Just a note to say I’m still thinking about the information from this thread, and I’m glad to learn of fires while a Lithium type battery discharges. I had no idea they would do that, and it takes the fun out of having them.
I had bought a balance charger and a voltage monitor, and low voltage alarms, but I have made battery packs that wouldn’t be practical to attach a monitor to. Example, I have an old Kenwood hand-held that hasn’t had a battery pack for years. Now, for a few dollars, I had made a battery pack for it. I also have CREE flashlights made for the 18650, and 14500 batteries. There is no way to monitor the voltage in this application. I tested one yesterday and found it was down to 2.0 volts. (Also being marketed today, are packs to jump-start cars and trucks. That will be interesting!) This thread has made gel-cells look pretty good to me again. Thanks to all, Rich, n0ce From: Bill Tippett<mailto:btipp...@alum.mit.edu> Sent: Friday, May 19, 2017 1:31 PM To: Terry Schieler<mailto:w...@swbell.net> Cc: Elecraft Reflector<mailto:elecraft@mailman.qth.net> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Fire in the house li-ion Ditto Terry's comments. I'd add that balanced chargers (<$20) and inexpensive monitors (<$3) will detect when a cell begins going bad. One cell having a much lower voltage than the others is an immediate flag. http://www.ebay.com/itm/IMax-B6-Digital-LCD-RC-Lipo-NiMh- battery-Balance-Charger-US-STOCK-100-New-/311592092378? hash=item488c5602da:g:mmsAAOSwdpxUWyl3 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lipo-Battery-Voltage-Monitor-Meter- 7-4V-11-1V-22-2V-2S-6S-Cells-LED-Display-/110762643408? hash=item19c9f7cfd0:g:GQ4AAOxyqKVRigvv I also never put any lithium battery (LiPO or Li-Ion) inside my radios. I've seen more bad publicity about Li-Ion batteries (e.g. Samsung S7 phones, Dell laptops, etc) than LiPO batteries but I'm not sure why that is. 73, Bill W4ZV ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com