DIY LiPo Safe for charging batteries

[Bavarian_RC]

So far I have stored and charged my lipo batteries in the usual lipo bags. But after seeing some tests where those bags were confronted with a lipo fire and seeing that some of them completely failed, I wanted to have something more reliable.
I’ve seen the Bat-Safe and also some DIY solutions made from ammo boxes or other types of metal boxes. None of them were fully covering all the needs that I had. Therefore I decided to design and build one myself.

I took the best of every solution I found on the internet and YouTube and built this:

The basis is a standard hardware store metal box. To protect it and its surrounding against the heat of a lipo fire I covered it on the inside with non-flammable gypsum fiber board.



The connectors of the chargers (I wanted the option to connect 2 chargers/batteries in parallel) are replicated inside the box.



In order to cool down and filter the hot gases in case of a lipo fire, I included a vent duct that is filled with steel scrubbing pads and a filter



I have never tested the box with a real lipo fire, but some of the boxes on which I based my design on, were tested under these conditions. Especially the design of the vent duct seems to work fine.
If you’re interested in the build, check out my build video. There’s a link to the free plans and STL files in the video description.

Let me know what you think of this design. Did you build something similar? Then post it here.
Did any of you test your DIY lipo safe with a real fire and what was your experience?

 

[mach1 rc]

So far I have stored and charged my lipo batteries in the usual lipo bags. But after seeing some tests where those bags were confronted with a lipo fire and seeing that some of them completely failed, I wanted to have something more reliable.
I’ve seen the Bat-Safe and also some DIY solutions made from ammo boxes or other types of metal boxes. None of them were fully covering all the needs that I had. Therefore I decided to design and build one myself.

I took the best of every solution I found on the internet and YouTube and built this:
View attachment 153113
View attachment 153114

The basis is a standard hardware store metal box. To protect it and its surrounding against the heat of a lipo fire I covered it on the inside with non-flammable gypsum fiber board.

View attachment 153116

The connectors of the chargers (I wanted the option to connect 2 chargers/batteries in parallel) are replicated inside the box.

View attachment 153117 View attachment 153118

In order to cool down and filter the hot gases in case of a lipo fire, I included a vent duct that is filled with steel scrubbing pads and a filter

View attachment 153119 View attachment 153120 View attachment 153121

I have never tested the box with a real lipo fire, but some of the boxes on which I based my design on, were tested under these conditions. Especially the design of the vent duct seems to work fine.
If you’re interested in the build, check out my build video. There’s a link to the free plans and STL files in the video description.

Let me know what you think of this design. Did you build something similar? Then post it here.
Did any of you test your DIY lipo safe with a real fire and what was your experience?

That looks sweet 👍👍👍👍👋👋👋👋👏👏👏👏

 

[sprzout]

Out of curiosity, what did the materials cost you to make it?

 

[Bavarian_RC]

Out of curiosity, what did the materials cost you to make it?

I spent around 70 Euros which is approx. 78$ for all the material. But some of the material would be enough to build another box. So if I break it down to the used amount of material it is more like 45 Euros or 50$ including the 2 balancer boards and balancer adapter wires which were together already costing 17 EUR.

 

[Merv]

Great looking project.

 

[PsyBorg]

Nice job mate. The video is also very well done. If I were not relegated down to only being able to legally fly a Gremlin sized craft in a short time here I would explore building one.