Where do you store your batteries?

[mikiek]

I understand the volatility of our LiPo batteries somewhat. Don't leave them around charged, don't leave them around discharged. Storage mode right?

I even picked up some of those Bat-Safe boxes. The problem is those are sort of big and they shouldn't really be stacked or stored away in a cabinet. My garage will hit 90 degrees in the summer so I suspect that is not the best location. And I don't really have a good place in the house where I can lay out a bunch of boxes (4).

So I'm wondering where you put yours when you're not going to use them for a week or so?

[NativePaul]

In the fridge. I am single.

[fweasel]

In the fridge. I am single.
Very important foot note.

[fweasel]

I store mine in my basement, in cases on the concrete floor. I have a ceiling mounted smoke alarm directly above.

Someone mentioned recently that they picked up a used mini-fridge at a garage sale that they intended to use to store their Lipo packs when not in use.

[T.S.Davis]

I'm using Bat-Safe now.

[mikiek]

I like the mini fridge idea. I imagine it doesn't have to be too cold. Just not 90 degrees.

T.S.Davis - I have those boxes as well. The problem I'm seeing with them is you shouldn't stack them or store them in a cabinet. Laying them out side by side (someplace cool like indoors) takes up a considerable amount of room.

[Lone-Wolf]

I store mine in an old cleaned out BBQ under my deck, holds everything and is of course flame-proof! A couple months ago I had a serious fire while parallel charging a bunch of 6S packs, had I not been right there it would have been game over, what a mess too. Now I am super paranoid and charge at 1C max rate and never parallel charge. Once you have a fire it changes you forever, while I was putting the flames out I was thinking "that's it for this crazy hobby"...an hour later I was feeling better but I don't like even keeping storage charged lipo's inside my house anywhere. I believe this is a place where overkill is OK.

[mikiek]

Lone-Wolf - is the BBQ kept outdoors? I guess BC is British Columbia? Don't know if your summer temps match us here in Texas - 90+ most days. I'd be afraid that was too hot.

I hear ya re: the fire. I watched a house in my neighborhood burn to the ground this weekend (not due to LiPo) so I am very aware right now and want to get this battery thing under control while I am thinking about it.

I'm sorry for your accident but it does help hammer home the need for proper battery management.

[Lone-Wolf]

Yes BC is British Columbia and yeah we don't get your temps for sure! The BBQ is under my deck, ceiling is over 8' but in the shade, do you have a place in the shade outdoors?

Other than regular maintenance on my boats it now seems I spend the most time just taking care of my lipo's, always checking them after running and before charging etc... I'm pretty hard on my packs because I run some huge boats so the need to keep tabs on not just packs but each individual cell is really important I now know well. Try and develop a strategy that becomes a habit for charging, storing and checking/testing packs. The fury a 6S pack can emit in under 30 seconds is intense, still etched in my brain, probably a good thing.

I toyed around with the various ideas of steel toolboxes and ammo boxes but in the end a free full sized BBQ is perfect for me, I can even charge on the grill and have the other packs neatly under the grill...but I usually charge on a cement floor beside the BBQ...not too close ;-)

Looking forward to what you come up with and hope this helps.

[TheShaughnessy]

pick up a mini fridge they are cheap enough.

[boatsrnew2me]

I store mine in my basement, in cases on the concrete floor. I have a ceiling mounted smoke alarm directly above.

.

very similar here ,big round galvanized tub with shatterproof glass tray in the bottom to put the lipos on . middle of basement ,nothing around it .smoke alarm not far from it .stays cool down there year round .always stored at storage charge .

[mikiek]

Basements - must be nice.

The ugly trend I am starting to see is what Lone-Wolf mentioned. More time spent maintaining batteries that could burn my house down than running the boat. :ThumbsDown01:

I do believe I saw a display of mini fridges at the big W.

[Prodrvr]

A couple months ago I had a serious fire while parallel charging a bunch of 6S packs

How in the hell did that happen?

[Bigford]

I guess under my wife's side of the bed is the
Wrong answer!! .50 Cal ammo box holds mine

[Lone-Wolf]

How in the hell did that happen?

