Fire Safety with Lithium and Lithium Ion batteries

[hydrogenman15]

^^ Exactly. It's a case of better to be safe, then sorry.

Never leave your batteries unattended while your charging, and if something does go wrong, just don't go throwing a bunch of water on it.

Heres a video I found about showing what happens if you try to put out a metal fire using water:
YouTube - How not to put out a magnesium fire

Heres one with CO2:YouTube - Reaction of Magnesium with Carbon Dioxide

It's worth noting that both of these videos were magnesium. Lithium will burn even more vigorously in air.

--Hydro15

 

[calvinng]

Battery University Table of Contents

I found this guide and learn alot on Li-ion batt

 

[budabob07]

Nice info about the topic. I would recommend A123 (LiFePO4) batteries. You can charge them at 10A, and discharge them at over 100A without explosions/problems. They also have a high overcharge tolerance (compared to conventional Li-Ion). Someone has started a car with only 4 of them in series (no extras in parallel)

 

[Markus Unread]

100A discharge. That's a safety issue in itself.

 

[budabob07]

Indeed. A short would end very badly

 

[goninanbl00d]

Nice info about the topic. I would recommend A123 (LiFePO4) batteries. You can charge them at 10A, and discharge them at over 100A without explosions/problems. They also have a high overcharge tolerance (compared to conventional Li-Ion). Someone has started a car with only 4 of them in series (no extras in parallel)

http://laserpointerforums.com/f67/lithium-iron-phosphate-safer-alternative-58655.html

 

[Thorsteenster]

For the RC world, you can get LiPo charge sacks, you put the battery in it while charging. LiPo's are notorious for this as well. I used to use LiPo's, but have since gone to LiFe cells, they are much safer, although the variety in cell size probably isn't there as with LiIon.

 

[NetGod3Com]

Lithium Iron Phosphate is extremely safe compared to Lithium Polymer and Lithium Ion. The LiFePO4 cells will take abuse and not catastrophically fail like it's relatives.

 

[piferal]

Lithium Iron Phosphate is extremely safe compared to Lithium Polymer and Lithium Ion. The LiFePO4 cells will take abuse and not catastrophically fail like it's relatives.

To add some more information of the LiFePO4 cells:

About 2,000 charge/discharge cycles.

Under the stress of rapid charging or heavy use, a lithium ion battery may heat very quickly, Lithium iron batteries stay much cooler under the same stress.

The battery is able to charge rapidly (in 30 minutes, or less).

It will keep an 80% charge retention after those 2,000 charge-discharge cycles

Wide operating temperature.


The materials are non-toxic, non irritant, and safe to manage at the end of the battery life, (no lead or cadmium at all).

Etc.

One explanation , this information may vary from one battery to another and over time, it is a fairly recent technology.

 

[ProCactus]

Excellent post and very comprehensive, Like was mention with metals, Titanium is the same, The best thing is salt and lots of it, It can always be vacumed.



This is only my second post here, But . .

The AC sinewave has 220/240V peaks on either side. Most battery chargers use a simple diode rectifier and filtering capacitor combination, so it doesn't matter which polarity you feed it with. You'll find this a lot with those AC plugs that look like the figure 8, some people get really confused about plugging it in the right way.

I know this is a few years old for a thread, And my post might be of little significance.

Australia now uses a 220Volt standard, That Im not quite sure about when(Maybe 2002). Thats 220vRMS AC, Thats a peek voltage of 220 x 1.414 = 311.08, Thats 622Vpp(Peek to peek).

Cheers

 

[ChaosLord]

This is only my second post, but i agree that all li-ion batteries should be treated properly. I have used electronic cigarettes for two years now, and lots of incidents have occured with them( the vast majority involving "standard" LiCo unprotected cells). I put a link to a nice guide on the different chemistries and thier relative safety.

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