Report: NCR18650 blows up while being relived on an Opus BT-C3100...

yep equally foolish or more so.
some powders it wont perform and others will result in shrapnel of the firearm in your face.

It looks like a tear-down rather than an explosion…

Of course, that was far from a ka-boom!, more like a bang! or a poof!. And after vacuum cleaner's service, what you see in the opening post's picture is what was left behind, more or less.

Still, jomertab wrote that #37 post all in capitals…

Cheers ^:)

You could argue that it was not the battery’s fault. However the gas tank analogy is not really a good one. Fuel is fairly safe, and requires little care beyond the obvious e.g. do not pour over a person and ignite. And there are regulations governing its use such as a firedoor between an attached garage and a house, and using only approved containers for storage. A lithium ion battery on the other hand is a far more sensitive beast, and there are no regulations governing use. Sure you should not short it, but to use an unprotected cell correctly you need to understand how to use a multimeter, and caring for the battery correctly. The problem is that people do not understand how potentially dangerous li ion batteries are and they are sold by shops that do not educate people properly so storing one in a pocket is commonplace.

There’s no such thing as idiot proof, only idiot resistant. Kind of like water proof, enough pressure and it will happen. Idiots are very persistent in their efforts to sidestep design parameters. I know, I shave one.

So if you rapidly deconstruct a icr cell, your fairly safe, as in exposure to what’s inside ?.
I thought these cells were full of really bad stuff and chemistry needing a hazmat suit and breathing apperates to clean up.

Sound like he just vacuumed up the remains of the cell and carried on as normal

Me too 1000X over. Cars today have rev limiters but when they didn’t there were lots of engines that went ‘boom’ from being pushed too far. Something similar happened here; a user with no understanding of what they were doing pushing well beyond the recommended limits. Especially when they pulled the stunt inside their home :person_facepalming: Glad they’re not one of my neighbors!

Phil

No argument, it wasn’t the batteries fault, full stop.
There is a reason you can’t buy unprotected Panasonic icr 18650 cells in convenient packs of 4 or 8 next to the alkaline aa batteries in Asda/Walmart along with the weekly shop :wink:
If people don’t know or understand something that could be dangerous, it’s simple they shouldn’t dick around with it.
But your quite right on the rest of your points :slight_smile:

The chemicals in the cell, normally separated by a thin membrane, react rapidly if they mix.
If the chemicals react quickly they heat up very fast.
When the chemicals heat up, being volatile, the pressure inside the cell increases fast.
Venting is a safety feature to release pressure as cells heat up, before ignition temperature of the chemicals is reached.
Bursting is failure of the safety vent, releasing the chemicals rapidly
The chemicals released are flammable and contain enough oxygen to keep burning.
Burning li-ion cells produce hydrogen fluoride — it’s a reaction product, not contained in the original cell.

For an analogous problem, anyone here old enough to remember the problems with fire and chlorofluorocarbons that were used in air conditioners?
Very stable chemicals, CFCs, turned out they lasted long enough to accumulate in the stratosphere, but that’s another issue.
Released near open flame in a refrigeration or car repair shop, CFCs burned and produced phosgene, a rather notorious World War I nerve gas.

Better living through chemistry.

So if the battery blows apart like this one It release flammable gasses, but they are only really dangerous if they ignite (hydrogen fluoride) so he was fairly safe and unlikely to have been exposed to anything really harmful ?
So would that mean a venting cell is relatively benign unless it’s venting with flame?
Is that basically correct or is there more too it, as whilst none of its good, it would be nice to know in what circumstances you need to be extra extra carefull in the clean up should something happen to a 18650 cell

Maybe one of our main problems with this every now and then reckless idiocy, usually a consecuence of ignorant presumptions fed by shame or any other fear based whatever, is when people assume responsibilities not of themselves.

Helping those who get into trouble is nice, of course, and an important part of that help is making them aware of how did they put their feet in it, and the involved cost.

