Russel
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2022
- Messages
- 14
I’m sitting at my computer last night when I smell a strong odor, something like nail polish remover. I call for my wife to see if she is working on something that might cause this. She says no, but that she also notices a strong odor near my desk.
Not far from my desk is my latest solar project. Could that be the problem? I open my plastic battery box and see smoke! I’m stunned. My LiFePO4 batteries, charged at 0.1C, have been top balanced a few days ago, but have not yet been connected to anything. How can this happen?
As fast as possible, I move the battery box out to the patio as the house is filling up with smoke. I expect flames to erupt at any moment, but no flames appeared, just lots and lots of smoke.
Once the battery box was on the patio, I removed the batteries from the box and put the now heavily smoking battery in the middle of my yard, just in case. I could see some fluid in the bottom of the battery box.
Questions:
What the hell just happened?
How is it that I and only I seem to have these types of issues and I only have a few batteries? (I would think that Will, Lithium Solar and others, who test batteries and have lots of different ones laying around, would have also experienced something similar at least once.)
What should I do next? (I am now honestly afraid of this technology. What if I had not caught it early? What if I was sleeping or out for the day and this happened? What if I was out and my wife was home when the smoke started? What if, instead of a battery box with wheels, they were mounted in a rack or some other fixed location, like in my basement, etc. or worse, an RV, etc. I would rather lose money on my batteries than lose my house or my life.)
The batteries in question are sold by Eco-Worthy and are the 150 Ah version with a blue label. I cannot recommend this product to anyone. With one battery initially DOA and this issue, I don’t believe this company has poor quality control. I believe that they have NO quality control.
Now I have a hazmat issue to fix as well.
Not far from my desk is my latest solar project. Could that be the problem? I open my plastic battery box and see smoke! I’m stunned. My LiFePO4 batteries, charged at 0.1C, have been top balanced a few days ago, but have not yet been connected to anything. How can this happen?
As fast as possible, I move the battery box out to the patio as the house is filling up with smoke. I expect flames to erupt at any moment, but no flames appeared, just lots and lots of smoke.
Once the battery box was on the patio, I removed the batteries from the box and put the now heavily smoking battery in the middle of my yard, just in case. I could see some fluid in the bottom of the battery box.
Questions:
What the hell just happened?
How is it that I and only I seem to have these types of issues and I only have a few batteries? (I would think that Will, Lithium Solar and others, who test batteries and have lots of different ones laying around, would have also experienced something similar at least once.)
What should I do next? (I am now honestly afraid of this technology. What if I had not caught it early? What if I was sleeping or out for the day and this happened? What if I was out and my wife was home when the smoke started? What if, instead of a battery box with wheels, they were mounted in a rack or some other fixed location, like in my basement, etc. or worse, an RV, etc. I would rather lose money on my batteries than lose my house or my life.)
The batteries in question are sold by Eco-Worthy and are the 150 Ah version with a blue label. I cannot recommend this product to anyone. With one battery initially DOA and this issue, I don’t believe this company has poor quality control. I believe that they have NO quality control.
Now I have a hazmat issue to fix as well.