Has anyone actually seen a 1cell pack up in flames?

I was just wondering, if they are more likely to burst into
flames, than some of the NiMh packs were to explode?
I've actually seen 3 explosions, and 2 ESC fires...
Yet nothing was ever done as a safety deal for that...
If this flaming pack syndrome is a common thing,
then okay.. but why the bag deal, if they aren't any more
likely to burn, than the other two somewhat hazzardous conditions?

I'm just askin'... I know nothing about it.
(that's why the question :rolleyes:)

Have yet to see one go up in flames or even hear of one doing that but, have seen one swell up from being heated too much! Too much heat is NOT a good thing. Following the manufacturers directions about charging should not cause any problems. Using the bag is just a safety thing that if the charger should fail, or human error, there will be no fire in the pits or building. :thumbsup:

Has anyone actually seen a 1cell pack up in flames?

I was just wondering, if they are more likely to burst into
flames, than some of the NiMh packs were to explode?
I've actually seen 3 explosions, and 2 ESC fires...
Yet nothing was ever done as a safety deal for that...
If this flaming pack syndrome is a common thing,
then okay.. but why the bag deal, if they aren't any more
likely to burn, than the other two somewhat hazzardous conditions?

I'm just askin'... I know nothing about it.
(that's why the question :rolleyes:)


The first test packs I seen swell up but not catch fire. I new packs out I have not seen a problem with. Most of the problems with ANY lipo is people over charging them and try to "WARM" the pack as they are charging them.

Any battery is safe if you follow the manufacturers recommendations.

wish they made a lipo bag to fit the entire car......

I thought somebody did. This question was brought up before about a bag big enough to put the whole car in. :confused:

I thought somebody did. This question was brought up before about a bag big enough to put the whole car in. :confused:

Why would you want to burn your whole car up if the battery went south? :freak:

Bill

There is a Liposack that will fit your entire car. I know James from McPappy received some samples from the company to try out. Not sure if they are listed on the Liposack site or not. If not, just shoot the guy an e-mail

We have cycled over 2K packs with no fires. We don't reccomend heating and overcharging is a no no.

Why would you want to burn your whole car up if the battery went south? :freak:

Bill
Too lazy to take the battery out of the car?

We have cycled over 2K packs with no fires. We don't reccomend heating and overcharging is a no no.

And that is just you guys....
Think of all the people that have been charging,
and seen no flames...

My point was initially, that being cautious is one thing,
but I never saw any panic/mandates about 'cages' of some
sort, when we were exploding packs every week at some
track or another..
I saw one guy get hit in the head, and another above the
eye (at his home), and there is still a 'memorial piece'
stuck in the wall at one track.

As for being lazy in taking out the pack, Hank, one of the
selling points of lipo, as I always understood it,
was similar to brushless mototrs...
One pack... put it in, and that's pretty much it...

I'm all for being safe, but I don't put a matress under my step ladder
when I'm painting either..

Sounds as if the track is preteching the battery before a race that there shouldn't be a problem with fire, That hopefully will keep ppl from overcharging or overheating the packs. It is said that a 1 cell pack max voltage should be 4.22 and temp should be no higher then 10 degrees above room temp.

And i guess if guys are charging at home and triing different things to get more charge in too the battery , beyond the manufactures instructions, Then i don't think you can point the finger at R/C racing as a whole JMO

Why would you want to burn your whole car up if the battery went south? :freak:

Bill

Bill,

It's not that anyone would want this. I joked on the Maximus thread about putting my car in a potato sack...this was a reference to my confidence in the stability of Danny's product. We don't have a sack rule (lol) at our track and have been enjoying leaving one pack in the car all night with no performance drop - awesome! Also, we are not heating or abusing the packs in anyway, either. Of course no pack is safe against operator error such as using wrong settings on a charger, but I have yet to see this mistake. The point is if I went to a track that had a sack rule (lol again), I would have no problem putting the whole car in one as I feel confident enough in my practice and the cells to not have any problems.

