Lithium Battery FAQ #1
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- In this video I try to answer some questions I get asked very often. I will do my best to explain the answers to the best of my ability. I am still a small channel at this time, but I have grown enough to struggle with time to answer a lot of repeated questions. Stay tuned at the end also and I show a little bit about a really cool local business called Cyber City Circuits. They are great to have in the area and so glad they have a passion for teaching electronics. Some of the questions we will discuss in FAQ#1 is....
1. Safety with Lithium cells and packs.
2. Do I have an actual repair service. ( I simply mention this since I get asked many times a day)
3. Where do I get my replacement cells.
Hope you find this FAQ video helpful and thanks so much for watching!
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It only takes a few good sparks to give those things respect.
Thank you for pointing me toward this video, answered all my questions!!
I start by charging the batteries at 0.1 amp. If the battery heats up at all it gets tossed.
Then Check the resistance and capacity.
Next let them sit for a month and write down their final voltage.
When building a pack I make sure I match up the final voltages. If you have a battery that will drift down to 4.05v in parallel with a battery that holds 4.20v they will both drift down to 4.05v loosing the extra capacity of the better battery.
Some people say you should dispose of batteries that drift below 4.10v but I keep anything above 4.01v.
Thank you, great video for the uninitiated (myself included). I certainly have a new level of respect and awareness for these batteries now.
Thanks for the video, great information.
Thanks for your kind comment!
I thought I was using plenty of caution and assumed I fully understood the risks of Lithium batteries, but last week I had an experience that really caught me off-guard…
I’ve used Lithium batteries for quite a few projects and have built a few packs from scratch. I have a mini electric dirt bike that I built using a Ryobi 40v brushless mower motor, a 1500W controller and two Ryobi 7.5aH 40v packs in series for 80v. Its a blast, has way more than enough power to ride up the steep mountain slopes here on the Big Island of Hawaii. It’s a wheelie machine and my favorite build so-far.
Anyways, last week I found a poor connection to the batteries so decided to re-wire it all nice and tidy. Somehow I apparently screwed up the wiring so that there was a dead short between the 2 40v packs. When I plugged the batteries in there was a pop and it instantly vaporized a terminal on one pack and broke the connection. I was kicking myself for the mistake because I would have to solder on a new connection to that pack to use it again. Everything disconnected, I set the pack down on the edge of my porch , I would asses the damage another day. 3 days later, I was just falling asleep when my dog and I heard a thumping sound. I sat up and a few seconds later saw smoke billowing from the outside porch. I ran out and the pack was shooting flames like a torch. I kicked it off the porch right into a puddle below but it was still flaming. I went down and completely submerged the pack in water, still bubbling and flaming. It was like a big, terrifying trick birthday candle. Nothing would stop the fire. I knew that left alone it would continue to burn for a long time, and since I had the tools handy I decided to perform surgery to cut the main battery tabs while holding it underwater. I was finally able to snip the main tabs to stop the thermal runaway but it was a very intense experience, like doing surgery on a burning rocket underwater!
I was incredibly lucky that I happened to be around right when the fire started, or it may well have burned my house to the ground. A couple minutes later and the water may have actually reacted with the Lithium and made the situation worse.
My assessment was that when the battery terminal melted it must have created a small internal short across small balance traces on the PCB, which slowly got hotter and hotter over those 3 days until it burst into flames. I’m quite sure that one way or another it was the circuit board that started the fire, not one of the cells.
Obviously I’m to blame for misusing the packs, but the way that Ryobi designed the PCB layout definitely did not help in this situation.
While I will continue to use Lithium batteries in projects, I have a new found respect for the power they hold and their potential for danger. Going forward all my battery packs get stored outside in a safe place, away from anything flammable.
Just thought I’d share this crazy experience with you..
Aloha
🤙
Aloha!
Wow, that sounds super intense. Glad you were home for sure, scary stuff. I do get concerned with water around them as you mentioned also. When I was reading your story and you mentioned the pack on fire and going into a puddle I was wondering if it reacted. Sounds like a cool build . Thanks for sharing and keep safe.
Yeah I’ve seen some debate about using water to try to contain a lithium fire. A few weeks ago I was reading a debate on the subject over a Facebook group. What I gathered is that while it is true that water has the potential to cause further chemical reaction with cells that have burst open, it’s still better than doing nothing, and during the earlier stages of a catastrophic failure we shouldn’t hesitate to try using water to limit the severity of thermal runaway. At the point that multiple cells have exploded, however, water might do more harm than good. At that point it will be obvious that you are only adding to the fireball lol.
I’m glad that I read that thread when I did, otherwise I would have never tried using water. I should specify that anything short of fully submerging the battery pack in water might be a waste of the effort, that was my experience anyway. Even submerged it looked like an underwater welder, but it definitely slowed the reaction enough for me to start cutting nickel strips. I believe there are only 2-3 cells that actually ruptured and I could still smell that awful burnt Lithium smell throughout the house and yard, on my clothes and nostrils for a couple days, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have that whole big pack burn itself out in the yard. Gnarly
Excellent Video Thank You .. !
Great video, thanks!
You make great videos thanks for sharing
Thank you so much for your kind comment! I really appreciate you!
