Simple do it yourself fireproofing

jm1

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Joined
Dec 14, 2017
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43
Hey guys,
I know some of us have homemade packs made from recycled 18650's that we have mounted in places where a fire would be devastating. Or maybe you need a fireproof box to throw a small pack or battery if you have a mishap in your "lab". Well I stumbled accross this video while searching for something else and I believe this can be useful in our community due to the low cost and simple to make and form to whatever shapes are required.

Enjoy!

 
I've seen this one before. Pretty neat, simple, and effective "putty". It's a shame the original inventor was so paranoid, he died with his formula locked away in his mind.

Funny how this guy stumbled across the documentary recently "after" he did his other experiment and was able to put the two things together to come up with this new stuff.

I do wonder how this would work as a cell/pack protector if they go rogue and go boom.




Interesting, this particular video is Dec 18th, 2018. But I saw this months ago. He must of reposted it.
 
Wow, this is awesome! Any idea if this is also non-conductive? I'm sure in its carbon state it is, but I'm hoping it'll never get to that point (from one side to the other) I'm also wondring if it can ever be hardened to to have more structural integrity than just a putty...
 
It's about as conductive as burnt toast, as that's basically what it turns into. The carbon that is created isn't structured correctly to conduct electricity in any real amount.
 
Considering how cheap this is to make, and that it doesn't need to be ordered from China, is there a reason I shouldn't make a bucket of this and cover all of my electronics in it? I suspect it's impact resistance isn't great for exploding cells, but .... seems like a good thing to use to buffer between packs and the inside of a metal enclosure (which is vented of course)
 
Korishan said:
[...]
I do wonder how this would work as a cell/pack protector if they go rogue and go boom.
[...]

We have to try this!

But one problem could be, the way it works, it has to radiate the heat and if we have a closed pack with cells in it there might be a problem because the heat can't escape.
 
I tried. How can we make that un tearable cause when I made that round structure It was breaking into peices . Also if we make a wood protective box ? for lithium pack how can we stick this material? Double tape or a layer of fevicol ??
 
If it works for fire that's great, would have to try it for myself as in the video he uses a blow torch the radiant heat from aiming it on his hand would of been to hot after a few seconds, as it was a sure fire 2 type blow torch, look where his thumb is?

The other issue would be in enclosed spaces if heat can't escape pressure builds up and bang, pressure being the problem, as long as it stops the pressure as well as fire all good, but if there is a fire that can burn for the putty to take effect in enclosed space where does the pressure go, if boxed battery enclosure would a fire stop axial fans working?

If it works to make a structure from it adding non conductive/fire resistant shavings into the mix may work to give some rigidity.
 
Richard said:
[...]
The other issue would be in enclosed spaces if heat can't escape pressure builds up and bang, pressure being the problem, as long as it stops the pressure as well as fire all good...
[...]

The pressure wouldn't be a problem, because you could make a small hole in the box. But the way this works, the energy as heat has to go somewhere. It gets reflected by this thing and then again on the other side of the box and so on and on, and it will get hotter and hotter until the thing couldn't reflect the heat anymore and it will burn completely.

That's what I think. But best would be if someone of us could try this with a nearly closed box...
 
Hi LED

I think it maybe a scam, wood does exactly the same, some historic fires, after the fire wood beams are still structurally sound under the same princelable it burns the surface making carbon in an open space where the heat can dissipate quickly, but i'm not an expert with the battery chemical makeup and the chain reaction that may happen.

I'm only putting my 2 pennies worth in knowing how hot a blow torch gets through many years of using one. And a little knowledge on how destructive pressure can be.
 
Richard said:
If it works for fire that's great, would have to try it for myself as in the video he uses a blow torch the radiant heat from aiming it on his hand would of been to hot after a few seconds, as it was a sure fire 2 type blow torch, look where his thumb is?

Cody from Cody's Lab made this stuff and he used an Oxy Acetylene torch to burn the material. He also did it on his hand for several minutes. I don't recall how long he did this, though. However, after putting the material on the counter, he used the trigger and pull full force O2 with the flame. It ate through the material fairly easily.

Richard said:
I think it maybe a scam, wood does exactly the same, some historic fires, after the fire wood beams are still structurally sound under the same princelable it burns the surface making carbon in an open space where the heat can dissipate quickly, but i'm not an expert with the battery chemical makeup and the chain reaction that may happen.