5 years ago we started using Lipo's in our airplanes (much cleaner than Nitro) and the technology was new and scary. I've seen a couple of close calls myself. Many were storing the cells in fireproof safes in their basements or garages. Today, I would have no problem charging these packs on my pillow while I was sleeping. :thumbsup:

Yeah what he said LOL
but on another note I have seen equipment malfunctions and 1 recent incident when a charger went up in flames about 5 feet from where I was sitting.
You cant knock a guy for trying to protect his property and livelyhood. I also remember when there was an issue with certain cells grenading this guy went to great lengths to see that we had some safety gear available IE eyewash station and plenty of fire extinguishers. I think we where very lucky during that time that nobody got hurt very lucky.

Go look at liposack.com and check out the testimonials and even it it saves 1 house, garage etc then it's worth it and I was impressed with thier replacement gauruntee to..cheap insurance IMO
I will not charge a lipo at home or at the track without a lipo sack period.

I dont abuse my stuff so I am not worried about burning up my whole car.....If I did I would buy another......Yes...I am lazy and would prefer to keep the lipo in the car and just repeaking it.....If available I would buy a lipo sack for the entire car...

You cant knock a guy for trying to protect his property and livelyhood.

That's right, Jim...you can never be too safe and should always respect other people's rules when in their house. Which is why I would seriously consider putting my car in a full size sack (lol, never gets old) to take advantage of the full benefits of this type of racing when at said track.

Ironically, I ask people that pit next to me to turn the ends of their Sub-C's away from me. I think they are also very safe now, but still have haunting images burned into memory. :(

Yeah what he said LOL
but on another note I have seen equipment malfunctions and 1 recent incident when a charger went up in flames about 5 feet from where I was sitting.
So that makes Chargers - 1, Lipo packs - 0....
I hope we don't have to put our chargers in a sack.. :drunk:
I also remember when there was an issue with certain cells grenading this guy went to great lengths to see that we had some safety gear available IE eyewash station and plenty of fire extinguishers.
Neither of which would have kept a piece of metal
from lodging into someones cranium... :rolleyes:
But I didn't see any push for Kevlar sacks for those..
I will not charge a lipo at home or at the track without a lipo sack period.
I'm betting that after using these things for a season,
you might change your mind, Jimbo...

I'd charge mine in my jacket pocket. http://planetsmilies.net/violent-smiley-1655.gif (http://planetsmilies.net)

But then, I ride a bicycle without a helmet.... :cool:

My thoughts exactly! Hard to work on the car when it's in the bag! I didn't think a BIG bag was necessary.


Too lazy to take the battery out of the car?

i got to say that i am getting to see lipo for the first time this weekend at the brl race. no lipo sacks required and with the preventive measures of 8.44 volts and no heating the packs there are no problems. i charged and repeaked mine at 10 amps and it did not even get warm, dont think the thing went over like 80 degrees.

ROAR approved packs have gone through safety tests to make sure the packs/cells are safe. If you don't overcharge your packs and overdischarge them they will be safe.

The only thing so far from LiPo at race tracks is blunders by racers. One pack went up in flames in Chicago at an offroad track- the guy charged it in NiMh mode. Still, blunders happen- we still require LiPo Sacks for this reason- just in case.

Someone on our site posted this pic....
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/9301/img0024dc3.jpg

I won't argue that NiMh has been unsafe, and I'm not implying that the LiPos aren't safe. But, fire is nothing we need, especially at indoor tracks...

Huh? ...just looks like a dirt racer camp fire. lol. Break out the the S'mores!

Yeah, Todd. Just heard of an issue up north this weekend. I suspect it was a case of the ol' dual purpose charger (NiMH/Lipo) and a setting was missed. You're right...the safest batteries are no match for mistakes.

Talking to a few track owners it is an insurance thing. The 4 cell packs dont really do much in the flame department. They just smoke a little, and make a loud bang when they go off. Apparently (i have never seen it personally) the lipo packs can create a fireball that is extreamly hard to put out with a fire extinguisher.

Best practice for track owners-

Require lipo sacks, and have a few buckets of sand kicking around. We dont enforce a heat rule, but you have to be careful. I wrap a heating pad around my lipo sack and keep it on low. This is just to make sure the pack doesn't get cold.

Joel White

Jason: LOL! Any issue I've seen has been an ID 10 T error....

