What Fire Extinguisher to get?

[AtlasP]

If someone wanted to get a fire extinguisher that would be suitable for dealing with a potential EUC/li-ion fire, what extinguisher should they get? (I know there are different types of extinguishers which are suited for different types of fires, heat ranges, etc, but know nothing of the specifics of either extinguishers or li-ion fires.)

Bonus points if you keep size in check (I am an apartment dweller, it's not like I have a giant garage) and links to specific makes/models/retailers are appreciated. :-)

Edited February 21, 2020 by AtlasP

[DanH]

How about storing ECU in a small fire proof or steel cabinet? 

[gon2fast]

Standard A/B/C extinguishers can be used for lithium-ion battery fires, but I agree that a fire proof cabinet would be a good solution as well. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by gon2fast
updated correct inforamtion

[MexicanBatman]

A fire extinguisher won’t do shit if your euc goes up

 

best it will do is help stop it spreading and putting out other items nearby that catch fire

[DjPanJan]

Powder fire extinguisher. Keep in mind that a normal spray only 15 sec.

[AtlasP]

2 hours ago, Trevor Phillips said:

A fire extinguisher won’t do shit if your euc goes up

best it will do is help stop it spreading and putting out other items nearby that catch fire

Your two statements seem to contradict one another. Stopping a fire from spreading and putting out any other items nearby that catch fire--i.e preventing your house from burning down--would seem to be highly desirable results and the opposite of "not doing shit".

Obviously no-one expects a fire extinguisher to save the EUC or even to be able to instantly stop the fire, but one should be able to contain it/prevent it from spreading and burning the rest of the house down.

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by AtlasP

[rainystateguy]

Well, I just looked that up and the experts on the Internet say that a standard A-B-C or a B-C dry powder fire extinguisher should work just fine.  I would add check to make sure you have a working smoke detector.    

[AtlasP]

On 2/20/2020 at 8:05 PM, rainystateguy said:

Well, I just looked that up and the experts on the Internet say that a standard A-B-C or a B-C dry powder fire extinguisher should work just fine.  I would add check to make sure you have a working smoke detector.    

That article is referring to cell phones and other small electronics. The battery in a PEV like an EUC is *way* bigger and more dangerous.

I looked it up and apparently an average iPhone battery the last several generations is like 10 or 11 Wh. So a 1600 Wh EUC is like 160 iPhone batteries strapped together.

So basically that article and most similar articles are not the best source. We need info on PEV-class batteries.

Edited November 24, 2020 by AtlasP

[Seba]

31 minutes ago, AtlasP said:

So basically that article and most similar articles are worthless. We need info on PEV-class batteries.

This article (https://www.aidic.it/cet/18/67/122.pdf) states that water and foam are the most effective distinguishing agents in case of large LiIon battery fire.

[Tazarinho]

2 hours ago, AtlasP said:

That article is referring to cell phones and other small electronics. The battery in a PEV like an EUC is *way* bigger and more dangerous.

I looked it up and apparently an average iPhone battery the last several generations is like 10 or 11 Wh. So a 1600 Wh EUC is like 160 iPhone batteries strapped together.

So basically that article and most similar articles are worthless. We need info on PEV-class batteries.

Burning electric vehicles are best put out by submerging them into water. It's what they do with electric cars. Two weeks ago an electrical scooter went up in a sports facility in my home town and the fire department also submerged it into a barrel of water.

So maybe we should just store our EUC('s) on a hard plastic sheet on top of a barrel of water. That way when they combust, they melt the plastic and fall into the water.

 

 

[Tazarinho]

@AtlasP

But jokes aside, what I got was a 6 liter powder extinguisher and I keep the EUC in a place with a smoke detector.
I also live in an apartment, with a nice wooden floor and several thousands of books, so I'd hate to see anything go up in flames.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Tazarinho
as @DJPanJan pointed out, I put the wrong link/type in!

[DjPanJan]

6 hours ago, Tazarinho said:

@AtlasP

But jokes aside, what I got was a 6 liter foam extinguisher and I keep the EUC in a place with a smoke detector.
I also live in an apartment, with a nice wooden floor and several thousands of books, so I'd hate to see anything go up in flames.

No no no foam please no you can die. Foam = waterbased you get electric shock. Omg no you need use isolant system like powder based. Just no im responsible for fire protection in our company. Im realatively expert with 10+ years experience about fire protection . And here is bonus information if you use you water based type on electric device fire , and lucky not get shock water/foam on high temperature instantly make very toxic steam. This can choke you in seconds or lose control you body. Powder based is best no risk electric shock is bilions small flock ,you can easy clean by vacucleaner later. If you need more arguments in Czech republic you must have powder based in car its law. Why? Because electric on car! 