Hi, excellent video and great safety tips, got a question though, do you have a video on using a bench top DC power supply (variable like 30V-10A) to charge 18650 batteries or any other type? I suppose it has to be done one battery at a time and closely monitored but if you have not made such video maybe you might consider the idea?, I've watched a couple but I would rather watch how you would do it rather than anyone I don't trust. great job so far btw.
I do have a couple videos of the EGO 56V using a Drok DC-DC converter to do this also since it is constant current, constant Voltage. With the Drok I could use another EGO pack to safely charge another one. As long as the pack is balanced well,( just all too low to charge on the charger) If they are unbalanced sometimes I will use the bench PS to individual cells set to 4.2Volts max and start off with .5A to see if they will take a charge. If the Voltage rises quickly it may be recoverable and I will go up to 1A and charge all the way to 4.2V and then go through the testing. If not much voltage change and is getting warm or hot then the cell is shorted and abort the test. If the voltage is low (like 0v) on the cell and connecting it up is no voltage drop and no current then it's open.I may have to look into doing a video on this....
Thanks for your kind comment!
Battery resistance should be tested at full charge. But it still gives reasonable information when not fully charged.
Exactly, it will increase as discharged. If I did not mention that in this video, I may have edited it out of the video. I will check both typically when I get cells in!
It was a great overview. Thanks for making it understandable to most people.
I appreciate your videos and dedication. I received a brand new, never used Ego 10Ah battery as a gift but it doesn't charge (25% charger blink) and have a red single LED light. Measured 4V on the terminals. Not sure where to start.
4V at the terminals is not good. I would absolutely start by checking all cell clusters around and make sure they are all reading balanced even if very low. It is a small chance that the pack has just one cluster bad and close to being open or high resistance and many others is at good charge level. Most of the time it is the whole pack that is low. With that many cells reading low chances are many of the cells are not coming back with much capacity and sometimes at least some cells may be damaged and not charge at all. I have carefully used a 0-60V CC CV supply or Drok DC-DC converter with another pack to try to charge up the pack slowly. It has to be a Constant current supply and I start off with .5 to 1A and make sure no cell is getting hot. If any cell starts getting very warm I abort then charge. If some cells don't take charge at all it could be the cell is opened or even the CID has activated and disconnected. It is not easy sometimes saving these packs. I have many videos about the Drok DC-DC converter, replacing a cell, CID, and follow up after some repairs. Thanks for your kind comment and best of luck to ya!
@@ThriftyToolShed Thank you for the detailed explanation. It is a brand new, unused. Very rare. I will keep you posted of what I find. Thanks again .
hi there. just to give you an update. I was able to open the battery and got 47.8 V at the fuse. the problem is that board between the fuse and the terminal. At the terminal still showing 4V but I know the batteries are in good shape. There is a gap between the terminal plastic holder and the board and I can see a piece of metal between. In there it measures nothing, so for sure something is open in that board. dead stop for me, I wish I can send you pictures.
@@trutano
I do have my facebook page link listed on UA-cam channel if you did want to send pics through messenger. I have seen a few of the trace fuses be blown completely away. I have also seen one that was in tact but the solder joint had separated as the weak point also. They don't always have the trace completely vaporized. I also have seen some of the newer packs have the fuse under the connector itself, I have not seen the 10ah pack to say either way.
Also:
The one that had the fuse intact and bad connection to board was mainly the vias in the board layers. I actually fixed that pack by running a 10ga jumper wire from the fuse to the positive terminal still fuse protected.
@@ThriftyToolShed thank you, will do. There is some hope here ;)
I’ve been told not to store DeWALT packs near empty or at full charge for longer periods. One recommendation said it was ideal to store them after running a tool long enough to drop the charge level one bar from full. My smaller DeWALT packs don’t have a gauge and also don’t get used much. Of course, I can always measure the pack voltage. What is the ideal voltage for long term storage? Thanks!
HI,
It is an industry standard to not store packs near empty or nearly full for sure. That is the reason the packs come brand new with about half a charge or less. I always treat the near empty much worse since they can drift easily into the too low to charge level and possibly get too low to recover well. I understand not long term storing fully charged either, but I have not had any issues myself with them being close to full charge. I would say about 1/2 to 2/3 charge is optimal, but since I like having a lot of packs fully charged and ready for power outage or whatever may come I truly leave most of mine charged up close to full in case I need them.
@@ThriftyToolShed Thanks!
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Good show. Understand the problem of Lithium batteries in the hands of the unfamiliar. Unless the product comes with lithium I have tried sticking with Nimh for rechargeable use. Great concept with Cybercity operation. Thanks for the look.
I have a Bauer battery and the battery indicator was really corroded. Tried to clean it, no go. When I try to charge the battery without that indicator the charger just blinks. I can get another charge indicator in a kit, but I was wondering if I could just wire it up in some way to bypass it? Like tac a resistor on or something, I don’t know.
The only Bauer I have even worked on was a flashlight and I shared how I ran it from another pack since I had no Bauer pack. Maybe it will help a little. Other than that I have no experience with Bauer. Best of luck to ya!
ua-cam.com/video/IJ-xZ0zdwbo/v-deo.html
I'd rather have the fire above my head than below my feet.
I have been a fire fighter, I really rather have neither. Over my head was the absolute worst!
That second battery video looks like the fireworks I make when it spins and shoots flames. Also for those that don’t know these battery cells are used to power your Tesla car and it has several thousand cells in series and parallel to power the car.