Mmm, back to my spaghetti dish.

Cheers ^:)

No. Wrong. And the answer depends on what nobody can tell you.

Seriously, you can look this stuff up — if you know enough about what’s inside the particular cell inside the shrinkwrap.

Which, generally, you never can be sure about. Thus we take precautions after asking “What’s the worst that could happen?”

This is not the place to find health advice about the specific chemistry used in some battery you may have.

The answers about health issues will depend on the specific real thing there in the room with you, not on some general statement about those kinds of things in general.

That’s among the reasons lithium-ions are not made for sale to individuals, and meant to be used only in proper containers with the safety electronics wired in place.

And inside the shrinkwrap may be a well made cell from a reputable manufacturer.

Or not. Look up counterfeit li-ions and find the pictures of where the dirt cheap cells are made, badly, and shrinkwrapped with good fake covers. LMGTFY, but you have to click “Images” on the results page yourself once it appears.

You’re outside the safety limits.

Act accordingly.

Or not.

Evolution in action.

For the record, I have never claimed it was the batteries fault this happened. Of course it was the operator who caused this fiasco. There are good reasons why we use lithium ion cells; excellent performance in terms of power, capacity and price. Nevertheless, lithium ion in my opinion is intrinsically unsafe to the point that it is desirable to have it replaced with a new safe format while maintaining its favourable qualities. Reality is that people are going to abuse anything that is available on the internet, so even if it is the operator’s fault, a safer format is desired.
But even when taking the necessary precautions as much as possible things can go wrong. Look at Samsung: we know that they rushed the production of the Note 7 that resulted in the safety hazard. But Samsung are serious people, they even produce their own lithium ion cells; they are no fools. And yet things went wrong due to lithium ion. Look at Apple, another company with good reputation: things do go wrong there as well. The iphone 7 of a surfer was put in his pants and left in his car piled with some clothes on top. Over heating of the battery resulted in a fire that burnt down his car. One can of course argue that it was the operator’s fault, but in my opinion this is primarily due to the fact that lithium ion is intrinsically not safe.
There is a process window where it is safe to use lithium ion, but I believe this window is way to narrow, especially for consumer use. Hence, I also believe that lithium ion will eventually be replaced with a much safer format which will make lithium ion as obsolete as VHS. Cheers.

Hopefully LED's can go out at the same time. On the other hand kerosene stoves have been known to cause some accidents too, as have heavy objects as they are also capable of storing hazardous amounts of energy in precarious ways when in the wrong hands. "The rope just kept stretching, so I kept pulling harder". Energy +stupid = dangerous. Just go out in traffic sometime to see proof.

Please check my post #31 for clarification. Thanks.

Don’t think I worded that correctly, I wasn’t meaning to say they were safe if they vented in a particular way over another, I was just wondering if there are differences after reading what you posted.
From reading your reply and looking on Google it seems like there is no definitive answer and there are jusy to many variables and different types of cells.
Google just threw up more questions than answers, shame as it would be nice to have a slightly more definitive answer as to what to do should a cell vent/explodes/leaks/ catches fire etc.
Just seems to be hundreds of bits of advice, many different, some even sounding more dangerous than the initial problem your trying to deal with.
Even official type of advice seems suitability vague and varied widely in how to deal with these cells if anything goes wrong with them

After half hour of Googling, it’s not hard to see why some people may just think they are only batteries and use them/charge them anyway they think fit, if they even bothered in the first place

Thanks for taking the time to reply though, very informative as always

I have read before in the past on CPF about someone saying that charging some NCR18650A at 1C (around 3A) were dead after around 30 cycles.
That is quite a lot of cycles at that high current the cells were able to take until they died, I am quite surprised.

Always remember to take Sturgeon’s Law into account.

Wow… that person had a ’death wish’!
Utterly amazing………… :person_facepalming:

Well said……. :+1: