Why it's not a great idea to charge large unbranded lithium batteries in your living room

I’m using the trusty ‘just eyeball it’ assay for capacity; but unless those cells are absolute garbage I expect the batteries have a capacity north of 100Wh, which would put them into UN3480 Cargo Aircraft Only territory, see packing instruction 965 or the IATA and your shipper will not be happy with you.

Given that they caught fire while being charged; it’s entirely possible that they blatantly fail the

“All cells and batteries must be tested in accordance with the UN Manual of Tests and Criteria Part III Subsection 38.3 (DGR 3.9.2.6)”

section and would be forbidden anyway; but selective enforcement and wishful thinking are the grease of the wheels of commerce, so that’s less likely to be an issue.

I hate shipping batteries. It turns practically every piece of portable IT gear from little more than slightly delicate office supplies into a white collar hazmat exercise; at least if anyone from trade compliance insists that things be done formally.

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Did that hurt all at once, or did it come on more slowly?

Also, I’m taking all my Chinese-ium and otherwise sketchy batteries to recycling tomorrow. That’s a scary video. I’ve got a box of kitty box sand in my shop, plus fire extinguishers, but damn, I’m not fighting that.

Instantly. Confusing mixture of sensations - naively picked up a large bank of cells (the kind that array into those shipping container sized grid backups), got scratched by a sharp edge on the bus bar which turned into a solid zap. (for a fully skin covered human 48V shouldn’t be an issue). Also a good reminder of why high tension electrical workers water pressure test their rubber gloves.

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True. However with the expiration of the patents nickel metal hydride batteries are the batteries used in the new 2020 Toyota Corolla hybrid. Not sure why. But it’s the low end hybrid in the Toyota lineup now. And there isn’t a whole lot of battery capacity in the vehicle. It can only do EV mode for a half mile with a speed restriction of 25 miles an hour.

Toyota has long used strings of small-format NiMH cells (which lacked the patent problems) in the non-plug-in Prius. There was an electric RAV4 that used large-format cells, but then the patent issues forced that program to a halt.

In any case, Toyota and others have been working on solid-electrolyte lithium batteries. If they can get that to work, it would go a long way towards making them safer.

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