Ep 4200 Has blown up in my face
 

Just been sitting in my out house tinkering with my car when a EP 4200 has just went bang 2 feet away from me, the cells were on top of my plastic tool box NOTHING and i can't stress enough NOTHING was anywhere near them, They were not on charge and were not used since last week, Im lucky the cells did not fire in my direction, Two exploded and have melted my tool box top and set fire to my pit towel. :thumbdown::mad:

Crap man, thats bad. at least your ok and not hurt.

Ouch

A

thats really bad
atleast it didnt get u

I just can't understand why it went up, like i said it was on top of a plastic box, I only moved my gear out there last week i used to pit in my living room and ive got a 12 week old baby :o what if it went up last night or if i wasn't there the whole house would of went up, Im ok apart from my ears are killing me it was like a Bomb going off, :o

That's a bit more to worry about, leaving the cells in my room when i go out and they could still blow up and fire:o:(. Good to hear you wern't hurt, Is there anything can be done for safety??
Did you used to charge at the suggested rates etc?
Cheers

bet that made you jump like mad, good job it didnt get you though, I always store my cells in their box all locked up so if that does happen they are less likely to fly everywhere and cause injury or damage

Yes mate always charged at 4.5 amps never re peaked as always charged on the day i race, they were taking off the charger at 4200 and always had around 2000 in them when stored discharged equalised left to cool down and charged about 2 to 3 hours later

Not on charge or discharge, not short circuited and not used for a week, i cant understand that at all. What state of charge were they in? were they in direct sunlight? (i mean sun directly on them).

N

No they were out of sunlight and its pretty cool where i pit

Mine are always kept in their box to, but when I had a set of IBs go bang at the end of 06, they just blew the box to bits!! only sitting 2 feet or so away at the time, thought at first that someone had come in the back door and shot my dog:o, then noticed my Cyclone TC which had been sitting on the cell box was 4 feet in the air!

Took a long time for my wife to let me keep them in the house after that.

Will NEVER buy IBs again.

you need to report this to jim spencer at the brca,

what are the batch numbers on the cells?

be interesting to know if its not just the batch no's already quoted that are potentially critical :eh?:


ARAET, AZCWT, BNCWT, BNDST, BRAET, BZAWT.

edit: just noticed you said EP not IB Doh!

Where can i find these number??? can't seem to see any on the cells they are the ep 4200 mk2

oops was just editing my post as i noticed you had said EP not IB :rolleyes:

not sure there are any known bad batches of EP's :confused:

This is the second i have known about in three weeks, 4 packs of these cells where bought together, 3 weeks a go 2 cells went of in my mates tt01 at teeside in a race, then these go up today, all matched and bought from the same company, the cells are 5 months old and have only been used once a week

where were they bought from?

this is getting out of hand now,think im going to ditch mine and go lipo in the touring car,allready use lipo in buggy

Bloody hell dude, glad your Ok.

I keep mine locked up in the middle of my hauler in the porch (cold) but im worrying about them now :o Ian's right, this is getting out of hand, make sure you do report this to Jim.

So, even thought the brca have decided on the legal cells for 2008, can they allow Lipo's on safety grounds?

Glad you weren't hurt dude.

Dont really want to say where they are from because i dont think the problem lies with the matcher, And don't want to start causing problems for them and i dont know if would be in the best interest for the sport to say so, Im defo going lipo now and going to charge them in a metal safe

yeah he's ok thank god but how much longer can we all keep escaping a serious accident

There are 3 versions of EP mk1 mk2 and mk3 mk3 has never been lega mk1 and mk2 have been do you know which version it is.

A

Hoping we can put this down to a freak accident/manufacturing fault in that single batch, but I am starting to get quite worried about the battery situation in general, personally i use GP3700's partly due to budget, but mostly because they're more reliable and can take a lot more abuse (like me being a numpty with a charger and using the wrong profile or something) but the current safety situation on the high performance batteries is getting out of hand. :eh?:

thats the first i heard of ep cells going bang i can only say
short circuit can see them going bang like you explained without any reason

:)I bought some of the EP 4200 mk II cells assembled for me by the seller and I was discharging and equalising them before charging them for the very first time. A cell in one of the packs exploded whilst I was discharging it, fortunately on a hard coffee table in my living room and the shrapnel was stopped by my armchair.
I returned the pack to the supplier and he replaced it no questions asked and I didn't have any trouble with any of them after that but it does make you think. I'm running nitro now but I never charged at more than 5 amps and like I said these hadn't even had one charge in them, I was discharging at 20 amps to 5.4 volts.:eh?:

I have stormforce GP4300 I admit i dont discharge and equlise them as much as i should but ive never had any of them blow up on me there over 12 months old now.

A

i may store mine in the shed now.....

Mmmmmm, get ready for 'the talk' again tomorrow guys...... :(

G

Is that the the "enter stu evans" talk?

You don't discharge cells when new, they are already flat and equalised.

I don't know how it exploded without you putting any charge in it first, there shouldn't be any energy in the cell to explode :confused:

Ouch, this is bad news! glad you are ok.

I'm gonna start wearing safety goggles when I'm racing from now on!

TBH, I can't believe the insurers haven't got stroppy about this yet, I mean at this rate someone WILL get hurt, its just a matter of time!

Is all this stuff covered on house insurance by the way whn your at home, eg if my LIPO goes up would I be covered!?

right i'm just about to equalise my IB's

wish me luck :eh?:

http://www.firstdefense.com/html/imagePPU.JPG

I have heard of cells going pop while they are just sat doing nothing before. I may leave mine elsewhere from now on, imagine if something happened while you were asleep?:thumbdown: Not good.

Luckily all my IB's are going soon to make way for new cells.

:)Well you learn something new everyday, not withstanding that the discharger has an auto cut off, so if there was anything in them it wouldn't have taken them too low anyway. I was just surprised this happened with brand new cells.:)

Luckily all my IB's are going soon to make way for new cells.[/quote]

These were EP's, still it's made me v nervous with all cells!

glad no one was hurt!!... my IB's are under my bed at the moment, think i need to buy an air-raid shelter for them!!

anyone want to buy some IB 4200:mad:

they came in contact with nothing, they where sat on the top of my all plastic tool box on my pit table 3 feet away from anything else, they where the only thing on the top of my box and have been there untouched for a few days, like i say they just went bang :thumbdown:

I don't agree with you there dude, every pack of cells I've ever owned I've equalised off as a matter of course. Most recent cells had odd cells virtually flat but not every one of them. I don't believe it's common for manufacturers to equalise cells off after their final match.