Your wheel catches FIRE while charging - what do you do?

[RagingGrandpa 814]

27 minutes ago, /Dev/Null said:

-20 to -30c

I can't think what that would do to a battery.

-20°C is the manufacturer-specified temperature limit, so please avoid going colder.

https://www.batteryspace.com/prod-specs/11514.pdf
 

20 minutes ago, null said:

fog and morning dew possibly corroding the battery

Yes.

Exposure to fog and condensation for long durations is a real hazard.

[Patrick Robert 53]

 

9 hours ago, Tryptych said:

I have a fire extinguisher as well but I don't expect that to be much help in a battery fire.

Found this information on extinguishers, which I thought was good to know:
https://steadfastfire.com/how-to-extinguish-a-lithium-ion-battery-fire

Here's an extract: "Lithium-ion battery fires are extinguished using Class B fire extinguishers. This means that in the event that a device using lithium-ion batteries catches fire, a standard Class ABC or BC dry chemical fire extinguisher can be used to put it out. Class B classification is given for flammable liquid fires. These batteries contain liquid electrolytes and fit best in B fire classification."

 

1 hour ago, RagingGrandpa said:

-20°C is the manufacturer-specified temperature limit, so please avoid going colder.

https://www.batteryspace.com/prod-specs/11514.pdf

Great link, it's the specification for the LG M50T 21700 batteries in my new Nikola 100v, and they can be found in other wheels as well.
Ideally lithium-ion batteries should be kept at room temperature, away from humidity and the cold, and never discharged at lower temperatures than -20℃ as you said. It has lots of useful information, for example:

* 4.2.3 Max. Charge Current(Continuous)
  ** 0 ~ 25℃ - 0.3C (1,455mA)
  ** 25 ~ 45℃ - 0.7C (3,395mA)
* 4.2.4 Max. Discharge Current(Continuous)
  ** -20 ~ 10℃ - 0.5C (2,425mA)
  ** 10 ~ 25℃ - 3.0C(14,550mA)
  ** 25 ~ 55℃ - 1.5C (7,275mA)
* 4.3.1 Storage Characteristics - Cells shall be charged per 4.1.1 and stored in a temperature-controlled environment at 24ºC ± 2ºC for 30 days. After storage, cells shall be discharged per 4.1.2 to obtain the remaining energy. - Energy remaining rate ≥90% of Wh
* 5.1 Cautions for Use and Handling
  - Battery must be charged at operating temperature range 0 ~ 45℃.
  - Battery must be discharged at operating temperature range -20 ~ 55℃.
  - Battery must be stored in a dry area with low temperature for long-term storage.

Just to be on the safe side I never go out riding at temperatures lower than -10℃ (wind chill factor taken into acount) to avoid stressing the batteries too much. That's also the minimum operating temperature listed in the Veteran Sherman manual, so it's safe to assume other battery types only go down to -10℃. And when I'm outside I leave the EUC turned on at all times.

Makes you wonder what kind of magic Telsa and other EV manufacturers have done to let a car sit outside and be driven in our frigid Canadian winters with only reduced range. Maybe they use other battery chemistry, not sure. I thought they used NCR 21700A.

Edited January 19 by Patrick Robert

[/Dev/Null 273]

6 hours ago, RagingGrandpa said:

-20°C is the manufacturer-specified temperature limit, so please avoid going colder.

https://www.batteryspace.com/prod-specs/11514.pdf
 

Yes.

Exposure to fog and condensation for long durations is a real hazard.

This is why "store outside in a garage on cement" isn't real practical advice for many people in the Northern Hemisphere...

[atdlzpae 572]

Just now, /Dev/Null said:

Keep it away from anything flamabale - many houses ar made of wood.  No way to keep it 3m from anything not-wood/fabric/carpets

Then at least try? IMO that's the only real protection, everything else is mostly useless or unpractical.
If I had a house made of wood, I think I'd store it on a fireproof (glass fiber) blanket, possibly covered with a second blanket.

