By the way, in my experience: if it had become hot, plastic gloves are worse than nothing. They melt, hold large amounts of heat and stick to your hands.
@@dascandy Just put the chemical resistant gloves around the heat resistant gloves, not a lot of situations where you'd need protection from both at the same time anyway tho... This isn't a good idea with any type of glove...
Extremely educated. Taking calculated risk. Based on educated knowledge of electrical pathways and circuits. Not foolish or dangerous. Just glad a TV screen separates us. I know this is an old one. But it was great. Hadn’t seen it yet. Thank you. Keep up the great work.
"I'm not sure why I do this" Yes, he knows why he does this, because we like to watch him do stuff most of us have enough sense not to try on our own! (And he DOES know what he's doing).
I suppose you can see it here: ua-cam.com/video/tBg4ximDrsk/v-deo.html I think this is the one that Chuckiele is referring to. It should make people be aware about opening up batteries. Those are NiMh. And the last one has gone bad into spontaneous combustion in contact with air. Hmm... He was prepared as always, but surprised also ;-) Those tiny bits of material that can't be seen, were making fire all over the place.
This is genius. The engineers that designed it made both the pack in the leads, and the battery to fail safely in case of an overload. All without adding additional expensive components. This is state of the art engineering at it's finest!
@@ronblack7870 That cover would have split right open and removed itself post haste once the cells started expanding like that. Removing it had no effect on the overall outcome. Had the case been sealed properly and not popped open so easily with such minor force, then we could have a talk about how forcing it to fight against the container and thus increasing the voltage at the same time. Guessing the plastic cover was designed to pop open like that to prevent this occurrence. When the thing splits in your hand, the first thing most users would do is drop it. Thus helping to prevent injury.
You forgot the primary instruction"Don't try this at home". The insight to this shows the potential of Lithium in the fact that such a small batter can crank an ICE. Now the question is how can it be recycled.
@@ExEBoss Someone's gotta do it. Uq-Uq the caveman died so we can know what berries are poisonous. Big Clive deals with electronics (that are potentially flammable/explosive) so we know what we're dealing with.
my mom always said to not open batteries but one day at school we found some half broken so we peeled it open and nothing exploded. since then i have a burning desire to tear into every device i have that is obsolete and throw all the lithium cells on flammable material
I don’t get scared much by electronics but holy shit this guy is like a roller coaster. And that lithium batteries are introduced with high electricity amazingly awesome
I'm glad that our good friend the brown benchtop could be there with us and the explosive containment pan during another exciting episode of tearing apart lithium batteries! 😀
It would be interesting to see what would happen when a sealed unit is shorted out. I wonder if the plastic case would hold the cells together long enough for a fire! Time for another test in the name of science!
This takes me back to the big "AT&T - Avestor Battery" debacle of 2006-2007. AT&T, has, tens of thousands of remote equipment locations needing a battery backup solution to prevent service disruptions during short term commercial power "disconnections" , or local rectifier system failure, until a tech ( like me) could be dispatched to troubleshoot & resolve the issue. They turned to a Canadian company named "Avestor" , which, created a stand alone 48V - 80AH "jar" ,which was very compact compared to prior technologies, and capable of being paralleled to increase the local AH capacity and run time at a site ( most sites were designed & maintained for at least 8 Hours of reserve battery capacity) Well, not soon after AT&T put a lot of eggs into Avestor's basket, Avestor decided to fold up, and declare bankruptcy. Then, not long after that, AT&T was having issues with some outdoor equipment cabinets suffering spontaneous combustion events , the first 2 noteable ones were in Texas, for brand new equipment installs. The company, in its infinite wisdom, tried to pin the blame on the local tech's that installed them (was a coincidence that both sites fell under one crews area) Then..... other sites across the country started to join in on the fun, 2 more newsworthy ones were in Wisconsin in the cold of winter. eepower.com/news/att-begins-battery-replacement-program-after-reports-of-fires/# A large campaign then ensued, to replace the combusting Avestor products with "proven" Lead-Acid technology, BUT, recouping any financial losses from Avesteor was not in the cards. I always try to store these types of batteries in a cool, dry, area, and keep my fingers crossed.
I've learned so much from you, and I've learn not to mess with some things because of you. Thank you for that, you may have saved me from stupid rookie mistakes over the years.
I'm happy so many RC enthusiasts have chimed in about these jumper packs, because I was thinking, "wow, the manufacturer of these is thinking you're going to jump-start a car engine with that?" I hadn't even considered small-engine starters, so thank you all for that input. :)
you can definitely jump start some cars with this. source: i've had this exact jumper pack and used it like one hunded times with my crappy 90s opel corsa :)
But you can start cars with a 12v lipo as I've started a good few...tho got funny looks wen I got a pack out. They was like no way that's gonna start a car, I'm like yeah this battery will pull 300 400 Watts an can put out 20 30 amps depending on c ratings it will have no problems starting a poxy engine.
I know this is an older video now, but something worth mentioning is that these packs in use will see a direct short momentarily when being used to jump start a vehicle. As with any brushed motor, when power is first applied and the motor is not yet spinning, the power is directly shorted to ground through the motor windings. Mind you, this only happens for a very brief moment, a fraction of a second, but during normal operation with a properly charged battery, it is normal to see a current spike of 800-1000A when the starter solenoid contacts close and power is applied to the starter motor. Its only very briefly, but its something that is hard for these jump starters to overcome, especially on modern cars. If the system voltage drops too much during that initial spike and the starter solenoid can't hold the contacts closed, the engine won't crank (that's where you get that characteristic dead battery rattle when you turn the key, its the solenoid rattling back and forth because there isn't enough energy to hold the solenoid contacts closed once it tries to pass current through the starter motor). On vehicles where the starter is controlled by a computer through a relay (which is just about everything now), if that initial current spike drops system voltage enough to interrupt the operation of the computer or the relay that control the starter solenoid, the engine won't crank either. You'll just get one click as the solenoid closes, sends power to the starter motor and then everything stops when the starter relay or the computer controlling it gets interrupted. In general, these little lithium jump starters are only good for assisting slightly discharged batteries on vehicles with smaller engines. They won't make up for a completely discharged battery or work well on something with a large engine, because they won't be able to overcome that huge initial current spike.
This is actually safer than I thought... when I shorted one of those drone battery on accident the connecting wire just brow up like a fuse (that is like at least 8 AWG wire melting in less than a second, which is like 2.5kA peak at least 😨) and the battery actually seems fine
Towards the end of the video, I was half expecting the exposed plates to start burning like a previous video but they weren't. I am glad that there was only minimal damage off camera.
22:36 - Uhm, Clive, that plate you put down is changing colour, I think this stuff is reacting with the air. These are probably pyrophoric as- 23:00 Yes... yes they are.
A video worth saving to show your children how dangerous/expensive Lithium batteries may be, if treated carelessly in a confined space/house/car! Thanks for going where no man ever went in his house!!! My eyes almost popped out when I saw the amps out of this pack - respect!!
