Beware cheap knockoffs

Thunderace

BIG JIM
Control Rider
I know this sounds simple and I think for the most part I buy name brand items. However, this morning in my garage I was faced with a serious fire and explosions that knocked me to my ass.

Back story: I bought two 18v batteries for my Makita drill and impact wrenches from Amazon. Not cheap, but far less expensive than the name brand batteries. I have used them for about a year with no problems up until today.

This morning while working on the bike, I took one of the batteries and put it on my Makita charger. Within a few minutes of placing it there, I heard a fizzing sound coming from the charger. I looked over and the thing was on fire with 6-8 inch flames shooting out of it. I have two extinguishers right next to the charger and another one on the other side of the garage. My first thought was to get the extinguisher from the other side of the garage. My next thought was that these flames aren't that bad, let me blow them out. The dumbass that I am, I blew them out.

A few seconds after blowing them out, one of the batteries inside exploded. I fell to the floor in the opposite direction not knowing if more were going to explode. My face was less than a foot away a few seconds before it exploded. Luckily, I had backed away and was assessing the damage when it let go. All seemed ok now, but the battery was still smoking. I grabbed the charger by the cord and hauled it out side into the driveway. By this time, my wife had come down and was standing on the front porch when a couple more batteries decided to blow. Needless to say, we ducked for cover. It was crazy and it felt like we were in a shoot out in the inner city!

For the future, all of my Li-Ion batteries will be name brand, regardless of price. That will hold true for a lot of other areas in my life as well.
 

Mike:p

Don’t be a Hero, be consistent.
Holy smokes ;) I’m glad you and your wife are safe.

Thanks for the heads up. I’m going to show this story to everyone I know.
 

HondaGalToo

Control Rider
Holy crap! Glad you're ok. I bought some no-name rechargeable batteries for my Black&Decker weedwacker. Maybe I should reconsider keeping them.
 
Glad your intact and still with us. I also learned my lesson with knock off items. The money saved isn't really saved at all.
 

Thunderace

BIG JIM
Control Rider
A couple years ago, while at the season finale at Barber, a rider came off the track and there was a funky white smoke coming from under his seat. The Li-Ion battery had ruptured and was oozing this weird white smoke. For some reason I was right there when they came in and I was given a hose and ran water under the seat. I thought I was keeping it from catching on fire. At the time, I wasn't concerned about it exploding like what happened in my garage. Maybe the water helped, but the next time I am getting away from the bike and finding the nearest extinguisher.
 

Louber

New Member
Glad to hear you are okay. Seriously scary stuff.

I have gotten knockoff items from Amazon on more than one occasion. Both were very cheap electronics. Usually the price is too good to be true.
1. Fake Garmin branded GPS charger - plastic cracked within weeks of use, packaging was incorrect as well.
2. Fake A/V digital to analog converter - never worked at all, probably just a plastic box full of resistors.

In both cases the items were too cheap to bother returning. Buyer beware.
 

bmart

Control Rider
A couple years ago, while at the season finale at Barber, a rider came off the track and there was a funky white smoke coming from under his seat. The Li-Ion battery had ruptured and was oozing this weird white smoke.

I've seen the Li-Ion smoke/death thing a few times at track days. I don't think that any of them were knock offs. I think that in many cases the problem is with a technology that isn't ready for prime time being put out to the public for free testing.

As an old friend says "A low quality product at a reduced price isn't a deal."
 

LarsDunaway

Rat Boy
Staff member
Control Rider
Wow, thanks for the heads up. To be clear, the Makita batteries were Li-Ion, and not NiCd? I have a knockoff 18V NiCd for my dewalt tools that works great, but if there is an explosion risk- goodbye!
 

R1Baby

Control Rider
Heard of that happening from someone about a year ago. But he had left them in over night when it happened.
 

Dom17

Intermediate Intermediate
Interesting, do you have another one of those defective batteries? I wonder what brand the cells are inside and what went wrong. Glad you're okay. I wonder if they were actually what the battery type they claim they were.
 

mdhokie

Member
I've seen the Li-Ion smoke/death thing a few times at track days. I don't think that any of them were knock offs. I think that in many cases the problem is with a technology that isn't ready for prime time being put out to the public for free testing.

As an old friend says "A low quality product at a reduced price isn't a deal."

I'm with bmart. There are some serious problems with Li-Ion battery tech that the manufacturers still haven't gotten completely solved. The problem is even worse in the not-yet-available batteries with solid lithium anodes. That said, knock-offs at a significantly cheaper price probably haven't put as much effort into reliability testing and indeed might be more dangerous.

https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i38/Imaging-dangerous-dendrite-growth-inside.html
https://www.electronicproducts.com/...do_they_cause_fires_in_lithium_batteries.aspx
 

Thunderace

BIG JIM
Control Rider
Interesting, do you have another one of those defective batteries? I wonder what brand the cells are inside and what went wrong. Glad you're okay. I wonder if they were actually what the battery type they claim they were.

I did take the other battery apart and cut the wires inside. I didn't want it to cause another fire when I threw it in the roll-off dumpster at my neighbors house. The batteries inside where completely blank and had no identifying information on them. I couldn't get it out of my house fast enough, so I didn't take much time to try and identify them.
 

wmhjr

Grandpa
Control Rider
I'm with bmart. There are some serious problems with Li-Ion battery tech that the manufacturers still haven't gotten completely solved.

https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i38/Imaging-dangerous-dendrite-growth-inside.html
https://www.electronicproducts.com/...do_they_cause_fires_in_lithium_batteries.aspx

I'm not in any possible way in this camp. There is still no evidence that current Lithium Ion batteries, which have now been in use for years, are subject to the potential issues about Dendrites that the Lithium metal (next gen, not yet on the market) batteries "may" have to worry about. Batteries are a power source, and there has not to my knowledge been a battery every produced that doesn't have some sort of potential hazard associated with it. Always been that way. Probably always will. I've seen cheap aftermarket crap based on old Lead Acid technology cause problems - including shorts that led to fires.

Anybody who has any good Lithium Ion stuff that they're worried about and don't want to use any more, please feel perfectly free to send it my way. I would be happy to take the risk and stress off of your hands.
 
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