[VikB 153]

I'm getting my first EUC whenever its boat from China lands here in the Great White North. Battery fires are a concern both because of the damage they'd do and because I am not sure what my home insurance will do if I have a EUC fire. If I get full coverage I'm a lot less concerned. If I get denied coverage that would be expensive. I've found a few EUC/Fire/Insurance related posts so I am working my way through those.

My "man cave" is a detached studio office with a single car garage attached. I've got a fire station very close on a direct route. So a fire would likely only damage my office and perhaps the garage. I suspect the fire department would be here within 3 mins of calling 911 so hopefully damage would be limited.

I'm on the west coast of Canada so during most of the prime riding season temps will be +10 to + 25 deg C. It does get colder in peak winter, but I doubt I'll be riding much then and it does get warmer say up to 30 deg C a few times in the summer, but for very limited times. 

I'm a morning person so I'll frequently want to head out at dawn or even pre-dawn with lights. That means charging the previous day or overnight. It sounds like overnight is a bad idea as I'd be leaving the wheel unattended. So I guess charging the day before when I can be around to monitor it is the way to go. I'll have to decide if I am worried enough about a fire to run an extension cord and charge the EUC outside or if I'll charge in my office and just keep an eye on it. 

I'm of the mind if a fire does start indoors I'm just going to call 911 and not risk inhaling toxic smoke in a small enclosed area.

I don't have a smoke detector in my man cave. I'll go grab one and install it. My property is small enough I should be able to hear it go off even if I step away to the house for a bit while the EUC is charging.

[Tawpie 776]

You have to be comfortable with the risk, but at those temperatures as long as you keep the wheel dry I wouldn’t be too concerned about charging it unattended. During riding season you could probably charge it in a garden shed (no fertilizer near it though!) if you didn’t want to have any risk to the cave.

Def get the smoke detector.

[GoGeorgeGo 605]

 

[slowpoke94133 11]

https://i.imgur.com/u1CvdIT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/uvT4ZDJ.jpg

Better than nothing. 

*** EDIT *** 

I don't know how to post pictures other than a link 

Edited April 3 by slowpoke94133

[VikB 153]

20 minutes ago, slowpoke94133 said:

https://i.imgur.com/u1CvdIT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/uvT4ZDJ.jpg

Better than nothing. 

*** EDIT *** 

I don't know how to post pictures other than a link 

 

[DavidB 5]

On 4/4/2021 at 12:14 AM, VikB said:

 

Unless you leave the door ajar you've created a bomb.

[Tawpie 776]

7 minutes ago, DavidB said:

Unless you leave the door ajar you've created a bomb.

I'm pretty sure that has pressure vents, most do because they're used for volatile liquids. Although, they're usually intended to keep fire out, not in!

Edited April 6 by Tawpie

[conecones 58]

I'm going to be moving out of a sprinklered condo into a regular house in a few months, so I'm brainstorming for an easy to implement & safe contraption. Not really convinced with most of the ideas so far involving blankets, enclosures and such because they don't really put out the fire, which means the smoke is still going to be an issue even if you can somehow contain the device long enough to throw it outside - what if you pass out from the fumes?

I'm thinking many of the fires start from a faulty over-heated/shorted control board and that the fires spread to the battery packs. Fire suppression stickers inside the wheel may help but I don't want to rely on them. 

What do you guys think of this idea: garage cabinet w/ casters + automatic fire extinguisher secured to the side/top of the cabinet? The goal is to have a quick reaction to the initial fire to stop/slow it and limit the smoke while being able to roll it to safety. Whole contraption is also tidy & discreet so the wife shouldn't give me crap "Why the F is this in the house if it can blow up randomly?!?". I don't have confidence in dragging a 60+lb wheel using fire blankets or leaving a burning wheel inside a fire rated enclosure to smoke out the entire house and potentially suffocating people.

[GothamMike 168]

Build a He-shed

[DavidB 5]

All of the proposed ideas seem to have one flaw or another..or several. The speed it all goes pear shaped is seconds. The water required is huge ( personally after watching a vid of fire brigade spending hours flooding a Tesla to extinguish battery fire I can't imagine misting systems having much effect).

