LilGiantsConstrCo

[calum_scania]

Originally Posted by Lil Giants

Yep!... the piece of shyt that it was, some of it might be of some use now.

This junk 740 was singularly the costliest mistake I made in this hobby!

Great idea for using up a useless model, I guess it was just the drive train you had troubles with before you're using the hydraulic rams?

I'm interested to see how well this works with your B50?

[Lil Giants]

My good luck with lipos just ran out 30minutes ago!



I was down in the basement loading the B50 with the JD850, heard a noise like something fell off the kitchen table... kept digging. Heard it again within a minute... went upstairs to see what's up? Small fire in the living room!

The glass jar with metal lid probably what I heard pop, contained most of the lipo explosion, but the glass jar still blew apart.

Grabbed an old coat & smothered the fire, immediately open front & back door, set up 24" fan at back door & cleared the smoke within 10 mins.

Cleaning up the mess, carpet is trashed... cut it out with my jack knife & pitched it out in the barrel.

That was a few month old higher end brand name lipo... how many times I have set the charger & LEFT the house?! Never again!

Charger goes to the shop, out in the middle of the cement floor, inside a metal box.

I was lucky! DAYUM I was lucky!!!

[Lil Giants]

[Lil Giants]

Febreze is wonderful product, smells pretty good now throughout the house.

[tracksntreadslou]

Holy crap joe ..thats frigging close ..Lipos are going out first thing ..this was on a charge ? and did your charger pack it in as well?

[RCLogger]

Holly LIPO Joe !
That's a wake up call that hits home. I am on my way to the garage to take my lipos out side.
Good thing you were home.
Greg

[steamer]

Joe, you were very lucky you heard it and went up to check. Looks like it had a good hold of the cardboard box too!!!
Rob

[Cooper]

What kind of charger were you using? Only very few times have I ever left anything while charging. Like you I have always been in at least ear shot. That's very rare, was battery ever dropped? Damaged anyhow? You were lucky joe !!

[JAMMER]

Joe sorry to hear about your problem with the lipo battery did you have it in a lipo bag or just in the glass jar? If you had it in a lipo bag it moight have not done so much damage. I my self always charge lipo in a bag and stay with the lipo batteries when they are chargeing so I can disconect them right away. At Cabin Fever last week end while chargeing my lipo I had to tell people to stay back and give me some room because one of these batteries could explode especially kids. I guess we all need to live and learn and be more vigilant and not let our guard down when it comes to these batteries. Ed

[Lil Giants]

Yes, it was on charge. No, not in a lipo bag. I have never dropped a lipo. That 3s looked like brand new, no puffiness to it at all.

It was this charger, though mine doesn't have any brand name stamped on it anywhere.
http://www.hobbypartz.com/thac6smbachw.html

Upon much thought, I'm 99% sure it was operator error, so don't go thinking lipos are unpredictable and unsafe...

1) I know I pulled a 4s lipo off the charger
2) I know I put a 3s in its place to charge
3) I can't remember if I change settings from 4s to 3s... if not?, why didn't the charger alarm sound off for wrong voltage limit?
a) the charger is defective?
b) a full charged 3s might have been placed on wrong side of charger making me think it needed charging, and being full charged would put the voltage within the limits of low voltage on 4s. I don't remember looking at the starting voltage when starting to charge.

I got too complacent charging/using lipos & didn't follow my personal checklist to a "T"!!!

Putting this conveyer on my airdrill has been way more intensive this past week than I thought it be... tomorrow it should be working... I got it home today, hooked up to Big Red & discovered I made a minor mistake in the hydraulic plumbing, just gotta change a couple of fittings. .. another trip to town...

And I got a call mid last week to do some custom wire rolling, 25miles from home. I was told it was less than 2miles of 4 wire, but it turned out to be just about 3miles of 4 wire, about 11actual miles of wire... it had to be done asap - changing landowners, renter didn't want to loose his fence material investment and it had to be done a certain way which made it more work & more time to do. Offloaded Ranger 9am Sunday morning - reloaded 9pm that night... now I was really tired & sore last night & usually an hour or so operating rc's is a great way to wind down & do something pleasureable...helps me sleep better...

A moments inattention just about cost me my house.