Was charging with my brand new but now scorched to hell expensive Revo charger, has two channels and was running two parallel boards, one/channel of course. Each board had 4x Revo 5000ma 70C 4.20 Gopacks connected, only a few runs on the packs, I would run all 8 packs total in my 73" Mystic at 12S2P/side...so was nice to be able to charge everything at once. Anyways, was charging at 2C so each pack would see up to 10 amps, 40 amps total/channel. Near the end of the charge cycle I can hear a "ticking" sound that I already know from other packs exploding but not catching fire from a year prior. I immediately ran into the room where I was charging and turned everything off but I was petrified to unplug the packs without a face shield so I just stood well back...a minute later KABOOM!!!...cell ruptures and almost immediately a roaring inferno erupts out of that pack with flames literally to the ceiling!!! Man alive that was the worst thing to experience. Luckily I have a garden hose right around the corner outside so doused the flames and they went out in under 30 seconds but the smoke was nuts!!! The 12'x12' room was solid smoke and had to breathe through my shirt while down on my knees while holding the hose. I know that having a fire extinguisher or sand is a nice thing to have nearby but a garden hose running full blast worked very well...but the smoke!! All I can say is it was total carnage and a huge mess, I ended up losing 6x6S packs, 2 went up in smoke while the other 4 were just damaged from the heat and no way am I going to run them again plus burned all my chargers and my nice work desk, I would say I lost $1000 easily in packs, a charger and a power supply plus cleanup. Took hours to clear the smoke, wife wasn't too impressed and you can imagine how many times I heard her nattering in the background about quitting this silly hobby LOL! Anyhow, was a terrible experience but I am thankful nobody was hurt and I was there just in time. Honestly guys, had it been only 60 seconds more it's possible I would not have had that fire under control, 3 minutes later?....game over. I hope this can stick in all your minds and you'll take the time and spend a little bit of money to keep things safe for you and your family.

In the end, to answer the original question, I a certain what actually happened was one cell in that one pack that was "ticking" was not coming up to the 4.20v threshold while all the rest were, time and continuous charge caused the cell to rupture and blow, the blow is pretty violent when it happens and usually that's all that does happen but in this case it must have caused a short in the pack and BLAM! I now always use my cell checker before I charge a pack, was obviously far more important to do this if you are parallel charging but should you see a cell that is well under voltage of the others it's pretty suspect as most of you should know, I would not take the risk. It's really too bad that even the best cells money can buy with a top charger is still not enough to keep you safe. I hope one day we can look back at these times and be thankful we have technology that is totally safe but until then figure something out ASAP!

[Prodrvr]

Holy crap!! Yeah, that's a good reason for me to just buy more chargers instead of rolling the dice on parallel charging. Yikes!

[Lone-Wolf]

Holy crap!! Yeah, that's a good reason for me to just buy more chargers instead of rolling the dice on parallel charging. Yikes!

Up until that point I thought parallel charging was just the best thing ever but after what I am now calling "The Great fire of 2017" I did some research and have found several similar problems on other non-boat related RC forums to do with parallel charging, it's not a rare occurrence. Possibly being diligent and making double sure your packs are healthy with similar voltages as well as charging at a lower rate should help this problem but I am still not going to take the risk of parallel charging again. Us boaters are pretty hard on our packs and it doesn't take long to start weakening packs, it's only a matter of time until there is a weak link in a pack, even a cell checker does not tell anywhere near the full story of your cells health.

[mikiek]

Not that I will do it, but I have not heard of parallel charging. Multiple packs on the same port?

Lone-Wolf as I said earlier between your testimony and watching a nearby home burn to the ground last weekend, you have this kid thinking. I probably would have just kept thinking about it all summer but done nothing. Not so now, so thank you.

[Lone-Wolf]

Not that I will do it, but I have not heard of parallel charging. Multiple packs on the same port?

Lone-Wolf as I said earlier between your testimony and watching a nearby home burn to the ground last weekend, you have this kid thinking. I probably would have just kept thinking about it all summer but done nothing. Not so now, so thank you.

Honestly, I feel great knowing you're going to do something now and of course anyone else listening.

Here's a link to the setup I was running with the parallel boards, could actually have 6 packs charging/channel at up to 80 amps/channel on that setup! I had to have two power supplies to run this beast!...not anymore, I only do one pack/channel now at 5 amps and ya know what?...still feel pretty manly about it LOL!

http://www.store.revolectrix.com/Products/GT1000DUO/GT1000DUO_with_MPAs_2

[mikiek]

That rig looks kinda scary to me.

Coincidentally, my 4 port charger lost a port a few weeks back so I need to send it in for warranty work. Didn't want to be without a charger for who knows how long so I ordered another 4 port charger today. When the other one comes back, I hope with 8 ports available I won't have need for anything other than 1/1 charging.

Going fridge shopping tomorrow :thumbup1:

[Tamelesstgr]

I put mine in the mini fridge, they are about 45 degrees, and take about 30 minutes to warm up to 65 degrees which is about what my basement is typically.

