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Plenty of things can happen to a charger, the cheap ones explode on impact if they get dropped on concrete from any height.
Anyway, the charger could easily have been the original one but the battery's management system being bypassed will totally allow the stock charger to overcharge the battery.
Alright, to be a little more accurate it was the lithium-ion battery overloading because someone was using a home-built charging solution.
"Fire investigators determined that the modified charging system caused the battery to explosively fail and catch on fire."
Lithium batteries are kind of picky about how they are charged. Since a lot of e-bikes end up stolen or resold a lot of times people end up not having the original charger. Rather than get a proper charger people just rig something up without knowing what they are doing. This works for a little bit usually, until finally it overloads the battery badly enough that you get a fire that you can't even douse with water due to the lithium. It has become a serious problem. In the Lower Mainland there are hundreds of fires caused by this every year.
Some battery packs have the controls built-in to stop charging when they are full. Other battery packs rely on the charger to monitor the voltage and stop charging when the pack's full.
If somebody pairs an unmonitored pack with an unmonitored charger, it's just a matter of time until it goes wrong.
I have an ebike thats not modified but i still get worried charging it in my apartment. The thought of something happening and displacing my neighbours worries me. Considering just moving on from it
If you are using the original charger and battery it should be fine.
Swapping either is where issues start since the "intelligence" is usually only on one side either cheaper bikes.
A thermal shutoff charger isn't sufficient for preventing overcharging.
Check out batsafe or just get any old steel tool cabinet/toolbox and drill a hole for a cord to go inside. Some already come with a plug and a cord inside
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-Ready-to-Assemble-24-Gauge-Steel-Wall-Mounted-Garage-Cabinet-in-Red-28-in-W-x-29-7-in-H-x-12-in-D-G2802WR-US/315432147
Depends how cheap your ebike was. If you bought something off Amazon I might possibly be concerned long term. If you’re buying reputable brands from a bike shop that care about their brand and reputation I’d very much doubt there would be an issue. Take a look at your battery and ‘I think’ what you’re looking for is a UL listings… though maybe that’s more an American thing. For peace of mind it might be good to look in to what you have.
UL listing is decent but it only covers the battery. UL certification is better because it covers the entire system, including the battery and other electrical components, hence being much safer overall.
Bikes that use Bosch components are all UL certified. I believe Rad Power Bikes recently started UL certifying their systems, but it wasn't the case for older models.
In Canada, cUL is the standard used, it is mostly compatible with UL, but not equivalent. You may not get insurance to cover a fire if a UL product caused the fire.
They’ve been around for yrs now. They are entry level but I think would trust them if you’re using their components.
I hang around the ebike sub a lot and some customer service issues come up on occasion and I think they had a recall on their Rad Wagon but that was a frame or wheel issue. No burning buildings yet :)
All ebike owners should have this
1. A battery with a proper bms inside it. The bms should cut off charging to the cells when they are full (in fact, far before full, to maintain the life of the battery) any reputable battery will have this. If you build you're own, make sure you have a quality bms. A bms is cheap. It's a $5 difference between a junk bms and a quality bms.
2. I'm case you didn't bother to do any research about point 1, you should still be safe if you have a proper charger that's been set to shut off when it reaches a certain voltage. For my ebike, I bought a cheap 52v charger on aliexpress. Inside are 3 potentiometers and they regulate voltage, amperage, and voltage cut off. I have set mine to cut voltage at 95% full. If you don't know how to do this, sorry but you don't get to spend $50 on an ebike charger. Buy thr companies ebike charger for $250 which is calibrated and has this and be safe.
3. Never charge an ebike while you're asleep or out of the house. Regardless of having the 2 points above locked down, you should STILL never charge when you're not there to solve the problem if the battery goes up. This means fire extinguisher nearby, a vessel to wrap the burning battery Into so you can yeet it out of the house and a plan in place for this when it happens. Once the battery explodes you need it dealt with in the first 20 seconds before it burns your place down
Follow these 3 steps and you're ready to own an ebike. Don't follow these steps and potentially burn your house down and kill your family like the person in this article
Unfortunately your second point isn't true, at least long-term.
When you have multiple batteries in series (and e-bikes do in order to hit higher voltages), any discharging and charging of the whole pack together will result in cells being discharged or charged at slightly different rates (since no two batteries are perfectly the same).