Apart from building an insulated purpose built storage/charging shed/box outside the best I could come up with was suspending the euc over a tub of water with a bit of cord that would burn through in a fire dumping the euc into the tub. Drawback apart from the horrible aesthetic and humidity is that you would be 100x more likely to accidently drop your  euc into the water than for it to spontaneously combust.

[VikB 153]

9 hours ago, DavidB said:

Apart from building an insulated purpose built storage/charging shed/box outside the best I could come up with was suspending the euc over a tub of water with a bit of cord that would burn through in a fire dumping the euc into the tub. Drawback apart from the horrible aesthetic and humidity is that you would be 100x more likely to accidently drop your  euc into the water than for it to spontaneously combust.

At some point if you think the fire risk is high enough for a solution like this ^^^ and storing the EUC outside is not possible you really have to reconsider the idea of owning one.

[GothamMike 168]

On 1/19/2021 at 5:04 PM, /Dev/Null said:

This is why "store outside in a garage on cement" isn't real practical advice for many people in the Northern Hemisphere...

I store it outside, and throw an old coat over it to keep it warm and dry.

[/Dev/Null 273]

Just now, GothamMike said:

I store it outside, and throw an old coat over it to keep it warm and dry.

What happens when it hit's lows of -10f to -20f for a week or two in a row?  I'm guessing the batteries won't like that very much.

[redsnapper 271]

 once thermal runaway starts  forget abt touching that machine - i hv seen it 1st hand (3 machines in chain reaction) - u cant get within 10 feet of that inferno. plus the smoke is pure evil. imo if u wanna mitigate risk, u put wheels in a metal box (filing cab) on an outside wall of ur garage and u vent the box to the outdoors (like a propane insert). any unvented solution will not deal with the crazy toxic smoke that comes from a wheel meltdown. li-on fire is very ugly business - until solidstate batts are affordable, vented firebox is a cheap (vs fire consequence) mitigation tactic...  aptmnt dwellers? smoke detectors & hv a practiced escape plan if ur wheel goes up in flames! and dont ever charge ur machine overnight... 

Edited April 11 by redsnapper

[GothamMike 168]

On 4/8/2021 at 10:10 PM, /Dev/Null said:

What happens when it hit's lows of -10f to -20f for a week or two in a row?  I'm guessing the batteries won't like that very much.

It never got that cold.

[/Dev/Null 273]

5 minutes ago, GothamMike said:

It never got that cold.

For you......it does here and I'm just north of Chicago, so that solution doesn't work for a lot of people. 

[WI_Hedgehog 512]

This forum is no end of entertainment:

"I have a NON-UL Listed device packed with self-fueling lithium cells (from China), almost no safety features, and I swapped out the factory charger for one with over three times the current output. Do you think my insurance company will pay out in the event of a fire?" 

Bloody ell. If you live in an apartment you're going to get sued blind by anyone who even thinks they got lithium poisoning. The water damage from trying to keep the building from burning down plus paying for other tenants to stay at a hotel during the 9-18 months of repairs is going to be well over a million. Your insurance company agents are going to tell stories of you "filing a claim" for years. If you're lucky your insurance company will hand you a wad of cash and say, "We're out...good luck," but there's this exclusion in their policies for neglegence, so good luck with even that much...

Kuji (for the most part) did everything he could within reason to minimize risk--that's smart. (I'll blindly assume charging a wet wheel with a high-speed aftermarket charger was for YouTube entertainment only.)

Yes, your best bet is a box designed as a firebox, on wheels, with an alarm wired into it, with the charger on the top of the box so it stays cool and doesn't heat the inside of the box, next to a door leading outside, and you somewhere close & prepared to push it out that door if the alarm sounds.

 

(any box is better than no box, steel has a higher melting point/lower price point than aluminum and it's easier to attach wheels--or just get an old rolling steel work box at a yard sale and repaint the outside of it--ya just gotta make it out the door and not burn the building down--nor kill the residents 

look at this as: If my neighbor were to do something stupid, how much could I sue them for? --then minimize the chance of your neighbor(s) doing that to you)

 

Edited April 11 by WI_Hedgehog

[ARo 0]

On 4/11/2021 at 6:04 PM, WI_Hedgehog said:

This forum is no end of entertainment:

"I have a NON-UL Listed device packed with self-fueling lithium cells (from China), almost no safety features, and I swapped out the factory charger for one with over three times the current output. Do you think my insurance company will pay out in the event of a fire?" 

Bloody ell. If you live in an apartment you're going to get sued blind by anyone who even thinks they got lithium poisoning. The water damage from trying to keep the building from burning down plus paying for other tenants to stay at a hotel during the 9-18 months of repairs is going to be well over a million. Your insurance company agents are going to tell stories of you "filing a claim" for years. If you're lucky your insurance company will hand you a wad of cash and say, "We're out...good luck," but there's this exclusion in their policies for neglegence, so good luck with even that much...

Kuji (for the most part) did everything he could within reason to minimize risk--that's smart. (I'll blindly assume charging a wet wheel with a high-speed aftermarket charger was for YouTube entertainment only.)

Yes, your best bet is a box designed as a firebox, on wheels, with an alarm wired into it, with the charger on the top of the box so it stays cool and doesn't heat the inside of the box, next to a door leading outside, and you somewhere close & prepared to push it out that door if the alarm sounds.

 

(any box is better than no box, steel has a higher melting point/lower price point than aluminum and it's easier to attach wheels--or just get an old rolling steel work box at a yard sale and repaint the outside of it--ya just gotta make it out the door and not burn the building down--nor kill the residents 

look at this as: If my neighbor were to do something stupid, how much could I sue them for? --then minimize the chance of your neighbor(s) doing that to you)

 

Why wouldn't your insurance cover for an accidental fire, cased by a legally purchased electronic device tho?
Also, dno about US, but where I'm at most apartment building are insured separately in case something major like a fire, explosion, etc, happens. 

Light electric vehicles like EUCs and electric scooters seem to be ideal for apartment dwellers in dense cities as they don't require a garage or a parking spot for storage, I would assume this constitutes for majority of current EUC/e-scooter owners. Haven't seen many headlines about houses burning down because of them so probably you need to be particularly unlucky for this to happen (or there needs to be some major flaw with the device). Still, I also put in a order for a large B class extinguisher after reading some of those threads..

[RockyTop 3,420]

10 minutes ago, ARo said:

Why wouldn't your insurance cover for an accidental fire, cased by a legally purchased electronic device tho?

On 4/11/2021 at 11:04 AM, WI_Hedgehog said:

"I have a NON-UL Listed device packed with self-fueling lithium cells (from China),

Insurance companies spend a lot of time and money finding loopholes so they don’t have to pay out money. 

Edited April 13 by RockyTop

[VikB 153]

15 minutes ago, ARo said:

Why wouldn't your insurance cover for an accidental fire, cased by a legally purchased electronic device tho?
Also, dno about US, but where I'm at most apartment building are insured separately in case something major like a fire, explosion, etc, happens. 

 

If you have a device in your dwelling that doesn't meet your country's electrical safety codes your insurance can decline to cover you since that's you being negligent and taking unapproved risks.

The apartment owner's insurance policy will cover him and then that insurance company will sue your insurance company for repayment. If your insurance company says they are not covering the damage the apartment owner's insurance company will sue you.

Edited April 13 by VikB

[RockyTop 3,420]

On 4/8/2021 at 12:39 AM, DavidB said:

All of the proposed ideas seem to have one flaw or another..or several.

Not mine!  I have a smoke detector above my wheel. When it goes off it closes a circuit ejecting my wheel from the back of my house into the carp pond. ...... The poor fish are still traumatized from weeks of testing the system.  
 

Just kidding but I bet I could get it to work!