Geoff and I attended the MASA meeting this month and we were reminded of the importance of battery safety. Apparently there has been an incident with a MASA member who has had a “battery explosion incident” that resulted in significant property damage.
Will a battery bag keep you safe if a battery goes off? The video above used a 6S battery with a nail driven through it.
I personally started out with a LiPo bag, which is definitely better than a Woolies bag, but I wasn’t comfortable with it and bought the BatBox (available at ModelFlight) that is mentioned in the second video.
I found this next video which list the 10 worst things you can do to a LiPo battery.
- Charging batteries incorrectly or with a cheap charger
- Disposing charged batteries in the bin
- Keeping puffy and damaged batteries
- Storing batteries fully charged for long periods
- Setting Lipo cut-off too low
- Charging batteries in a flammable area too close to each other
- Buying only one battery
- Not buying enough C rating for your application
- Not letting the battery cool down
- Not balance charging
And I’ll add one more mistake you can make that I noticed after watching the first two videos – never drive a nail into your batteries! Lipo batteries can be handled safely, just like petrol can be handled safely, but if you get careless you can have a big problem on your hands.