Muhendis

After the initial blown gaskets my adult kids couldn't give a monkeys about age difference and are quite pleased I have someone young enough to take care of me.

Interesting. Do you have any figures or links to scholarly articles please?

I would encourage users of this type of pack to charge out-doors and invest in a charging bag. It may not stop the spread completely, but should give you time to escape. Or do what Boeing did with the 787 Dreamliner, and put the pack in a metal box. https://www.lazada.co.th/products/portable-fireproof-safety-bag-lipo-guard-explosion-proof-fire-resistant-charging-sack-battery-safe-bag-for-battey-i3238269350-s12043713390.html Nice idea but how would anyone remove the battery pack on an el cheapo electric tricycle sold in Thailand by the million and driven around the villages at snails pace. The batteries are loaded into a metal box at the supplier premises and connected to a socket ready to receive the charger power. lid of the metal box is plastic. That Lazada thing must have been made with something else in mind. I also notice it is called a "LIPO Guard" when LIPO cells are supposed to be safer. Am I missing something?

Some passenger must have really pi***ed off the driver

Yes. The addition of the iron raises the combustion temperature by about 100ºC to something like 420ºC. In transport applications the addition of iron unfortunately decreases the time and hence miles/kilometres between charges. In other words the battery capacity is reduced.

Yeah. The problem is, the fire is the result of a chemical reaction. Once the lithium ion battery gets to a temperature of 345ºC (I think) the chemical reaction starts quite violently. generating more heat which speeds up the reaction and becomes self perpetuating. To successfully extinguish that sort of fire the temperature needs to be brought down and kept down. That's all well and good but the original cause (short circuit?) of the high temperature also needs to be removed plus any newly acquired short circuits. This is a likely reason to let the fire burn itself out. So it's bye buy ESS. Bye buy e-bike and bye buy e-car. Don't worry too much. It rarely happens.........????

Best way to check for battery cell balancer is to have a look at the battery pack and see if there is a wire going to each cell terminal.

Do you know if your e-bike has battery cell balancing? It's possible that the individual cell is ok but can't charge as well as others in the string. This would cause the whole string to go down.

Yes I agree. There are many who think they have enough knowledge to overcome all obstacles. That is where regulatory authorities come in. They will require these e-bikes to have been type tested and a certificate of conformancy issued. This would be much the same as washing machines and other domestic appliances. Maybe have the BSI Kite Mark

Electronics can indeed be cheap. There is, of course, some degree of electronics regulation because all these e-bike are fine being recharged. But that could be only constant voltage with no current limit. A high internal resistance cell would overheat possibly to the level of combustion. This is where the other type of regulation comes in. There are regulatory authorities tasked with protecting consumers from being sold goods of dubious/dangerous quality. They require government legislation to act against these shoddy goods. So governments need to get their fingers out and pass legislation to ensure the unaware consumer has some sort of protection.

The BMS (battery management system) is a bunch of electronics used to control and limit the current passing into and out of a lithium battery pack. It also limits the charge voltage to a level so as not to overstress the battery. A battery cell monitoring circuit is generally included in the BMS which is used to make sure all the cells get charged to the same level. I have seen cheap e-bikes on sale in Thailand. There is definitely no battery cell monitoring going on and the BMS must be presumed to be in the charger if it exists at all. If you buy one of these cheap e-bikes the result could be this: https://news.sky.com/story/call-for-government-to-fund-safe-e-bike-subsidies-after-battery-fire-12915065

This is where health and safety training is vitally important. If "his colleagues" had a bit of training they would have immediately disconnected power which may have saved this mans life. Note: There was absence of a ladder so how did the guy get up onto the roof?

Some few weeks ago I mentioned that I would give a progress update on this technology. First, for those that are unaware, lead carbon batteries are lead acid with carbon added to the -ve plate mix. The batteries I bought are Gel Lead Carbon. They are installed in my new inverter stable with most of the existing kit from the old room. I needed to extend a few wires to connect to the old system. The batteries behave very differently from the Gel's they replaced. Detail. Each battery from CSPower is 250Ahr and weighs 77kg They are arranged to give a nominal 48v at 750Ahr Charge controllers are 60A 48V from SRNE. What is different about my new batteries. They charge much faster. They can be discharged by 80% every day and still give 2000 cycles. My discharge pattern is 30%/day which is good for 11.6 years. They run cool. Temperature range is 20ºC to 30ºC So far the installation has gone well. The new room is built using AAC blocks which I eventually got from Thaiwatsadu. (There was total non-availability for a week or so). Old wiring was extended to the new location and everything worked fine from switch-on. I may be adding environment control but the AAC blocks are keeping out external heat very well so we shall see. Here's a few pics of the installation. The dangly wires are feedback to the charge controllers of battery voltage and temperature. The big black box is my 8kW, heavily modified, inverter. Other boxes contain protection and isolation components.