just a cautionary note, have had a Honey bee for about 2 months now, just able to hover nose and tail in and do a few circuits, last night while charging my flight pack the charger failed, i had not had much experience of lipos before but the intensity of the explosion was huge, the three cells all went different ways, setting fire to the carpet, curtains and my heli. used a whole 6 kg powder extingiusher to get the fire out but the heli is a write off, my parents kitchen has smoke damage and the carpet and curtains have large holes in them!

(could be an interesting insurance claim)

Ouch! What charger?

Mike

What Brand of charger?

Indeed what charger... are you sure you were charging as LIPO ??? I have triton and accidentally charged LIPO as NiCad and almost had same thing...

Its super frightening if the charger actually failed... Im charging mine in a cast iron "dutch oven" at this point... the risk of failure when used properly is small (cell phones are LIPO) but the consequences are huge.

I keep my lipos in a firesafe.

use a balancer charger that monitors each cell and shus down if not safe - Hyperion or others - will shut down even if you set it to NiCd.
Mike

Ok I am definately going to buy a fire safe and charge my lipo in one of those fireworks motor tubes with a bag of sand on top. I have been paranoid about my lipo ever since I got it, but still no problems. (One problem, I don't own a balancer). Off to the workbench for you!

I'm sorry that you have to suffer to teach me something. But thank you anyway for teaching me.

Was the battery in the heli ? or just close to it ? Looks like a good time to upgrade to a rex....sorry for the accident ..

Obviously in the heli . . . interesting this comes the same day as the questions posed in this thread. I see two big mistakes here, one charging in the heli of course, and two, sure looks like there is no evidence of charging taps on that pack, both countered by the fact that you fortunately did not leave it charging unattended. This would mean the pack was charged through the 4-in-1 jack and possibly with an incompatible charger.

Sorry to welcome you to these boards under such catastrophic circumstances TR7, but I for one thank you for posting this, expect this thread to be added here.

This leads to a rumor I heard, but I have opened a new thread for it in the battery forum so as not to jack this one . . .

was charging the pack with the charger that came with the heli, bought it as a complete pack with charger, heli and lipo. was meaning to get a pack with balance leads but never got around to it.

wow, thats not cool. I recently bought a HB2 as well. I'm somewhat scared of the included charger/lipo. These cheap lipos do not behave the same way as the better quality ones- I often find my 75-80% charged cheapie lipo, completely drained if I let it sit 24 hours! I'm an experienced plank flier and have a Triton, as well as a Multiplex LN-5014- neither of these "hobby" grade chargers seem to be able the charge these cheapie lipo's "well" either. I'm sometime only able to put 100-150 mah back into a 1000mah battery! My great planes, FMA lipos (better quality)keep their charge even after months of inactivity. Maybe I'll take a hint from this and toss that cheap lipo before it burns my garage/house down.

It's simple. Never charge unattended, or if you do, charge them in a location where accidents won't cause damage, like outside on the patio. I imagine this pack emitted a few popping and fizzling noises before it let go.

Use a finish cinder block...only open on one side. The baggies are filled with sand so when a lipo cooks off the bag melts and smothers the lipo with sand. Safe and CHEAP!!!

Randy