A bloke at work bought a Chinese torch and batteries. charging them near at work yesterday one went bang and set on fire. It filled the room full of smoke, set fire to his nearby rucksack and melted part of the charger.
After seeing this he was going to chuck the torch, charger and batteries but decided to blow the other batteries up first. So he loaded the spare batteries moved anything flammable, turned on and retreat to safety.
These too went bang after about 2 minutes with a shower of sparks and set on fire.
There is no way after seeing it first hand that i will buy Chinese batteries. Not even to charge in a tin in the shed.
I was getting tempted by a cheap light from eBay too.

It worries me too, I tend to only charge them when I can see them but they’re a bit close if one does go pop. I use European lights and I guess they’re safer, but no proof…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5f0VCoFuFM[/video]

I’ve got 2x magicshines, no problems with either. Are we talking really cheep and nasty, or just cheep?

I’ve got some Chinese LiPo cells that are just fine. What’s your point caller?

I reckon he works for Lupine/ USE/ Hope.

Looking at the ones in the video I’d say they are being charged a bit too quickly too. I’ve got a very similar charger to that and I can see they are at around 5 amps when they blow. Bit high that.

I’ve got cheap Chinese batteries and never had any problem!

explanation on the youtube page PP;

Overload of an siemens handy liion battery. It took 10min with 1A, 5min with 2A and 4:30 with 5A to finish the experiment.

not really a dig at Lion batteries from me but there’s an awful lot of energy stored in them and I do worry more about the cheap chargers than the cheap batteries tbh.

My Exposure charger and batteries say made in china on them.

Surely its more to do with the charger than ‘cheap’ batteries. All batteries will pop if you put in too much current/voltage. But yes, I try not to charge my lights when I’m not around to keep an eye on them.

plenty of sony laptops went up in flames a few years ago due to faulty battery packs, IIRC, and you can be sure they weren’t cheap for their spec. stuff goes wrong. happily most electronic kit goes ‘bang’ early on in life, or lasts a long time, one or the other.

No point to my post really. Just chatting.
Up until i saw this happen i was getting tempted to try one of the £17.99 ones from eBay and charge them in a tin in the shed. after seeing the violence they exploded with i have reconsidered.
Obviously there are different quality batteries and I have no idea what these ones were but just because the ones you say are OK now doesn’t mean that wont change. He was lucky to be on site in a concrete room with not much to burn. He normally charges them on a wooden desk in his office (he didn’t know they were prone to spontaneous combustion before this).
I have come to the conclusion that I would rather spend £200 on a second light than have my shed set on fire with all my bikes/tools and stuff in.

Does sound more like charger than battery tbh.

There’s quite a lot of variation in the charger quality out there… My torches get charged with an old nokia wallwart, but the original one that came with the ($3) charger rattled. Not very encouraging.

But the charger that came with my £70 MJ-872 seems very nice, UK-plugged, etc. No complaints there.

Funny thing is we all seem happy to pay hundreds of pounds for various devices equipped with batteries and chargers from the same factories but never give safety a thought.

My missus bought a laptop charger and battery off ebay, it scares me how poor quality it is!

The male connector doesnt sit properly in the femal battery port.

The transformer/regulartor bit weigh’s almost nothing (compared to most laptops where it’s an absolute brick).

Compared to that I’ve no issues with magicshine bits, they look as well made as anything I’ve seen from anywhere else.

any batteries can go bang,i used to race rc cars and blew plenty of top notch racing cells lipo’s are pretty unstable things .

Yup, took my exposure apart the other week as it had let in another load of water (went back for water damaged ECB a year or so ago). The battery was remarkably similar to that of my £24 Chinese Cree jobbies… Same output from charger too 8.4V 1000mA. Will be ordering one of those fireproof charging bags pronto!

explanation on the youtube page PP;

can only see the vid on my phone (Youtube banned at work) and didn’t see that bit, sorry 🙂
So I was right. 5 amps was too high! 😉

,i used to race rc cars and blew plenty of top notch racing cells lipo’s are pretty unstable things .

I still do!
Nobody is blowing cells up any more.

You can get a decent charger that will charge just about anything (Pb, NiMh, LiPo, LiFe, the lot, all balanced charged if necessary too) at any voltage or ampage, and be able to store cell info, charge for storage, and discharge if necessary from someone like Hobbyking for under £20 these days.
The displays on them and the bleeps they make are IDENTICAL to £60 plus charges with a brand name on them, and they are quite ofen in the same (metal bodied) case too…..
When I need a new MTB light battery, I’ll just get a LiPo from Hobbyking: They in tough plasic cases, they have good quality wire. Perfect. 🙂

I bought a cheap replacement battery for my laptop and initially it seemed great.

However after 6 months they’d lost most of their capacity. The previous Dell one lasted 3-4 years.

Its not just chargers, the batteries vary in quality too.

there is a lot to be said for a quality charger. can make a difference to the run time, service life and combustibility of cells.
sure iv’e got an old charger in the shed somewhere may mod it to fit my light batteries seeing as the RC cars are one now .

If anyone wants a good charger:

I’ve got one of these
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__7028__Turnigy_Accucel_6_50W_6A_Balancer_Charger_w_accessories.html
It’ll charge a 4000mah 7.4v pack in under an hour, properly monitored.

There’s several universal charge leads for it. I got this one:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__6697__Charging_harness.html

The red connector with the gold terminals is a Deans connector which can be bought for much cheapness on eBay and soldered onto your lights and battery

Pick an appropriate cell from here
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__86__85__LiPo_LiFe_NiMH_Battery-Li_Poly_All_brands_.html

And that’s what I’ll be doing when I need new light batteries. Top quality LiPo cells, I’ve already got the charger, 10 mins soldering, job done. 🙂

I bought a cheap replacement battery for my laptop and initially it seemed great.

However after 6 months they’d lost most of their capacity.

The way you treat LiPo batteries has a big effect on their longevity apparently. Advice is keep them cool and charge them frequently rather than running them flat.

Dyno lights are ace 🙂

A lady recently brought a laptop into us for ‘repair’ that had exploded on her…

I took some pics..

😯

She said sparks were shooting out like from a firework across the room.

the charger which came with my magicshine CT 808 two years ago heated up extremly and smelled like burning plastic while charging..
batteries went hot also….

since I bought a good charger it is fine now..

All valid opinions but surely the problem is knowing what is a “good” charger, with price apparently being no guide. And we all know the CE markings etc mean nothing.

a charger which does not get red hot and smelly while charging is …so far !… a “good” one for me….
looks like the recommendation from PeterPoddy, but different brand..

I use a short extension put charger and batteries in one of mrs zips le crueset put lid on and away I go.
No problems as yet but should be safe enough.

Bought one of these to put my Chinese batteries in to charge:

And one of these to wear whilst handling them:

You just can’t be too careful.