I was sitting at my desk today working on things on the Internet as usual.
I started smelling something that smelled like it was burning and started looking around for the source.
It was strong enough to get me on alert, but there was no smoke….but the smell was getting stronger.
Visions of flames bursting out somewhere raced through my mind and I frantically searched for the source.
After about 3 minutes I found it.
A LiIo 18650 battery that was not shorted, not touching anything on the ends at all….but it was WAY too hot to pick up so I grabbed some cardboard and swiftly scooped it up and ran it outside and dropped it on the driveway. It never caught fire, but the wrapper melted partially and it was too hot to touch for about 20 minutes. Not sure how close it may have come to igniting (or if it is even possible)….but I didn’t want to find out either.
Suddenly it made me realize how many batteries I have in my office with much more energy than that cheap UltraFire.
I don’t know the statistics, but that was the first time I can recall a battery just going into internal meltdown for no obvious reason.
Now I can see how having an infrared camera could be a life saver. Anyone know of an inexpensive one?
Is it “safe” to keep all those 18650’s, 26650’s etc in the house? I was really only concerned about my big RC lipos TBH.
What are the odds of a round cell battery internally shorting spontaneously resulting in a fire? I don’t know.
I know this is an el-cheapo battery and I don’t buy those any more. It was from last year. But still….never expected this.
But I do know this has me rethinking they way I keep my batteries and where.
If this helps just one person it’ll be worth it. Be careful with those batteries! Stuff apparently happens.