All of us RC car guys are shaking our heads at people buying these. The most worrying thing about these is that people will leave these fully charged in their cars for emergency situations. Yeah let's leave a fully charged 3s lipo locked in our cars throughout the summer
+Andrew Gillard it doesn't matter much - it is still a high capacity, high discharge lipo cell battery you got there. I've seen a $200 lipo pack burst in flames in the back seat of a car. No way would I leave this unattended.
This is why dash cams shouldnt use LiPo's either, and modding them to use capacitors is the most common mod. The chance that they will explode in a reasonable amount of time (few years) is low, but if it does, it can destroy your entire car. Im honestly surprised these car chargers arent sold with some thick insulation that will neutralize the battery if things go wrong.
I had one of these booster packs. It was great as a power bank for charging phones etc. and my daughter found it very useful when she was doing DofE expeditions especially the torch. It finally expired when I tried to start a 2 litre Diesel, it overheated and became swollen and busted out of the plastic case, it didn't start the engine.
I've just bought a 2000amp starter, which started my Royal Enfield 535cc Continental GT Motorbike Instantly. The Lithium Ion battery was Dead, but the Starter is Fantastic !!!! I ran the Engine for half an hour and the Battery is fully Charged !!!
Hi Clive, I estimated that spacing of the voltage leads at L =0.2m (20cm). The diameter of UK 1/2" copper pipe is given as 15mm (ext) 13.4 (int) giving a wall cross-section area of 31.2 mm². The resistivity is RA/L then 110 uV/A x 31.2 x 10^-12 / 0.2 = 1.71 x 10^-8. Published value for hard-drawn copper is 1.77 x 10^-8 ohm-metres. A pretty neat experiment you did there1
The zigzag might be normal for this size package since a flattened roll would excessively thick on the edges but would also hinder the apparently self regulating safety mechanism of expanding under thermal runaway. If I remember right, the explosive Samsung Note model fault was found to be caused by a lack of expansion room for the battery.
Samsung found two flaws in its suppliers' batteries. In the first batch, the cause was the negative electrode being attached to the wrong location inside the cell, which made the area prone to pinching. In the other batch of bad cells, a piece of insulation tape was missing where the cell tabs were welded to the foil, causing the welds to poke through the separator layer between electrodes. While having more space for the cell to expand could have reduced the likelihood of those issues manifesting themselves, the second batch would have remained just as potentially dangerous.
Teardown Dan I don't understand why Samsung didn't manufacture their own batteries, what with them being one of the 5 main manufacturers of Lithium batteries and all that
This seems to be the way all flat LiPo cells are constructed. All the ones I've looked at are exactly the same construction. But then I've only looked at high current cells...
High current ones use alternating plates for the parallel connections. High capacity ones use a core form to give the cells their mostly rectangular shape and the electrodes are wound around it with the external tabs crimped or welded to the electrode foils at some point.
I remember a few yrs ago I had a dead'ish cell phone battery and instead of just tossing it I wanted to know what exactly was inside it so I went in my basement to my workbench to try and find out. I couldn't find any non-destructive way into the battery so I chose the only destructive path to me that I could think of. I put it in my vise and clamped it down tight and started to smack it with a hammer. lol, smack, smack, smack! it then started to bend so I bent it back and forth till something happened. it sounded like a loud fuse went off! white smoke filled the basement! luckily I wasn't in the way of anything. apparently, when I bent it back and forth the chemicals mixed and reacted to each other started to pop out the crack in housing I made by bending it and smoked big time, lucky for me the fuse was actually facing down towards my metal vise clamp and ultimately only left a big white mark on the clamp. if it would have cracked on the other side instead I surely would have been burned somehow. lesson learned? don't mess with cell phone batteries or better yet let bigclivedotcom do it instead ... lol, I never did find out what was in it cuz after that and the basement aired out I really did not see anything inside of the battery worth noting.
Clive, if it is OK to ask, how has your mother been doing lately as I have not heard you mention much lately? I hope she is doing alright all things considered, dementia is such a terrible thing to have to watch in those we love. She is very fortunate to have you and your brother to care for her. Take care!
bigclivedotcom Thank you very much for the reply and news. I'm grateful to hear she is doing well for the time being but I know all too well how hard a journey it is for everyone and how hard it is to watch our loved ones go through such as it is such a cruel disease. Your family is very much in my thoughts and I wish you and your brother, and especially your mother, all the best. Enjoy the time you and your mother have together and if she is a good story teller (and can still tell stories) consider recording them as that is one thing I would do different today if I knew then what I now know today (especially given how inexpensive it is to capture good quality video and audio these days) -- so very many questions about an earlier time in our history that I wish I had asked! Take care!
Just by looking at the design, in a fail state such as a short, these cells are safer that the roll design. No smoke and flames from the plates separating. Thanks for taking them apart and looking inside.
I tried to "troubleshoot"my lithium jump battery after it failed. I no sooner popped the plastic case open, and while probing the innards, I set off the lithium battery sack with a stray poke which resulted in a 1 foot burst of flame. Fortunately, the accident occurred on top of a stove. These things are real flame throwers.
I had a 3s lipo short in my rc car, it blow torched a hole straight through the esc into rx trashing both, all my own fault because I didn't secure the balance lead which wrapped around the drive shaft and shorted, it was funny as hell, the car shot off like a rocket SMOKING like hell.
Monitoring intermediate voltages doesn't always mean that there's a balancing feature. It could be 'just' for protection - the chip will cut the power when one of cells is under minimum safe voltage when discharging or over maximum one when charging. Usually BMS-es with built-in balancers have a pack of large (physically, not so in terms of resistance) SMD resistors.
Well, I guess you survived this battery dissection because obviously you uploaded the video. Anyhow, there were no reports of mushroom clouds over the Isle of Man.
I bought this pack off Amazon and was using it repeatedly to run a transfer pump off grid. Around about the 6th time it failed and did catch fire as opposed to just swelling. It was a sustained load to drive the pump motors and it didn't stay burning after I disconnected it. Exciting
I wonder about the nomenclature over there. When one of your short circuits causes your bench to go high order, which will respond? Fire Trucks? Or Fire Lories?
So if the case had still been on when it was shorted, it might have stopped the battery from puffing up and possibly the battery would have continued to produce current to the output?
Hi, this was super interesting! i work as what you could call a battery engineer, i have done what you are did here with lead acid batteries of different varieties. I have wondered about our lithium ion packs, now i dont have to take one apart! Thanks for the video Big Clive!
I purchased the top of the line on Amazon for use when we travel, I have had it with us for 3 years now, and occasionally use it as a power supply for my projects, as it has a 5v USB outlet, 12V out, 19V out for laptops and of course 12V in. So at any rate, this year, due to an accidental disconnect of my Jeep Towed vehicle I had a new (to me) Ford Edge behind my motor home. The problem with the Edge, is that in order for the steering wheel to be unlocked, you must have the key in the accy position on the switch. The book that comes with the car says that you can tow her at
Here I am still kicking. Now 4 years later, my wife has passed away and without her beside me, travel has become a chore and not a joy. I still have the battery booster pack. A few weeks ago we suffered a blizzard and power outage. I took the old power pack and used it, it did charge my phone 1/2 before dying, not much use I guess. I have other sorts of power packs and they kept us in phone power for the 26 hours it took to get back our power. Now the past week has seen me recharging all the packs and when it stops raining for a bit, I will go out to my rig and get my portable soler charger so I can use it should we suffer another power outages. We used to use it when we were boondocking (camping in the wild with no shore power!) and it did a wonderful job of charging our cell phones.
