@Jimho
Thanks for the input. Some good points raised so I want to address each one.
.....only buy AW’s because that’s Tier 1. I don’t think you should officially get into ranking, tiers or anything like that just state that the manufacturers specifications suggest that a given battery should be adequate, marginal, or inadequate for a given load.
Jim, what we are trying to do here is keep people safe who don't know anything about these issues. A DMM is no use to them as they might set it to the resistance scale then check a battery, or short their eGo batt centre post to outer thread while checking it, and they don't know what the numbers mean anyway. We're trying to set some guidelines for the 98% of buyers who don't know that a battery is not as safe as any other thing they buy.
We know that the answer is to have plenty of warnings. We know that we need to tell them what batteries to buy. As some batteries are safer than others we should probably put them into at least two groups, so people can choose: top dollar = most safe, mid range = OK, el cheapo = risky. That's the info people want and what we should give them.
This being the case, we have to name the groups something so I chose 'tiers' as being a reasonably innocent name, it does not imply safety or recommendation or whatever. The fact is, AW IMR's are safer and should be in the top group and people deserve to know that - true enough?
There is, however, a debate between two camps here: is the top group going to be AW IMR-only, or all the top-quality cells that have a sufficient drain rate. These would probably include AW Li-ion's, Pila Li-ion's, and Li-FePo4's.
I'm in camp 1, AW's only, because I believe people deserve the best advice and if there is a cell that is clearly better in every way, as the AW IMR is, then people have the right to be told. Yes, other cells will do the job but that is why there are several tiers. After all we have reports of all types of cells failing except AW IMRs. Protected Li-ion's have failed (reported by Buzzkill), Li-FePo4's can blow (apparently there is a report on ECF somewhere of them failing), and unprotected Li-ions have a lot of fail reports. The *only* cells clean and clear are AW Li-Mn's. When you look at the quality + the chemistry + the drain rate, then you can see why.
Also I feel that LiFePo4's should not be in tier 1 because they need a different charger, and this automatically means people will overcharge them and they might then fail. Perhaps an AW Li-FePo4 might not fail - but what about another manufacturer? And as stated this appears to have happened already. Many won't even realise they are 3 volt cells, not 3.6v like all the rest.
This is all about user error in any case, and the one thing we know for sure is that users will make mistakes. We all do. People will cook their LiFePo4's, it's inevitable.
Rather than making lists of batteries for the sake of having one, I would also suggest a different approach and better use of time, would be to have an ECF approved mod list – a seal of approval or a certification.........
Jim, we thought long and hard about that but in the end decided it isn't practical. As you say there are advantages, but the practicalities mean it wouldn't play. There are so many negatives that it can't work. Here are some:
- ECF doesn't intend to do any 'banning', just education of buyers. If you have some mods that are approved, then some would not be, thus they are to a certain extent 'banned'.
- Who decides what mods pass or fail? I'm not going to do that - and nobody else is volunteering
- If ECF approve a mod, then when it fails, we share the liability.
- My personal preference, if I were buying a mod for a family member who knows nothing about electricity or batteries, would be one they couldn't make a mistake with and harm themselves. So it would take AW IMR's (and I would insist they got AW's and a Pila charger), and it would have a bunch of safety features such as gas vents, a kill switch for transport, a sacrificial end cap that acts as a blow-out plug in the event of a battery de-gassing event and therefore blows off before the top cap, a sealed on/off switch, and built-in electronics to trip out if there is a dead short. Maybe you can suggest a mod to me that has those features? If there are any, that is. Those are the only mods I would personally recommend to anyone since that way I know my A is covered, and more importantly I'm not recommending a potential bomb to someone.
Just one very simple safety feature: mods need a kill switch, a second cut-out switch, but few seem to acknowledge this. There are any number of reports of atties locked on and the mod in runaway. Just because in theory this isn't possible as the on/off switch is unlikely to fail to a closed condition doesn't seem to stop it happening. Why it happens is not ultimately important. A simple, low-cost addition that would improve safety. How many have it?
