LI-po battery safety

[decostanza]

I like the bench idea John...thanks for sharing that.

[ARY]

Hence the reason I bought a NiMH can light, even though they're getting hard to find. It seems even SS is abandoning nickel batteries and going only Lithium in their scooters. Scares the bejeebers out of me because I'm lazy and like to plug in my batts and walk away.

NiMh can cause fire as well. Be careful with those. I believe mentioned "motel fire" case had NiMh batts. Unfortunately I have had fire in my house twice during the last 2 yrs, once w/NiMh and second w/Lithium. The second one was 10 times more "entertaining". I have smoke detectors now in gear room, in every fiberglass container where I store them and in a back of my truck too. $9 each - they saved my rear end in the last incident. I charge them in a locked enamel coated pot (again w/smoke detector). Li-Ion so far are still the best by cost-power-dimensions criteria IMHO.

[gschaut]

Jill Heinerth posted this video a while back. Her design for an battery charging box/blast shield.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsqFm4AdpCQ

[MichaelAngelo]

I've heard of those, but haven't seen them yet. They are the cats ass for bush planes up in AK, work when it's really cold, are safe and light, from what I hear, but I haven't seen them, I gues they aren't common yet?

I tried putting up my cats butt but, he screamed like hell; at first. There were, however, no fires during the recharging process.

[FW]

Might be whistling in the dark but I built this all metal battery charging bench for our cave diver rental after reading about some of the battery fires.
John Ploegert

Nice!

[aainslie]

NiMh can cause fire as well. Be careful with those. I believe mentioned "motel fire" case had NiMh batts. Unfortunately I have had fire in my house twice during the last 2 yrs, once w/NiMh and second w/Lithium. The second one was 10 times more "entertaining". I have smoke detectors now in gear room, in every fiberglass container where I store them and in a back of my truck too. $9 each - they saved my rear end in the last incident. I charge them in a locked enamel coated pot (again w/smoke detector). Li-Ion so far are still the best by cost-power-dimensions criteria IMHO.

Nope, the hotel batteries were lithium.

[kwinter]

Andrew - I'm assuming your replacement scooter also has lithium batts. I'm interested to know what you do differently now after the incident. Any lessons to learn?

[aainslie]

They get charged outdoors!

[MORGAN]

Any lessons to learn?

Sleep in pajamas to avoid having to bail out of the room bare-arsed and then climb back through the window into a burning hotel room to find something to wear?

[kwinter]

Sleep in pajamas to avoid having to bail out of the room bare-arsed and then climb back through the window into a burning hotel room to find something to wear?

I'm sure he's wondering when the statute of limitations runs out on that one.