pepelkod
August 25th, 2006, 09:56 AM
Well a friend and I did the Poor Farm 18hr race last weekend. It was fast fun singletrack. Really nice people, and good race venue. Now, on to the subject at hand.
While I was dozing I heard a loud boom, followed a minute later by another, then the announcer calling out that the battery charging station was to be shut down.
Two (2) batteries had exploded. Jerseys were burned. One guy went to the hospital, I think from that incident. People described the sight as a roman candle.
I investigated (fearing it was my homemade battery setup) and found instead, that someone who had a very similar setup to mine had the voltage set wrong. (It was a 14.4v LioN pack and the voltage was set to 20.?v It was supposed to be on 16.7v) I talked to the guy picking up the charger (the batteries were toast) and he said, that it was a teammates and that another teammate had set it up with some vauge instructions. Prob did the same to the other battery pack as well.
Conclusion: If you build your battery packs from batteryspace, they come with a multi-voltage charger. MAKE SURE you set the switch correctly. I suggest a drop of epoxy on the switch to make sure it never moves. Otherwise your battery a-splode!
-D
While I was dozing I heard a loud boom, followed a minute later by another, then the announcer calling out that the battery charging station was to be shut down.
Two (2) batteries had exploded. Jerseys were burned. One guy went to the hospital, I think from that incident. People described the sight as a roman candle.
I investigated (fearing it was my homemade battery setup) and found instead, that someone who had a very similar setup to mine had the voltage set wrong. (It was a 14.4v LioN pack and the voltage was set to 20.?v It was supposed to be on 16.7v) I talked to the guy picking up the charger (the batteries were toast) and he said, that it was a teammates and that another teammate had set it up with some vauge instructions. Prob did the same to the other battery pack as well.
Conclusion: If you build your battery packs from batteryspace, they come with a multi-voltage charger. MAKE SURE you set the switch correctly. I suggest a drop of epoxy on the switch to make sure it never moves. Otherwise your battery a-splode!
-D