damage to lipo pack

[def215]

so long story short, i crashed my electric scooter because my controller went buck wild. after assessing damage to myself, i assessed the damage to the scooter and noticed there was an indentation in the side of my lipo pack. here is a picture of the damage:

(sorry, it might be a crappy pic because all i have is my phone)
i just wanted to know from any lipo guru's, would this pack still be safe to run? i hear horror stories of lipo going up in flames and i dont want to have the same story. the indentation isnt that serious looking from what i can see, but im just scared/paranoid that something bad might happen if i use it. if anyone can give me an answer, it will be appreciated.

 

[number1cruncher]

Luke always asks if it smells like cherries. That is the sign of a punture.

There may also be something to worry about with dendrites pressing into things, but that's way above my understanding of things.

 

[Ypedal]

there is visible road rash... time to retire the pack or perform surgery to remove at least that one cell..

 

[def215]

Luke always asks if it smells like cherries. That is the sign of a punture.

There may also be something to worry about with dendrites pressing into things, but that's way above my understanding of things.

i dont smell anything out of the ordinary, like the smell of cherries. the dendrite pressing on things is what im worried about. it doesnt looks so bad, but im not sure if its good to run or not.

there is visible road rash... time to retire the pack or perform surgery to remove at least that one cell..

there isnt an actual puncture though. but i guess i shouldnt take that risk with this pack. good thing these packs werent too expensive.

 

[number1cruncher]

I'd take Ypedal's advise. Why take the risk for <$50 battery?

 

[dogman dan]

As long as there is no hole, no puffing, it's ok. Maybe beef up that area with some glue though. then tape up the pack.

What isn't ok, is carrying around naked packs. You have metal around part of it, time to rebuild and protect the whole pack.

 

[Ypedal]

If the cell is dented or deformed, you will likely notice a drop in voltage, it will not hold 4.18+ volts overnight like a healthy cell and will continue to fall out of ballance, depending on how your charge and use the pack it may continue to function but i remove these cells from my packs personally.

 

[EBJ]

As long as there is no hole, no puffing, it's ok. Maybe beef up that area with some glue though. then tape up the pack.

What isn't ok, is carrying around naked packs. You have metal around part of it, time to rebuild and protect the whole pack.

I don't know if I would call that metal, looks more like tin-foil.

 

[miro13car]

def215,
sorry to hear about your weird crash, because not caused by you?
Did you modyfy or tamper with controller?
What scooter is it?
All this cheap CH brands are giving bad, bad name to evehicles in general.
Things happens - type of explaination is not acceptable, you could have seriously injured sombody or even killed.

 

[def215]

As long as there is no hole, no puffing, it's ok. Maybe beef up that area with some glue though. then tape up the pack.

What isn't ok, is carrying around naked packs. You have metal around part of it, time to rebuild and protect the whole pack.

I don't know if I would call that metal, looks more like tin-foil.

that is actually aluminum sheet bent up as my battery holder. this is an ex-gas powered scooter so i thought id try to utilize everything that was already on there. but the fact remains that i shouldve done more to protect them.

If the cell is dented or deformed, you will likely notice a drop in voltage, it will not hold 4.18+ volts overnight like a healthy cell and will continue to fall out of ballance, depending on how your charge and use the pack it may continue to function but i remove these cells from my packs personally.

i checked my cells voltages after sitting for a day and they still seem to be staying at the same place. im not trying to justify salvaging this pack, but im trying to come up with answers to questions for future reference too, since i do like what lipo has to offer. all of my electrics might end up with them. well all of them have lithium batteries at the moment.

def215,
sorry to hear about your weird crash, because not caused by you?
Did you modyfy or tamper with controller?
What scooter is it?
All this cheap CH brands are giving bad, bad name to evehicles in general.
Things happens - type of explaination is not acceptable, you could have seriously injured sombody or even killed.

the crash was in a way my fault. the controller that i was using was a dynam detrum 70a esc from a US dealer. i was running this controller on my brothers friction drive bike and there was a weird stutter when getting on the throttle. so i swapped out controllers for the one i had on my scooter, which is the mystery pentium 80a esc(i know there are several people on here that had success with the mystery controllers). the mystery was acting weird too, because it would ramp full throttle at anything more than 1/4th throttle. i thought the dynam detrum one was good, so i hook it up to my scooter and had a go at it. as soon as i went full throttle, it did the weird stuttering thing and it locked up the rear tire. it fishtailed and all of my weight shifted forward and i ended up going down. thank God i was only going about 10-15 mph when it happened, and all i got was roadrash.

as for what kind of scooter it is, it is a goped brand sport model converted to electric. heres a picture of it:

this scooter is made by a company in nevada. maybe all of the electronics that im using on my scooter was made in china. :|
the only thing that was injured was myself and the lipo pack.

 

[dogman dan]

Yes, the pouches are tin foil, with shrink wrap around it. Strapping it to the scooter with metal covering half the pack just got proved to be inadequate.

Others have proved that taping it to bikes is inadequate protection. And it's been prooved that bags don't prevent damage in a crash.

So when I said put metal around it, I meant a stout metal box. Nearly as good would be stout fiberglass or carbon, and plastic can work fine if thick enough. Basicly you need something stiff and abrasion resistant around these things when you go scraping the bike or scooter across the pavement. Eventually you will crash, or at the very least the bike falls over some day.

Back to the pack in question, Use it if it shows no problems. No smells, and holds voltage. Like Ypedal says, don't use lipo that acts funny in any way. Once they don't charge up, balance quickly, and hold the charge, chuck em. Chuck em if they puff a lot, or stink. Not worth the potential fire. At 50 bucks a pop, you can afford to chuck em. If that's too much money, get out of lipo and into something like lifepo4 that lasts longer.

 

[def215]

okay. thanks for the advise dogman and ypedal. i have a good two weeks until my new controller comes in so ill try to cycle my pack on a dummy load and charge it up while keeping an eye on it. if i see any thing funny or out of the ordinary, ill end up chucking that portion of the pack. but this time ill add some protection also, because that sheetmetal didnt do the job. i dont have any spare metal to make a box, but i have some pretty stiff and tough plastic laying around that i can turn into a battery cover.