Kablooey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bjoehandley]

I was running my E-Revo on lunch tonight with a couple Trinity/Intellect IB4600 7 cell flat packs (TRI20165) in it. Just as I was about to bring it in I slid it to a stop in front of my Jeep and then hear a pop and see something come out of the right side of the truck with some force At first I thought the one of the right side tire's sidewall blew out until I came to my senses and remembered it's not possible on a foam supported tire and say the battery door on the other side of the Jeep about 16 FEET from the truck! I pulled the shell off so I could unplug the batteries and saw that the battery in the right side battery bay was out of the bay, nearly unplugged from the ESC, and the copper bars were bent nearly straight from a 90* bend! The compartment, front portion of the chassis, and servo in front of it are covered in black stuff, it nearly blew the front cooling duct off the chassis, launched the battery shell 34 FEET or so from the truck I took pics with my cell phone, but haven't had a chance to get them on line yet since I'm still at work. Needless to say I'm a just a wee bit unhappy and plan on calling Trinity tomorrow

[HoovHartid]

sorry bout your day man...

i cant wait to see these pics tho...

[Revo Junkie]

I ususally bend the tabs on the vents upwards before I put my batteries in so they will be a little more secure. I'm pretty sure there might be a quick mod to prevent this from hapening.

[bjoehandley]

That pack has never run or charged quite right and I should have known better but I kept trying to cycle it back to life and next thing I knew there's a bang and parts were flying I was even running it on pavement only with the truck geared 17/68 instead of 19/68 and on stock tires

[Chachi_RC]

Just a thought I had today....maybe it would have helped. Check it out:
http://monster.traxxas.com/showthread.php?t=430094

[bjoehandley]

Actually, I'm glad the door tore off at the hinge, the battery failure could have caused more damage when it came apart if the door hadn't done that. I'd be almost willing to bet that the hinge failed before the latches did when the battery blew

[OM514]

if you're going to use trinity packs, use the EP cells. they're a lot better overall. except they dont have an EP 7 cell flat pack, the 7 cell is a hump pack so you'd have to re-assemble it as a flat pack so it would fit in the Evo.

i've heard lots of people recently say how their IB cells vented early or exploded... maybe it's a defect, but ive actually been hearing that about IB cells since even 6-8 months back.

Chachi RC:Just a thought I had today....maybe it would have helped. Check it out:
http://monster.traxxas.com/showthread.php?t=430094

^^^actually i think if the battery stayed in the box and then exploded it would have caused much more internal damage to the chassis and other components of the truck. so i think it was a good thing that the door blew off, it kinda gave the battery some room to "get angry" and "explode" lol hehe

[VXL Beast]

Yah, a bunch of people on the Rusty/bandit forums have been having problems with failing cells in trinity packs, but I had not heard about them in Intellect packs, as intellect cells are pretty good.

[bjoehandley]

Got home from work and the pics downloaded, but let me warn you...they are cell phone pics since I didn't have a regular camera on me at the time.

Here's the blown end of the pack, those battery bars are supposed to be bent about 100*-110* the other direction!


Here's the guts of the cell that blew, I did shake some out of the truck since they were still burning in the compartment when I unplugged the packs!


And now for the Chassis Carnage!!!!
This is a distance shot of the chassis, you can kinda see the black stuff that came out of the pack when it blew

This is a "Close Up" of the forward part of the compartment that the cell blew in

Here's the top side of the chassis at the cooling ducts, the black powder also came out of the duct was well spraying all the way up to the front body mount and partially dislodging the front duct. The stuff stuck in the grates is metal grid part of the battery's internals

[bjoehandley]

Now for the debris field
This is an overall view of where the pack sprayed and the truck is sitting in about the same location in relation to the Jeep when the battery went kablooey.

Here's the farthest a chunk of the metal grid flew, probably 18ft from the truck

Here's the battery door, about 16ft from the truck

And here's the case of the cell that blew about 35 FEET away from the truck AFTER taking the door off the truck! Another 4-5 feet the case would have hit the wall or the door behind me!

[Mr.Nitro]

I can almost hear the *POP* from here! Nice pix, and great job documenting the crime scene :P

[bjoehandley]

Originally Posted by Mr.Nitro

I can almost hear the *POP* from here! Nice pix, and great job documenting the crime scene :P

Hehehe........don't know why, but the letters RCSI kept running through my mind as I took the second set of pics

[Lefthook]

no way thats not good. Hope you get some results from Trinity and good luck.

[Gdot]

I had one explode on the bench a short while ago. Came apart with so much force it blew a dent in the side of my Pickup like it was hit with a hammer (no kidding, this could have killed a kid!!) and there was burning screen-like stuff all over the shop. I still have melted metal on the side of the truck....

[larrydino]

let us know how the battery company does for you.....if they dont give you what you want..just let us know so we can write all about it, and tell all our friends

[bjoehandley]

I'm working on that right now!

[Suicideneil]

Hands up who thinks nimh sucks...

**raises hand in air**

[bjoehandley]

Sent them an e-mail though their customer sevice "line", hopefully they'll get back to me soon through e-mail, my cell or at the StC HTU.

*Update* They've sent an automated response to my E-Mail that they've recieved it and should be getting back to me in the next 48 hours.

[achevyguy]

what connectors were you running ? i heard a small tap like sound lastnight when i was charging my same battery packs, but i wasnt sure what it was. so now im a lil worried.