I'm still gonna charge lipos out in the shop from now on, in a metal - fire proof box! It takes about 70 minutes for 3s & a 100 minutes for 4s; I'm not gonna sit there & watch each one charge. But I will definitely never forget to follow my checklist at start of charge ever again to be certain everything is exactly as it should be!

[andyathome]

Lipos ......
I picked up an old wood burner fire place. The inclosed type with a glass door.
needed the high temp glass for my 3d printer bed. (May be an over kill in the glass department)
But the fire place is not that big and it sits nicely on the bench.
What better place to burn up a lipo.

Thats where I will be charging from now on, just in case.

[Lil Giants]

I was hunting through the local junkyard this morning & found these old filing cabinets... I think I can make a charging station out of this so each lipo is in its own contained fire proof box & the charger will be too.



But in the meantime, I was getting low on charged lipos, so I set this up in the middle of the shop. I got this HiTec 4x charger from JDH429 last yr.

[TRUCKMAKER]

I'm in the market for a new charger and was looking at that one. What do you think of it Joe?

[Cooper]

It's just me but I would never use a lipo charger that doesn't support balancing lead connections. That is just asking for a fire.

[avel]

I feel better now. I have all my lipos boxed up with my loader and tamiya semi + trailer.
Do you balance charge once every four charges, or something like that?
If you need longer/more balance leads, you can get them on Ebay.

[Lil Giants]

This charger has balancing connections too. And I balance charge a brand new lipo the 1st 10x, then after that it's occasionally. All 4s lipos are Venom & 3s lipos are Team Enrichpower, whether balanced charge or straight charge, the ending capacity after it's charged has always been the same. And occasionally I'll balance charge to check for any anomalies.

But you're right Cooper... I checked last night after all 4 lipos (two 3s & two 4s) were charged, put a full charge 3s on 4s setting, set it to charge & it began charging a 3s on 4s setting without any alarms... that must have been what I had done Monday night.

I thought about it later, I should try plugging in balance circuit for a charged 3s lipo, then try 4s setting to see if alarms sound off.

It's a great charger Kent. St Louis 2012, Nate brought one to the meet & there was another one there too; those two X4 chargers went hard all weekend charging everyone's batteries without skipping a beat!

Thanx for the tip Avel, the balance wires that come with this charger are like 3" long each... it would be a mini mega project to lengthen them all... hopefully whoever sells them ships internationally.

When I set up my charging cabinet system, each box will be marked 1, 2, 3 & 4 to correspond with charger display and charge port #4 will be 4s only, as it's only the JD850 uses 4s. Nevertheless, I'll be watching carefully every time I start a charge & triple checking all settings are correct for what lipo is being charged.

[Cooper]

You are right joe not every time needs to run full balance. But,,, most chargers do the balancing at the last 10-5%. I always plug the balance leads in. That is how the charger knows if one cell is high or low. Think of it like if a couple cells are low and one high then the charger is trying to reach a certain voltage but not knowing one cell is high. That's the problem, it may over charge a cell. Without being more elaborate that it in a nutshell. And that is about the only time a battery will catch fire, if over charged.

I'm at work, taking a break and it's snowing!!! WTF????

[chris deacon]

i always balance charge all my lipos.. I dont see why you would not?

[JDH429]

Wow...Glad to hear you caught the fire before it got out of control, Scary stuff.

[Cooper]

And if you are using life batteries for your tx/Rx they can be left at full charge state in definately. It will not hurt them like it would a lipo. They are great replacements as their voltage is a little lower like 4AA for radios. And if you over charge them they will just spit out a black powder not catch fire. A little while back I saw a company that had military contracts for lithium based batteries. (Lipo and the sort) they had made a pack that could be shot, or have a nail driven into them and they did not catch fire or even die. They still made useable power. They would not however be able to be charged, kind of oblivious. . Sometime in the future that technology will trickle down to us. Look on eBay if you do want to get longer balance leads, I hate that every charger company makes long charge cables but always manages to give you a short as possible balance cable!! And for any of you that use military ammo boxes for storing your batteries, good idea to drill a 1/2" hole in it (can put tape over it) that will let pressure out if lid is sealed, they can build up a lot of pressure when sealed up. Pressure = explosion. The hole lets it vent, if for some rare reason one decided to cook off.