Ive just has a Lion fire

[Boron]

A small hand electric screw driver, bought new off Ebay only a week ago was sitting in a drawer. It had been charged on receipt and only been used lightly for a few mins at a time. So it was off duty. It suddenly burst into flames for no reason and it was only by luck I was sitting next to it and could react in a few secs to grab the item with tongs (I had by my bench) and throw it out my front door. It continued to burn vigourously, flames 18" high. Had I been away, asleep, out in the yard whatever, that fire would have spread in a few minutes and perhaps burnt my house down.
When a Lithium battery fire starts you only have a matter of seconds to react and remove the burning matter out of your house.
I am shocked at what nearly happened - yet I claim knowledge, experience and careful practice AND I GOT TOTALLY CAUGHT OUT.

This was a replacement for one I had for 10 years but the battery no longer held charge. It gave very good service.

Now I will have to go round and find how many other Lion power devices and battery packs I have like this.

I am so deflated by this sudden danger, I dont know what to do. Seen those YT vids of Escooters going up in flames suddenly - ITS HAPPENED TO ME.

Look at this vid lhs

. I had no warning smoke or hissing noise, just suddenly flames like you can see and how big they were, all in a few seconds.

 

[NC_hydro]

Cheap chinese junk I am not surprised. Glad your house survived.

 

[pollenface]

Wow! Glad you got it in time!

 

[jberger]

Really glad you and your home are out of danger, glad you were able to take care of it quickly.

 

[timselectric]

You were very lucky.
I would buy a lottery ticket.

 

[Boron]

What has shaken me to the core is that the tool was used for a few minutes on little jobs, 2 days ago, and then just left in a drawer by itself unconnected. It just suddenly burst into flames with no warning at all and it was pure luck I have to be sitting nearby in the evening. I could have been anywhere else, kitchen bedroom. I had a smoke alarm which quickly activated but by then the flames were a foot high. Had I been say a minute later from outside, the fire and smoke would have spread. 5 mins the whole room would have gone up.

I am still in shock - my confidence is severely dented. I am searching around for any Lion cell devices laying on shelves etc All going to a garden area away from the house.

How many Lion battery powered gadgets have you got around the place (BT headphone?, USB portable power bank? How many mobile phones in drawers. Android tablets, 4 laptops, phone batteries, camera battery. Can I trust these even lying dormant? How often do you put something on charge and leave it say overnight (phone constantly being flattened and recharged)
Its going to take me a month getting over the shock and re-organising

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Cheap chinese junk I am not surprised. Glad your house survived.

Worse yet it's a British company though no doubt the internals were sourced from china

 

[Boron]

See what happens in 30s

https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/1dp9hgy/cctv_footage_from_beginning_of_south_korean

 

[ThaiTaffy]

What has shaken me to the core is that the tool was used for a few minutes on little jobs, 2 days ago, and then just left in a drawer by itself unconnected. It just suddenly burst into flames with no warning at all and it was pure luck I have to be sitting nearby in the evening. I could have been anywhere else, kitchen bedroom. I had a smoke alarm which quickly activated but by then the flames were a foot high. Had I been say a minute later from outside, the fire and smoke would have spread. 5 mins the whole room would have gone up.

I am still in shock - my confidence is severely dented. I am searching around for any Lion cell devices laying on shelves etc All going to a garden area away from the house.

How many Lion battery powered gadgets have you got around the place (BT headphone?, USB portable power bank? How many mobile phones in drawers. Android tablets, 4 laptops, phone batteries, camera battery. Can I trust these even lying dormant? How often do you put something on charge and leave it say overnight (phone constantly being flattened and recharged)
Its going to take me a month getting over the shock and re-organising

This is where you should be using your test equipment go buy another one and figure out why it went up in flames.
I have lots of li-ion devices made in china normally stored poorly in extreme heat and I'm yet to see a fire yet but a product "made in Britain" has spontaneously burst into flames seems like something that should be investigated.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

See what happens in 30s

https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/1dp9hgy/cctv_footage_from_beginning_of_south_korean

This was on the news here along side a spate of EV charger fires I'll try find a video those were scary seems they were using lithium cells in the public chargers to compensate for the poor grid power.

 

[Luk88]

This is where you should be using your test equipment go buy another one and figure out why it went up in flames.
I have lots of li-ion devices made in china normally stored poorly in extreme heat and I'm yet to see a fire yet but a product "made in Britain" has spontaneously burst into flames seems like something that should be investigated.

The problem is this may very well have been something like a faulty separator in a li-ion cell. You can design the best product in the world, but then you can have a li-ion cell that decides to spontaneusly self combust. Does buying your 18650 li-ion cells from reputable companies like samsung or LG make the problem go away? No. It lowers the possibility, but it doesn't make it go away.

The problem is these li-ion fires are so dangerous because they are very hot, self sustaining and you get no warning whatsoever.