Hi Clive, that looks like a 1/2 inch pipe - what was the spacing between your voltage test points - I'm guessing about 100mm? It would make a nice calculation of the conductivity of copper.
I think Clive should keep a web cam pointed at his bench and use an old computer to spool the video. Even crappy lo-res flames are better than no flames.
Mine was a bit more dramatic with fizzing and smoke. Will take more notice of the polarity next time even though the new one I bought (for about 3 times the price) has reverse polarity and overload protection. Freakin handy things to have
i had one once decided to solder a wire to the positive the cell started bulging then got bigger and blew up in my face bits cell and lithium all over the place, same as a 600v capacitor blew up up dad thought i had a 12 BORE gun. and bits of silver and insulate all over the work shop DONT PLAY WITH THEM.
What no fire or pop? ...disappointed face. You are truly a very brave man. Dismantling this thing without gloves, and poking sharp metal things into it... Very brave man indeed Edit... I see, I was a bit impatient! Very glad you got the gloves out eventually.x
So one cell saved the day by expanding. Wonder what would have happened if the blue plastic cover etc had been left on to make expansion more difficult?
I fly RC and these batteries need the utmost respect. I have seen one light off on the radiator shroud of a pickup truck and the damage to the truck was significant. I would never store one of these in a sealed ammo box. When they cook off they can cause the sealed box to become a bomb. Think of of a pipe bomb. If you light black powder on fire in the open it just smokes and burns but does not explode. Contain it in a piece of pipe and watch out. When I travel with my lipos they are stored in a ventilated metal box that is lined with tile cement board. Each battery is separated from the next with a piece of cement board hopefully preventing a chain reaction with one battery catching fire and igniting the others. I hope never to find out whether or not this works. There are videos on UA-cam of what can happen in various scenarios to a lipo cell with fire. One of the Metalized bags that are sold for charging a lipo will not contain the heat very long if there is a battery fire. There are a number of experiments available for viewing on UA-cam. I totally agree about not storing one of these in your vehicle. I'm surprised there haven't been more reports of these things catching fire when stored in an automobile or truck. They must be fairly safe but are not completely safe. I can just imagine the scenario of one of these in your vehicle catching fire in your garage and then burning your house down. Maybe with you and your family dying or suffering severe burns in the process. I was on a Delta flight a little over a year ago. We were sitting at the gate while the plane was loading and one of these batteries begin to smoke before it burst into flame. It was not a very large LiPo battery and thankfully the owner was able to take it to the front of the aircraft and throw it out onto the ground before it burst into flames. I now travel with a metallized bag in my carry-on which might offer some level of protection should this happen in the air. I asked the aircrew at the time of the incident about any training or safety measures and at that time they had none. I have been told that that has changed however since so many people have these batteries in various products.
Watching you open those cells made me think of an rc car battery I dropped and it hit a sharp shard of metal. I felt like Wil E Coyote standing in explosion of an acme 💣
Wonder if that EC5 connector on the leads can connect to a nice 3S 50C lipo pack you balance charge yourself, heck even when jump starting keep one of those cell $4 monitors on the balance port warn of unsafe discharge
Typically these have a roll construction, but this one is different, opting for multiple plates instead of a huge roll. That means these are high discharge cells but a lower overall capacity with a 'safer' failure mode. They destroy themselves before they can destroy anything else. It's actually somewhat impressive for what it is, I underestimated it at first as well.
You could. The monitor wouldn't do much because a jump start is so quick, it'll start the car before the monitor registers the voltage drop. Plus when you turn the key, you've pretty much gone past the point of no return, it's already doing its thing. :) The monitor will be good for afterwards to check balance. :) If you had a 4A 50c lipo, you'll be good for a 200A burst. :) Need two of those in parallel (capacity), to be in the safe range. At the end of the day, if you needed constant jumps, then it's better time and money spent on either fixing a charge issue or getting a new battery. If in cold climates, get a full lipo/li-fe battery replacement or a supercap boost pack.
Tremendous video! Best li- power bank dissection I've seen, unlucky you did not get those spontaneous plate flames on the record, how fast did it start after you left it? You instantly won my sub with your humour
Love your videos. As some one who likes to tear stuff down and tinker as well ive been toying with the idea of adding car jumping capabilities to my own home made power pack but after watching the tear down of these units i realize im using the wrong kind of batteries. So ill be switching from li-ion to li-po. I felt this would be the case when i came up with the idea due to the characteristics of the two. But your videos and some other info i dug up confirmed it for me. Thank you for this info and keep up the good work. 👍
Just watched another youtuber toss a battery into a bucket, cover it with sand and take it outside because it *might* have sparked (we saw no smoke or evidence of heat, spark happened off camera). He also had a fire extinguisher nearby. And then there is Clive: "Hmmm, let me push these together while opened and exposed to the environment with the protective cover removed. I'm sure my baking tray is here somewhere..." The other youtuber is teaching viewers to be scared of lithium batteries. Clive is teaching us about lithium batteries Watching the first youtuber is like watching a bad horror movie. Watching Clive is like watching a good thriller. Just saying ;) (And yes, I know this is 5 years old.)
Very nice and it shows that these batteries are really kind of safe. The battery-fires in smartphones are most probably the work of tight packaging and internal shorts in the batteries.
Nah mate, it doesn't show that at all. While they have gotten better than they were (im talking like the RC lipo packs over the last 10 yrs), there's no guarantee that a random jump starter pack will actually use them vs the older more volatile chemistry mixes... and this one could well have burst into flames had it been a bit more 'robust' or held together as it would have been if it was still inside its plastic housing (as seen when clive pushed the plates back together - it still had some juice left in it).
I have one of these jump starters, and mine also packed it in after just a couple of uses, which was quite infuriating given the price tag. I noticed recently that the casing on mine was starting to bulge after sitting around for quite some months, so I'm thrilled you have shown me what probably went wrong and have saved me from finding out for myself what may happen should I continue to try and pry the aluminium casing apart and slip (thank you for pronouncing _alumin-i-um_ correctly).
+bigclivedotcom Clive, to power up this circuit after removing the battery, you must first reconnect the 3S Cell, and plug in the USB. Only then will the board spring back to life . I have a few BMS boards that work exactly the same way. Deactivate once cell is engaged, then charge source added. There are several "creative" uses for these, would love to see you explore them more in depth. We use larger ones as a primary pack in a low draw starter car, and this specific one on our CRG Rotax racing karts ! Modded mine to accept a external balance port and charge it via RC charger, these can be versatile items in the right hands, would love to see exploration into better uses.
i was looking for a review for these after looking on Ebay, and i thought to myself this is something bigclivedotcom would or should do and searching on youtube and WHAM! fancy seeing you here! what a pleasant surprise, thank you clive.