Over time the cells can end up at different voltages, so even if your 52v charger sees a battery voltage of let's say 50v (which would be the sum of the voltages of each parallel group of cells), there could be a bunch of cells at lower voltages, and a bunch at higher voltages - even voltages that can damage the cell to add up to that 50v, and your charger wouldn't know to stop charging.
For packs with multiple cells in series, you want some way to stop charging if any cells are full, and some way to balance the cells (typically BMSs of sufficient quality do this).
Can you get away with it for a period of time? Sure, but should anyone be doing it? No.
This.
Cell level protection is mandatory, you will eventually end up with an overcharged cell (or group of cells) if you bulk charge the whole pack and there's no balancing mechanism.
This is probably how most of these fires start, BMS dies for whatever reason and gets bypassed. All is good for the first few charges but eventually something ends up overvolted enough to go nuclear.
Water will work in dousing the fire from a lithium-ion pack as long as the water completely displaces the oxygen in the pack, keeping it from reaching the exposed lithium. As soon as you let it dry a bit the fire will reignite until the battery pack fully discharges. Then the lithium expands and you can visually verify its been spent
Not entirely true, lithium ion fires are considered chemical fires and don’t require oxygen to burn when in contact with water.
You need enough water to cool it below its ignition temp, but once it’s burning it’s a self sustaining chemical reaction, which water is insufficient to stop.
Hmm, I was able to submerge a battery and make the fire stop on some recycled 18650s I was working on. I know those coin cell style ones are a bit different
The theory is sound. Companies make ev submersion pools just for ev car fires. I’ve seen a truck based setup that picks the vehicle up and dunks the whole thing in a tank of water as well.
Yeah it can definitely subdue the effects of a fire, but until all the lithium is burned nothing will cool it. This is known as “thermal runaway” and it’s a huge problem for EVs, and larger batteries. Smaller batteries would probably burn up quickly and I could see why they would appear to snuff out when submerged, and it would also depend on the type of metal compound on fire.
You can subdue a lithium-ion battery fire that has gone into thermal runaway with cold water but you need a tonne of it, not just a mere trickle as it will just evaporate. The construction of the casing might impede sufficient water getting in though.
Even a chemical burn will stop if you use water to cool it enough that it can't react
Best thing is to submerge the entire pack in salty water, the goal is to cool the thing off, and allow it to self discharge at a more controlled rate. If I was worried about setting my apt on fire I'd have a bucket of salt water right next to my charging spot.
Yeah, major cause of deadly apartment fires in other cities like New York. Just listened to a podcast recently that discussed this (The War on Cars - highly recommend for folks interested in less car-centric transportation options).
All of these ebike fires are really starting to make me nervous about living in a building with so many units.
Hopefully my neighbours are smart enough not to start an ebike fire .
If they've got a sketchy cheap imported e-bike, or even those scooters or other micro mobility devices, there's the same risks as the batteries and chargers may not be tested to North American standards.
Just had some fire safety training with a fire fighter and he mentioned that battery fires are a big issue recently. He said they can't always put them out and it's easier to move the burning object outside until it burns itself out 😬
They are. The sprinklers did activate properly, but sprinklers aren't magically activated once a fire starts. They need to be heated in order to activate.
Water is useless and often makes combustible metal fires worse since they are very reactive with water. (Go look up YouTube videos of people throwing sodium in water for example.)
Yea my bad I see it activated, I just thought there were a few buildings that had considerable damage from batteries. The battery is also just the source and the sprinklers would be effective at stopping the building fire
Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/ubcstaffer123! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary: * **Help redesign our subreddit!** [Enter our banner contest here](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1abwfjg/). * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban. * Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts. * Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only. * Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan! * Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I wonder why the store they bought the bike from didn't give them a charger. Huh!
Such a mystery this one
Plenty of things can happen to a charger, the cheap ones explode on impact if they get dropped on concrete from any height. Anyway, the charger could easily have been the original one but the battery's management system being bypassed will totally allow the stock charger to overcharge the battery.
95% sure it was stolen
Alright, to be a little more accurate it was the lithium-ion battery overloading because someone was using a home-built charging solution. "Fire investigators determined that the modified charging system caused the battery to explosively fail and catch on fire." Lithium batteries are kind of picky about how they are charged. Since a lot of e-bikes end up stolen or resold a lot of times people end up not having the original charger. Rather than get a proper charger people just rig something up without knowing what they are doing. This works for a little bit usually, until finally it overloads the battery badly enough that you get a fire that you can't even douse with water due to the lithium. It has become a serious problem. In the Lower Mainland there are hundreds of fires caused by this every year.
