Anybody Packing Thermal Containment Bags Yet?

jacobsja

Am going to start carrying pouches designed for when phone / tablet batteries go runaway, or start showing risk. Anybody have favorites, or success stories?

Sporty's has containment kits, but I don't like the sales pitch as it limits to "Constructed with FAA certified materials" and nothing toward actual performance of the specific product.

Found vendors with claims that their products were deployed to a bunch of aircraft, but not finding pricing outside of Sporty's. Maybe time for an expensive group buy?

Driving this new goal is a recent event when a rear passenger passenger commented that the phone's screen protector started to come off. A couple minutes later I heard "Hey, I think the battery is swelling and causing the screen protector to come off." Yup, not what I wanted to hear.

Had the passenger yank the battery to prep it for jettison if necessary. After landing, sure enough, it's middle section was swelled to twice its normal thickness, and it immediately went into an outdoor steel dumpster. Battery was OEM brand-name.

empannin

Amazon and others sell a number of different battery boxes. I think any of these are about the same although the ones with a real lining to keep heat in would be better. All of them will not contain a harmful cloud of smoke.

Lithium batteries should never be thrown away in general trash and are one of the top causes of trash/landfill fires.

jacobsja

Good to know about where not to put the lithium battery and definitely did not want it in the plane any longer than necessary. I got the dumpster method from the local recycle outfit whom bought all the scrap metal I had, but tossed the lithium battery straight in their trash bin and told me that there was no recycle value.

Given the inputs, seems that this is a bigger topic as we should have an infrastructure in place to keep lithium batteries out of the general trash stream.

In thinking the side-topic forward a bit, am sensing the fire risk goes to zero if able to deplete the battery's charge prior to disposal.

empannin

Lithium batteries accumulate like marine flares. There is usually not a clear recycle path and if you don't toss them out then the odds are they are hanging out in your house/boat somewhere.

They do self discharge over time - I think one challenge is many do not have an "off" button so if there is a short/internal failure often there is nothing that can be done aside from throwing it far away...

The engineering is getting better year over year but there are still inherent risks. Not overtemping batteries in hot cars/planes and not dropping them are some things that can be done to reduce risks. I am taking apart a 52V 13Ahr lithium battery pack this weekend as one of the cells failed in it. I wish they made these packs serviceable with swappable batteries vs having to do major surgery for even a single cell.

I have at my feet a 1 kWhr battery pack that will put out 1000 watts continuous. For intermittent loads this is very competitive vs small generators and can be recharged via DC or Solar as well as AC.

When everyone had small gas engines for everything you needed a schedule to keep track of oil changes.... Now it is worse as you really need a schedule to keep track of all the lithium powered devices you want to keep charged! I have ~14 engines of all sizes that need an oil change at some point. I must have 20x lithium powered devices that need a charge...

kentshaw

I do drone instruction at a local non-profit and use them to carry drone batteries. Some of these batteries are cheaply made and will start swelling in a little more than a year. I have had no issues yet so have had no opportunity to test them. I carry a fire extinguisher as well, though, just in case.