winterwheel Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 I have 12 wheels in my house right now, including four KS-16S wheels, so I really really really don't want to believe they can combust spontaneously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rainu Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 My friend lost his wife and three children in the smoke of a fire in his house while they slept. That would have saved their lives:https://www.amazon.de/Rauchmelder-Brandmelder/b?node=2077635031 The chance that this happes to me is small, but such a smoke detector is easy to mount and cheap. I advise everyone to install something like that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NylahTay Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 My local city public transportation banned any EUC or hoverboard due to possibly catching fire. I thought it was ridiculous grouping in my expensive EUC with a cheap hoverboard. It would never spontaneously catch fire... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan C Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 5 hours ago, TomOnWheels said: If one wheel can burn a office building, can all your wheels together burn California ? :-o Just kidding, sorry, it was an easy one... :-) hahahahah good one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 How reliable is the New York Post? I was under the impression it's just a sensationalist rag but I may be confusing something. Is there another source, maybe the fire department? Looks like this might be either extremely unlucky spontaneous ignition due to repeated mechanical damage to the batteries, or something's may not be adding up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houseofjob Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 16 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said: How reliable is the New York Post? Not very, your intuition is correct. 17 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said: Looks like this might be either extremely unlucky spontaneous ignition due to repeated mechanical damage to the batteries, or something's may not be adding up. My vote is for the latter, something doesn't sound right here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tenofnine Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 Honestly anything with such a large battery bank that will be crashed eventually (some people's cases often) is just a bad combination. Especially with how violent and erratic EUC crashes and step offs can appear. I'm surprised and grateful that these things are as robust and resilient as they are, would have never been one of the brave first adopters of this tech. I definitely waited long after they proved themselves to be safe to charge and crash without risk of fire before pulling the trigger. From watching their rigorous testing videos KingSong seems to go above and beyond with safety (battery safety being no exception). My gut reaction is that this is either a freak accident or something the rider did to the wheel that caused this (not Jason or KingSong) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xolition Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 He sounds like an asshole with a crazy amount of mileage and abuse on a 16. Don't let this get you down Jason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esper Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 4 hours ago, Xolition said: He sounds like an asshole with a crazy amount of mileage and abuse on a 16. Don't let this get you down Jason. You know, people are saying it's a lot of miles. But it would be about 35 miles a day, five days a week, for 9 months. That sounds like a normal commuter wheel used for a 17.5 mile trip to/from work/home. If he used the wheel on weekends for fun, you could lower it down to a ~25 mile ride, every day for 9 months. That doesn't sound like a lot to me. I bet more than a few of us put in more than the equivalent 175 miles a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houseofjob Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 @Esper I doubt he was the only one who did all that mileage in that time span. The KS16S is a favorite for the cheap second hand used market, so my bet is that multiple users had hands in those miles. Plus, winter riding in NYC is prohibitive, both to the battery life and riders' comfort, so you would have to really be diehard to keep that pace in the cold. And the 16S's speed + range is not conducive to constant daily long range riding FWIW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Backe Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 14 minutes ago, Esper said: You know, people are saying it's a lot of miles. But it would be about 35 miles a day, five days a week, for 9 months. That sounds like a normal commuter wheel used for a 17.5 mile trip to/from work/home. If he used the week on weekends for fun, you could lower it down to a ~25 mile ride, every day for 9 months. That doesn't sound like a lot to me. I bet more than a few of us put in more than the equivalent 175 miles a week. I don't think it's the miles that's the issue. Read Jason's description of the wheel condition; it appears to have gone through hell and back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr8ps Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 A lot of victim blaming going on here - lets not jump to conclusions. It sucks that it happened but lets be real here, it happened and will happen again. EUCs go through a lot throughout their service life. Wires get frayed when wheel gets taken apart, they bump into curbs, take tumbles down cliffs, etc. These aren't allowed on a plane for good reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterwheel Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 5 minutes ago, gr8ps said: A lot of victim blaming going on here - lets not jump to conclusions. It sucks that it happened but lets be real here, it happened and will happen again. EUCs go through a lot throughout their service life. Wires get frayed when wheel gets taken apart, they bump into curbs, take tumbles down cliffs, etc. These aren't allowed on a plane for good reason. So we should expect most wheels to explode after they've been used for a while? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ather Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 2 hours ago, Xolition said: He sounds like an asshole with a crazy amount of mileage and abuse on a 16. Don't let this get you down Jason. Crazy amount of mileage should not matter. I leave mine on charge at night and this is making me worried. I hope to hear from Jason about this again. It seems like the guy is not telling the whole story either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterwheel Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 I have several wheels that have been severely abused (winter riding, trail riding, lending them out for people to learn on), a couple of those have seen several thousand kms of use. So far none of them has exploded. I did give the batteries away (they found a second life powering a friend's MSX) when I retired my first ACM, but kept the rest of it for research purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NylahTay Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 So this leads me to ask, when you are finished with an EUC, and have determined that the wheel has finally gone too much to be safely ridden, how do you properly dispose of one? I mean the batteries are arguably the most dangerous part of the disposal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 11 minutes ago, NylahTay said: So this leads me to ask, when you are finished with an EUC, and have determined that the wheel has finally gone too much to be safely ridden, how do you properly dispose of one? I mean the batteries are arguably the most dangerous part of the disposal. You take the battery pack to recycling. At least here, you can return used batteries (primary and secondary, ie. non-rechargeable and rechargeable) to a store selling batteries (such as pretty much any super market, they usually have a box for batteries near the information counter and near the aisles carrying batteries). If that's not an option, the local municipal waste disposal place (I don't know what's it properly called in English, "the junkyard/landfill") should have a place that can take the batteries and dispose of them properly (ie. recycle them). As for the battery fire itself, my personal opinion is that likely the pack had been damaged over time, either with getting enough hits through crashes and such, or moisture getting in and finally causing a short circuit. Any lithium-cell can be a fire-hazard under "right" circumstances.. There are (isolated) cases of mobile phones (yes, including iPhones) and laptops catching fire on their own, even turned off. It seems typically the fires break out during charging, when a faulty charger (and poor or no protections on the BMS) cause the cell(s) to be overcharged. Short circuits leading to overheating and overheating through environmental factors are likely the next most common issues. This topic has been talked about a lot before (and there have been some reported battery fires before, although the only more "systematic" problem was the early Inmotion V10's and their bad water proofing, catching fire by themselves). I'm not a professional (there are people in the forums who build their own batteries), but I've gathered some more general info about battery safety here: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lefteris Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 Even phones (see note 7) catch fire, it was bound to happen. Now our machines may be on the spotlight, and that may lead to some changes, we hope not, but still.. people will notice it :'( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Vu Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 Are there any pictures of the KS-16S afterwards? It might be completely unrecognizable but sometimes in fires specific things can survive that might give further clues on the fires origin and spread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 7 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said: Can you (re)move the offtopic car discussion (to a separate thread) please? This should be about the 16S fire, it's going to be chaotic enough on its own. Cars etc. moved to here: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr8ps Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 11 hours ago, winterwheel said: So we should expect most wheels to explode after they've been used for a while? The risk is not zero. There will be manufacturing defects, accumulated damage, water ingress, etc. I'd take an educated guess and say the risk of it spontaneously combusting is a lot higher than that of Teslas (the car) that have an active BMS with cooling/heating and generally go through less abuse than an EUC. Teslas have caught fire sitting on lots. Some people seem to be brushing it off or blaming the guy for having too many miles on the wheel. It's just an EUC, no sense in getting emotionally defensive about it. I do know if my wheel caught fire unattended, I'd most likely lose my house. I believe the odds are low enough that my two wheels are still in the garage and will remain there. I won't tempt fate by leaving my wheels plugged in though. Just 90% charge from here on out with an occasional top-off for balancing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 At least here in the western countries the legal system is very consumer protective. If a battery pack can catch fire, it's the manufacturers fault (just not if the manufacturer can prove ?grave? misuse). Having "normal" accidents with the unicycle, driving in light rain, moist enviroments, leaning it at a wall while charging definitely does and cannot not count as misuse! That's the regular use case for the wheels sold! Crashes are normal use cases for one wheeled driving devices by definition - no responsibility of the consumer can be constructed if outside visual inspection and mechanical function are iconspicuous! Seems we "bend the legal system a bit to the other way", since we love our EUCs and want to go on using them. Even knowing their shortcomings safetywise... Unfortionately there are not too much details about thermal runaways, risks analysis for using packs with partly aged/degraded cells on batteryuniversity.com. They just mention inbetween the posibility of thermal runaway. While the highest risks should be while charging/discharging of aged/degraded cells i understand from (1) that it can also happen everytime and everywere by "internal" shorts of such bad/degraded cells even without mechanical defects. And there is no control possibility/supervision in the EUC and no way for us users, but open the battery pack and measure all cell voltages! Which in many cases will not helpfull to increase safety... Most used BMS just look for single cell overvoltage/undervoltage and cut off the charger / wheel (2)(3) - without any feedback to the user. In addition most enclosed chargers are ähmmm, how to say,... crap. If they are not already misadjusted from the beginning ?they can seriously misadjust over time? The internal voltage