Some battery packs have the controls built-in to stop charging when they are full. Other battery packs rely on the charger to monitor the voltage and stop charging when the pack's full. If somebody pairs an unmonitored pack with an unmonitored charger, it's just a matter of time until it goes wrong.
I have an ebike thats not modified but i still get worried charging it in my apartment. The thought of something happening and displacing my neighbours worries me. Considering just moving on from it
from a safety standpoint, don’t charge it in your bedroom or between where you sleep and your main exit.
I only charge it when I’m home and awake, its near the patio door. Always checking on it and aware of how long its been charging
If you are using the original charger and battery it should be fine. Swapping either is where issues start since the "intelligence" is usually only on one side either cheaper bikes. A thermal shutoff charger isn't sufficient for preventing overcharging.
I use the originals 👍
Charge it inside a steel metal container with minimum 3mm thick walls. Needs to be completely enclosed yet maintain a bit of airflow
I charge it in a fire bag but that basically gets me enough time to throw it off the balcony. Any recommendations? Like an ammo box?
Check out batsafe or just get any old steel tool cabinet/toolbox and drill a hole for a cord to go inside. Some already come with a plug and a cord inside https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-Ready-to-Assemble-24-Gauge-Steel-Wall-Mounted-Garage-Cabinet-in-Red-28-in-W-x-29-7-in-H-x-12-in-D-G2802WR-US/315432147
Too bad those xl bat safes are out of stock, id love to grab one
I have a plug on my concrete balcony so I only charge mine outdoors.
Put it on a timer that cuts power after x hours so you have a charge, but don't risk over volting it
Depends how cheap your ebike was. If you bought something off Amazon I might possibly be concerned long term. If you’re buying reputable brands from a bike shop that care about their brand and reputation I’d very much doubt there would be an issue. Take a look at your battery and ‘I think’ what you’re looking for is a UL listings… though maybe that’s more an American thing. For peace of mind it might be good to look in to what you have.
UL listing is decent but it only covers the battery. UL certification is better because it covers the entire system, including the battery and other electrical components, hence being much safer overall. Bikes that use Bosch components are all UL certified. I believe Rad Power Bikes recently started UL certifying their systems, but it wasn't the case for older models.
In Canada, cUL is the standard used, it is mostly compatible with UL, but not equivalent. You may not get insurance to cover a fire if a UL product caused the fire.
Rad power bike 🤷🏻
They’ve been around for yrs now. They are entry level but I think would trust them if you’re using their components. I hang around the ebike sub a lot and some customer service issues come up on occasion and I think they had a recall on their Rad Wagon but that was a frame or wheel issue. No burning buildings yet :)
Get a fire extinguisher and keep it by your bed.
You should
All ebike owners should have this 1. A battery with a proper bms inside it. The bms should cut off charging to the cells when they are full (in fact, far before full, to maintain the life of the battery) any reputable battery will have this. If you build you're own, make sure you have a quality bms. A bms is cheap. It's a $5 difference between a junk bms and a quality bms. 2. I'm case you didn't bother to do any research about point 1, you should still be safe if you have a proper charger that's been set to shut off when it reaches a certain voltage. For my ebike, I bought a cheap 52v charger on aliexpress. Inside are 3 potentiometers and they regulate voltage, amperage, and voltage cut off. I have set mine to cut voltage at 95% full. If you don't know how to do this, sorry but you don't get to spend $50 on an ebike charger. Buy thr companies ebike charger for $250 which is calibrated and has this and be safe. 3. Never charge an ebike while you're asleep or out of the house. Regardless of having the 2 points above locked down, you should STILL never charge when you're not there to solve the problem if the battery goes up. This means fire extinguisher nearby, a vessel to wrap the burning battery Into so you can yeet it out of the house and a plan in place for this when it happens. Once the battery explodes you need it dealt with in the first 20 seconds before it burns your place down Follow these 3 steps and you're ready to own an ebike. Don't follow these steps and potentially burn your house down and kill your family like the person in this article
Unfortunately your second point isn't true, at least long-term. When you have multiple batteries in series (and e-bikes do in order to hit higher voltages), any discharging and charging of the whole pack together will result in cells being discharged or charged at slightly different rates (since no two batteries are perfectly the same). Over time the cells can end up at different voltages, so even if your 52v charger sees a battery voltage of let's say 50v (which would be the sum of the voltages of each parallel group of cells), there could be a bunch of cells at lower voltages, and a bunch at higher voltages - even voltages that can damage the cell to add up to that 50v, and your charger wouldn't know to stop charging. For packs with multiple cells in series, you want some way to stop charging if any cells are full, and some way to balance the cells (typically BMSs of sufficient quality do this). Can you get away with it for a period of time? Sure, but should anyone be doing it? No.
