Battery Fires

[WFM]

I had a customer in a few weeks ago. A fire fighter. He saw a dewalt battery being charged and told me a week prior a garage in a new by town that does general auto repair was damaged bad by fire from the rechargeable battery's. The owner had several chargers mounted to a wall above a work bench. The batteries left on the chargers till needed to be swaped out. The fire was pin pointed right to that wall as a over duty fireman spotted the smoke and entered the garage.
Then I also saw on local news a electric leaf blower set the home on fire , then tonight on the local news a fire dept cought fire and was badly damaged from rechargeable battery's they left plugged in.
Eye opening.

 

[lugbolt]

i have seen the same thing

but i've also had batteries explode with me on top of them! Lead acid, 6v golf cart batteries. That machine has 8 of them, 4 under the seat, 2 in back, 2 in front. The 4 under the seat exploded. Threw me off of the machine and about 40 feet or so. Have acid burns on my back neck and scalp. Destroyed the machine, totally. Never knew exactly what happened to cause it. Had to be hydrogen buildup with how loud and violent it was.

Now every time I work on an electric vehicle I think about that. And i am reluctant to ever own one for that reason alone.

remember these ev batteries that are beign forced on us are just hundreds of dewalt batteries, all put together in a pack, controlled by a microcomputer that is supposed to prevent hydrogen buildup and runaways. We all know how electronics work forever and ever and do exactly what is asked of them for eternity right?

 

[GreensvilleJay]

The battery being in the charger is NOT a problem. Either the charger of the battery is SMART and disconnects the battery when 'fully charged'...no different than 'maintainers' or 'old skool' SCR based LA battery chargers.

it's the lithium batteries that are bad !

 

[MapleLeafFarmer]

and to stir the pot a little further....

story: small fender bender in the Walmart parking lot with a Ford F150 Lightning would have normally cost less than a couple thousand $'s if an ICE but over 40k as battery pac may have been compromised. no way to check for sure as battery is a sealed unit.... needs to be replaced for liability reasons.

can you imagine what is going to happen about insurance costs for elec. vehicles once the insurance companies finally catch up to actually rating them based on true cost of repairs??

 

[Fordtech86]

no way to check for sure as battery is a sealed unit

I agree with what you said, and in the context of the post of a collision is pretty valid. But the batteries aren’t “sealed” and there is ways to check them. They are tested, split open and repaired under warranty (manufacturer will chose the cheapest option to repair or replace).

my employee price on a lighting battery is $41,000

 

[skeets]

Boys you aint seen a battery fire untill you watch a battery scoop car start to melt underground, because both 128 volt wet cell batteries figured it might be a fun thing to do. Anybody thats been around mining equipment will tell you

 

[85Hokie]

lithium batteries ARE like a ford pinto but with gasoline!
But the pinto COULD GET WET!

 

[Fordtech86]

Boys you aint seen a battery fire untill you watch a battery scoop car start to melt underground, because both 128 volt wet cell batteries figured it might be a fun thing to do. Anybody thats been around mining equipment will tell you

I watched another “tech” try to remove gas from a diesel truck fuel tank with a shop vac once, does that count

ok it ain’t a battery fire, but it was entertaining

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I watched another “tech” try to remove gas from a diesel truck fuel tank with a shop vac once, does that count

ok it ain’t a battery fire, but it was entertaining

OH MY!

 

[Sidekick]

Just saw where one of the defective voltage regulators on the Kawasaki engine in a John Deere zero turn burned down a house in the middle of the night. My Kubota is part of that recall but no replacement parts available yet. Kubota says quit using the zero turn but it's grass cutting time so I have no choice.
It's not just batteries. With all the advanced electronics in everything these days just about anything can burn your house down. That's why electric codes are including things like AFCI circuit breakers now.

 

[rc51stierhoff]

I guess it’s time to swap out the cans of tuna with marshmallows in the go bag in the vehicle(s).