12:29 why is the sound of a fricking battery pack swelling up and about to explode so relaxing? But what would happen to the battery with the case on not allowing it to swell up and all of that?
I have three of these exact packs. Two of them have toasted circuitry, and the remaining one has suffered a wacky thermal runaway event... but still maniacally works.
I tried using one of these to jump start my riding mower, but the lead acid battery was too damaged. Instead I hooked the jumper up where the battery goes, and start it with nothing else! It easily starts the engine 15-20 times or more between charges. The diode keeps it from charging off the mower, I just bring it inside every once in a while to charge it. Works better than the original lead acid battery!
I got a name-brand version and the jumper connector head has an LED readout that will tell you if it's attached the wrong way around, what the voltage is, and various error conditions such as becoming too hot. I was hoping you did a tear-down of such a device. With the common feature set, I figured there must be a chip or module that they are built around. But, the total storage isn't that much more than a conventional power bank. So, I wonder what allows it to start a car? It claims 600 A current (1200 A peak) but with only 60-ish watt-hours storage it must be for a very brief period. It must know when the high current is wanted, when trying to crank the engine, and turn it on just for that moment. If it was just a plain connection, it would start charging the car battery as long as it's connected and quickly run down.
I believe the balancing chip connects all the cell one at time to the cap. So each cell charges to voltage of the cap. If the chip is higher than the cap, it charges the cap, if it lower, the cap charges it. by this way it takes voltage from the higher voltage cell and moves it to the lower voltage cell. The keeps all the cells at the same level.
By the way, in my experience: if it had become hot, plastic gloves are worse than nothing. They melt, hold large amounts of heat and stick to your hands.
I can confirm It used to happen all the time in labs
I'm guessing Clive didn't want electrolytes and oxide on his fingers.
It's to help with acid exhaust and spillage, not heat. Good point otherwise though - is there an acid/spill protection that does help with heat too?
@@dascandy Just put the chemical resistant gloves around the heat resistant gloves, not a lot of situations where you'd need protection from both at the same time anyway tho... This isn't a good idea with any type of glove...
That's why I quit a kitchen job.
Using plastic gloves for cooking, ridiculous.
Extremely educated. Taking calculated risk. Based on educated knowledge of electrical pathways and circuits. Not foolish or dangerous. Just glad a TV screen separates us. I know this is an old one. But it was great. Hadn’t seen it yet. Thank you. Keep up the great work.
"What could possibly go wrong?"
"What's the worst that could happen?"
"I probably shouldn't do this"
Big like for Big Clive :)
"I'm not sure why I do this"
Yes, he knows why he does this, because we like to watch him do stuff most of us have enough sense not to try on our own! (And he DOES know what he's doing).
Or in the one video where his bench went completely up in flames: "This isnt necessarily quite good"
Chuckiele do you remember which video? I'd love to see that 😂👌
wisico640 As would I!
I suppose you can see it here: ua-cam.com/video/tBg4ximDrsk/v-deo.html
I think this is the one that Chuckiele is referring to.
It should make people be aware about opening up batteries. Those are NiMh. And the last one has gone bad into spontaneous combustion in contact with air.
Hmm... He was prepared as always, but surprised also ;-)
Those tiny bits of material that can't be seen, were making fire all over the place.
This is genius. The engineers that designed it made both the pack in the leads, and the battery to fail safely in case of an overload. All without adding additional expensive components. This is state of the art engineering at it's finest!
I'm not convinced that it was actually engineered that way, more like it just turned out slightly less dangerous in the end.
yes just a consequence of him having the cover off the unit.
@@ronblack7870 That cover would have split right open and removed itself post haste once the cells started expanding like that. Removing it had no effect on the overall outcome. Had the case been sealed properly and not popped open so easily with such minor force, then we could have a talk about how forcing it to fight against the container and thus increasing the voltage at the same time. Guessing the plastic cover was designed to pop open like that to prevent this occurrence. When the thing splits in your hand, the first thing most users would do is drop it. Thus helping to prevent injury.
You forgot the primary instruction"Don't try this at home". The insight to this shows the potential of Lithium in the fact that such a small batter can crank an ICE. Now the question is how can it be recycled.
19:40 "A few amps is still actually quite a lot of amps"
This is why we love you Clive
amps are giants
13:01 "And I can smell that characteristic smell of sad lithium packs." XD
Playing with lithium batteries: for when playing with fire just isn't exciting enough anymore...
step up to spitting kerosene into a flaming torch with the real nutters :P
@@mycosys Using starting fluid and a Bic lighter to kill flying insects indoors.
@@scootergeorge9576 hey, i killed a fly with a bic lighter before. Used way less flames than i wanted to though.
Boys will be boys, and men will be men.
Also, Scots with huge beards will short out lithium batteries on camera - because the world needs a hero.
I love working with lithium batteries. Ooh and like shorting them out!
I love that you open things up and let us all see how they work. You do things that we all want to do but never actually do.
Mainly because most of us actually have an intact instinct for self preservation.
@@ExEBoss Someone's gotta do it. Uq-Uq the caveman died so we can know what berries are poisonous. Big Clive deals with electronics (that are potentially flammable/explosive) so we know what we're dealing with.
my mom always said to not open batteries but one day at school we found some half broken so we peeled it open and nothing exploded. since then i have a burning desire to tear into every device i have that is obsolete and throw all the lithium cells on flammable material
10:18 "and I've made a special test load, a test load that looks suspiciously like a bit of 15mm copper pipe" hahah
Shhhh. tester was in very good concition xD
“YoUlL Get CaNceR!”
My favorite line.
Thanks big Clive !
So if you'd clamped the battery in a vice (to keep the plates from separating) for the short circuit test it might have been a lot more exciting?
alhazan vice shrapnel lol.
Following the UA-cam tradition - the more carnage / flames / destruction, the more "likes" ! Big Clive dot com - entertainment for all the Family!
That is something he has to try now :P
AvE has just reviewed an IoT Juicer. Perhaps a LiPO in a juice extractor will lead to greater things?
Damn now I want to do that but I dont want to stink up my garage
I don’t get scared much by electronics but holy shit this guy is like a roller coaster. And that lithium batteries are introduced with high electricity amazingly awesome
I'm glad that our good friend the brown benchtop could be there with us and the explosive containment pan during another exciting episode of tearing apart lithium batteries! 😀
bdot02 pie dish. Not a pan ;)
correcting people over the internet.......... PRICELESS
So true...if the brown benchtop ever gets replaced it will be a sad day for all of us.
He should just auction the benchtop off after a while. Wouldn't that be cool on the wall of the lab!
bdot02 like ashens & his dirty brown sofa
It would be interesting to see what would happen when a sealed unit is shorted out. I wonder if the plastic case would hold the cells together long enough for a fire! Time for another test in the name of science!