I don't believe it's a scam, just a different way to accomplish the same task. The "real" starlite may have had a few other additives to give it a little more resiliency, but we won't know for sure because the inventory died with the knowledge.


Rabid charring of the wood will help it to keep from catching fire. We've seen the video with the cells burning in the cart and the cart remained fairly intact. I was surprised how much wood was actually still left. This proves further Richards point of the charring of the wood. The problem comes in when it's under pressure (say in an enclosed box) or the cells are blasting 'directly' on the wood. The pressure venting could super heat that one spot and/or just blow the material out of the way until it made a hole. Once the hole is there, the outside now becomes editable to the flames and "whoosh!"
 
Ohh, I didn't saw your post Korishan...


Richard:
I don't think it's scam. I don't see any reason for it to be scam.

But just to be sure, I'll probably try it sometime. If I do so, I'll share it here.
 
Just be carefull a brazing torch will put out 1500 degrees celsius which is what that guy seems to be using , pointing it at a bit a putty in your hand won't stop latent heat and burning you, why do you think plumbers and refrigeration engineers use heat matts and have do have fire watch for an hour or two for fire risk reasons, considering the heat usually is direct onto copper pipe? just saying be careful.
 
I will be careful! And I've not planned to test this on my hand, for such things I have a temperature measurement device ;)
 
Here's the one I was referring to...

About 2:45 is where he breaks out the oxy/acet torch.

 
Here I used baking soda and corn flour( starch)
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Ratio of 10:1.as mentioned in above vdio. This was my first try. Actually I sticked the roll to a plastic plate it did not stick properly. I took the roll and tried to burn it on stove and surprisingly it burnt(due to the fevicol back side i thought os sticking to the enclosure of battery pack exwooden box). it was bending downwards. Watch the vdio and also mention your thoughts on it . Shall I try again or can any one Try it ?[diy]undefined[/diy] have a close look and let me knoe what is wrong.
 
For one, it looks like it's still too wet. Secondly, you aren't using the same type of flame that was done in the other videos. This is also partly why it's not good to use this stuff, as you don't know what kind of flame will occur if something bad happens.

What do I mean "kind/type of flame"? Well, in both the previous videos, they used torches. These get to very high temperatures very quickly in a concentrated location. This is what causes the starlite to carbonize and create a barrier to keep from further penetration.
If your video, you used a cold flame (compared to the others) so the starlite didn't carbonize, it cooked. It's quite a bit different.
You could do the same with a piece of bread. Cody used a torch on the bread, and he was fine and the bread charred up like the starlite did. However, if you put a lighter or similar flame under the bread, it would soon burn a hole through the bread, not creating any charring at all, or very little that didn't do anything.

That's how I view the results/differences
 
As Korishan says, you are using your cooker to test that's about 500 degrees of heat give or take, the blow torches in previous videos are at double that heat at least.

Personally if a battery fire was to happen who knows if its going to be slow burner an exploding type or a mixture of the 2, if you want a cheap but effective fire guard if all your safeties fail and its not an exploding type would be:

Do your build in a metal sealed box, cut the top out and solder the top back on, then place a container on top with enough sand in to flood the box, the idea being if a fire starts it will heat the solder to melting point dropping the top and letting the sand extinguish the fire, just a thought.
 
I think comparing it to an oxy- acetyline torch is ridiculous. Hey, look, it's a tool that'll easily melt through a solid inch of steel because it was designed to mix high pressure oxygen and acetyline with a special nozzle that'll box mix and create pinpoint precision to a flame! There's no way a lithium fire would put out the same sort of spot concentrated heat an oxy torch does. Even if you see the video where that tesla pack turns into a fireworks display - it really wasn't that bad. Definitely not the equivalent of 200 oxy torches going off at the same time. If anything from what I've seen, it's the massive pressure build-up that'd get you if you use anything even close to a sealed box. Venting seems to be paramount - but I do like the idea of the sand coming down and filling in the gaps. The cells that caught on fire will still burn, but at least the spaces between cells will be partially insulated
 
Hi sealed as in closed door with decent catch/lock, it wouldn't be sealed as in air tight as most who put there builds in boxes have cooling fans if the temp gets to high, well it's a cheap diy thing to do i think, solder and sand aren't expensive and a container for the sand, it would also dampen any exploding ones, just food for thought.

As for the blow torches they use i believe that is to make it work to get the charring effect for the fire barrier, if you get anything hot enough it will burn or melt.
 
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