 

[Fordtech86]

OH MY!

there was no personal injury, but it really got interesting when he decided to kick the shop vac out the door (that was full of gas) when the top came off

 

[Flintknapper]

Just saw where one of the defective voltage regulators on the Kawasaki engine in a John Deere zero turn burned down a house in the middle of the night. My Kubota is part of that recall but no replacement parts available yet. Kubota says quit using the zero turn but it's grass cutting time so I have no choice.
It's not just batteries. With all the advanced electronics in everything these days just about anything can burn your house down. That's why electric codes are including things like AFCI circuit breakers now.

Battery fire burned my Scag Tiger Cub to the ground. Good thing I had it parked outside a storage building at the time.

I was walking the dog one afternoon, went down by my shop area and was shocked to see it fully on fire! I always fill the fuel tanks after each mowing....so it had 10 gallons of gas on board to boot!

Tried putting it out with a garden hose....but the fuel tanks were involved by then. Nothing to do but back off and watch it burn.

 

[D2Cat]

March 0f '21 I bought an Ego leaf blower that uses lithium batteries. They are all 56Volt, various Ahr. and three year warranty. There is no core charge when purchasing new batteries and they don't want you to return them. No one rebuilds them. The smallest 2.5Ahr cost $150 and 5 Ahr goes to $240. Aftermarket ones have a bad reputation and short warranty.

All this "going green" is going to get buried in the landfill if someone doesn't come up with an economic solution.

 

[Fordtech86]

can’t we just throw em in with the windmill blades?

 

[Speed25]

I had a customer come in a few months ago needing a new house. Milwaukee M18 battery left on a charger caught fire, burned the house down for a total loss. Being a Milwaukee guy myself, I take batteries off the charger as soon as they're charged now. Also updated my insurance policy to make sure I was fully covered as I have a lot of flammable stuff in the garage, and a good many Li-Ion batteries to fuel fire otherwise.

 

[lugbolt]

some of the stories reminds me of a guy who worked under me at the kubota dealer. We did small flat-bottom boats and motors too, and at the time jet ski's. They sold a pair of jet skis and needed a trailer put together. Trailers came unassembled and we had to completely assemble them (Shore Land'r, which I will never own). Of course they have to also be inspected to make sure they got the wiring in right. New tech was pretty good at assembly so I let him have it. Didn't have the truck there at the time to check the lights, so I told him to use a battery and a couple pieces of wire. I think he understood, so I walked back to the tractor I was working on. Then I went to lunch. Came back and he's got our 120v extension cord stripped back and the end of it plugged into the wall fixing to stuff the bare ends into the trailer plug to "test the lights".

 

[jaxs]

some of the stories reminds me of a guy who worked under me at the kubota dealer. We did small flat-bottom boats and motors too, and at the time jet ski's. They sold a pair of jet skis and needed a trailer put together. Trailers came unassembled and we had to completely assemble them (Shore Land'r, which I will never own). Of course they have to also be inspected to make sure they got the wiring in right. New tech was pretty good at assembly so I let him have it. Didn't have the truck there at the time to check the lights, so I told him to use a battery and a couple pieces of wire. I think he understood, so I walked back to the tractor I was working on. Then I went to lunch. Came back and he's got our 120v extension cord stripped back and the end of it plugged into the wall fixing to stuff the bare ends into the trailer plug to "test the lights".

Reminds me of back in the day when a mechanic wanted to test drive a new engine replacement but hadn't received new starter. Rather than install old starter then remove it when new one arrived he decided to have shop flunky push start him with push bar equipped shop truck. After they hand pushed car into street mechanic told flunky to go get truck and let him know since the car had automatic tranny he needs to get speedometer up to 25 mph but no faster. Couple minutes later mechanic looked in rearview mirror and seen flunky coming up behind at 25 mph.

 

[BAP]

there was no personal injury, but it really got interesting when he decided to kick the shop vac out the door (that was full of gas) when the top came off

Did you get a video of it?

 

[Fordtech86]

Did you get a video of it?

I got pics but I’m not going to put them on here