Bad Battery Buzz

[Grinder]

I've asked Korgae where the replacement cells are.  Apperently Danny is picking them out for us.  I've asked for some rough estimate as to when they will arrive but I've gotten the typical no reponse (in spite of the jumping up and down hand gesturing that the only way to resolve this is through communication directly with them - sigh).  Basically your guess is as good as mine but considering this thread alone was almost two months ago I wouldn't hold your breath.

[gotnitro]

u missed it kirk i had a pack explode it was crazy saw my life flash before my eyes and kens.lol

[Arch]

The first cell to blow up missed my head by inches.I was covered with battery guts .All I saw was Ken running like a scared school girl.haha

[haddow]

u missed it kirk i had a pack explode it was crazy saw my life flash before my eyes and kens.lol

NiMH are unsafe when they explode, try LiPo.

[gotnitro]

dude u have no idea this could have blown up my truck.People said they found debris at the driver stand.

[Grinder]

Didn't you know "venting" is normal with these cells ;P   Oh and let me guess you weren't charging with a GFX charger?  The GFX only puts the non-exploding electrons into the battery and is 100% cholesterol free!

The first charge should have been an indication of things to come.  "If minor leaking (venting) occurs the cell will still produce the same performance so we recommend you try the pack on the track to make sure it performs like it should.  If you feel it isn't performing well then please contact us."  So there you have it straight from the note included with your SMC packs - you were warned that some "minor" venting may occur.  How many packs do you have?  I mean they all didn't explode did they?  Since you still have unexploded cells this is considered "minor".  If all the cells in all the packs exploded at the same time it would be "more than minor".  Of course "if you feel it isn't performing well then please contact us" <roll eyes>

[WhoDoYouThink]

WOW, looks like I've missed some excitement lately!

It's OK guys, You'll receive brand new SMC IB4200 cells to replace the ones that just about took your head off!
Just clean off the gunk from the cells that didn't explode(YET!!) and make up a new pack with all of those new SMC IB4200 cells we're all going to receive from Korgae(sometime soon?) and you'll have a half decent pack to go racing with again!

NOT!!

What an absolute farce!
I'm surprised that no one has lost an eye or suffered any really serious injury because of these POS SMC IB4200 cells! Maybe there has been some serious injuries elsewhere and we just haven't heard about it... yet!

As I've stated before, I'm done with IB's! They're just too unstable, and obviously they're getting to the point where they are very dangerous.
It's gotten beyond the point of just EXTREMELY poor performance with one or two cells in a 6 cell pack going dead, these IB4200 cells have shown the potential to cause serious injury or even death!

Had this pack that exploded been dead shorted as Korgae has suggested we do to all of our POS SMC IB4200 packs?

[Shawn68z]

I was just wondering what rate you are charging your packs at?

Shawn.

[BigDaddyT]

Hey Guys,

I've been watching this thread with concern for both sides in the equation. As you know, my company sold IB4200 cells as well, and we experienced all of the same issues as SMC has with the IB4200's. It's definitely not cool for either the matchers and the customers and it's a very awkward situation to deal with because the blame is tough to assign to any one person on the chain other than Intellect themselves. However, they are at least two levels removed from the end user, and the cells have been Zapped, cycled, torture-tested, etc. by an intermediate before hitting retail.

After reading about the popping cells, there are a couple of safety tips I'd like to pass along from my experiences in servicing these cells:

- If you have a pack with weak cells, or cells that have 0v'ed themselves in the past, you need to careful when charging them. The change in chemistry and structure on the affected cells may cause them to charge/peak/heat up faster than the remaining healthy cells in the pack. If you are running a charger with a temp sensor - clip it to the questionable cells for cut-off because they are likely to be the culprits.

- Deadshorting, cycling, and other forms of voodoo did not revive cells or packs that we had that were not performing well. The only sure fire fix is to replace any bad cells with a good cell. Voodoo will probably only make things less stable. Leave the good cells alone, and swap in the replacements you get from SMC. Don't forget to keep the packs topped up even if they are in storage waiting for repairs or you may have problems.

Two years ago, I caught a pack of exploding cells right in the face while race directing in Abbotsford. It's a bit scary, so now I'm hyper sensitive with that stuff. It's really not going to kill your performance that badly to turn down your peak detect and temp cutoff a bit too in order to keep things real. I personally stop the charge once I hear any excessive gurgling, clicking, popping etc. and give the batts a rest before peaking them or just run them like that.

That said - a number of packs that we had problems with were treated 100% by the book, so it's nobody's fault in most cases, just a freak failure or something that has been brewing invisibly inside the cell for a while.

T

[Grinder]

Good points Mr T.  

I have data to show that if you dead short the bad cells it typically revives them but the good cells in the pack are adversely affected.  Overall voltage on the cell and run time on the good cells is reduced.  Like you said dead shorting is voodoo.  Of course others who claimed it was voodoo turned around and said it would revive the cells.  Didn't mention it would reduce the voltage on the good cells though....  regardless its the only option for many of us while we wait <roll eyes again> on our replacement cells for the ones that have been bad since what - mid April?

Use your thermal protection!  I avoided explosion on some borrowed packs that went to overtemp and the charger happily discontinued charging them.  Two packs were like this for me and had every potential to have exploded in my garage.

Keeping a charge on these cells is critical.  The recomendation by SMC is not enough to keep these cells out of trouble - I would recomend if you have good packs to not discharge them after a race to keep 1000 mAh or more in the packs while in storage for the week.  These cells have an extremely high self discharge rate.  Balance the cells down before you charge them (day before is fine).

On that note the EP cells I've used from Trent have been excellent and have yet to let me down in a race.  I highly recomend them.  I have one pack that I've been abusing the heck out of since its my only good pack now.  I also know Trent will stand behind his product (and promptly at that).  Trent didn't mention it but I know some of his customers had issues with the IBs he sold and he made sure his clients were taken care of.  Of course he quickly dumped the IB line and went to the EPs.  Consider this my Trent plug.  Good customer service deserves credit.

[BigDaddyT]

Yeah we all had lots of problems with the IB's. As I said, I sincerely appreciate how difficult it is to keep those cells in service for both the matchers and the customers. It's not just a SMC thing at all.

There have been recent revisions to the cells, but only time will tell if they make the needed corrections to be reliable.

On my personal IB packs, I actually have gone to a routine of 900s at 6.0A for storage (about 1500mah) and I have to say that I've probably had slightly less trouble with my own cells than many other people, but cells will still blink out of existence here and there.

With 1500mah in there, you may find cells close to the brink if they've been in the box for a couple of weeks, but that seems to be enough to be able to store them for a reasonable time period.

Good luck. Be safe. That's the main thing. They are just batteries.

[Blake]

Hey all,

The replacement cells arrived today.  I will hand them out at the track on Sunday.

Blake

[Matt S]

YAY

[Grinder]

Wow.  Not to bring up an old thread but I just noticed looking back for another post that this thread had over 5000 hits!  That's pretty amazing - cool to see that kind of traffic here.

....and the end of the sad tale is we have moved to LiPo technology (finally - following what the bashers have been using for years and the Airplane guys for years before the bashers).  As Matt would say "Whoot Whoot!"

Its nice to see too that we weren't out to lunch or the only ones with the problem as the truth usually rises to the surface eventually in spite of any BS screens put up to obscure it.

[Matt S]

As Matt would say "Whoot Whoot!"

you mean w00t w00t