I was wondering the same thing
Explosion containment pie dish is my favourite character
😂😂😂😂😂
It's a a great plot device. We all feel safer when it is present.
Haahahahahahahahahahah
This takes me back to the big "AT&T - Avestor Battery" debacle of 2006-2007. AT&T, has, tens of thousands of remote equipment locations needing a battery backup solution to prevent service disruptions during short term commercial power "disconnections" , or local rectifier system failure, until a tech ( like me) could be dispatched to troubleshoot & resolve the issue.
They turned to a Canadian company named "Avestor" , which, created a stand alone 48V - 80AH "jar" ,which was very compact compared to prior technologies, and capable of being paralleled to increase the local AH capacity and run time at a site ( most sites were designed & maintained for at least 8 Hours of reserve battery capacity) Well, not soon after AT&T put a lot of eggs into Avestor's basket, Avestor decided to fold up, and declare bankruptcy. Then, not long after that, AT&T was having issues with some outdoor equipment cabinets suffering spontaneous combustion events , the first 2 noteable ones were in Texas, for brand new equipment installs. The company, in its infinite wisdom, tried to pin the blame on the local tech's that installed them (was a coincidence that both sites fell under one crews area) Then..... other sites across the country started to join in on the fun, 2 more newsworthy ones were in Wisconsin in the cold of winter. eepower.com/news/att-begins-battery-replacement-program-after-reports-of-fires/# A large campaign then ensued, to replace the combusting Avestor products with "proven" Lead-Acid technology, BUT, recouping any financial losses from Avesteor was not in the cards. I always try to store these types of batteries in a cool, dry, area, and keep my fingers crossed.
i have had a bunch of lipo's for rc aircrafts in my bedroom for over 10 years charged at 3.8v per cell. still no fire
@@eirikrcman1511 i am doing this currently and it's making me just a bit tense. Is it a very bad idea?
"a few amps is still quite a lot of amps"
Is anyone collecting those lines of his yet?
SandyStarchild your avatar sums up my reaction when he said it pretty accurately
SandyStarchild I read this comment as he said it kind of like subtitles
to kill you, it only takes 1/2 amps to stop your heart
George Sarcasm God it takes mutch less than that 38ma can do a lot of damege but it also depends on the voltage
I've learned so much from you, and I've learn not to mess with some things because of you. Thank you for that, you may have saved me from stupid rookie mistakes over the years.
I'm happy so many RC enthusiasts have chimed in about these jumper packs, because I was thinking, "wow, the manufacturer of these is thinking you're going to jump-start a car engine with that?" I hadn't even considered small-engine starters, so thank you all for that input. :)
That connector looks very similar to the spektrum ec5 connector lol
@@johncarlberg4481it does. I've only seen them orange, though
you can definitely jump start some cars with this. source: i've had this exact jumper pack and used it like one hunded times with my crappy 90s opel corsa :)
But you can start cars with a 12v lipo as I've started a good few...tho got funny looks wen I got a pack out. They was like no way that's gonna start a car, I'm like yeah this battery will pull 300 400 Watts an can put out 20 30 amps depending on c ratings it will have no problems starting a poxy engine.
I've used one to jump my car several times! You only really need a few seconds of power to start an engine.
I know this is an older video now, but something worth mentioning is that these packs in use will see a direct short momentarily when being used to jump start a vehicle. As with any brushed motor, when power is first applied and the motor is not yet spinning, the power is directly shorted to ground through the motor windings. Mind you, this only happens for a very brief moment, a fraction of a second, but during normal operation with a properly charged battery, it is normal to see a current spike of 800-1000A when the starter solenoid contacts close and power is applied to the starter motor. Its only very briefly, but its something that is hard for these jump starters to overcome, especially on modern cars. If the system voltage drops too much during that initial spike and the starter solenoid can't hold the contacts closed, the engine won't crank (that's where you get that characteristic dead battery rattle when you turn the key, its the solenoid rattling back and forth because there isn't enough energy to hold the solenoid contacts closed once it tries to pass current through the starter motor). On vehicles where the starter is controlled by a computer through a relay (which is just about everything now), if that initial current spike drops system voltage enough to interrupt the operation of the computer or the relay that control the starter solenoid, the engine won't crank either. You'll just get one click as the solenoid closes, sends power to the starter motor and then everything stops when the starter relay or the computer controlling it gets interrupted. In general, these little lithium jump starters are only good for assisting slightly discharged batteries on vehicles with smaller engines. They won't make up for a completely discharged battery or work well on something with a large engine, because they won't be able to overcome that huge initial current spike.
Used 3s 12v batteries on there own a good few times no bother
Nothing in the world is more relaxing than watching Clive rip apart some lithium cells. 😍😍
Clive: "which is probably a terrible idea... but that's what we do"
me: "and that's why I'm here"
When Clive writes "it didn't end well" into the video title you know this is going to be an awesome video
EpicLPer ikr
oh hey, it's the barnacules server guy
Hierophant yep
Yes thats right it's allways so ^^
PS: Höhö xD denn habe ich auf Twitter gesehen
That's when you know it's going to end well :D
This is actually safer than I thought... when I shorted one of those drone battery on accident the connecting wire just brow up like a fuse (that is like at least 8 AWG wire melting in less than a second, which is like 2.5kA peak at least 😨) and the battery actually seems fine
Yeah I've seen a post on a 12s pack vapourizing a guy's wedding band wen it shorted it out...nuts
what i love about this is knowing that youd be doing the exact same thing even if the camera wasnt there.
Towards the end of the video, I was half expecting the exposed plates to start burning like a previous video but they weren't. I am glad that there was only minimal damage off camera.
19:00
"Why do I do this? It's so foolish but I just keep doing it anyway."
Words of a generation.
Which generation? Little boys have been doing stuff like this since before Jesus played fullback for Nazareth.
11:45 I love that comment he makes as he connects the pipe up. "Uuuuu..." is right.
Reminds me of another British UA-camr, SovietWomble. He makes exactly the same "Uhuhuhu"-sound.
22:36 - Uhm, Clive, that plate you put down is changing colour, I think this stuff is reacting with the air. These are probably pyrophoric as-
23:00
Yes... yes they are.
It looks great in the video, but I didn't actually see it happening so vividly at the time. Well, right up until they went whoomf!
for reference - lithium metal (the stuff in charged batteries) plus air = whoomp
Dead flat it is oxidised = no whoomp
bigclivedotcom ... lithium + oxygen, i remember our science teacher... same with white phosphorus = exciting!
A video worth saving to show your children how dangerous/expensive Lithium batteries may be, if treated carelessly in a confined space/house/car! Thanks for going where no man ever went in his house!!! My eyes almost popped out when I saw the amps out of this pack - respect!!
All of us RC car guys are shaking our heads at people buying these. The most worrying thing about these is that people will leave these fully charged in their cars for emergency situations. Yeah let's leave a fully charged 3s lipo locked in our cars throughout the summer
Yep, there is a good reason RC enthusiasts keep their lipos in ammo boxes and other non-flammable containers...
I like to think that the more expensive, branded versions of these have higher quality cells and better protection than this particular unit...