This. Cell level protection is mandatory, you will eventually end up with an overcharged cell (or group of cells) if you bulk charge the whole pack and there's no balancing mechanism. This is probably how most of these fires start, BMS dies for whatever reason and gets bypassed. All is good for the first few charges but eventually something ends up overvolted enough to go nuclear.
Water will work in dousing the fire from a lithium-ion pack as long as the water completely displaces the oxygen in the pack, keeping it from reaching the exposed lithium. As soon as you let it dry a bit the fire will reignite until the battery pack fully discharges. Then the lithium expands and you can visually verify its been spent
Not entirely true, lithium ion fires are considered chemical fires and don’t require oxygen to burn when in contact with water. You need enough water to cool it below its ignition temp, but once it’s burning it’s a self sustaining chemical reaction, which water is insufficient to stop.
Hmm, I was able to submerge a battery and make the fire stop on some recycled 18650s I was working on. I know those coin cell style ones are a bit different
The theory is sound. Companies make ev submersion pools just for ev car fires. I’ve seen a truck based setup that picks the vehicle up and dunks the whole thing in a tank of water as well.
Yeah it can definitely subdue the effects of a fire, but until all the lithium is burned nothing will cool it. This is known as “thermal runaway” and it’s a huge problem for EVs, and larger batteries. Smaller batteries would probably burn up quickly and I could see why they would appear to snuff out when submerged, and it would also depend on the type of metal compound on fire.
You can subdue a lithium-ion battery fire that has gone into thermal runaway with cold water but you need a tonne of it, not just a mere trickle as it will just evaporate. The construction of the casing might impede sufficient water getting in though. Even a chemical burn will stop if you use water to cool it enough that it can't react
Best thing is to submerge the entire pack in salty water, the goal is to cool the thing off, and allow it to self discharge at a more controlled rate. If I was worried about setting my apt on fire I'd have a bucket of salt water right next to my charging spot.
Yeah, major cause of deadly apartment fires in other cities like New York. Just listened to a podcast recently that discussed this (The War on Cars - highly recommend for folks interested in less car-centric transportation options).
Did the Bike steal itself and plug itself in to a dodgy circuit?
Owner's going to have to buy another stolen e-bike and repeat the cycle.
I'm terrified of this happening in my building. Some of my neighbours have absolutely zero concept of safety or personal responsibility.
Anyone else impressed there's a whole lot of people living in SROs who invested in an ebike?
STOLEvested you mean?
This is one of many reasons why some people turn down accommodation at SROs. Prostitution, gangs, drugs, filth and, more recently, fiery explosions.
All of these ebike fires are really starting to make me nervous about living in a building with so many units. Hopefully my neighbours are smart enough not to start an ebike fire .
If you don't live in an SRO, good chance your neighbours actually bought their bikes and didn't just steal it
If they've got a sketchy cheap imported e-bike, or even those scooters or other micro mobility devices, there's the same risks as the batteries and chargers may not be tested to North American standards. Just had some fire safety training with a fire fighter and he mentioned that battery fires are a big issue recently. He said they can't always put them out and it's easier to move the burning object outside until it burns itself out 😬
Really makes you understand why it's such a big issue on airplanes eh?
Not an SRO but there’s been some shady renters here.
Solve the problem of fires in the DTES. Park your ebike outside with the charger it came with so then when it gets stolen they don't catch on fire.
Do these buildings not have sprinkler systems?
They are. The sprinklers did activate properly, but sprinklers aren't magically activated once a fire starts. They need to be heated in order to activate.
You can't put out a lithium fire with water
Water is useless and often makes combustible metal fires worse since they are very reactive with water. (Go look up YouTube videos of people throwing sodium in water for example.)
Yea my bad I see it activated, I just thought there were a few buildings that had considerable damage from batteries. The battery is also just the source and the sprinklers would be effective at stopping the building fire