Battery safety, please read!

[mrclive]

Hi everyone,

just a little heads-up on keeping yourself safe. Before I start, I'd like to point out that I'm no noob to lithium cells (batteries). My hobby is RC, radio controlled models if the abbreviation means nothing to you. Basically land based for me, I've had a boat, it was OK, I've got a small helicopter, tricky to fly and subsequently broken in a box somewhere. I'll fix it eventually. So for me it's off-road trucks hitting speeds of 40 to 60 mph, faster is easily achievable. Now, all this speed is made possible because of Lithium cells, they produce enormous amounts of power, from fully charged to empty they just keep on performing, which is why we love them, plus they're lighter than nickel cells.

However, there is always a downside, these type of cells are a powder-keg if mistreated. Just type 'lipo fire' into youtube and you'll see what I mean.

Now I'm not clumsy by nature, but accidents happen, in this case through forgetfulness, so here's what happened; I'd just finished with my Riva and brand new atomiser and slipped it into my pocket, sat on the sofa and all is good so far. Then I decided to put my feet up on the sofa and this is where it all went wrong. As I rolled onto my side, I have put weight onto the on button and in less than ten seconds smoke/vapour is pouring from my pocket! I managed to get it out of my pocket before it could set fire to me or the sofa, but the battery and atomiser are both dead, damned hot too!

I appreciate that most of you are probably aware of these risks, but for those who us that aren't, I thought I'd share.

Replacement battery is ordered, pride is intact (just), lesson learnt! TURN OFF THE BATTERY WHEN NOT IN USE!

I don't mean to offend anyone by 'teaching granny to suck eggs', as I said, I just thought I ought to share this with those who may not of considered the risks. I hope this is OK?

Clive.

[Bluefish]

Fair point clive, good to be reminded of these things, the answer though is to use a more powerfull mod, then when it goes off in your pocket you can at least hear it sizzle, where with ego riva you probably won't.

[maccafan]

Lipo's used in many high powered RC models ith discharge rating of upto 30C are more volatile than ICR and IMR's.

Most e-cigs use ICR or IMR with discharge rating of upto 8C but basic battery safety must not be ignored as mrclive states.

However, I have no idea how your RIVA was continually discharging as it has a cut off time of around 10-12 seconds but I agree it is better to lock the fire button when not in use.

[mrclive]

It looks like the button and associated timing device got cooked from the excessive heat, but I can't confirm that.

[dave]

You are not the first to get hot trousers mrclive and I doubt you will be the last!