[bjoehandley]

Originally Posted by Gdot

I had one explode on the bench a short while ago. Came apart with so much force it blew a dent in the side of my Pickup like it was hit with a hammer (no kidding, this could have killed a kid!!) and there was burning screen-like stuff all over the shop. I still have melted metal on the side of the truck....

Dang, Gdot.......really glad it happened infront of my Jeep instead next to it!

[bjoehandley]

Originally Posted by achevyguy

what connectors were you running ? i heard a small tap like sound lastnight when i was charging my same battery packs, but i wasnt sure what it was. so now im a lil worried.

It was the factory plugs on the truck and Trinity's TRX compatable plugs on the packs.

[achevyguy]

are they the white molex/tamiya style plugs ?

[bjoehandley]

No, they're the new Traxxas high current connectors.

[Suicideneil]

http://www.teamtrinity.com/shop/item.asp?item=TRI20165

[achevyguy]

i had the white connectors on mine but converted them to the TRX connectors. man that freaks me out a lil bit. in the picture of the TRX connector, are they copper ? it dont look like it, but who knows.

[Geogenesis]

Originally Posted by Suicideneil

Hands up who thinks nimh sucks...

**raises hand in air**

**raises hand in air**
**raises hand in air**
**raises hand in air**
**raises hand in air**
**raises hand in air**
**raises hand in air**
**raises hand in air**
**raises hand in air**
no really
**raises hand in air**

[bjoehandley]

Haven't recieved an e-mail with a claim number as of yet. I'll keep you guys informed as to what happens.

Originally Posted by achevyguy

i had the white connectors on mine but converted them to the TRX connectors. man that freaks me out a lil bit. in the picture of the TRX connector, are they copper ? it dont look like it, but who knows.

Never paid attention to that, I'll have to look at one of the packs

[bjoehandley]

Originally Posted by Suicideneil

http://www.teamtrinity.com/shop/item.asp?item=TRI20165

I'm begining to think dropping back down to 3000-3800mAh packs may not be a bad choice.

[bjoehandley]

Still have yet to hear anything from Trinity as of 5 minutes ago, and I sent the e-mail a week ago tomorrow

[revo96]

WOW! show those pics to a traxxas rep and they might feel sorry for you and send you a new chassis!

[bjoehandley]

The chassis is fine, th eonly dmamage was the door and front duct, I still let them know what happened so they have that info in their computers in case of of you guys calls with a problem like mine.

[zaks90v8]

dam yeah i thought i just mess mine up i saved from blowing i notice like 2 min into mine run it was slowing down and i pulled cover off and the left pack was freaking hot i unpluged it and open the door and walked away it was the same one 7 cell 4600 trinity flat the reson ithought it was my fault cause i had just put traxxas connectors on it but they went on perfect and i thought lipos we dangerous um fire"lipo" or C4 " nimh

[powerslider]

Good luck on getting a response, you need to send a few more emails. I sent several before I got anything back and after 2+ months still waiting on a replacement pack. This was an EP4600 pack with a shorted cell right out of the box new. I bought the battery back in May and sent it in after finally getting a return auth#. No word since, Chad Phillips was the guy on their end. Not real impressed, Ive since started buying Lipos but not from Trinity lol....

[bjoehandley]

Originally Posted by powerslider

Good luck on getting a response, you need to send a few more emails. I sent several before I got anything back and after 2+ months still waiting on a replacement pack. This was an EP4600 pack with a shorted cell right out of the box new. I bought the battery back in May and sent it in after finally getting a return auth#. No word since, Chad Phillips was the guy on their end. Not real impressed, Ive since started buying Lipos but not from Trinity lol....

I'm begining to think I may not be as lucky as you, I'm going to dif around at work tomorrow to see if I can find an numbers that might put me in contact with a living, breathing, person instead of having to wait for this claim number! Things like these are reason I like dealing with Traxxas and HPI, Traxxas usually takes care of their customers and the stores ASAP and HPI has started trying to do that as well!

[DockBrown88MPH]

My venom 5000 mah 7 cells exploded on me after 27 runs... Seriously... go LiPo, and I promise you won't go back! Go brushless and I promise the only money you'll spend is on high speed collision repairs.

seriously... WHOA... thanks for the pics... sorry for the carnage.

[bjoehandley]

I've got a few better pics Doc, I'll just be lazy and pull them off a local RC forum
Here's some pics I took the day after with a real digital camera in better light before cleaning that black, powdery crap up.
This is a front view of the chassis' right side to show some of the powder "spray"

Here's the rear section of the chassis, got some of that powder there too, just not as much

Here's a so-so pic of the battery compartment

Here's another so-so but more close up pic of the part of the bay the cell blew in, you can also see where the door was ripped from the hinge!

This pic is better still!

Here's a better pic of the front duct, it turns out that the blast did warp it some, but it's atleast still useable.


If you're wondering what that steel wool looking stuff it, it's some of the batteries guts!

[bjoehandley]

And now for better battery pics!
Just the blown end of the pack,



Here's the blown cell





And now........the unhappy couple!

[bjoehandley]

I did fix the truck tonight now that the doors came in, atleast the door are only $5 and the ducts are $3.50! I even picked up a couple cooling fans from a local surplus store while I was there picking up an old ammo box for my bigger Ni-MH packs. I have thought going to Li-Po's, just haven't been sure if I want tp spend that green yet.

[JOCKS_RETURN]

stick packs heat up faster and hotter than SxS packs.....

[bjoehandley]

Still no response!

Got the new door on and the truck still runs good!