Disposing of a bad lipo

[Guest]

Hi guys,

One of my Lipos that came with my T3DS, the middle cell appears to be expanding at the side and if you put it to your nose it smells a bit "chemically". I have only run one charge through it and I dont think I have dropped it. I presume I have to get rid of it. What is a safe way to dispose of it - has it become a fire hazard?

Cheers
Jack

[murph]

Half fill a bucket with water, put a cup full of salt in it, then put the battery in and leave it for a couple of weeks. It should gently bubble from the balance plug. Then you can put it in the normal rubbish. Hope this helps

[jamiem]

take it in the garden and put a nail through it, much more exciting

[ivor-bigen]

use the salt trick,,, i have personly seen this method in use at flighttech that is how they safely disharge there pacs ready for the bin.

[Kwickkwack]

connect the two terminals together and run















only joking

[ChrisB]

Driving over them with a forklift or throwing on a fire are interesting

But the bucket of salt water is the correct way.

[unwind-protect]

I have a feeling that most of the battery packs sold today come under the WEEE legislation, and so should not be thrown in the household rubbish; instead you should take it to your local "recycling centre" (aka "tip"), and let them throw it in the ground for you (well, hopefully they'll try to get the useful metals out of it first).

[waveydavey]

I think that if they are discharged and treated as above with the salt method they no longer pose any kind of risk as the chemicals involved are rendered useless and therefore safe to dispose of in the bin. I'd be pretty sure that they don't come under the Weee regs as these are for the disposal and recycling of electrical equipment and as the battery is nothing more than a bag full of chemicals I don't think it would be included. Could be wrong though.

[Xige]

Get a bucket/big jar fill it up with water, then put a load of salt into it, then put the lipo into it and leave it for a week or two. During this time the lipo wil bubble/fizz, this makes it safe. Then after you can just put it in the bin. That's what I did with one of my damaged align lipos before.

[Guest]

Cheers guys, its in the salty water now.
What causes these failures then? The battery was hardly used...

[Sao]

Lipos usually puff when over charged or over discharged. Perhaps you had a dodgy pack, or maybe one of the cells voltage was miles out from the others.
If it was a brand new pack and was charged on a balance charger I would be looking for a refund.

Salt water is the method as above. I disposed of two 10s5p packs this way, left them in water for a couple of weeks to bubble away then., I removed them and carefully slit the silver foil on each cell and put them back in the SW solution for another week after that I just threw them out in the normal rubbish bin.
I watched the dustcart go down the road just to make sure it didn't burst into a huge ball of flames

[Guest]

They balanced up perfectly on the Cellpro and it was stored like that for a few weeks. May have been a dodgy cell then.
I bought them with the heli, all second and and they were treated well before - perhaps I did give it a knock at some point.

[jboweruk]

You are supposed to slit each cell first, then put in salt water... That's what I read.

[Guest]

You are supposed to slit each cell first, then put in salt water... That's what I read.

Cheers for that. Makes more sense if the chemicals can actually get to the water!

[mattydred]

put them down the bottem of the garden and shoot them with a rifle