measurements from the wheels of the battery voltage can be way off, too. So the little chances one has to supervise the battery state render quite useless... It's not the customers duty and responibility to adjust/inspect the charger, open the wheel and/or the battery packs and control the voltages! And these are not seldom individual cases - "my battery does not charge to 100%" reports are here way too often! Here (4) again a new report of a wheel with a misadjusted charger, with internal voltage measurement beeing off by ~1.7V and one of the two battery packs just charging up to ~77-80V instead of 84V. Most presumably he got bad/not properly matched cells already from the beginning... ;( So, although EUC "quality" increased steadily over the years, imho with the battery packs the situation still is embarassing. Furtionately the risk is very low, but since the worst case is a fire hazard never charge the wheel unaddended, have proberly working smoke detectors(5) at the storage places, store it best outside the living area (but not in a shed getting hot in summertime and below freezing in wintertime) and replace with quality battery packs, once the "performance degrades". .... and we should push the manufacturers to use BMS, which can supervise the battery and cell states in a valid, secure and reliable manner! I am just somehow afraid that with such a change we are likely to see such faults like with ninebots happen and/or wheels cutting off while driving like in the first generation again... ;( Beside the inbetween Inmotion battery disaster, this is now the second case of fire reported here! I am happy and a bit surprised that there are not more incidents happening! There should be already masses of old/long used big battery packs circulating. Do most riders change wheels often enough? Or the li ion cell quality is as high that such a fire hazard risk is fortunately really low? (1) https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/safety_concerns_with_li_ion "Let’s examine the inner workings of the cell more closely. A mild short will only cause elevated self-discharge and the heat buildup is minimal because the discharging power is very low. If enough microscopic metallic particles converge on one spot, a sizable current begins to flow between the electrodes of the cell, and the spot heats up and weakens. As a small water leak in a faulty hydro dam can develop into a torrent and take a structure down, so too can heat buildup damage the insulation layer in a cell and cause an electrical short. The temperature can quickly reach 500C (932F), at which point the cell catches fire or it explodes. This thermal runaway that occurs is known as “venting with flame.” “Rapid disassembly” is the preferred term by the battery industry." (2) Does GW still have no output protection, so the pack will go on beeing used although a cell can have serious undervoltage? (3) Ninebot started now with better BMS looking and reporting all single cell voltages and looking at the overall state of each battery pack. Would be a great step in the right direction, if they did not overly drain the batteries doing so (by some design faults). Even worse by this drain many Ninebot wheels get delivered with overly discharged batteries which have to be "revived" - noone really knows if these cells did not already had serious undervoltage for too long and are by this dangerously degraded increasing risk for hazard.... (4) https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/13481-msx-still-not-happy-with-battery-☹️/?page=2 (5) great comment @Rainu - smoke detectors will get my third standart advice beside no unattended charging charging and tampering with the cells! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 52 minutes ago, Chriull said: Beside the inbetween Inmotion battery disaster, this is now the second case of fire reported here! I am happy and a bit surprised that there are not more incidents happening! There should be already masses of old/long used big battery packs circulating. Do most riders change wheels often enough? Or the li ion cell quality is as high that such a fire hazard risk is fortunately really low? On top of this and the V10's (This is a single incident, but apparently the problem was more common place with the early V10's, enough to warrant for the company to recall wheels / send water-proofing kit for the packs to the owners), there's at least one Ninebot One fire reported recently: Someone made a mistake in changing a tire and blew up their pack: Also, Marty made a video of someone's ACM that caught fire after a crash, somewhere there was a picture of some other Gotway burning up on the street, and @meepmeepmayer reported of a KS18A that burned partially. Back in 2015/2016, there was at least one newspaper article of a generic catching fire while charging, but likely there were more cases than just that one. Probably others I've already forgotten about, and there might be reports in the forums floating that I haven't even read... Plus there's a lot of riders outside these forums, so it's not like we even hear of every incident. Still, likely an actual fire or explosion is relatively rare, I'd hazard a guess that most of the times the batteries die a more silent death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryman Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 18 hours ago, Marty Backe said: I don't think it's the miles that's the issue. Read Jason's description of the wheel condition; it appears to have gone through hell and back. Or got ran over by a car or truck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rehab1 Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 Although probably an isolated incident this discussion has heightened my awareness to the risks of EUC fires. I store my wheels inside my garage and have smoke alarms throughout my home but they will not extinguish the fire. This automatic fire extinguisher may offer some precious time to contain the fire before it evolves into an out of control situation. https://haven-firesafety.com/product/haven/ I purchased this extinguisher as it currently on sale for $155. I now plan to build a wheel enclosure using fire rated gypsum board. https://www.homedepot.com/p/ToughRock-Fireguard-45-TE-1-2-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-Gypsum-Board-12268/206967518 This is by no means a fool proof method given the intense heat generated by burning LIPO batteries but it should provide me some time to further contain the fire it this ominous scenario ever occurs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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