Re: Electric vehicle battery fires, what to know and how to react

Recently I saw a video of a dog chewing on a battery pack. He was very startled when it caught fire and set the rug on fire.

So don't let your devices lie around when your pets can reach them.

Bill

We have a built-in ladder that accesses our flat roof from the bedroom deck. After that, we could walk almost the entire block on peoples' roofs.

Does residential wind power make any sense?

ALL modern cell phones use LiPo pocket cells. If your cell phone has a shoulder strap and is quite heavy, it might be Lithium-Ion. However, if your cell phone battery is small, flat, and cannot be removed, it's a LiPo pocket cell. Same with a variety of battery powered rechargeable devices (Bluetooth speakers, recent rechargeable TV remote controls, drones, RC toys, walkie-talkies, COB-LED flashlights, etc).

"10 Dangerous Lipo Battery Mistakes - Fire and explosion causes"

Wind turbine generators usually have a means of "feathering" the turbine blades to prevent spinning to fast. The last thing you want a turbine to do is free-wheel above its maximum RPM rating and launch a blade through your roof.

No phone fires, but we had a dumpster fire at my former office that was started by a cell phone "battery bank". This was an early model that used Li-Ion cylindrical cells (not LiPo). There have also been three(?) eBike fires, which also use Li-Ion cylindrical cells with the added bonus of a home made battery packs and chargers. I'm not including the local idiot who decided that only save way to dispose of a cordless tool battery pack was by first drilling holes in it.

For your amusement, this is a clone Ryobi OP4060 cordless tool battery purchased on eBay(?):

According to what I've read, the danger comes from the vapors produced by overheated electrolyte. The most common type is a Lithium salt and an organic solvent mixture. I would expect that some of this vapor might be detectable by a hydrocarbon gas detector such as a VoC (volatile organic compound) gas detector.

Oops. That should be a LiPo pouch cell.

Isn't that also a means of access for the criminal fraternity?

Only if you want to annoy your neighbours with a loud whirring noise when the wind is blowing. Of course, it depends on who you believe, and who is providing full information. See

See the same graph at

So as long as you're 300 metres (1000ft) from the domestic turbine the sound level shouldn't bother you. How many urban or even suburban areas do you know where the 300m distance is likely?

Relative to what?

According to the caption in the second link "...35–45 decibels when adjusted to correspond to the hearing threshold of the human ear (also known as A-weighted decibels or dBA)."

If they hadn't specified that, they could have got away with almost any noise level. In some cases, dB(C) is more useful if the noise contains a lot of low frequencies. For non-electronic music, the dB(C) reading is generally about 10dB higher than the dB(A) reading.

I used to work with a fire alarm company in New Jersey. I designed next-gen fire systems for high-rise buildings in Manhattan.

They had a sign on the wall that anticipated Lithium batteries:

IN CASE OF FIRE

RUN, YELL "FIRE"

One day I felt a burning sensation on my leg. It was a regular 9-volt battery shorted by some coins.

When I was in high school chemistry class, we had some little coin-sized radioactive samples, and I'd carry them home in my jeans pocket. So far so good. The kids seem OK.