"I put it on charge overnight and after about 12 hours, there was a huge explosion. Wild hiss and whistles. The front door of the apartment flew out along with the door frame. Stretch ceilings flashed, interior doors lit up. Black smoke and hot air. If the front door of the apartment hadn't been blown out, I'm afraid everyone would have suffocated. "
This story happened to Maxim Grishin from Svetlogorsk quite recently - on February 25, 2020, he wrote about the incident on his Vkontakte page.
The following details are known:
In 2018, Maxim bought an electric scooter MaxSpeed Mini4 with 48V 15.6Ah lithium polymer battery.
The scooter spent a year in service, as there were no replacement batteries for it (it did not have a battery made of 18650 cells, but a packet battery). In the end, the battery was replaced, Maxim took him out of the service and he lay in the trunk of a car for two weeks at a temperature of about +6 degrees. Then the scooter was brought home and put on charge, where it stood for 12 hours, after which an explosion occurred.
The explosion was so strong that it knocked out two metal doors.
The cat's mustache and eyebrows were burnt.
The month before, on January 22, 2020, the Korean company MiniMotors, the manufacturer of this scooter, has released another safety notice for the batteries of the Speedway 3, 4, ST, Mini 3 scooters, Mini 4.
A high risk of fire has been reported for the lithium polymer batteries of these scooters. Owners of the aforementioned scooters manufactured between 2016 and spring 2018 must discontinue them immediately. operating and replacing the battery due to the high risk of cell leakage and fire batteries! The company says it has been issuing safety notices as of the summer of 2019 urging people to donate batteries or assembled scooters and receive compensation for the leased property, or receive discounts on the purchase of new scooters. However, during this time, only 10% of the sold scooters were delivered, which continues to pose a high risk of fire hazard. Unfortunately, the scooter replacement program or compensation is only applicable to buyers in Korea.
Reasons for what happened are discussed on the Electrotransport forum. There are already 70 pages of discussion, I have mastered only the first ten.
Another similar story happened with the Kugoo M4 scooter (there is also a packaged battery).
Of review user Dioskura from St. Petersburg: "At the time of the explosion, the scooter was charging for about 2-3 hours. As a result of the explosion, a fire started in the apartment. The damage is measured in several hundred thousand rubles. "
It looks like a packaged lithium-polymer battery of this capacity is a time bomb. Unlike a battery on cylindrical 18650 cells, it lights up all at once and not only burns, but explodes. No wonder the leading brands (Xiaomi and Segway) only use cylindrical batteries in their scooters. Although they are heavier and more expensive, they seem to be safer.
I remind you again:
Never leave a rechargeable appliance charging when you leave home.
Try to keep your devices under supervision while charging.
© 2020, Alexey Nadezhin
The main topic of my blog is technology in human life. I write reviews, share experiences, talk about all sorts of interesting things. My second project - lamptest.ru. I test LED bulbs and help figure out which ones are good and which are not so good.