Today's Disaster....

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dwarfy

dwarfy

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I was suppose to be having a bash with Charlieboy this afternoon but things went tits up this morning. I was charging the 2500mah 'AA' batteries in my new 2.4ghz Core RC handset for the first time (charged them external last time) so left the charger on 500ma and carried on sorting stuff out round the house. After about 4 hours I came back to it & it was fizzing & smoking :helpsmilie: It was that hot the battery cover had melted & I had to prise it off with a screw driver. The batteries were all fooked, the holder melted & the back casing of the handset was damaged :helpsmilie::2guns::2guns: Took all the gear down to Rossendale Models where I bought it from & they put the fault down to the batteries. They were rated to charge at 500ma but there must have been a defective cell amongst them which in turn fooked the rest of them.
Amazingly they tried a new battery holder & cells & the handset still worked fine even with all the heat directly behind the LED display so no problems with the quality of the components :cool2: They are going to speak to Schumacher on Monday & sort out a replacement back casing, battery holder & cover so hopefully all should be good for next weekend. Anyone else had problems with defective battery cells and is there any way of testing them or is it just bad luck?
I met up with Ben up at the track but he was having trouble with glitching so his was a no go as well so all in all not a good day:no:
 
Here's the battery holder and cover :2guns::2guns:
 

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Its the same set up & same battery cells Ive used & charged in the same way in my Futaba set with no problems. Polarity all checked out so was a strange 1. I would have kept more of an eye on it if I hadn't been doing other things so don't know how long it had been like that but you would never expect that to happen. It had been on charge for about 4hrs when I noticed it :(
 
Got me that one!
I normally plug in and leave the batteries and periodically check them during the charge cycle, but am always 'too busy' to 'watch paint dry' as I can liken keeping an eye on charging batteries - wow.
Strange, but as you say 'lucky' !!
 
atom3624 said:
Got me that one!
I normally plug in and leave the batteries and periodically check them during the charge cycle, but am always 'too busy' to 'watch paint dry' as I can liken keeping an eye on charging batteries - wow.
Strange, but as you say 'lucky' !!
Click to expand...

Yeah who does watch em mate. I will be charging them external from now on :clown:
 
My 1/16 Revo's got twin 2S LiPo, my 'E-Maxx' (use the phrase loosely - ask Pablo and Hyperpete!) has twin 5000mAh 3S LiPo ..... OMG my house is an unexploded bomb - no worries, a bit of mirth, but it does show we have to be careful always.
I removed a LiPo in my 1/18 Raminator, and it had gone soft, so I 'disposed' of it without question ...
I don't even want to start counting how many different batteries I have, and the majority of the rechargeable ones are LiPo !!
Make's you think 'though.
 
what charger did you use??? typically for AA sized cells up to 1a is fine, less is better, however you need to reduce the delta V to around 3-4mv. ive heard many cases that if you change them with a higher delta v (around 6-9mv) like a sub c cell, or even a 2/3a, they peak but the charger doesn't detect it and keeps charging. AA cells are very fussy.
 
Apparently when 1 cell goes down it increases the resistance on the remaining cells & its not long before these pop as well :(
 
Sharkey said:
what charger did you use??? typically for AA sized cells up to 1a is fine, less is better, however you need to reduce the delta V to around 3-4mv. ive heard many cases that if you change them with a higher delta v (around 6-9mv) like a sub c cell, or even a 2/3a, they peak but the charger doesn't detect it and keeps charging. AA cells are very fussy.
Click to expand...

I charged them at 500ma like I had done many times before & the cells were rated for this. The only difference this time is that they were in my new handset (only 2 wk old) and not the old Futaba I used previously. Charger goes into maintenance charge when the cells are fully charged. Just bad luck I suppose.
 
+1 I always charge outside my hanset as it is a very expensive repair if it goes tits up like yours has , lucky they was not lipo or you could now be homeless.
 
time to swap over to lipos ;)

scary when stuff like that happens... I bought a brand new mag light. metal cased etc. didn't have it very long and the batteries went inside.. I could never get that thing opened again, even with a pipe wrench... so I tossed it out.

I've had more disasters with nmh batteries in my life than lipos. give me a lipo any day
 
i had the same thing happen with a recivor pack, i had a in car charger pluged into the ciggy lighter the battery went on fire ,still got the charger and it works fine must have been a rouge battery.
 
I spoke to Rossendale Models today to find out where they were up to with the replacement parts and as an option I asked if they could split 1 of the sets they had in stock. They agreed and sold me a full new TX minus the receiver for £45 so I am back up & running again now :celebrate: Thanks Richard :santa::clap:

When I was looking for a 2.4ghz set I posted a thread for the best budget set and there were a few suggestions for ebay specials but I responded by saying I would rather buy from a reputable dealer so that in the event of any problems I could be confident of decent customer services. Seeing as how it was the cells that went down and not the TX, rossmods did not have to help me out. Imagine the response from an ebay seller??!! Glad I took my own advice :blush:
 
......all I need now is some decent weather.......had 2-3" of snow over night last night :nono: Its melted with the heavy rain today but the ground is saturated.
 
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