+Andrew Gillard it doesn't matter much - it is still a high capacity, high discharge lipo cell battery you got there. I've seen a $200 lipo pack burst in flames in the back seat of a car. No way would I leave this unattended.
Indeed
This is why dash cams shouldnt use LiPo's either, and modding them to use capacitors is the most common mod. The chance that they will explode in a reasonable amount of time (few years) is low, but if it does, it can destroy your entire car. Im honestly surprised these car chargers arent sold with some thick insulation that will neutralize the battery if things go wrong.
I had one of these booster packs. It was great as a power bank for charging phones etc. and my daughter found it very useful when she was doing DofE expeditions especially the torch. It finally expired when I tried to start a 2 litre Diesel, it overheated and became swollen and busted out of the plastic case, it didn't start the engine.
"I've got the tin handy in case this goes thermonuclear on me", and "What's the worst that can happen? Flames" - Priceless!!
I've just bought a 2000amp starter, which started my Royal Enfield 535cc Continental GT Motorbike Instantly. The Lithium Ion battery was Dead, but the Starter is Fantastic !!!! I ran the Engine for half an hour and the Battery is fully Charged !!!
I think you should make available official Big Clive authorised spudgers, maybe pink ones ?
I would get one, definitely.
Hell yeah!
mike fear At this point I think iSesame is pretty well already the official Clive spudger. I dare say many of us already own one, or several.
No, Tartan!!
i want a pink one
Hi Clive, I estimated that spacing of the voltage leads at L =0.2m (20cm). The diameter of UK 1/2" copper pipe is given as 15mm (ext) 13.4 (int) giving a wall cross-section area of 31.2 mm².
The resistivity is RA/L then 110 uV/A x 31.2 x 10^-12 / 0.2 = 1.71 x 10^-8. Published value for hard-drawn copper is 1.77 x 10^-8 ohm-metres. A pretty neat experiment you did there1
That was very interesting to watch. Now we know how those high current cells work :)
21:55 “this still is fully charged... oh that’s a bit scary”
The zigzag might be normal for this size package since a flattened roll would excessively thick on the edges but would also hinder the apparently self regulating safety mechanism of expanding under thermal runaway.
If I remember right, the explosive Samsung Note model fault was found to be caused by a lack of expansion room for the battery.
Samsung found two flaws in its suppliers' batteries. In the first batch, the cause was the negative electrode being attached to the wrong location inside the cell, which made the area prone to pinching. In the other batch of bad cells, a piece of insulation tape was missing where the cell tabs were welded to the foil, causing the welds to poke through the separator layer between electrodes.
While having more space for the cell to expand could have reduced the likelihood of those issues manifesting themselves, the second batch would have remained just as potentially dangerous.
Teardown Dan I don't understand why Samsung didn't manufacture their own batteries, what with them being one of the 5 main manufacturers of Lithium batteries and all that
The second manufacturer for the Samsung Note 7 batteries WAS Samsung. More specifically their battery division.
This seems to be the way all flat LiPo cells are constructed. All the ones I've looked at are exactly the same construction. But then I've only looked at high current cells...
High current ones use alternating plates for the parallel connections. High capacity ones use a core form to give the cells their mostly rectangular shape and the electrodes are wound around it with the external tabs crimped or welded to the electrode foils at some point.
Loved the video,. Giving warnings at every possible moment yet continues to proceed with deconstruction. Loved it
I read Snorting out a fully charged cheap lithium jump starter. (It didn't end well.)
"(It didn't end well.)" Well that's expected with snorting out, there's quite a bit of moisture that could cause a short circuit.
This dedication to teaching should be an example .
The "defusing a bomb" part was the best part. I would buy a audiobook voice by you!
I remember a few yrs ago I had a dead'ish cell phone battery and instead of just tossing it I wanted to know what exactly was inside it so I went in my basement to my workbench to try and find out. I couldn't find any non-destructive way into the battery so I chose the only destructive path to me that I could think of. I put it in my vise and clamped it down tight and started to smack it with a hammer. lol, smack, smack, smack! it then started to bend so I bent it back and forth till something happened. it sounded like a loud fuse went off! white smoke filled the basement! luckily I wasn't in the way of anything. apparently, when I bent it back and forth the chemicals mixed and reacted to each other started to pop out the crack in housing I made by bending it and smoked big time, lucky for me the fuse was actually facing down towards my metal vise clamp and ultimately only left a big white mark on the clamp. if it would have cracked on the other side instead I surely would have been burned somehow. lesson learned? don't mess with cell phone batteries or better yet let bigclivedotcom do it instead ... lol, I never did find out what was in it cuz after that and the basement aired out I really did not see anything inside of the battery worth noting.
Clive, if it is OK to ask, how has your mother been doing lately as I have not heard you mention much lately? I hope she is doing alright all things considered, dementia is such a terrible thing to have to watch in those we love. She is very fortunate to have you and your brother to care for her. Take care!
+Ethan Poole I'm actually feeding her right now. She's comfortable, but gradually fading.
bigclivedotcom Thank you very much for the reply and news. I'm grateful to hear she is doing well for the time being but I know all too well how hard a journey it is for everyone and how hard it is to watch our loved ones go through such as it is such a cruel disease. Your family is very much in my thoughts and I wish you and your brother, and especially your mother, all the best. Enjoy the time you and your mother have together and if she is a good story teller (and can still tell stories) consider recording them as that is one thing I would do different today if I knew then what I now know today (especially given how inexpensive it is to capture good quality video and audio these days) -- so very many questions about an earlier time in our history that I wish I had asked! Take care!
Awwww....this was heart warming
I'm saying this in a nice way, but you know you have good subscribers when there asking about your personal life in a positive way:).
nods his kitty head..
Just by looking at the design, in a fail state such as a short, these cells are safer that the roll design. No smoke and flames from the plates separating. Thanks for taking them apart and looking inside.
I tried to "troubleshoot"my lithium jump battery after it failed. I no sooner popped the plastic case open, and while probing the innards, I set off the lithium battery sack with a stray poke which resulted in a 1 foot burst of flame. Fortunately, the accident occurred on top of a stove. These things are real flame throwers.
It's almost as if these batteries go "YOU'LL NEVER OPEN ME ALIVE!" and just explode
I had a 3s lipo short in my rc car, it blow torched a hole straight through the esc into rx trashing both, all my own fault because I didn't secure the balance lead which wrapped around the drive shaft and shorted, it was funny as hell, the car shot off like a rocket SMOKING like hell.
Monitoring intermediate voltages doesn't always mean that there's a balancing feature. It could be 'just' for protection - the chip will cut the power when one of cells is under minimum safe voltage when discharging or over maximum one when charging. Usually BMS-es with built-in balancers have a pack of large (physically, not so in terms of resistance) SMD resistors.
Well, I guess you survived this battery dissection because obviously you uploaded the video. Anyhow, there were no reports of mushroom clouds over the Isle of Man.
Not necessarily, Clive has arranged for his brother to upload his *final* video.
There was a westerly wind blowing and ended up in my country. N.I.
