First of all @oct0f1sh sorry this happened to you!
There are some things to learn for the community:
We are all about safety and telling people to wear helmets, but we should also give more warnings about battery/fire safety. We are teaching people how to build boards on their own, and that is great, but everyone should be very aware that Lipo/Liion batteries can be really dangerous if not looked after properly!! If this happens when the board is in a house or apartment building unattended, things can get way more ugly than this.
Make sure your enclosure mounting allows you to rip it off with your bare hands in case you suspect something is going wrong. This potentially allows you to disconnect everything, separate a runaway pack and prevent a fire. If its too late then get away from the board, a pack may explode in your face, reconstructive surgery is way more expensive than the parts on your board.
If you do anything of the wiring yourself and youâre not 100% confident about your own abilities then let an electrician or electronics engineer check everything before hooking up the batteries.
Always use a fuse or an over-current protecting BMS at the very minimum!
Dont charge your board unattended. Ideally store your board in a place where it can not start a fire (i.e. concrete garage floor/wall, no flammable items nearby. Make sure there is a smoke detector where you store it.
Theres probably more to be added to this list. Stay safe everyone!
Next time Iâm probably going to try and figure out some kind of quick release for ditching the battery in case of something like this happening again.
Just updated the post to show the aftermath. Doesnât look like Iâll get much out of it, it seems that all the water and fire retardant rusted a lot of the metal in the trucks and wheel pulleys.
Looking at the photos that thermal runaway is as expected with a failed lithium battery. Best tip I have for everyone here that makes your own lithium-ion battery pack. Please cycle your pack a few time to ensure safety before installation. I doubt manufacturers sell completed packs without safety testing a few times. I made my 10S5P Samsung 25R pack and checked all connections, balance wires, and mains wire a bunch of times. Still, hasnât blown up on me. Accidentally over discharged it to 0.6 V brought it back to life and held 4.1 V no problem. Iâm not pushing my luck here because I know this can go south faster than my ability to rip the pack from my board and toss it to save the speed controller.
My strategy for dealing with batteries is to obsess an unhealthy amount all of the time about my house burning down. Then, I realize Iâm taking all of the precautions I can and try not to let it bother my day. Worst comes to worst, I have a window for a reason, lol. I hate to through a 2k+ board out the window, but itâll happen if I see smoke.
Battery fires are no joke. I wish there were more members of the community selling custom battery packs.
Thanks for posting the updated pics, and yeah looks pretty thoroughly toasted⌠the one motor looks like it might be salvageable and I suppose the trucks and motor mounts maybe but probably not much else. You might be able to tell which wires there fried due to short vs just being cooked in the fire but hard to gather much info from the pictures just given how charred everything ended up.
One thing that came to mind with all of this is having a small sand bag in my backpack along with regular tools might not be a bad idea. From what Iâve seen the best way to mitigate a Lithium battery fire is to just rob it of oxygen and let it burn whatever is already going but stop it from spreading (flight test youtube channel has some good setups for how to create very safe setups with LiPos and chargers and that was their best advice for fire suppression with lithium batteries, typically a regular fire extinguisher wonât put it out). Problem I see with a removable pack is itâs difficult to make something that is rigid and not going to fall apart on itâs own but also has a good safe quick release that you can grab without thinking too much about it.
Very sorry for your loss. This is truly saddening to see, especially on a build with such nice components! I can only begin to imagine what its like to lose it so quickly⌠I almost lost mine off the side of a dock, and it took me a few days to fully comprehend just how close I was to not having my eSk8 anymore.
But enough about me.
I hope you will not let this experience deter you from building another board. What doesnât kill you makes you stronger!
After skimming the thread a few things come to mind. The standout is the speaker wire. A fire like yours looks like a straight buss line short. A lot of components that fail will burn in the clear. A buss line short is high amp and violent. I work as a high voltage lineman. One of the things that keeps us alive is using the proper material for the volt application. The gage for the amp is ok, what about the volt application. The casing between the two wires, how it was constructed and consistency and quality. Just a consideration. Sorry bout your build. Keep diggin.
Man, watching that caused something in me to die! Now Iâm definitely going to put some sort of battery safety disconnect in my next board! My condolences go out to you in this time of sorrow.
Hey just a heads up. That âBoom Stopperâ from HK is only intended to be used while powering it on the first time to check for wiring faults. But maybe that is your intention?? It only has a 2A fuse, so the fuse will blow instantly if used while riding
Something like this would be better: (available in 60A, 80A, 100A)
I was wondering about that. Didnât catch the 2A. Looked like some pretty small wire for 8s. Was already ordering some stuff from hk, figured Iâd give 'em a try. Oh well. Thanks.
I am seriously considering separating my batteries from the rest of the components in my enclosure and surrounding them in some kind of fire retardant material after seeing this. If you really want an example of high paranoia when it comes to causing any kind of a fire, marry the Fire Chiefâs daughter. That will keep you on your toes for life!
I was having a similar thought, you could wrap them in those fireproof bags you can get for lipo charging. It would add a little thickness to your enclosure. Having the batteries separated from the other electronics is probably a good idea too, even if there is a fire maybe you can save your speed controllers and other items.