Joel: We have a few guys with heating pads at the track, they say they have "back pain"... :)

Only problem i can see so far with the lipo is not following the recommended charging. Yes we did have a 1 cell lipo this past week that swelled up in size. charger was set on wrong setting, driver said.
But if there are a few issues with injury and or fire the insurance company will label R/C racing more dangerous and premiums will go up again. So hopfully racers will think of that if they want a place to race!! We sure the heck don't want 50.00 weekly racing fee to cover the insurance cost.
And if said battery would of been in a sack it would most likely popped , no one would of seen it swelling up :cry:

You think it is hard now to get kids into racing , just think of when you tell the parents, Oh it is safe as long as you use this explosion proof box to charge in, your kid will be fine.

You think it is hard now to get kids into racing , just think of when you tell the parents, Oh it is safe as long as you use this explosion proof box to charge in, your kid will be fine.

Well... your kid is a lot more likely to get hurt with
a skateboard, or BMX bike, or get the snot kicked out
of him at school... than burned by an r/c car....

This whole fire deal doesn't have the data behind it
to support widespread panic and doom and gloom...
I'm sorry... Especially with one cell.

There is a certain amount of risk involved in life in general.
All of varying degrees of likelyhood.
But you cannot protect everyone,
from everything,
every time...

And you know, and I know, and everyone else knows,
that in a year, all of those 30 dollar sacks are going to be
sitting on your shelf covering your Fantom dyno, or Brush Monster...

Deleted. Stupid and unnecessary comment on my part. Sorry

You know Dan I'm kinda on the fence on that whole safety stuff.

I too think you gotta assume some risks with any thing you do. If you risk nothing, you do nothing and you get nothing.

And I find that whole lipo sack deal a little annoying too.

Yes your kid can get a serious commotion or die from landing off his BMX the wrong way. Are we gonna ban BMX bikes from the market, would we rather see our kid do the couch potato and die of a heart attack at 19 because he does nothing all day. I'll give my son the BMX any day.

We understand the risk associated with what we do and get along with it. The Only thing is that certain risks only involve the one who does the mistake, like the kid with the BMX, he'll only be a harm to himself if he falls off his bike and lands hard.

Whereas other risks can involve A BUNCH of innocent bystanders. If a LIPO catches on fire, it may burn a whole building down, and God forbid people who didn't have a thing to do with the incident in the 1st place, get trapped in the burning building and can't find the fire exit.

Lipo fires happen once in a blue moon. All it takes is one lipo fire that happens one time too many at the wrong time, and spreads the wrong way. And we're all screwed.

So the lipo sack is with me at the track. And I use it. Just causes me to have to purchase tape again because I have to take the pack out.

It could be worse. I could be discharging my NIMH, cooling it off, traying it, wasting 15 minutes to figure out the EXACT time to start my charge so it's ready RIGHT before my run (well let's see, 5 minute runs, 1 1/2 minutes between runs for marshals and racers to switch, but in heat 4 Mr X always holds the show an extra 10 minutes because his battery is never charged on time, oh and they're doing photo shoots for podium finishers for race 8,9,10, it takes 46 minutes for the pack to charge, so I should charge...), then repeating.

I'd charge mine in my jacket pocket. http://planetsmilies.net/violent-smiley-1655.gif (http://planetsmilies.net)

But then, I ride a bicycle without a helmet.... :cool:


And you know, and I know, and everyone else knows,
that in a year, all of those 30 dollar sacks are going to be
sitting on your shelf covering your Fantom dyno, or Brush Monster...

Too funny, These mishaps are generally a direct result of operator error. Usually manufacturers know best when it comes to charging and safely handling their batteries. So if you follow the batteries manufacturers charging and handling guildlines then most problems can be avoided. :thumbsup:

You know Dan I'm kinda on the fence on that whole safety stuff.
I too think you gotta assume some risks with any thing you do. If you risk nothing, you do nothing and you get nothing.

Let me say, up front, that when I raced Latemodels years
ago, the most common gas tank was a VW tank....
I was the FIRST guy to run an ATL fuel cell in our division..
WITHOUT being told to by rules.
The last position I held at a major company (HP)
I was the health and safety coordinator...
that was my job..
So I am not without safety in mind...
and I'm not trying to be obtuse about this...