I bought this pack off Amazon and was using it repeatedly to run a transfer pump off grid. Around about the 6th time it failed and did catch fire as opposed to just swelling. It was a sustained load to drive the pump motors and it didn't stay burning after I disconnected it. Exciting
ENGAGE SAFETY SQUINTS!
I have my mom on speed dial, just to be sure
INSTRUCTIONS UNCLEAR, DICK STUCK IN THE VICE!
HAH
Dark. Duke then you got it right. Well done!
When in doubt poke it with stick or twig lmfao
"A test load that looks suspiciously like a bit of 15mm copper pipe."
I wonder about the nomenclature over there. When one of your short circuits causes your bench to go high order, which will respond? Fire Trucks? Or Fire Lories?
I believe they use the term fire engine
@@coomcake And the generic term hook and ladder vice ladder truck?
So if the case had still been on when it was shorted, it might have stopped the battery from puffing up and possibly the battery would have continued to produce current to the output?
battery: _fails safe by separating its plates_
clive: i'mma just pile both halves of this fire on top of each other on a wooden bench
Hi, this was super interesting! i work as what you could call a battery engineer, i have done what you are did here with lead acid batteries of different varieties. I have wondered about our lithium ion packs, now i dont have to take one apart!
Thanks for the video Big Clive!
You had me on the edge of my seat once you began to disassemble the cell. I feel a little cheated not getting a glimpse of the conflagration.
I purchased the top of the line on Amazon for use when we travel, I have had it with us for 3 years now, and occasionally use it as a power supply for my projects, as it has a 5v USB outlet, 12V out, 19V out for laptops and of course 12V in. So at any rate, this year, due to an accidental disconnect of my Jeep Towed vehicle I had a new (to me) Ford Edge behind my motor home. The problem with the Edge, is that in order for the steering wheel to be unlocked, you must have the key in the accy position on the switch. The book that comes with the car says that you can tow her at
Here I am still kicking. Now 4 years later, my wife has passed away and without her beside me, travel has become a chore and not a joy. I still have the battery booster pack. A few weeks ago we suffered a blizzard and power outage. I took the old power pack and used it, it did charge my phone 1/2 before dying, not much use I guess. I have other sorts of power packs and they kept us in phone power for the 26 hours it took to get back our power. Now the past week has seen me recharging all the packs and when it stops raining for a bit, I will go out to my rig and get my portable soler charger so I can use it should we suffer another power outages. We used to use it when we were boondocking (camping in the wild with no shore power!) and it did a wonderful job of charging our cell phones.
How many times did I hear "I should have ___, but not to worry" - this is my new motto :D
Hi Clive, that looks like a 1/2 inch pipe - what was the spacing between your voltage test points - I'm guessing about 100mm? It would make a nice calculation of the conductivity of copper.
How come you didn't catch the flames and smoke on camera, Clive? :)
Description ^_^
Whoops, my bad! Always the luck of having the camera turned off huh?
I was a bit disappointed that the "accident" was not dramatically re-enacted for the camera.
I think Clive should keep a web cam pointed at his bench and use an old computer to spool the video. Even crappy lo-res flames are better than no flames.
There were still some cells left, maybe redo it for entertainment purposes?
Mine was a bit more dramatic with fizzing and smoke. Will take more notice of the polarity next time even though the new one I bought (for about 3 times the price) has reverse polarity and overload protection. Freakin handy things to have
“Lets not go thermal nuclear”
*LITERALLY DOES EVERYTHING TO TRY TO GO THERMAL NUCLEAR*
If he really wanted them to go thermonuclear, he could've stabbed them through. Do not recommend trying that.
i had one once decided to solder a wire to the positive the cell started bulging then got bigger and blew up in my face bits cell and lithium all over the place, same as a 600v capacitor blew up up dad thought i had a 12 BORE gun. and bits of silver and insulate all over the work shop DONT PLAY WITH THEM.
What no fire or pop? ...disappointed face. You are truly a very brave man. Dismantling this thing without gloves, and poking sharp metal things into it... Very brave man indeed Edit... I see, I was a bit impatient! Very glad you got the gloves out eventually.x
I love the "puffing up causing high impedance" inherent protection. It's much safer than I would assume.
Would be interesting to see a repeat with the case still in place, which could've minimized the swelling.
@@DoubleMonoLR The case would not contain the battery and crack open.
I got ripped of with two of these pieces of junk for way too much money.
This was very satisfying. Glad your fire extinguisher is handy.
Wow, it had more safety features built in than we were expecting!
So one cell saved the day by expanding. Wonder what would have happened if the blue plastic cover etc had been left on to make expansion more difficult?
BUMMER! 😭
⚡🔥⚡WE MISSED THE GOOD PART!!!⚡🔥⚡⚡🔥
at 12:19 the pack gets shorted
Or just watch the dedicated video of the short.
bigclivedotcom oh lol I didn't even see that video came out, I wouldn't have commented this if I saw it ^^
Thanks. Im just here for that :D
I was reading comments just for this one! Thanks
I just wish Clive had shot the pack with a BB gun to accelerate the release of the shmoo!
I fly RC and these batteries need the utmost respect. I have seen one light off on the radiator shroud of a pickup truck and the damage to the truck was significant. I would never store one of these in a sealed ammo box. When they cook off they can cause the sealed box to become a bomb. Think of of a pipe bomb. If you light black powder on fire in the open it just smokes and burns but does not explode. Contain it in a piece of pipe and watch out. When I travel with my lipos they are stored in a ventilated metal box that is lined with tile cement board. Each battery is separated from the next with a piece of cement board hopefully preventing a chain reaction with one battery catching fire and igniting the others. I hope never to find out whether or not this works. There are videos on UA-cam of what can happen in various scenarios to a lipo cell with fire. One of the Metalized bags that are sold for charging a lipo will not contain the heat very long if there is a battery fire. There are a number of experiments available for viewing on UA-cam. I totally agree about not storing one of these in your vehicle. I'm surprised there haven't been more reports of these things catching fire when stored in an automobile or truck. They must be fairly safe but are not completely safe. I can just imagine the scenario of one of these in your vehicle catching fire in your garage and then burning your house down. Maybe with you and your family dying or suffering severe burns in the process. I was on a Delta flight a little over a year ago. We were sitting at the gate while the plane was loading and one of these batteries begin to smoke before it burst into flame. It was not a very large LiPo battery and thankfully the owner was able to take it to the front of the aircraft and throw it out onto the ground before it burst into flames. I now travel with a metallized bag in my carry-on which might offer some level of protection should this happen in the air. I asked the aircrew at the time of the incident about any training or safety measures and at that time they had none. I have been told that that has changed however since so many people have these batteries in various products.
Watching you open those cells made me think of an rc car battery I dropped and it hit a sharp shard of metal. I felt like Wil E Coyote standing in explosion of an acme 💣
you are one brave man sir. Playing with fully charged lithium batteries. I wouldn't dare even on my bravest day.
Literally just a stock 3s lipo as is common in the RC model hobby.
