Battery Exploded in my Kitchen whilst we were sleeping…

Odd that, all mine passed, phone, battery chargers everything.

I took the liberty of having several chargers tested by the chap doing our office a few years back & both the ebay specials were binned there and then.

This is a great link that explains exactly why eBay chargers are a bad idea (and why genuine chargers are more expensive):

http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pricey.html

The joys of the global marketplace.

Once upon a time you bought stuff from the shop down the road, and if the supplier to that shop wanted to import stuff to sell then they had to make sure it met safety standards.

Nowadays you can skip all that “red tape” and buy untested and dangerously unsafe electronics more or less directly from the sweatshop that assembled it.

I can only see that becoming a bigger problem in the future.

Its not just batteries. The single biggest cause of household fires is TV’s being on standby!!according to my local fire fighters. Scary.

Nowadays you can skip all that “red tape” and buy untested and dangerously unsafe electronics more or less directly from the sweatshop that assembled it.

Thinking about it, I’m surprised the government hasn’t already clamped down on this. The general online marketplace appears to be totally unregulated. I suppose the old fashioned version of this was the Del boy market trader!

I hate stories like this – they add to my OCD about such things.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/08/experience-my-microwave-nearly-killed-me

Better buy another fire extinguisher on the way home !

Fire fighter who lived across from me for a while said he had attended heaps of fires caused by plug-in air freshener thingies.

The single biggest cause of household fires is TV’s being on standby!!according to my local fire fighters.

You mean in the category of electrical items in your lounge?
Cooking appliances are the no. 1 cause of accidental household fires and ciggies are no. 1 for fires leading to fatalities.

hels – Member

Better buy another fire extinguisher on the way home !

One of my brother’s fire extinguishers exploded in the van last year. Just thought it worth mentioning 😉

So as long as I don’t smoke, cook, watch TV or charge batteries I will be fine ?

Unfair on the cooking appliances and fags. The root cause is probably alcohol, falling asleep when drunk with the chip pan on while cooking toast under the grill and smoking a fag.

I’ll stay away from the back of your brother’s van Northwind, probably a rule to live by in any circumstance.

LiPo fires are not uncommon in the RC car racing world. Most tracks insist that you charge them in a bag and will remove you from site if you don’t!
The downside of bags or tins is that if they do catch fire then you don’t know about it until the fire is well established.

re charging in a biscuit tin – I checked with my weapons expert next-door neighbour and he confirmed that it would make the explosion worse as you’ve confined it and then fed it material for shrapnel. Best thing is lots of space to allow the energy of the explosion to dissipate.

So an empty garage or similar, should anyone happen to have one without it being full of crap…

breadcrumb – Member
I always charge mine on an inflammable surface. Think I’ll go belt and braces with a biscuit tin too.

That’s brave.. a tin full of petrol to add some excitement? 😉

I had one of those cheap cree XML lights, the charger exploded on first use. Small bang followed by smoke. The battery didn’t appear to be affected.

OK.

What would people out there recommend as a good way of charging these batteries (irrespective of provenance)?

As I see it (and I don’t really understand electricity)!

Charge at a time that is least risk – i.e. not whilst asleep.

Put batteries in something heat/flame proof.

Use an extension cable as this is likely to have a lower threshold fuse.

Is this a good approach whilst not going to the level of using some kind of Saturn V engine compartment?

re charging in a biscuit tin – I checked with my weapons expert next-door neighbour and he confirmed that it would make the explosion worse as you’ve confined it and then fed it material for shrapnel. Best thing is lots of space to allow the energy of the explosion to dissipate.

Pipe bomb anyone? Yeah the biscuit tin idea is not a good one. Explosions love a confined space.

This thread is a good reminder – just put 2 batteries on to charge.

Charge at a time that is least risk – i.e. not whilst asleep.

most definitely, the last thing you want is a fire in the house while you are sleeping

Put batteries in something heat/flame proof.

no, as above it will just create a much larger explosion

Use an extension cable as this is likely to have a lower threshold fuse.

might help a bit if the charger itself has a meltdown, but a battery could still explode

Pipe bomb anyone? Yeah the biscuit tin idea is not a good one. Explosions love a confined space.

Depends on the tin?

The reaction is contained within the battery, as an electrical fire the only outputs are gas and heat and a small ammount of solids, and the inputs aren’t flamamble. I’m guessing there’s not much combustible material being ejected? So all that would happen is the lid of the tin would get blown off.

