Sad news from Christian Ludwig Modellbau...

[Son of a gun-ner]

Oh

If you see this Christian, I am so sorry to hear this happened to you

[Max-U52]

Nimh's are totally safe,

I'm not sure I can totally agree with you there, Wibbs. I've heard stories about Nihms and nicads catching Flame due to improper charging. While they are much safer than lipos, I don't believe that any battery is truly totally safe.

[Son of a gun-ner]

Nimh's are totally safe,

I'm not sure I can totally agree with you there, Wibbs. I've heard stories about Nihms and nicads catching Flame due to improper charging. While they are much safer than lipos, I don't believe that any battery is truly totally safe.

Hmmm, never heard anything about that, but then again, if someone is stupid enough to charge a six volt battery on a 36 volt charger, maybe then.
I've been using Nicads and Nihms since they were both introduced into power tools, and never had any problems with them and daily charging. And all with fast chargers, along with every other bloke on site, if they were a problem, we would never have been allowed to charge them on site.

[Tiger6]

I've had a couple of NiMH's cook off - not completely burst into flames admittedly, tho perhaps the spitting and hissing of whatever came boiling out of the casings made me turn the power off and toss them out the door before they got to the combustion stage...
And that was only with a 2 amp charge.

I've also known folks who have watched NiCd's go off while charging inside a model boat - pretty much all they could do was watch the boat burn.

[Max-U52]

I've had a couple of NiMH's cook off - not completely burst into flames admittedly, tho perhaps the spitting and hissing of whatever came boiling out of the casings made me turn the power off and toss them out the door before they got to the combustion stage...
And that was only with a 2 amp charge.

I've also known folks who have watched NiCd's go off while charging inside a model boat - pretty much all they could do was watch the boat burn.

What he said. And if you ask him, Erik at imex can tell you all kinds of horror stories about supposedly safe batteries. The point is, no matter what kind of battery you are using you absolutely must follow all the safety rules. If you don't, very bad things will happen.

[Son of a gun-ner]

Well, I'm new to RC and RC specific batteries, but I'm not new to rechargeable batteries, it really makes me wonder why people have had bad experiences with RC batteries, yet rechargeable batteries of all types are just as common or even more common in a lot of cases.
I can charge my 24volt 3amp hour batteries in 15 minutes, they are NiMH's, been doing it for years, although the charger has a cooling fan, it wouldn't stop anything major.
And like I said, never known a battery problem on site, and phone batteries must be one, if not the most prolific rechargeable battery, yet problems with them are very few and far between.
Saying that, I still wouldn't leave a phone or any other battery of any type on charge unattended or over night, because I don't trust them.
This makes me question the manufacture of our RC rechargeable batteries, why are they less safe than other types?

[Max-U52]

If you go to YouTube and search cell phone battery burning, you'll see all kinds of interesting videos.

[Son of a gun-ner]

If you go to YouTube and search cell phone battery burning, you'll see all kinds of interesting videos.

I did, most were those Samsung's they recalled. And the free charger that EE recalled. Although there were a few others, one was interesting, a bloke squashed his i phone in his plane seat and caused it to catch fire lol.

Don't get me wrong, I've given many a warning about batteries, but I worry about our hobby, and how much it's regulated, if it even is, because basically, whether we want to admit it or not, we basically have toys, and toys are meant to be strongly regulated.

At the moment, a company called Which that reviews products (like an independent consumer watchdog) has set up a petition to try to get the British government consumer product safety watchdog to stop dangerous stuff coming into the country, sadly electrical goods are coming in with British and European safety marks on them, but these have not been issued and have been copied/forged. And a lot don't meet the required standards.

[Pak36]

The golden rule...

NEVER EVER leave ANY batteries charging unsupervised. Especially high energy cells like LiPo.

They usually show signs of distress before going critical, and killing the power and dealing with them properly prevents a total disaster.

I won;t leave LiPos charging unattended, and I won't charge them in a model.

Also...never charge them in a sealed container. When a Lipo goes, it produces a high volume of gas. Contain this...and what you have is called a bomb. If you use something like a metal ammo container to put them in for charging..make sure the lid is not sealed or locked down. If something goes pop, you want the gasses to vent not blow the container apart.

Lead acid cells vent hydrogen when charging... LiPo's chemically burn, NiCd and NiMh can also explode. I have had batteries fail....and I had a 150A RC speed controller blow it's caps in a fire-ball.

Treat the stuff with respect...take precautions...and when an accident does happen, it's a minor inconvenience and not a major disaster putting peoples lives and safety at risk. Not to mention the heartbreak of losing hours of work that insurance payouts cannot hope to cover.

[Max-U52]

The golden rule...

NEVER EVER leave ANY batteries charging unsupervised. Especially high energy cells like LiPo.

They usually show signs of distress before going critical, and killing the power and dealing with them properly prevents a total disaster.

I won;t leave LiPos charging unattended, and I won't charge them in a model.

Also...never charge them in a sealed container. When a Lipo goes, it produces a high volume of gas. Contain this...and what you have is called a bomb. If you use something like a metal ammo container to put them in for charging..make sure the lid is not sealed or locked down. If something goes pop, you want the gasses to vent not blow the container apart.

Lead acid cells vent hydrogen when charging... LiPo's chemically burn, NiCd and NiMh can also explode. I have had batteries fail....and I had a 150A RC speed controller blow it's caps in a fire-ball.

Treat the stuff with respect...take precautions...and when an accident does happen, it's a minor inconvenience and not a major disaster putting peoples lives and safety at risk. Not to mention the heartbreak of losing hours of work that insurance payouts cannot hope to cover.

Truly words to live by. Turns out that Pak36 is a pretty sharp cookie after all.

I'll have to remember that post and when I'm asked by new guys in the future about batteries I'll just send them a copy!!

And that's good info about the sealed containers. I didn't know that, but it makes sense and I'll be sure to remember it.