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Begode fires at ewheels


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The email makes it sound like a battery pack was to blame.

Did Begode do something really wrong with the assembly of their battery packs lately?? Or maybe they changed their BMS and it is causing this? How in the world do we have so many fires now? (This container:cry2:, the car trunk fire, there was another one right?)

There were plenty of 21700 battery packs before that didn't go up in flames left and right, Nikola, MSP, etc.

But looks like with the recent wheels - RS, EX, Monster Pro, T3 - one needs to be careful until they are confirmed safe/we know what is going on.

Edited by meepmeepmayer
clarification
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50 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

The email makes it sound like a battery pack was to blame.

Did Begode do something really wrong with the assembly of their battery packs lately?? Or maybe they changed their BMS and it is causing this? How in the world do we have so many fires now? (This container:cry2:, the car trunk fire, there was another one right?)

It seemed that they "had got their primary fireproblem" under control after they changed to the lg mt 50 21700 cells.

Then there were some 3rd party battery upgraded Begodes that went up in flames - and then silence until now....

Quote

There were plenty of 21700 battery packs before that didn't go up in flames left and right, Nikola, MSP, etc.

But looks like with the recent wheels - RS, EX, Monster Pro, T3 - one needs to be careful until they are confirmed safe/we know what is going on.

Mabye they "invented" some new problem?

But imho, as often from many written here, the design choices and delivered quality is just asking for problems to arise...

My favorites are:

- soldered high current connections, too thin wires

- no real cable managment, strain/cable reliefs - wires cross, go over the big capacitors, go near the batteries...

- no short circuit/overcurrent protection in the BMS ... maybe at least this will be changed now after all these incidents ...

Edited by Chriull
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From the following email that came after it, it just seems like one or more was left on not in transport mode. It probably ran itself to death in an unvented box until it lit up. 

Edited by Fiori
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11 minutes ago, Fiori said:

From the following email that came after it, it just seems like one or more was left on not in transport mode. It probably ran itself to death in an unvented box until it lit up. 

I know they said that they found some of the RS were still on but, I don't see how that could have been. If the wheel isn't balancing it cuts itself off, I've learned that from trying to us my RS just for the speaker one time.

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Without the transport locks, wheels did ruin/burn the packaging, or fry their boards (presumably when the tire was blocked).

I don't see how this could cause a battery fire. Even if the wheel constantly sped up, shut itself off, sped up again, etc. - it's still less stress on the battery than just normal riding. A fried board also happens way before the battery gets hot enough to be problematic.

The ewheels email seems pretty certain that they blame a battery pack for the fire.

So this (and the other reported fires on the latest Begodes) makes me think it's not related to the lack of transport lock.

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I got all the same emails and it didn't seem they were certain about anything. I can definitely see a situation where it turned on wheel can rub through a box and damage a nearby battery pack or even overheat itself. I don't own a gotway so I don't know if it's different somehow, but there are a lot of situations where a powered on wheel would not shut off. if it was sat or tilted in the right direction it could just stay running for hours and rub into things around it. 

There's really no way to know unless you're there looking at the mess. And even then it's hard to tell from a burnt pile of ashes. But it's definitely not unlikely that a spare battery pack smashed against the wall of the container or something and shorted itself. 

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52 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

A fried board also happens way before the battery gets hot enough to be problematic.

A fried board could lead to a short circuit in the power lines from the packs though. And with a lack of fuses on Gotways, it's a possibility that a pack could light up as a result.

To be frank I'm amazed that this fire was as contained as it appears. I would have expected the whole lot to go up. Even just one wheel with packs on fire is like an inferno which won't go out, and given the proximity of the wheels to each other I would have thought the whole lot would go up like a pack of Chinese firecrackers.

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1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

I don't see how this could cause a battery fire. Even if the wheel constantly sped up, shut itself off, sped up again, etc. - it's still less stress on the battery than just normal riding. A fried board also happens way before the battery gets hot enough to be problematic.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. In normal riding your wheel isn't wrapped in a plastic bag and insulated by styrofoam all inside a sealed cardboard box, keeping heat in and preventing air exchange. Couple that with being on a container ship that's rocking back and forth on the ocean--so basically doing pendulums while inside the aforementioned insulated box--and obviously it was enough.

Edited by AtlasP
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1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Without the transport locks, wheels did ruin/burn the packaging, or fry their boards (presumably when the tire was blocked).

I don't see how this could cause a battery fire. Even if the wheel constantly sped up, shut itself off, sped up again, etc. - it's still less stress on the battery than just normal riding. A fried board also happens way before the battery gets hot enough to be problematic.

Begode BMS have no short circuit/overcurrent protection.

Man years ago they stated some 120A motor current firmware limit. Afair one of their last statements here was that Gotway wheels do not have any current limitations. Or this was reposted from some other source?

This is all some time ago - theoreticly this could have changed. But from the one video with the firefighter moving the wheel causing the wires to short several times it does not look as this changed...

So a turned on wheel with blocked tires should have enough possibilities to lead to a battery fire.

Especially, as already stated from some members the battery wires are just soldered to the motherboard. In case of overburden they could desolder and freely move around causing some real short circuit. For example if they touch the nearby big capacitors with much unisolated metal pieces ...

However - its just begode wheels burning. So chances are very high they messed up somethimg seriously...

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I received this email as well, my soon to be new wheel was in that shipping container :P  I'm hoping that the temperature inside container did not get high enough to compromise integrity of other units that the boxes appear "OK".  I'm not too worried I know eWheels has me covered if someone comes up.

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