I’m more concerned about the lack of ventilation and the potential for some flamable vapour to accumulate in the tin under more normal circumstances, which could then explode.

the inputs aren’t flamamble

Mmmm… melted plastics burn pretty well though.

Bloody Eurpoean Union beauracracy

Thank God for CE marking and proper market regulation / testing / certification requirements.

Thank God for CE marking and proper market regulation / testing / certification requirements. where pretty much anyone can stick a mark on and call it good.

FTFY.

CE mark is good IF it is legitimate AND independently verified.

Mmmm… melted plastics burn pretty well though.

Yes, but the energy in those compared to the battery itself?

The only videos i’ve seen of LiPo battey fires the flame’s more like a welding torch than anything else as the flame is the gas being vented from inside the cell at very high temperatures. I’d put money on it cutting a hole straight through a biscuit tin.

Yay! for the LiPo bag.

Anyone got a link to Smudge’s decent chargers for these cheapo units were all rocking then?

That looked a lot less contained than the ones I’d seen, it didn’t seem to vent in the same way. Either way the smouldering remenants at the end are the plastic burning, the bulk of the energy for the fire came from the batteries internals reacting exothermicly.

honestly, what were people expecting when paying £20 for 5 million lumens. Support local companies like exposure and as a bonus your house won’t burn down.

So all that would happen is the lid of the tin would get blown off.

Yes I agree, almost added that if it was a typical press on lid. Biscuit tin is probably useless then?

g5604 – Member

Support local companies like exposure and as a bonus your house won’t burn down.

I know a person whose exposure light exploded. By all means assume local stuff is completely safe but if he had, his house might have burned down… Electrical stuff is fundamentally all caged demons waiting for a chance to **** you up

Support local companies like exposure and as a bonus your house won’t burn down.

Or support local companies (run by fellow STWers) selling good quality Gloworm lights from New Zealand that won’t burn your house down*

*probably.

re charging in a biscuit tin – I checked with my weapons expert next-door neighbour and he confirmed that it would make the explosion worse as you’ve confined it and then fed it material for shrapnel. Best thing is lots of space to allow the energy of the explosion to dissipate.

So an empty garage or similar, should anyone happen to have one without it being full of crap…

I’m pretty sure it would have to be under pressure to have the frag grenade type effect you’re describing. The biscuit tin wouldn’t be well enough sealed and the explosion wouldn’t be big enough. I’d say the biscuit tin would at least slow the spread of any possible fire.

A similar thing to the op happened to a friend of mine, her chinese lights nearly burned down her workplace.

I wonder if/when someone is killed as a result of these chinese lights will people maybe start to see them as less of a bargain 🙄

Yes I agree, almost added that if it was a typical press on lid. Biscuit tin is probably useless then?

It’d probably be better than nothing. I admit I’ve not really given it much thought before, and just ordered some lipo safe bags and will probably charge them in those, in an old ammunition box, I don’t think it’s sealed well enough to explode, it’s just a very sturdy metal box with a tough lid. Could always drill loads of holes in it if I was worried.

The biscuit tin wouldn’t explode like a grenade – grenades take a large amount of pressure before exploding at which point the parts which are designed to break into small pieces do lots of damage. How much pressure do you think a biscuit tin will take before the top pops off? What you’re trying to do is dissipate the explosion which even the biscuit tin would do up to the point the top pops off. (Obviously this assumes a non-screw top type lid and nothing too difficult to fit…)

Well, ironicaly I just ordered my LiPo safe bags from China, so I await my cheap batteries exploding and the bags being useless.

Still think I’ll drill the amo box and fit an extension lead, and have the charger and battery in the box, and do it outside from now on.

I probably wont stop using cheap batteries, just be sensible how I charge them.

Are there any instances of the batteries exploding in use? I imagine a far more dangerous incident would be one going off in a back jersey pocket!

Put batteries in something heat/flame proof.

Sorry – should have been more specific – I did realise about the confinement issue.

What I mean is a heavy, oven-proof pan like a le Creuset metal/enamel pan or lid, effectively a heat-proof surface with a bit of protection at the sides.

I charge mine like this just to be on the safe side

It would be interesting to know of the batterys had an protection circuit on them? did the packs have a little circuit board soldered onto them?

was the charger the same as used previously?

from what i understand the modes of failure are that the insulation in the battery can be damaged (dropped etc) causing a short or the batterys get an over voltage from the charger. All the pics in the links above show the battery being force over volted. i would have thought that it would have had to be a double failure of both the charger and the circuit on the battery to cause this?