Yes, damaged LiPos are common in radio control. This is nearly always
due to them being shorted out or developing a charging issue rather
than physical damage though. Often the charger connections are in the
form of banana plugs which can be easily touched together by mistake.
That's all it takes for a LiPo to swell up and become a "bomb".

The solution to this problem adopted by the battery and charger
manufacturers is to have disclaimers all over their gear saying that
you should only charge it outdoors. R/C people are used to their
planes crashing so batteries that explode just add to the fun!

Cheers,
Zik

On 8/16/06, William Chops Westfield <westfw@mac.com> 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
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