I keep all my lipo batteries in a metal ammo can in a building outside. I think it is time I start doing the same with li-ion.

You know what pisses me off to no end? Mobile phones. I have quite a few old android mobile phones I like to mess with from time to time. None have user removable battery.

As to the "It never happened to me" argument... I bet most of you never got hit by lightning, but still every single one of your homes has lighning protection. As a society we're simply not accustomed to the dangers of li-ion batteries.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

The problem is this may very well have been something like a faulty separator in a li-ion cell. You can design the best product in the world, but then you can have a li-ion cell that decides to spontaneusly self combust. Does buying your 18650 li-ion cells from reputable companies like samsung or LG make the problem go away? No. It lowers the possibility, but it doesn't make it go away.

Could be but considering it's a cheap tool I don't see what harm there is in buying another and checking

The problem is these li-ion fires are so dangerous because they are very hot, self sustaining and you get no warning whatsoever.

Yep the few 18650's I've thrown in bonfires(for education purposes)have all had varying explosion times.

I keep all my lipo batteries in a metal ammo can in a building outside. I think it is time I start doing the same with li-ion.

I generally store 18650`s and a few larger Lifepo4 bike batteries on the ceramic tiled floor of my workshop away from any combustible materials along with my tool batteries not great but better than in a wooden drawer but I also run a storage charge on them from my cheap little 80w smart charger.

You know what pisses me off to no end? Mobile phones. I have quite a few old android mobile phones I like to mess with from time to time. None have user removable battery.

I tend to remove the cell with great difficulty to repurpose in an esp project I have a few older Nokia's and Sony phones from back in the day which all have easy to remove batteries but those seemed to cease with the invention of smart phones.

As to the "It never happened to me" argument... I bet most of you never got hit by lightning, but still every single one of your homes has lighning protection. As a society we're simply not accustomed to the dangers of li-ion batteries.

I have SPD's but rely on mother nature for lightning protection generally, we have lots of giant bamboo around the house which is considerably taller than the buildings. I'll be constructing a purpose built power shed for my batteries and inverters when the time comes 1 because fire and 2 who wants to hear high pitch cooling fans.

 

[Suijkerbuijk]

Thare are still phone with remove battery unit.
Galaxy Xcover serie
Nokia g42
Fairphone

Than the new EU law .
All smartphone have to a easy replace battery unit (2027)
So more phones will come with a remove battery pack.
Usa do not have that law like a lot of other country.
But the first step is set.
So yes if even a iPhone will need to do this if not.
No sell.

 

[Boron]

The problem is these li-ion fires are so dangerous because they are very hot, self sustaining and you get no warning whatsoever.

I keep all my lipo batteries in a metal ammo can in a building outside. I think it is time I start doing the same with li-ion.

Yes ex NATO Ammo steel box £12, bargain very wise. Are the Armchairs here listening and learning?

 

[Boron]

As to the "It never happened to me" argument... I bet most of you never got hit by lightning, but still every single one of your homes has lighning protection. As a society we're simply not accustomed to the dangers of li-ion batteries.

Lightning protection , we dont generally have that in UK. I have installed a APC UPS mainly cos it has good mains pre-condition ccts to catch spikes and switching transients. Very occasionally we get a power outage for a short while, gives me time to shut down PC etc. A power surge took out my Yamaha Music centre amp years ago, so it does happen. Direct lightning strike on an urban house very rare (but climate change is upon us so who knows)

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Yes ex NATO Ammo steel box £12, bargain very wise. Are the Armchairs here listening and learning?

Lithium chemistry battery fires typically burn at 2000°c while steel melts at around 1,200°c hence hence why I store mine on ceramic

 

[Boron]

As one door closes, another one slams in your face. I looked at my original cordless driver and eventually decided to pen it up. they make it difficult dont they. Well shock horror its powered by AA Nicads 4 off giving 4.8 V 600mAh originally. De Walt uses these as well. None of the safety concerns BS you get with Lions (even NIMH are quite tame btw). I found that you can rejuvenate these cells by complete discharge then slow 0.1C charge over 16hrs (the efficiency is low only about 50% of energy gets stored. But it gave me 10 years faithfull service for what it is. I can buy 2 new sets on Ebay for £7

Stupid boy Pike Me could have saved all that grief - but a wake up call is not a bad thing

Will report on how this works out.

btw the construction of this driver is surprisingly good quality. I think it cost ca £15 from Wilko originally, If I fit some new nicads, this might go on for another 10 years - makes you think.

Also FWIW I have a portable cordless hedge trimmer (18" blade) very useful and capable for my needs. Its original NMH battery pack still going strong after 7 years. There was a big scandal about fake Eneloop AA batteries flooding the market about 5 years ago. They only had a fraction of the stated 1900mAh capacity. Panasonic got very mad about this ruining their brand name but they had a factory in PRC making these so Charlie would run off a batch off copies on the night shift. I think the situation was brought under control today. Proper cells can give surprisingly good service and the charger is really simple just a volt source and a resistor. You know when the battery is full when it gets warm. Some chargers have a thermistor cutout to detect this. The old tech has been bypassed for higher density Lions yada yada

Laptops drove the trend for Lions (and smart phones want Lipos remember when early ones burst into flames. causing serious injury if you had one in your pocket.

 

[timselectric]

Lightning protection is very rare in the two states that I mostly work in. (Kentucky and Indiana)
I would say it's well below 10 % of the properties.

 

[Brucey]

As one door closes, another one slams in your face. I looked at my original cordless driver and eventually decided to pen it up. they make it difficult dont they. Well shock horror its powered by AA Nicads 4 off giving 4.8 V 600mAh originally. De Walt uses these as well. None of the safety concerns BS you get with Lions (even NIMH are quite tame btw). I found that you can rejuvenate these cells by complete discharge then slow 0.1C charge over 16hrs (the efficiency is low only about 50% of energy gets stored. But it gave me 10 years faithfull service for what it is. I can buy 2 new sets on Ebay for £7

Stupid boy Pike Me could have saved all that grief - but a wake up call is not a bad thing

Will report on how this works out.

btw the construction of this driver is surprisingly good quality. I think it cost ca £15 from Wilko originally, If I fit some new nicads, this might go on for another 10 years - makes you think.

Also FWIW I have a portable cordless hedge trimmer (18" blade) very useful and capable for my needs. Its original NMH battery pack still going strong after 7 years. There was a big scandal about fake Eneloop AA batteries flooding the market about 5 years ago. They only had a fraction of the stated 1900mAh capacity. Panasonic got very mad about this ruining their brand name but they had a factory in PRC making these so Charlie would run off a batch off copies on the night shift. I think the situation was brought under control today. Proper cells can give surprisingly good service and the charger is really simple just a volt source and a resistor. You know when the battery is full when it gets warm. Some chargers have a thermistor cutout to detect this. The old tech has been bypassed for higher density Lions yada yada

Laptops drove the trend for Lions (and smart phones want Lipos remember when early ones burst into flames. causing serious injury if you had one in your pocket.

Prob best practice to have any recharging done on a steel surface away from combustibles anyway.

 

[Hedges]

This is like the laptop and cell phone fires in 2007/2008 timeframe.
Which is why I didn't invest in Tesla back then.

There were defective big-name batteries, and counterfeits that got into the authorized supply chain for name brands.

These days, lots of automated inspection steps and the like for cell manufacturing.

I read that Tesla became aware of the one in a million chance of a cell fire, and realized that was one in a couple hundred customer's homes that would burn down, so engineered the pack to contain it.

For the rest of us, a stone outdoor fireplace for charging and storage seems like a reasonable idea. But laptops and cellphones at least are going to be in our homes, offices, cars.

 

[SeaGal]

Gosh - that must have been scary, especially as it was just sitting there, not even being charged. And worrying to imagine what would have happened had you not just randomly been sat there when it spontaneously ignited.

But surely the lesson from this incident - for all of us - is to buy well known, trusted, established brands (I'm thinking 'Black & Decker', Bosch, Stanley, DeWalt, Makita etc.), rather than purchasing an unheard-of brand from a random person off a peer-to-peer auction site.

Obviously that won't guarantee zero failures, but would surely mitigate the chance of such an event happening due to their quality checks, providence of sourcing of components etc.

Out of interest, I tried to google "Am-Tech", but all I found was "amtech" - a UK based company. They have a similar looking product but different font/logo etc...

So, as far as I can see, what you bought off e-bay was not only an unheard-of brand but probably a dupe of an unheard-of brand

P.S. I assume you have or will report this to trading standards office with the photographic evidence?

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Out of interest, I tried to google "Am-Tech", but all I found was "amtech" - a UK based company. They have a similar looking product but different font/logo etc...

Amtech are a fairly well established brand in the UK they just have never been a good one typically sold in independent DIY stores and on street markets not sure if they've changed brand logo but the logo in the OP looked to be the same as I've seen in the past, my mother always used to buy rolls of twine for the garden with the same logo on the packaging.

 

[cdsolar]

The image of the eBay screwdriver above says "Am-Tech". The company website says "amtech". Perhaps this is indeed a clone?

Edit: Sorry @SeaGal you already made this hypothesis above ...

 

[ThaiTaffy]

The image of the eBay screwdriver above says "Am-Tech". The company website says "amtech". Perhaps this is indeed a clone?

I'm thinking they just changed the branding as it was synonyms with cheap one use tools

 

[cdsolar]

I'm thinking they just changed the branding as it was synonyms with cheap one use tools
View attachment 231334

Hmm the drills on their website have "amtech" OP should ask them if it is theirs.