Li-Po 18650 safety issues

[dangaranga]

So i have a buddy thats into vaping, and hes also in R/C cars and such and is somewhat nerdy.

But he seems to have gotten ahead of himself, he has convinced a local battery warehouse to start stocking these (lithium-polymer) and he has agreed to test the batteries in box mods and mech mods.

I pretty much cut him off mid sentence and told him hell no, that its a terrible idea and is basically has a pipe bomb in his face.

First off, Li-po is no where near as tolerant of over discharge as Li-Mn and tends to be violent when it thermally runs away.

Second, these are unprotected cells he is playing with, when brought up, he said he is building a protection circuit in HIS device. When i asked him what happens when some new vaper comes and buys one of these unknowingly and runs it low and blows his face off. He said oh well.

I tried getting him to understand the ramifications these could have and that he needs to bring the safety factor with the company but he is being stubborn about it.

I feel like this is another news case waiting to happen, am i way off base here or is there a legitimate concern here?

To put it in perspective here, Li-ion are known to be very violent and Li-Po are more volatile than Li-Ion

 

[dangaranga]

There is a supposed 60amp discharge on these too idk what to think

heres a pic

 

[Froth]

Who manufactures those batteries? I am not aware of ANY LiPo 18650 that is even approaching 2600mah of capacity, most LiPo packs that are 2000mah+ are the size of at least two 18650 batteries if not more. I would personally never use an unprotected Li-Po cell with something going near my face constantly and especially one with unknown factors at play, LiPo chemistry can vent extremely violently.

 

[dangaranga]

Thats what im trying to get him to understand, is the severity of the situation. I have no idea of the maker of them either.

Also a little update, he tried using it in his ipv mini v2 at 70w and it literally just shuts off from voltage drop. He tried to say the ipv is junk, but in reality its saving his bacon from blowing up in his face.

His excuse was that the quad 22awg build at .03 ohm works on it without blowing up (in a mech mod), I about flipped out when i heard he tried that build.

That is the build that completely drained an MXJO 26650 in one single 3s hit.

I wish there was a way to get him to listen.

 

[Froth]

This is probably going to get moved to the not-advisable forum, without knowing the specifics of the cell he is dealing with there is very little any of us can do to help the situation. Some people are just set in their ways and cannot be told an idea is flawed until they find out for themselves. Hopefully nobody else is around when an incident occurs with these unknown quantity "LiPo" 18650's.

 

[Icemanxxxv]

I may be an aircraft mechanic but I can't fix stupid. Hopefully when it grenades he is the only one who gets hurt. Got to love Darwinism at its finest hour