bypass the chargers safety features. I've been using lipo batteries for close to 4 years and I have pretty much no fear of them catching fire or exploding. I guess the danger hype isn't a bad thing since there are some real moronic people out there but the fire risk is way over rated.

 

[Driffill]

Personally, I've never seen a lipo or li-io battery catch fire . . .

. . That said, we use alot of li-io batteries at my work, one did ignite itself while sitting inside on an office desk! I hear discharging them too far causes the most damage, and the chemicals reacting in water is another dangerous part about lithium batteries (don't ask me why, it's just what I'm told).

I like your thinking tho, just because your battery isn't good for flying anymore, its still handy for a testing battery. Do me/us all a favour, and simulate it sitting in side a "hot car". Similar situation to if you were to leave a battery sitting in the glove box on a stinking hot day ( I'm Australian, hot days are 30+ degrees Celsius, I'm not sure what the F conversion is, I figure "stinking hot" is universal guide)

 

[Gizmo3000]

Does it really ruin a Lipo that fast if you short it out??

I did similar when I was soldering XT60s to a relatively inexpensive 20c I got a few weekends ago, still seems to work.. ok. (tho liek it's sibling that I got at the same time, the performance isn't nearly as good as my OEM battery. crappy batteries I think.

 

[freelanceshots]

Well after my stupid mistake it would not charge on the charger telling me there was a break in the connection. I took all the wrapping off the battery to see if there was anything I could repair and it all appeared as normal. Internal cell damage I suppose. In split second time frame the battery got pretty warm. Now that I reflect back maybe I should have thrown it in a cup of water while it was ripped open. I was looking to see some fireworks. Yes, I agree now that you mention it, discharging it below 3 volts is where you could start to see trouble.

 

[jumanoc]

My "fire catch" was different.

I use a multibattery charge board (6 LipOs at the same time).
Normally I use only 4 connectors because my Power Supply is only 10A.
Some days ago i decided to use the 2 extra connectors on parallel board (never used after 200+ charges)
When I connected 4th LipO, it went into smoke and fire while melting wires. I was surprised because not power on circuits yet, so used my fire extintor and found what happended: The parallel board was deffective soldering (2 balance plug pins had soldering join +/- :shock: )
That caused a short in that only battery .... the other 3 batteries are Ok, the charger and power suply are Ok, but parallel board is fried left side. Finally I isolated carefully each naked melted wired with tape and get it into used battery container in nearly mall.
Lesson learned: Test all connectors in a new parallel board with a tester, before connect anything into it !