I was out flying my wonderful seafury today. Noticed some strange twitching action going on shortly after take off so I landed her. Took lid off and lipo was smoking. As soon as I touched it to take it out it puffed and swelled on me. I have never had a lipo fire and this was scary as ****. I am ok and nothing other than the battery was lost. SCARY!
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AMA 1102566 -
That was close! Glad it happened on the ground though and that nothing was damaged and you are ok. That is a scary failure though, and I would really like to know what caused it.. Normally a Lipo doesn't spontaneously combust. Maybe there was an internal short or something? Was there anything that could have caused a punctured cell? If it was an internal short, I would call Motion and tell them what happened, they should certainly be made aware of this! -
Holy Crap! Glad you're OK. Any ideas on why it happened?Comment
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I have no idea what the cause was. These where bought for my seafury so I did not need to add weight to the nose. My first seafury died a mysterious death too. I charge them at 5 amps on a skyrc touch screen charger I also got from motion. That is powered by a e fuel psu I got from them as well. I have maybe 25 flights on the pack. After I make sure it is good and dead I will throw a DMM. I want to soak it in salt water though to make sure it is safe but no idea what I will find after that. Right now it is sitting in middle of my driveway in a pile of playground sand. The IR was always really low I checked every other flight between 2-4ohm on all the cells with a 10 amp load applied.
I drove back the 2 miles to my house from where I fly holding it out window by the balance lead after it stopped smoking. Luckily I had just changed my spark plugs in the truck early today so I had my fire resistant gloves with me to hold it.
I am very shaken and I Feel like I drank 3 pots of coffee.
The wing started to rock like there was a heavy wind and the gyro was over reacting. So it was oscillating.
Likely from voltage spikes.AMA 1102566Comment
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Oh and Delta I had brought the F86 with but after the fire I just came home. lol did not want to maiden it with these nerves.AMA 1102566Comment
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That is certainly understandable!! Better to fly when you are confident for sure!Originally posted by AkumaZeto View PostComment
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I put a ticket into motion about it. No idea what will come of it. 75 bucks goes poof! literally.AMA 1102566Comment
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I take it these were admerial batteries? what ma etc? ive never had any problems with any of mine but I know that this can happen to anyone....I know a boat racer that over charges his huperion batteries and has had several actually lipo fires...you hear a pop and then a firey battery comes flying out of a trailer lol toward the lakeComment
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They where and I was asked to remove the video which is fine. The only reason I put it on youtube was because the ticket system can only handle like 50 meg of data. It was a admerial 5000 battery. 4s charged always at 5 amps. It was scary a I have never had a fire even in all my years of 4x4 sct racing. I had plenty of Tekin rx8's go up though lol
Motion came through though so no issues there as expected. I am left trying to figure out how to dispose of this though.AMA 1102566Comment
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As much as I like MRC, I have had poor service from the Admiral batteries bought from them. I also use the SKYRC charger and EFUEL power supply, purchased from MRC. I have had 2 4000mah 4S batteries fail ( but not catch fire) prematurely, as well as 2 5000mah 6S go bad as well. All were charged only at 1C, and stored at 3,8v when not used for a week or so. The 5000 6S were used in my FW ME262, and finished flight at temps around 120-130 degrees on my IR probe. In fairness, MRC did replace one of the 5000 6S fo me, but I have migrated to other batteries. Still buy everything else from MRC though, since their service can't be beat. If you have a BATTERIES PLUS store near you, they accept LIPOs for disposal in my area.Comment
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id call the batteries plus before you bring them by as the store near me doesent accept them any moreComment
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What I do with my lipos is discharge them to zero using automotive light socket and pigtail that I soldered a battery connector to. Once the lightbulb goes out the battery is completely discharged and totally inert. I then took and cut the leads off and dispose of them. The Menards and Harbor Frieght Tools takes them by me.Originally posted by AkumaZeto View Post
Roy B.
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Well um I am not going to be hooking anything up to something where 2 of the 4 cells lit on fire. I drove a nail through the remaining two and it is soaking in a pale of 35ppm of salt water from my reef tank.AMA 1102566Comment
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Well it looks like you solved your problem.Comment
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http://www.4-max.co.uk/pdf/dispose-of-LiPo.pdf 5. Prepare a plastic container (do not use metal) of cold water. And thoroughly mix in 1/2 cup of salt per gallon of water. Submerse the battery in the salt water. Leave it in the salty water solution for at least 2 weeks. 6. After 2 weeks remove the LiPo battery and wrap it in newspaper and place it in the household rubbish bin. They are landfill safe.Comment
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Yup that is basically what I did. I did a 10 gallon water change on my reef tank and dropped the battery in a 10 gallon pale with the old tank water.AMA 1102566Comment
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Man that is frightening! Glad it wasn't a worse outcome. The only Li-Po fire I have had was due to a horrific nose-first impact into the ground at high speed. Our club had a fire extinguisher so I was able to put out the fire before it consumed the entire field (of very, very dry grass it was August when this happened). I can still smell that smell. Eeesh.
As for Admirals, I can honestly say that out of 20 or 30 I have bought through our company, only 2 had cell issues (showing a low cell count in a cell) and the rest have been rock solid. In fact, I have Admirals in my 83" balsa/composite P-38 Lightning which I won't tell you how much it cost me to build because if my wife finds this post she will change the locks, LOL!
In other words, I trust Admirals in my most expensive plane without fear or incident. And if you knew me personally, you would know I would be the first to admit if a product isn't very good, regardless of whether we sell it or not.
My YouTube RC videos:
https://www.youtube.com/@toddbredaComment
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My recent experience with a 6 cell battery meltdown.
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