And I find that whole lipo sack deal a little annoying too.
Things that annoy me are mandates without sufficient
reason. OR, very very unlikely events happening.
There is certainly a "chance" that there could be a fire
from a lipo cell, there is no denying that.
There is also a chance that your kid could be injured in
a school bus, by the driver jamming his brakes on
to avoid hitting a squirrel, and your kid slamming his face
into the seat in front of him.
Yet... we don't mandate seatbelts in school buses.
Even though we have video of kids flying through the air
like softballs, in school bus incidents...

Yes your kid can get a serious commotion or die from landing off his BMX the wrong way. Are we gonna ban BMX bikes from the market, would we rather see our kid do the couch potato and die of a heart attack at 19 because he does nothing all day. I'll give my son the BMX any day.

I'd give my kid the BMX bike also.
Not because he "can't " get hurt or die, but because the
likelyhood of that happening is so minimal.
Those arguments sound neat, but really don't stand up to
the test of reality..
Cars kill people every day... why don't we outlaw cars?
People choke on food, why don't we outlaw food.
Those types are weak in discussing points like this.

We understand the risk associated with what we do and get along with it. The Only thing is that certain risks only involve the one who does the mistake, like the kid with the BMX, he'll only be a harm to himself if he falls off his bike and lands hard.

You mean like the guy that rides his motorcycle without
a helmet...
The guy that gets into a wreck and becomes a vegetable..
He only hurts himself...
He, and the person he leaves behind, that has to wipe his
butt for him every day, and feed him with straw, and all
of the associated medical costs that you and I pick up,
because he didn't have insurance...
The only guy to get hurt is the guy that wrecks??
Think about it...
Rarely does an accident ONLY affect one person...

Whereas other risks can involve A BUNCH of innocent bystanders. If a LIPO catches on fire, it may burn a whole building down, and God forbid people who didn't have a thing to do with the incident in the 1st place, get trapped in the burning building and can't find the fire exit.

Think about that... and ask yourself if that could "really" happen...
You know how big that pack is... and you know how much of
a flame that thing can physically produce...
Do you think that NO ONE could wrap a jacket around
that thing and throw it outside BEFORE the building
collapsed??

Lipo fires happen once in a blue moon. All it takes is one lipo fire that happens one time too many at the wrong time, and spreads the wrong way. And we're all screwed.

and all it takes is one corner marshall to get hit in the ankle,
with an out of control car, and he falls over backwards,
and hits his head against the wall, and dies...
You can "what if" yourself to death, if you choose to...

So the lipo sack is with me at the track. And I use it.
And I'm glad you do... it's nice to have people think safety!
Remember.... I'm not opposed to safety at all...
But when we hear people like Danny talk about testing
thousands of batteries, or ROAR putting them through
extensive tests, and a lot of places that have been running
lipos for a while reporting no incidents and relaxing their
position on sacking... you have to weigh some of that
in as well, and not just use a couple of pictures
on the internet of a charred piece of something the size
of a cigarette pack, and compare it to the bombing
of Hiroshima...

(I sure hope Behler isn't following this....)

i am wondering if anyone has seen a lipo catch fire inside a sack and what does the bag do. i would like to see this thing do what we are told it will do. i am can it just sit there and we can pick it and carry it outside like there is nothing wrong.

i am wondering if anyone has seen a lipo catch fire inside a sack and what does the bag do. i would like to see this thing do what we are told it will do. i am can it just sit there and we can pick it and carry it outside like there is nothing wrong.


God bless YouTube, :thumbsup:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSgjj6NT5U8

This guy has ninja like speed, lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M5ftkN9PtY&feature=related

thanks that is interesting

Kind of glad that the ones we use are hard cased lipo.

I would be curious to see what kind of pack caught on fire in at the offroad track. When using ROAR approved packs they have been tested for overcharge up to 12 volts and the packs will not catch fire. There are many cheaper packs out there that don't have the proper safety built into them and this is why it's important to use ROAR approved packs.