P2 battery fires?

[IrishSights]

I've been looking into the dangers of lipos and fires. There are some quite horific videos out there including the ineffectual bags/sacks there are out there on ebay.

The purpose of this thread is to establish within the community any history of fires (not other battery faults), indeed if any, anyone has had specifically with the P2 series batteries only.

While the dangers if this type of battery are well known it would be good to confirm or otherwise if its a myth for the P2 series and if their engineering has protection against fires. Any DJI staff out there with any input too?

I posted this also on the other P2 model forums here.



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[Shrimpfarmer]

Re: P2 battery fires

In all my time of reading posts etc I have yet to see a report of a Phantom 2 battery fire.

 

[Gizmo3000]

Re: P2 battery fires

In all my time of reading posts etc I have yet to see a report of a Phantom 2 battery fire.

Same here.
I've never read any reports on any online forums or Facebook groups about anyone experiencing a spontaneous LiPo fire with their Phantom 2, or even Phantom 1.

LiPo fires only seem to occur when they're subjected to physical damage or excessive heat (read one report where a guys van burned down due to leaving Lipo's in a hot trunk area).

But the P2 batteries are probably the safest, due to the face that they come in a slightly protective cage.
I wouldn't really worry about it, just don't drop your LiPo's off a building.

 

[d4ddyo]

Re: P2 battery fires

It's a LiPo. They are known to catch fire... heck... it even happened to the iPhone 3 before Apple switched to Lithium Ion.

Explosions can also occur if the battery is short-circuited, as tremendous current passes through the cell in an instant. Radio-control enthusiasts take special precautions to ensure their battery leads are properly connected and insulated. Furthermore fires can occur if the cell or pack is punctured.

I'm sure if we just take care of our batteries we will be ok. I worry about those parallel charging strips. Doesn't exactly look safe come to think of it...

maybe there is circuitry to shut down battery in case of a short? There always is a failure rate and give it higher and higher production rates and although the probability is very small... It will happen, it's just a matter of when so take precautions. It can't hurt.

 

[freelanceshots]

Re: P2 battery fires

I've been running lipo batteries for many years in RC short course trucks and various other RC vehicles and have never had a hint of a problem. Lets say easily 500 to 1000 plus charges and discharging and never one puffed or damaged lipo. You have to be doing something that you are not supposed to be doing to create a fire. Once, I damaged one of my batteries while soldering on one of my connectors where the power and negative wires touched in the process which fried/zapped the battery in my hands. I then proceeded out of anger and frustration to try and get this battery to catch fire to test it. While outside I hooked it up to a bad charger to charge, poked holes in the cells packaging, slammed it on the ground many times, let it sit in the 115 degree sun for extended time, poured water on it, tried to light the packaging on fire with a lighter, and then poured gasoline on it and lit it on fire. I've even left a battery at 80 and 100 percent charge in storage for over a year and then put it back into service with no hiccups.

I have no lipo bag, never used one and I don't ever plan on getting one. Moral to the story if you use the proper charger with safety parameters built in already, which every approved lipo charger should have then you should be safe. I've also had plenty of high speed crashes and tumbles in my RC cars and trucks and I've never managed to damage or puff a lipo battery.

One test that I did not/have not tried is hooking up a lipo battery to a charger and then trying to charge it in nimh mode or lead acid battery mode.

 

[ianwood]

Re: P2 battery fires

The concern for LiPos in general is entirely warranted. Even if you've never seen it yourself, it does happen. That said I've never noticed any heat from the Phantom batteries when charging and they're only slightly warm right after flying.

 

[ElGuano]

Re: P2 battery fires

The concern for LiPos in general is entirely warranted. Even if you've never seen it yourself, it does happen. That said I've never noticed any heat from the Phantom batteries when charging and they're only slightly warm right after flying.

+1 to all of this.

Most of the explosive/flaming situations I've heard about seem to occur during charging. FWIW the P2 batteries charge at a max of ~0.75C so all things being equal they're probably among the safer charging lipos out there.

I still wouldn't charge them unattended though.

 

[frare bear]

Re: P2 battery fires

I don't recommend what we tried....


But my brother has a parrot drone and a had a couple old li-po's that had swelled. We knew that these batteries are supposedly dangerous and wanted to see what kind of damage they actually cause... So we tried heating them, bashing them with hammers, and all that we could get was a gnarly smell, barely any smoke, barely any heat. We charged them fully beforehand. I was thoroughly surprised based off of what I had heard about Li-Po batteries. NO explosions or fires

 

[freelanceshots]

Re: P2 battery fires

A single Lego piece in the wrong hands can be dangerous too. You'd have to intentionally try to have one burst into flames in most general cases. Video's on the web are from people generally trying to get one to go up in flames. Not trying to say a lipo battery can't be a dangerous item but from my five years working with them I have almost no worries. With that said now my house is probably going to burn down. I leave lipos charging in other rooms unattended every time.

 

[ElGuano]

Re: P2 battery fires

You'd have to intentionally try to have one burst into flames in most general cases. Video's on the web are from people generally trying to get one to go up in flames.

Most youtube videos are demonstrations for a purpose--how many people just randomly point video cameras at charging batteries, to be in a position to catch an unintended incident? But this was posted just a couple of days ago, definitely not intentional. It's good they maidened over asphalt!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?internalc ... -s9RbKNUyE

With that said now my house is probably going to burn down. I leave lipos charging in other rooms unattended every time.

Everyone has their own risk tolerance, hopefully we're all fortunate enough to be able to exercise that based on an evaluation of good data. I've never had a charging incident in hundreds of charges of retail and homemade RC packs (let's not get into non-RC), but I won't leave the house or take a nap with a pack larger than a gopro battery on the charger. I don't have to be in the same room with the batteries :lol:

 

[freelanceshots]

Re: P2 battery fires

You hear in the video one of the guys comment they were really cheap batteries. Maybe that has some to do with my experience. I don't buy cheap batteries.

 

[IrishSights]

Re: P2 battery fires

OP here. Its 24 hours now after the original post so thank you everyone for the 20+ posts accross the 3 forums.

The purpose was to try to established if there was any history of fires in the P2 series batteries. Consensus is that that there have been none reported or known apart from those arising from unintended situations such as landing in water! Task accomplished.

On a side note there is also a good contribution from many on the care of Lipos in general which would obviously apply to the P2 series batteries as well.

Thanks everyone. Infinity and beyond...

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[ElGuano]

Re: P2 battery fires

The p2 battery has an impressive energy density, great power to weight ratio. Just treat it well and follow best practices for care and you'll be fine.

 

[steveeds]

Re: P2 battery fires

I have/had two 14V Drill battery's then wrecked the charger, I used a 17-19 V laptop power supply and left it 4 hours. upon my return the plastic casing had half melted away so now the remaning one gets a 1/2 hour charge...this all could have turned out bad.

 

[IrishSights]

Re: P2 battery fires

I have/had two 14V Drill battery's then wrecked the charger, I used a 17-19 V laptop power supply and left it 4 hours. upon my return the plastic casing had half melted away so now the remaning one gets a 1/2 hour charge...this all could have turned out bad.

Sorry, but I can't see this being relevant to the P2 series battery fire history. No offence intended.

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[Kelso Kubat]

Re: P2 battery fires

at first i was concerned about the "dangers" of lipo's - maybe if i were running the P1 still. but the P2 smart battery is stable. just avoid the basics.
don't touch the connectors in any way. gunning them up with oils from your skin can cause breaks in communication with your battery and phantom 2
don't take them in the bath with you or use them as fire wood... got it :shock:

 

[AndysAdventures]

Re: P2 battery fires

Most of the explosive/flaming situations I've heard about seem to occur during charging.

Do you see any problem with charging my Phantom battery while I'm driving?

I bought a nice power inverter on Amazon for $26 (300 watts) with two 110v outlets and two usb ports.

I keep the battery pack and the inverter out of the sun down by the passenger floor mat with the A/C on half top and half foot vent to keep them cool.

I always let the first battery cool off for 15-30 minutes before I go back to the car and charge it on the way to the next flight area.

My Toyota turns off the DC plug when the car is off so the battery won't be charged unattended and I would never leave them in a hot car.

 

[Sanababit]

Well here is another video, this place is ezdrone, a store near where i live, take a look at the video and see what happens, lol

http://youtu.be/fF9fhlr9S5s

Sana

 

[IrishSights]

Well here is another video, this place is ezdrone, a store near where i live, take a look at the video and see what happens, lol

http://youtu.be/fF9fhlr9S5s

Sana

Just to remind anyone coming to this thread that it specificlly is about P2 type batteries and not lipos in general. There has been NO documented fires of P2 batteries. They use they same technology as std lipos but with electronic protection to minimise the dangers. So i think we can say they are safer than standard lipos. Still, care is needed though.

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[ElGuano]

Well here is another video, this place is ezdrone, a store near where i live, take a look at the video and see what happens, lol

http://youtu.be/fF9fhlr9S5s

Sana

There has been NO documented fires of P2 batteries. They use they same technology as std lipos but with electronic protection to minimise the dangers. So i think we can say they are safer than standard lipos. Still, care is needed though.

That is a good point. I've seen the EZDrone footage and it really gave me a good scare--if you have lipos sitting around the house, this COULD happen. Amazing that people were around, and that it was all caught on video!

On a P2 battery, it's arguable that this particular case is mitigated against. The over-discharge protection in smart battery circuitry would theoretically have prevented the battery from dropping to the voltage of the video in the pack and becoming damaged. I don't think anyone needs to be told that there are no guarantees though; DJI had a video earlier that shows a P2V flying until it hit 3% capacity remaining on the current counter. I don't know what voltage that corresponds to, but I imagine a few flights like that and you're still going to dramatically increase your chance of puffing it and greatly impacting the IR. And the smart circuitry won't help against other general battery abuse, such as storing charged, in high humidity/temperatures, etc.