Too paranoid?

[Chris201W]

This is my first experience with lithium-ions, aside from cell phones, laptops, etc. Should I not be this worried? Or should I have more sand than that? ;)

 

[StarHalo]

If a cell vents, it will do so in a cloud of toxic smoke, so your charger rig should be somewhere where a whole lot of fresh air can be made available very quickly, like a garage.

 

[samgab]

Well, it can't hurt to be cautious, but you've gone for the best cradle charger, and top tier cells, I don't imagine you'll ever need that sand :) We almost all use li-ion cells on a daily basis these days with comparatively extremely low rates of problems.
It's like wearing a parachute on a commercial airline flight. Yes, something could certainly go wrong mid flight, it does happen, but your odds are pretty good nothing will go wrong.

 

[jasonck08]

Do you also keep a bucket of sand near your cell phone, or your laptop when its charging? :p These devices all have Li-ion batteries. You have a good charger and good protected cells, I wouldn't worry about it. I don't recommend that anyone leave electronics charging when they are not at home, but other than that its quite safe.

 

[matrixshaman]

Yeah just never leave them unattended and I prefer not to have them right in my face but I think charging problems are rare. They more often go :poof: when in a light under certain discharge conditions.

 

[Ajay]

A little bit of paranoia is a good thing. As others have said charge in a safe location and don't leave it unattended. You can also use one of those fireproof charging bags that RC folks use but your charger might run hot without ventilation. http://shop.ebay.com/?_nkw=charging bag&rvr_id=252656385473&clk_rvr_id=252656385473
Not sure what charger you have there but check to make sure it terminates at 4.2 and not higher. Only use good quality cells like AW (which I think you have in the picture), not ultra-crap etc. Don't charge or discharge over the manufacturer specs and you will be fine.

 

[samgab]

...Not sure what charger you have there but...

It's a Pila IBC. No issues there, they terminate correctly and safely at ~4.2V.

 

[Chris201W]

Thanks for the reassurance. I was careful to buy the most highly regarded batteries and charger (short of a hobby charger) I could find, regardless of cost. That goes a long way in making me comfortable. It is a little ironic that this charging setup made me nervous enough to get a bucket of sand, yet I plug in my laptop, cell phone, and other devices with li-ion batteries without a thought.

Matrixshaman, what kind of discharge conditions tend to make li-ions explode (or vent with flame)?

 

[nfetterly]

Reading this on my phone in a hospital so may have missed this comment. Use a meter and measure the voltage of you cells. I did get one new cell that measured 0 - I didn't want to try & charge it. Vendor replaced it.

 

[StarHalo]

Use a meter and measure the voltage of you cells.

+1, the multimeter is mandatory for Li-ion use.

 

[billw]

never leave them unattended

Is that realistic? Everyone has better things to do than sit around for a couple of hours watching their batteries charge, and I find that the most common mistake I make is to leave a charging battery unattended even when I meant to keep an eye on it. (charging at a higher rate so you won't have to watch as long doesn't seem like that great an idea.)

I'd invest some effort in creating an environment where damage will be minimized in the case where the batteries DO catch fire and they AREN'T being watched at the time. Your tile floor is a good start, if you were considering that part of the charging setup. Otherwise, you might think about putting the charger IN the sand to start with (after having moved the sand into a non-flammable bucket.)

 

[calipsoii]

Heh, that's a bit of overkill. I use a PILA IBC myself with AW cells and I've never had an issue. Just put it somewhere prominent in your house so you'll walk by it a lot, that way when they lights change you can pop the cells out and not forget about them. Helps to set your phone alarm for an hour or so and then check on them. My PILA starts to squeal the second there's no load on it, so when my cells are done, I hear the high-pitched whine pretty much anywhere on my main floor.

You don't need to watch it like a hawk, but I wouldn't recommend leaving the house with it plugged in.

 

[Chris201W]

I did indeed consider the tile floor part of the charging setup. After charging those batteries a couple of times now, I'm more comfortable. A lot of my initial concern was with the fact that they were brand new cells with a brand new charger which may or may not have been functioning properly out of the box. Still, I'm only going to charge them while I'm awake and sitting in the adjacent room. It's close enough that I'll be able to hear something go wrong, and I can pop my head through the doorway every now and then to check on the status.

 

[KiwiMark]

I'd invest some effort in creating an environment where damage will be minimized in the case where the batteries DO catch fire and they AREN'T being watched at the time. Your tile floor is a good start, if you were considering that part of the charging setup.

Do you know what I discovered at my local hardware store? Ceramic floor tiles are pretty cheap! So, I bought 3 of them - my chargers and charging batteries sit on 2 ceramic floor tiles that I put on top of a set of drawers and I use the 3rd tile when I'm soldering. They only cost something like a couple of bucks each and ceramic is way less flammable than the wood that my set of drawers is made out of.

My charging setup consists of one PC power supply which powers 2 hobby chargers and each charger has a temperature sensor which I attach to the cell being charged. My charger keeps an eye on my batteries so I don't have to, but I am usually in the same room (maybe typing a post in CPF) while my batteries are charging, so if one starts billowing smoke I can do something about it pretty much straight away.

Right now I'm doing a test discharge at 0.5A on one 18650 cell with one hobby charger and the other hobby charger is charging another 18650 at 1.2A. I don't see or smell any smoke so everything is probably OK.

 

[LuxLuthor]

As others have mentioned, if one of the cells blow, with the toxic gases and heat you really don't want to be nearby tossing sand at it.