Lithium battery fires

[T1 Terry]

Thanks for your comprehensive answers.
I’ll be looking more closely at batteries in RVs now.

The project I intend to start working on when I return from our trip, is the use of Sodium ion cells to build house batteries. This gets away from the whole lithium hype as these cells don't have any lithium in them. They have a similar cell voltage range to the LFP cells, the latest offerings seem to claim a similar cycle life, they don't die an instant death if discharged to very low voltages and the damage from over voltage charging is a reduced cycle life.
Naturally, they are all Chinese manufacture and claims about their product, so I want to verify just how much is fact and how much is fantasy, before I put forward any facts I've proven, one way or the other .... the same way I did with Winston LFP cells back in 2011, when all the lithium house battery claims were that they wouldn't last, blow up, cancel your birthdays, send you straight to hell .... and a few more severe warning nonsense, like banning anyone using them from free camps and caravan parks, fire risk was the reasoning .... nothing much has changed after 12 yrs has it?

T1 Terry

[supersparky]

Quite a few of the doomsayer GOB's converted to Lithium though over the next few years if I remember correctly. One of them even wrote a book about it, I think.

[T1 Terry]

I thought this might be interesting for those who have been scared off electric vehicle with all the talk about battery fires. https://forums.aeva.asn.au/viewtopic.php?t=8848
The fire brigade deliberately punctured a Kona EV battery, after cutting a whole in each end of the battery box I might add, so not something that could happen in every day operation. The fitting on the porta power ram is about the size and area of a clenched fist, not quite a spike penetration, not something that could happen out on the road, the aluminium case around the battery enclosure would have lifted the car over what ever was on the road without puncturing the enclosure ..... unlike a fuel tank under a vehicle
The long version shows just what was required, time wise, to get the first fire going, the flame catching the plastics alight via the hole they cut in the front of the battery cradle, the robot nearly puts the fire out using water only, the expensive foam was useless, the blanket worked best, sand bags around the edges and left for a day, then cart what ever was left to the scrap yard ... event over .... try that with petrol tank or diesel tank rupture and fire ....

T1 Terry