Edited February 21, 2020 by DjPanJan
little fix my fail english

[Tazarinho]

19 minutes ago, DjPanJan said:

No no no foam please no you can die foam = waterbased you get electric shock. Omg no you need use isolant system like powder based. Just no im responsible for fire protection our company im realy expert with 10+ years experience about fire protection . And here is bonus information of you use you water based on electric device and not get shock warer/foam on high temperature instantly make wery toxic steam. This can choke you in seconds or you lose control you body. Powder based is best no risk electric shock is small flock you can easy clean by vacucleaner. If you need more arguments in ctech republic you must have powder based in car is law. Why because electric on car!

Huh, did I put foam?! I meant powder. You are absolutely right! That will teach me to try and reply too quickly. I will edit it straight away.
I am actually on the first response team for our company and did get a formal training, so this was a serious mistake from my part!

Díky @DjPanJan!

[Tawpie]

If you want to go completely crazy and be able to put out an actual lithium metal fire get a Class D extinguisher. It's absolute overkill because our batteries contain virtually zero actual lithium metal but the Class D will put out a super hot fire that vaporizes liquid or causes powders to float up/away in the convection column.

Downside is the little Class D weighs 60lbs and the big one over 300lbs (comes with a cart!). They spray out powdered copper which melts, coats, cools, and keeps air away from the fire. Sticks to vertical surfaces as a bonus. Did I mention overkill?

Edited November 24, 2020 by Tawpie
typo

[.....]

From what I gathered, isnt a battery fire a thermal runaway condition? I watched them put a fire out in a video at some big race over in China. It seemed like the best course of action is to get the object away from flammables and hope it burns out? TO stop the fire, I believe it was that they had to get the core temperature of the batteries down and it must be a difficult task. I watched the firemen use water outside at a distance and they kept laying it to it. I dont think they intended it to go out from the water, they intended the water to cool it until it quit with the chain reaction? @DjPanJan is powder more to suffocate the fire? Do the batteries generate their own fuel to burn? Im pretty stupid about this shit, so Im hoping for some kind of understanding. Personally, I just assume that if i cant get a euc out of the house before the fire gets REALLY hot, I'm going to get in the car and go on a long vacation. MAYBE I'll let the volunteer fire dept know, on my way out...

Edited November 25, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[atdlzpae]

6 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

It seemed like the best course of action is to get the object away from flammables and hope it burns out?

Exactly.

@Tawpie Unless you store your wheel in your bedroom, you're very likely not to be there to put off a fire. So having a non-flammable part of the garage dedicated to storing the wheel is the best IMO.

The energy stored in the wheel isn't that big - 2kWh of battery + plastic. I doubt it's more energy than one or two logs of wood. If you don't have any flammables within 3-4 meters, it should be safe just to let it burn.

So best to store it in the garage, far away from cardboard, canisters and furniture.

Edited November 25, 2020 by atdlzpae

[.....]

1 hour ago, Tawpie said:

I'm by no means an expert but I spent about 15 years designing battery powered devices and in the process developed a healthy respect for the amount of energy stored in these batteries. Consider the following rough estimation:

1 WH = 3600 Joules, so a 1000 WH EUC battery holds 3.6 MJ of energy. Wikipedia says a stick of dynamite is roughly 1 MJ and if so a 1000 WH EUC battery contains the energy equivalent of three and a half sticks of TNT. My 16XS's half assed battery is 2.8 sticks of boom. You don't want to let that energy out too quickly.

SIDENOTE: 3.5 liquid ounces (0.0273 US gallons) of automotive gasoline has the same energy as a 1000 WH battery... that's why we've gotten pretty good at dealing with gasoline. And are still learning with batteries.

 

By THIS math, my sherman is the same as nearly 10 sticks of dynamite...   Hells yes, I like those numbers!

Edited November 25, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[Tawpie]

14 minutes ago, atdlzpae said:

Exactly.

@Tawpie Unless you store your wheel in your bedroom, you're very likely not to be there to put off a fire. So having a non-flammable part of the garage dedicated to storing the wheel is the best IMO.

The energy stored in the wheel isn't that big - 2kWh of battery + plastic. I doubt it's more energy than one or two logs of wood. If you don't have any flammables within 3-4 meters, it should be safe just to let it burn.

So best to store it in the garage, far away from cardboard, canisters and furniture.

100% agree. Don’t keep it in the bedroom! Maybe put a metal garbage can over it? Who wants to donate a wheel to experiment with?

[atdlzpae]

A fire blanket costs < $10 on Amazon. Put in on the wheel if you're paranoid.
It will definitely make it less likely for nearby flammables to catch on fire.

[Ben Hatfield]

2 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

A fire blanket costs < $10 on Amazon. Put in on the wheel if you're paranoid.
It will definitely make it less likely for nearby flammables to catch on fire.