I'm not sure if there is even a mod out there that I'd recommend to a family member. If I can't recommend one to my family then I'm not going to recommend one to someone else. To me they are a calculated risk, if you know the issues and know electrics then you should be safe - but that does not apply to Joe Average. He is a walking timebomb and has to be protected from himself. Do mods do a good job of that right now? No they don't, in my opinion. Mods, right now, are for people who know all the issues, not the average buyer - but that doesn't stop Mr Average from getting hold of them.
All we can do is warn and advise. If it is
impossible for a buyer to get one through ECF without knowing there is an issue with safety
especially in regard to the choice of batteries, then we have done what we can.
Max Discharge rates - This number gets tossed around like it’s an absolute number cast in stone..........
Yes, I appreciate the issues, among which are that a battery with a C rating of 1 amp will most likely deliver bursts of 2 or 3 amps with no ill effects. But what we are ultimately talking about is the safety margin. The bigger the battery, and the higher the C rating, and the better the manufacturer - then the bigger the safety margin. Batteries fail and blow because they have faults, whether internal or in their charging regime, and are then overdriven. The bigger the safety margin, the less likely they are to blow. After all, nothing is *safe*, it's just a question of the safety margin - and the bigger the better.
On safe batteries and runaways:
LiFePo4's and IMR's are safer because they don't explode- you covered that…..
Fair enough. However there is still a question in my mind about Li-FePo4's as (a) they will be heavily overcharged by some users, and (b) apparently this has already happened and one blew. I am not happy about putting Li-FePo4's in tier 1 for this reason, as they are not *intrinsically* safe - user error can still make them fail, and user error is what we are trying to remove from the equation.
Stacking itself is not dangerous - that needs to be clarified and you need to stop saying it is dangerous - it's not when done properly…..
Yes, I agree. There are many who have said to me, "You should advise that series battery config is a bad idea" - but like you I don't agree. What stacking does do, though, is it *clearly* raises the risk level, and as far as I can see that is what I've written. However in one or two places maybe I went too far so please give me a link to that, if you feel I did.
I have several mods that run series batteries and I wouldn't do that if I personally felt it was dangerous. But there is an increase in risk, and you cannot deny that. In fact most mod blowups reported are with stacked batteries, and that illustrates the point well.
You can't protect people from themselves - I think we're better off with guidelines, standards, seal of approval/certifications and education than simply classifying batteries.
Well, this is true to a certain extent but we cannot just step away and say, "Tough but we can't protect people from themselves". What we have to do is try and find a way to do just that - or at least go as far as humanly possible in that direction.
We've been arguing hard among ourselves for 6 months now and the only thing to win out is advice about batteries. Battery guidelines is the way we will go, the only debate left now is what/how.
User error is always going to be the main factor and it cannot be completely removed from the equation, it's always there, a new buyer is always going to come along and buy any mod together with any battery - unless we tell them otherwise. The simplest, easiest way to stop that direct route to an explosion is warnings everywhere and advice on what batteries to buy. We've debated hard on everything else and that's the only thing that survived the debate. All other options such as approving mods, banning some mods, banning all mods, banning this or that, having approvals committees, etc etc, fell by the wayside.
It's a combination of what will stop the blowups + what is acceptable to all + what will survive in the long term. We know what will work and it's warnings plus battery guidelines. We started down this road 6 months ago and the results have been very good so far, but not perfect. It needs more warnings as some buyers are still falling through the net (even now there are suppliers selling mods with no battery guidelines of any kind whatsoever). The
very public battery guidelines are the next, and I hope final, stage.
When nobody reports that they bought a mod through ECF and it blew up, then we have succeeded. Until then there is work to do. You also have to remember that there is a lot of resistance to any of this, so whatever we do has to be acceptable to the majority.
