Almost blew up another Lipo!

[OptimaMan]

Geez, I almost blew up another lipo the other day... You should always charge while you are present and check and recheck the settings. My Astroflight 109 was hooked up to my 4s 4400 pack and you know what? It started charging it as a 5s pack and I didn't notice it until it was almost too late!!! 4s packs are peaked at 16.8 volts - my 4s pack is currently at 18.6 volts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is nice and fat and swollen. I'm going to keep on using it until it busts/burst into flames.

I had another incident where I charged a 3s 1900 mah pack and I forgot to change it from the 8 amp charge rate down to 1.9 amps - guess what? That one burst into flames!!!

The other lipo accidents were on purpose - I short circuited one to see what would happen - got really hot and swollen, but nothing happened. And, I punctured a couple on accident and nothing happened. I did a 50C discharge on a few of them too...

My point - be careful when you charge - charge at the right settings - even if the charger is a "smart" charger, it's not so smart all the time.

[Baja-Destroyer]

the guys at my lhs tried to get one to blow up with no sucess they put one in a cup of nitro and light it on fire and it didnt blow up

[starluckrc]

It seems some chargers are smarter than others. I've heard the Astro can be fooled. I never fooled my Schulze. My Hyperion has been good so far, and the balancer makes things even safer. I am experimenting with some new cells now. They were shorting against a graphite chassis for 5 minutes of running and still seem fine......tough cells!

[nicholcgn]

So what charger does everyone like the best. I was lookling at the astro but want to get teh best charger for the $$$. I am looking at a lipo only charger at this point. I would like to be able to charge larger packs in the future. So suggestions\experience is welcome.

[tcolesen]

This is one reason why I tend to reccommend against the Astroflight.

nicholcgn, how about the Duratrax ICE (4s @ 8amps) or the Multiplex LN-5014 (5s @ 5amps, same as the Hyperion EOS5i).

[vad]

Have to be more careful with lipo,

[deco]

here is a link of the most commons problems whith lipo

http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1584

[ElectricThunder]

Optima Man's pretty experienced with these things, and what they can do (unfortunately).

Anyways, optima, do you charge your lipos in any sort of fire proof or fire resistant containers? :confused:

[OptimaMan]

yeah, they are charged in a steel toolbox. :) But I might take another guys recommendation and use an old charcoal grill. They are stored in an ammo box from an army surplus store - looks kinda cool actually.

I also have the Triton and the ICE. I like the ICE because it can charge higher amp rates than the Triton, but the ICE is SOOOO slow for that last 10% of charge... and the ICE can only go to 4s lipo and I have a couple of 5s packs.

[ElectricThunder]

...But I might take another guys recommendation and use an old charcoal grill...
Burgers for all!:D