Yep, as soon as I saw the balance lead, it's like, "That's just a 3s". And a baby sized one at that. I'd be generous to say 2A.
Astrid Sunnybunny I would love to know the discharge "C" rating of that 3s battery
Wonder if that EC5 connector on the leads can connect to a nice 3S 50C lipo pack you balance charge yourself, heck even when jump starting keep one of those cell $4 monitors on the balance port warn of unsafe discharge
Typically these have a roll construction, but this one is different, opting for multiple plates instead of a huge roll. That means these are high discharge cells but a lower overall capacity with a 'safer' failure mode. They destroy themselves before they can destroy anything else. It's actually somewhat impressive for what it is, I underestimated it at first as well.
You could. The monitor wouldn't do much because a jump start is so quick, it'll start the car before the monitor registers the voltage drop. Plus when you turn the key, you've pretty much gone past the point of no return, it's already doing its thing. :) The monitor will be good for afterwards to check balance. :)
If you had a 4A 50c lipo, you'll be good for a 200A burst. :) Need two of those in parallel (capacity), to be in the safe range. At the end of the day, if you needed constant jumps, then it's better time and money spent on either fixing a charge issue or getting a new battery. If in cold climates, get a full lipo/li-fe battery replacement or a supercap boost pack.
Oh Clive!! Sooooooooooo good to go back and see the “Original Clive” at work……..memories memories!!
Bob
England
Tremendous video! Best li- power bank dissection I've seen, unlucky you did not get those spontaneous plate flames on the record, how fast did it start after you left it? You instantly won my sub with your humour
Love your videos. As some one who likes to tear stuff down and tinker as well ive been toying with the idea of adding car jumping capabilities to my own home made power pack but after watching the tear down of these units i realize im using the wrong kind of batteries. So ill be switching from li-ion to li-po. I felt this would be the case when i came up with the idea due to the characteristics of the two. But your videos and some other info i dug up confirmed it for me. Thank you for this info and keep up the good work. 👍
One of these LiPos caught on fire in my RC plane I wish I caught it on video it was a spectacular flaming nose dive I wasnt even mad it so impressive.
Just watched another youtuber toss a battery into a bucket, cover it with sand and take it outside because it *might* have sparked (we saw no smoke or evidence of heat, spark happened off camera). He also had a fire extinguisher nearby.
And then there is Clive: "Hmmm, let me push these together while opened and exposed to the environment with the protective cover removed. I'm sure my baking tray is here somewhere..."
The other youtuber is teaching viewers to be scared of lithium batteries. Clive is teaching us about lithium batteries
Watching the first youtuber is like watching a bad horror movie. Watching Clive is like watching a good thriller.
Just saying ;) (And yes, I know this is 5 years old.)
Very nice and it shows that these batteries are really kind of safe.
The battery-fires in smartphones are most probably the work of tight packaging and internal shorts in the batteries.
Nah mate, it doesn't show that at all. While they have gotten better than they were (im talking like the RC lipo packs over the last 10 yrs), there's no guarantee that a random jump starter pack will actually use them vs the older more volatile chemistry mixes... and this one could well have burst into flames had it been a bit more 'robust' or held together as it would have been if it was still inside its plastic housing (as seen when clive pushed the plates back together - it still had some juice left in it).
I have one of these jump starters, and mine also packed it in after just a couple of uses, which was quite infuriating given the price tag. I noticed recently that the casing on mine was starting to bulge after sitting around for quite some months, so I'm thrilled you have shown me what probably went wrong and have saved me from finding out for myself what may happen should I continue to try and pry the aluminium casing apart and slip (thank you for pronouncing _alumin-i-um_ correctly).
correct me if I'm wrong, are you Scottish? I really enjoy your videos :) I almost expected you to say it's Dodgy lol
+Econotech Yes I'm Scottish.
bigclivedotcom I am too, but not as pronounced :) keep up the awesome content :)
He literally replied two comments above you.
There were zero comments when I replied because youtube doesn't have a live comment section. So I literally didn't know, but thanks anyway.
+bigclivedotcom Clive, to power up this circuit after removing the battery, you must first reconnect the 3S Cell, and plug in the USB. Only then will the board spring back to life .
I have a few BMS boards that work exactly the same way. Deactivate once cell is engaged, then charge source added.
There are several "creative" uses for these, would love to see you explore them more in depth.
We use larger ones as a primary pack in a low draw starter car, and this specific one on our CRG Rotax racing karts !
Modded mine to accept a external balance port and charge it via RC charger, these can be versatile items in the right hands, would love to see exploration into better uses.
500 amps is impressive even for a few seconds
@Dave Micolichek when he used a new diode pack, it was a couple seconds, but it dropped to the 100 level
i was looking for a review for these after looking on Ebay, and i thought to myself this is something bigclivedotcom would or should do and searching on youtube and WHAM! fancy seeing you here! what a pleasant surprise, thank you clive.
Aluminum wire is not good for high current copper is best for high current
12:29 why is the sound of a fricking battery pack swelling up and about to explode so relaxing?
But what would happen to the battery with the case on not allowing it to swell up and all of that?
Ooh, someone needs to do this again but with an anvil on top of the cells 😈
I have three of these exact packs. Two of them have toasted circuitry, and the remaining one has suffered a wacky thermal runaway event... but still maniacally works.
I can’t believe how fast that swelled up 😳
That’s what she said
You keep doing this because your channel’s brand is relaxing electronics talk punctuated with occasional explosions.
Love watching your videos, Clive, you're as funny as hell! So entertaining!
I tried using one of these to jump start my riding mower, but the lead acid battery was too damaged. Instead I hooked the jumper up where the battery goes, and start it with nothing else! It easily starts the engine 15-20 times or more between charges. The diode keeps it from charging off the mower, I just bring it inside every once in a while to charge it. Works better than the original lead acid battery!
11:47 - love that sound lol!
I really like your show. I don't know much about Electronics but you're helping me to understand it, on my own projects.
Release the schmoo!
Lance the boil.
I got a name-brand version and the jumper connector head has an LED readout that will tell you if it's attached the wrong way around, what the voltage is, and various error conditions such as becoming too hot.
I was hoping you did a tear-down of such a device. With the common feature set, I figured there must be a chip or module that they are built around. But, the total storage isn't that much more than a conventional power bank. So, I wonder what allows it to start a car? It claims 600 A current (1200 A peak) but with only 60-ish watt-hours storage it must be for a very brief period. It must know when the high current is wanted, when trying to crank the engine, and turn it on just for that moment. If it was just a plain connection, it would start charging the car battery as long as it's connected and quickly run down.
“That is one THICC cable”
Thats nothing theres cable used in industrial electrical about as big a round as ur neck
I believe the balancing chip connects all the cell one at time to the cap. So each cell charges to voltage of the cap. If the chip is higher than the cap, it charges the cap, if it lower, the cap charges it. by this way it takes voltage from the higher voltage cell and moves it to the lower voltage cell. The keeps all the cells at the same level.
20:02 That squeaking noise! :o
Holy snowflakes batman
This is by far one of your best videos.