[urbs00007]

I store mine in an old cleaned out BBQ under my deck, holds everything and is of course flame-proof! A couple months ago I had a serious fire while parallel charging a bunch of 6S packs, had I not been right there it would have been game over, what a mess too. Now I am super paranoid and charge at 1C max rate and never parallel charge. Once you have a fire it changes you forever, while I was putting the flames out I was thinking "that's it for this crazy hobby"...an hour later I was feeling better but I don't like even keeping storage charged lipo's inside my house anywhere. I believe this is a place where overkill is OK.

was there any problems with those 6s packs that might have caused the fire? what charger you use? how did you extinguish the fire?

[Lone-Wolf]

was there any problems with those 6s packs that might have caused the fire? what charger you use? how did you extinguish the fire?

Further up the thread I explained that I used a garden hose and there's a link to my charging setup 3 posts above. I can only guess at the actual problem, most likely a cell that did not want to come up to voltage while the others in the parallel string did so the charger continued putting amps into it which heated it and puffed it up until it exploded. All in all it's pretty sketchy, I would not parallel charge unless it was outside, maybe you'll be OK for a number of years doing this but all it takes is one time and it seems like it's an eventuality at some point especially for us FE guys that put our packs through alot more than the average car/truck or airplane guy.

[Prodrvr]

Up until that point I thought parallel charging was just the best thing ever but after what I am now calling "The Great fire of 2017" I did some research and have found several similar problems on other non-boat related RC forums to do with parallel charging, it's not a rare occurrence. Possibly being diligent and making double sure your packs are healthy with similar voltages as well as charging at a lower rate should help this problem but I am still not going to take the risk of parallel charging again. Us boaters are pretty hard on our packs and it doesn't take long to start weakening packs, it's only a matter of time until there is a weak link in a pack, even a cell checker does not tell anywhere near the full story of your cells health.

I'm just gonna buy two - two port chargers. I'll then have 4 chargers and can charge 6 batteries between them...no parallel fires for me.

[Lone-Wolf]

I actually use 4 single port chargers, a 2 port and a 4 port also but the 4 port is Turnigy and can't seem to go above 3 amps/channel when doing 6S packs but whatever, at least I can charge 10 packs at once NOT in parallel!!

[Prodrvr]

I have a Powerlab 6, a Hitec X4 Pro, and today I ordered a Hitec X2 700. If this one works out, I'll sell the other two and buy another X2 700.

[mikiek]

I put mine in the mini fridge, they are about 45 degrees, and take about 30 minutes to warm up to 65 degrees which is about what my basement is typically.

Man, if I had a good consistent 65 degree place to do my maintenance and storage, I wouldn't be thinking about a fridge. As a matter of fact, I was planning on running the fridge about 55-60. You do bring up a good point. Do you need to let the batteries warm up before you put them on a charger?

[fweasel]

Man, if I had a good consistent 65 degree place to do my maintenance and storage, I wouldn't be thinking about a fridge. As a matter of fact, I was planning on running the fridge about 55-60. You do bring up a good point. Do you need to let the batteries warm up before you put them on a charger?I don't believe so, but they do perform better when warmed up. Some veteran racers warm their batteries before their race.

[Prodrvr]

This should put all the crazy storage solutions to rest. https://youtu.be/6M5ftkN9PtY

[Prodrvr]

Was charging with my brand new but now scorched to hell expensive Revo charger, has two channels and was running two parallel boards, one/channel of course. Each board had 4x Revo 5000ma 70C 4.20 Gopacks connected, only a few runs on the packs, I would run all 8 packs total in my 73" Mystic at 12S2P/side...so was nice to be able to charge everything at once. Anyways, was charging at 2C so each pack would see up to 10 amps, 40 amps total/channel. Near the end of the charge cycle I can hear a "ticking" sound that I already know from other packs exploding but not catching fire from a year prior. I immediately ran into the room where I was charging and turned everything off but I was petrified to unplug the packs without a face shield so I just stood well back...a minute later KABOOM!!!...cell ruptures and almost immediately a roaring inferno erupts out of that pack with flames literally to the ceiling!!! Man alive that was the worst thing to experience. Luckily I have a garden hose right around the corner outside so doused the flames and they went out in under 30 seconds but the smoke was nuts!!! The 12'x12' room was solid smoke and had to breathe through my shirt while down on my knees while holding the hose. I know that having a fire extinguisher or sand is a nice thing to have nearby but a garden hose running full blast worked very well...but the smoke!! All I can say is it was total carnage and a huge mess, I ended up losing 6x6S packs, 2 went up in smoke while the other 4 were just damaged from the heat and no way am I going to run them again plus burned all my chargers and my nice work desk, I would say I lost $1000 easily in packs, a charger and a power supply plus cleanup. Took hours to clear the smoke, wife wasn't too impressed and you can imagine how many times I heard her nattering in the background about quitting this silly hobby LOL! Anyhow, was a terrible experience but I am thankful nobody was hurt and I was there just in time. Honestly guys, had it been only 60 seconds more it's possible I would not have had that fire under control, 3 minutes later?....game over. I hope this can stick in all your minds and you'll take the time and spend a little bit of money to keep things safe for you and your family.

