Are smelly li-ion batteries safe?

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My ebike battery exudes a bit of a smell, it's the same sort of odour you get from puffy batteries in other li-ion powered devices. Should I open it up and look for puffiness or is this normal?

How safe are ebike batteries post-collision?
 

Nealh

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The smell if can's is electrolyte being vented and if li-po/polymer then a burst or split cell.
It would be prudent to open and check integrity of the cells inside following an impact, the likelihood of cell damage is always likely.
 

soundwave

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if you get cheap cells that do not perform there stated max amps/ fake 18650s then thats what happens and it will not stop until the chain reaction ends as the batt totally disintegrates in to a fire ball until there is nothing left!.
 
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The smell if can's is electrolyte being vented and if li-po/polymer then a burst or split cell.
It would be prudent to open and check integrity of the cells inside following an impact, the likelihood of cell damage is always likely.
I've just done 19.7miles to try and deplete the battery a little. Because of snow, Tier 4 restrictions and the lack of a proper chain, I left the battery to stand for about a week at 100% charge - I wonder if that's prompted this smell? It'd invalidate the warranty if I open it up, possibly. It could be that I didn't notice it before because I had it covered with a hi-viz rucksack cover, to hide the battery and the fact that it's an ebike. Would it vent gases if kept near to a radiator? That's where it's been standing 3 or 4ft away from for a few days at 100% charge.

The battery is showing 69% after 19.7 miles, as measured by current on the C18 display. It dropped near the end of my journey to 42% while struggling up the hill I live on the side of, then went back to 69% at rest. PAS Level 9 is set to 100% power in the firmware. Am I correct in assuming that if the charge drops to the 31% protection level, it will cut power assist at steep hills at PAS 9 (100% assist) if it runs out of current?

Aaarrrgggh I may have to open this battery.




if you get cheap cells that do not perform there stated max amps/ fake 18650s then thats what happens and it will not stop until the chain reaction ends as the batt totally disintegrates in to a fire ball until there is nothing left!.
I'll keep the battery near the front door, I think.
 
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If it's under warranty, isn't first port of call the warrantor, and ask their advice before opening it up?
It would be, but the last time I brought something up (regarding motor resistance - a little resistance is normal for these Bafangs, as I later discovered), the seller gave me the distinct impression that anything else I had issue with would also be down to "Installation error" - I think that's his standard response and get-out clause. It's easy to make this assertion stick with kits. And I won't be certain anything is wrong until I open it up, and it might be a normal level of smell. I really don't know. If it smokes less than I do, I'll continue to use it till there is an error which effects performance, because I don't want to send it back and leave myself with no transport on the basis of odours detected by an oversensitive nose.

Damaged puffy batteries tend to show very degraded performance - that's if they work at all. I'm sure that if it's close to imminent danger of bursting into flames, it'll be a pretty useless battery for some time before it does.
 
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Nealh

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Any smell is not normal, as I mentioned certainly sounds like venting electrolyte.
3 - 4 feet away from a rad should pose issue, some of my regular batt's are within 3 - 4 of a rad and GH keeps his in the airing cupboard.
 
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Any smell is not normal, as I mentioned certainly sounds like venting electrolyte.
3 - 4 feet away from a rad should pose issue, some of my regular batt's are within 3 - 4 of a rad and GH keeps his in the airing cupboard.
Hmmm... if I wait for degraded performance to manifest, it's covered by the warranty. If I open it up, it won't be covered by the warranty, but I'll be safer. Choices.
 
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GH keeps his in the airing cupboard.
Does GH keep his battery in the airing cupboard because it's smelly or to keep it warm?

I'm keeping mine near the front door next to a smoke alarm, just in case. I may chuck a steel box over it, if it causes problems, before escaping. I don't think water works on Li-ion fires. Maybe I should buy a CO2 extinguisher.
 

vfr400

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My ebike battery exudes a bit of a smell, it's the same sort of odour you get from puffy batteries in other li-ion powered devices. Should I open it up and look for puffiness or is this normal?

How safe are ebike batteries post-collision?
It's knackerd. I doubt that it will catch fire, but something is seriously wrong. I've had that a few times when I used to repair batteries - only with pouch cells, but I got the same smell with 18650s that I opened up to see what was inside.
 
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It's knackerd. I doubt that it will catch fire, but something is seriously wrong. I've had that a few times when I used to repair batteries - only with pouch cells, but I got the same smell with 18650s that I opened up to see what was inside.
It's hard to know where that smell is coming from, because I have a lot of old electronics devices: phones, laptops, orphan li-ions - not least the laptop battery which I discovered is dead recently. It's the same smell that exuded froma puffy li-ion mobile bluetooth printer battery which I had to replace recently. If the area around the door (the ebike battery's present location) starts to smell, it's definitely the ebike battery and I'll have to do something - maybe I'll buy a second battery and attempt to get this one replaced... that seller seems quite slippery - not sure if that will work at all, no doubt he'll try to define it as an "Installation error", and I'll have to see what leverage I can exert in the event.
 
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Nealh

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GH likes to keep his warm.
 
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GH likes to keep his warm.
Quite right. I like to do the same for my nadgers.

It's -1C next to my front door, hopefully that'll slow down any chemical reactions which may be happening.
 
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I can see where this is heading - I'll open it up and then I own't be able to resist getting into making my own batteries.
 
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georgehenry

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I no longer keep my Yamaha Haibike battery in the airing cupboard,but I do keep it in the house!

The two silverfish batteries on my brace of Oxygen Emates stay on the bikes in my unheated brick garage attached to the house where they are also charged.

I think battery fires are very rare, but also very dangerous if they were to happen.9

PS

The Haibike battery will be 6 years old in March and continues to work very well, very close to like new, now approaching 13,900 miles ridden.
 
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After monitoring the bike battery in a smaller volume of air, it seems the venting was most likely my dead laptop battery... this is a great relief! It got extremely smelly when I tried to charge the laptop (to change the Bafang firmware), and the smell lingered for quite some time until I noticed it. (I blame the chinese takeaway for the delay in detection). The charging failure sent the laptop to self protecting sleep, and I now have to dig pretty much everything out of the laptop casing to take out the CR2032 (or briefly reverse polarity on the motherboard pin) to reset the BIOS, because the charger tested ok... but that's too much info.
 
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