I've thought a little bit about building a cheap fireproof EUC dock - and figure if one built a rectangular frame out of thin steel rods, then use a fire blanket to line or surround the frame - that could be a place to charge a wheel with a bit more safety. 

I've read the fire extinguishing balls don't work on battery fires, but with this setup, putting one of these up top probably likely wouldn't hurt either.

[Seba]

2 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

The energy stored in the wheel isn't that big - 2kWh of battery + plastic. I doubt it's more energy than one or two logs of wood. If you don't have any flammables within 3-4 meters, it should be safe just to let it burn.

Electric energy has nothing to chemical one. I could say that electric energy of two half-spheres made of plutonium-239 (6 kg each) is 0 Wh, but if you take them together, I doubt you'll be able to extinguish this... ekhm... fire...

There are tons of movies showing fighting Li-Ion battery fire. They clearly show that the only effective solution is continuous stream of water or . As @ShanesPlanet wrote, the problem with LiIon batteries is thermal runaway that initiates an unstoppable chain reaction. You can't extingush it, as the fire is not the cause of the problem but a result. Flammable gases and heat are produced during LiIon thermal runaway. If you let the battery go hot enough, gases will ignite. So even if you extinguish the fire, it will reignite seconds later. This is why fire blankets and extinguishing powders are not effective for fighting LiIon fires.

In fact, every extinguisher won't be effective, as the most important limitation is that you have to be there when the fire start. As we know, most of fires happened when wheel was unattended. This is why I think the only effective protection is some kind of heat-activated sprinkler system, mounted directly above EUC storage rack. When fire will start, heat will cause water valve to open and start continuous stream of water spraying onto all wheels. I'm thinking of building such system.

[atdlzpae]

Quote

This is why fire blankets and extinguishing powders are not effective for fighting LiIon fires.

I disagree. Here is my reasoning:
1. Even a 4kWh battery won't burn your house alone - the temperature isn't enough to destroy brick or steel.
2. We want to slow down the fire, so that it won't catch the furniture.

I wager that ANYTHING non-flammable that's on a burning thing lowers the amount of sparks and shrapnel, decreasing the chance of fire spread. A unicycle won't burn your house down, the furniture will.

And so, the most safe places I can think of in most homes are a garage or a ceramic bathtub. The less flammables around, the better. If you cover it with a blanket, you decrease the chance of the fire spreading to furniture.

That doesn't apply if you live in a wooden house of course.

#################################

I agree, a sprinkler will be better. And will take way less space that keeping non-flammables away from the unicycle.

Edited November 25, 2020 by atdlzpae

[.....]

I'm pretty sure li-ion at thermal runaway is hot enough to melt metals. I've seen the aftermath and it looks to be MUCH hotter than a typical plastic/liquid/wood fire. I'd imagine we could easily find this information, as li-ion batteries and firemen arent new. A blanket could help sparks and molten plastic from spewing, but I wonder if even the blanket could withstand the heat, or if it would basically melt as well? Even in the middle of my concrete floor, I suspect that not only would the concrete get hot enough to begin to explode (hell a simple torch does that), the wooden beams 8' above the wheel, would quickly ignite. The ammount of water to put the fire out would be massive if even possible, as the CORE is hot. . I would assume it would be better to just soak EVERYTHING around it and again, itll quit burning, only once its out of energy.  Im leaning towards thinking that @Seba may be right on this one.  This thread is somewhat mirroring the thread about the garage fire. I do think there's been some VERY valuable information shared over there. 

 

Edited November 25, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[null]

It was mentioned previously to store the EUC on a sheet of (melting) over a volume of water.
An alternative would be to have the water stored on top of the UEC, flowing down into a compartment where the batteries would be submerged.

In case there are several EUCs (which those who worry tend to have) there is the benefit that a single "dose" of water needs to be stored, so for each extra EUC the liquid ceilings can be proportionally thinner.

The compartments could be boxes on wheels or a single grouped furniture with front doors, or the water could be a single liftable top lid..

Could also be sprinkler version, the main idea being to submerge it.

(Anyhow, just thinking out loud)

 

Edited November 25, 2020 by null

[atdlzpae]

@ShanesPlanet Melt metals? Exploding concrete? Who is your dealer?

This is the most violent EUC explosion I've seen so far. The "runaway" takes like 10s, afterwards it's just a normal fire (mostly plastic).
Looks flashy, but the tree 1m away is perfectly fine, the pavement is smoldered, but otherwise unscathed.

I'm 99% certain that in a normal, brick garage with no flammables within like 4m nothing major would happen - the wheel would explode, burn and cool down.
Such fire alone is not enough to destroy the walls or the floor. Just keep it away from furniture or wooden floors.

Edited November 25, 2020 by atdlzpae