In the end, to answer the original question, I a certain what actually happened was one cell in that one pack that was "ticking" was not coming up to the 4.20v threshold while all the rest were, time and continuous charge caused the cell to rupture and blow, the blow is pretty violent when it happens and usually that's all that does happen but in this case it must have caused a short in the pack and BLAM! I now always use my cell checker before I charge a pack, was obviously far more important to do this if you are parallel charging but should you see a cell that is well under voltage of the others it's pretty suspect as most of you should know, I would not take the risk. It's really too bad that even the best cells money can buy with a top charger is still not enough to keep you safe. I hope one day we can look back at these times and be thankful we have technology that is totally safe but until then figure something out ASAP!

Were the balance connectors hooked up to the paraboard? I'm asking only because I'm in the middle of an argument with someone over what happened to you. He thinks you didn't have them connected.

[mikiek]

New arrival - 'nuff said

151953

151954

[urbs00007]

Further up the thread I explained that I used a garden hose and there's a link to my charging setup 3 posts above. I can only guess at the actual problem, most likely a cell that did not want to come up to voltage while the others in the parallel string did so the charger continued putting amps into it which heated it and puffed it up until it exploded. All in all it's pretty sketchy, I would not parallel charge unless it was outside, maybe you'll be OK for a number of years doing this but all it takes is one time and it seems like it's an eventuality at some point especially for us FE guys that put our packs through alot more than the average car/truck or airplane guy.

Lone Wolf, did you check all your packs for any weak cells before your fire? I started a thread on rc groups to get their thoughts on parallel charging. some do, some don't. personally, I will continue to parallel charge and always check cells prior to charging. also going to set up a plastic bag filled with sand that will melt and spill contents on any fire that may start. thanks for sharing your experience and glad you caught the fire in time.

[Lone-Wolf]

Lone Wolf, did you check all your packs for any weak cells before your fire? I started a thread on rc groups to get their thoughts on parallel charging. some do, some don't. personally, I will continue to parallel charge and always check cells prior to charging. also going to set up a plastic bag filled with sand that will melt and spill contents on any fire that may start. thanks for sharing your experience and glad you caught the fire in time.

TBH I wasn't checking the cells before charging at that point as they were all newly purchased 6S packs with roughly 10 cycles through them, I was checking them before running and right after but obviously should have checked before charging. All the packs/cells seemed very healthy. I do wonder though what peoples thoughts are on where they draw the line on when to retire a pack, when cells vary by say .1 volts? Seems discharging packs doesn't pose such a problem if the packs are out by .1 but when it comes to charging...well look what I experienced! I also feel that the carnage was worsened by thhe fact that these were 6S packs, a shorted 2S pack won't do near the damage I am sure, maybe I should switch over to running 3S packs instead of 6S for safety sake...but what a pain for charging!

[urbs00007]

TBH I wasn't checking the cells before charging at that point as they were all newly purchased 6S packs with roughly 10 cycles through them, I was checking them before running and right after but obviously should have checked before charging. All the packs/cells seemed very healthy. I do wonder though what peoples thoughts are on where they draw the line on when to retire a pack, when cells vary by say .1 volts? Seems discharging packs doesn't pose such a problem if the packs are out by .1 but when it comes to charging...well look what I experienced! I also feel that the carnage was worsened by thhe fact that these were 6S packs, a shorted 2S pack won't do near the damage I am sure, maybe I should switch over to running 3S packs instead of 6S for safety sake...but what a pain for charging! I'm going to ask john from revolectrix to read this thread and offer any information on this subject.

[mikiek]

When you guys say check cells - would that be the same thing as the display on a balancing charger? Something else?

[kfxguy]

Were the balance connectors hooked up to the paraboard? I'm asking only because I'm in the middle of an argument with someone over what happened to you. He thinks you didn't have them connected.

The powerlab will not allow you to charge without the balance connectors plugged in.

[kfxguy]

When you guys say check cells - would that be the same thing as the display on a balancing charger? Something else?

Using a battery voltage checker, check to see the difference in cell voltages.


Personally I don't charge my batteries over 1c (1c is 1 amp per 1000mah....example: 5000mah batt at 5 amps, 5500mah at 5.5amps)

[kfxguy]

O and to answer the original question, I store my batteries in my shop and I keep the ac on 75f to 78f during the warm months.