I believe that in most cases related to radio controlled aircraft the rather spectacular failures that are reported occur when the LiPoly cells are improperly charged. Tim Tamas Rudnai wrote: > Usually who uses LiPo or LiIon batteries for an airplane uses electric > motors (with 2s, 3s or even 4s packs). For those you have to use a speed > controller with a BEC that makes the 5V for the radio and I am not sure > others but for example I have one that specially designed for LiIon/LiPo > batteries so that it measures it I do not know how many times in a second > and shuts the system (nearly) completly down if anything is wrong -- well, > it does not measure the temperature of the battery which might be a good > idea. I am also using a cell equalizer for charging and a quite expensive > charger that also measures the battery several times a second but I know > lots of others do not care about of that -- as far as I know the cell > equalizer is nothing about the safety but the durability of the battery, > however, using an improper charer has a risk of having an explosion. Well, > mechanical protection... when I smashed my plane into the ground at around > 60 Km/h the battery itself had not even scratched as it was housing in a > styroplast strengthened by fibre glass -- I think it is much more protective > than a mobile phone or a laptop battery, so i do not know, when you drop it > onto to a hard floor I think you have a better chance to happen something. > > Tamas > > > On 15/08/06, William Chops Westfield wrote: >> >> On Aug 15, 2006, at 11:14 AM, John Ferrell wrote: >> >>> Li-Ion are pretty tame compared to Li-Po technology. >>> >> I hear that, generally from the model plane community where they're >> in the habit of using cells without any electrical protection, and >> with very little in the form of mechanical protection. (in an >> application where the mechanical protection might be important.) >> But the technology is very similar to li-ion, and I'm not convinced >> that they're fundamentally "less tame." >> >> (likewise, the last laptop battery pack I stripped for it's cells >> happened to have LiPo cells rather than li-ion cells, so it's hard >> to tell which is which...) >> >> BillW >> -- >> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive >> View/change your membership options at >> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist