Electric Predator FAI

[big-al]

BAD NEWS FOLKS!!!!!!

I'm posting this for Jimmy as he has no internet access this week:

I spoke with him yesterday and the electric predator is no more. he had a meltdown of the real kind. he had put the batteries on his machine for fitting purposes and left them there when he left his shop. After a while, he heard the smoke alarm going off in his shop and after checking it out he saw his batteries had caught fire and were burning up some stuff as well as generating some smoke. he called the local fire dept and started putting the fire out. he lost a bird, a table, a floor, damaged a new lathe, and smoked up his shop really good.

He wanted me to stress he wasn't charging them or using them at the time. they were just mounted there minding their own business. He wanted to let us know so this wouldn't happen again to anybody else. Basically we all know the dangers of charging and crashing but it looks like in any state, these puppys have to be respected and stored accordingly, especially the bigger packs (multi parallels).

Get yourself a 'non-combustible' box, a handy fire extinguisher, and be ready for the worst.

I'll let him add/correct this when he gets back to work next week. He is still going to try and come over to B'ham saturday but it's dependant on what his shop needs doing to recover from the fire.


Sorry again Jimmy... :(

[Ben74]

oh man, i am sorry to hear that. i know how that feels. all that work and investment. that's scary that the batteries caught fire just sitting there. had these packs been flown recently? TP or tanic? any chance something sharp on the heli might have punctured them?

my condolences, jimmy. good luck with the shop cleanup. i'll be even more careful with my lipos from now on.

[Laurens]

That really sucks. What kind of connectors did he use? Is it possible the connector made contact with something metal?

[blakka_1]

Sorry to hear about the loss jwooten :( . The main thing is that nobody was hurt or harmed from the fire. Models can be replaced, lifes can't.

The e-Pred will be reborn another day. :wink:

[Hotshot Charlie]

Hey guys,

Jimmy came to B'ham and had a great time with us. He took a pretty bad hit on this fire and the ole' HeliFreak came out in him and he had fun with all of the gang at the flyin, regardless of his loss.

Jimmy, I am glad you are ok and all you lost was the heli and items around it. Like someone said, this stuff can be replaced, but a friend can't.

See you at the field, let's fly some heli's !!! ( You do still have a nitro Predator!)

[jwooten]

I want to thank everybody for their moral support. I will be back; it is just going to take a while to clean up.

To dispel a few rumors:
My house did not burn down. I don’t allow Lipos in the house. The Project was in a house trailer in the back yard. The floor, table, and ceiling had fire damage. The entire trailer has smoke damage.
The rest of my heli equipment was across the room and needs a good cleaning but appear unharmed.

Why did it start? We don’t know. The new batteries were charged two days before. I mounted them on the heli to check balance and other stuff. They sat there for about an hour while I was packing for B’ham. I left the building for several minutes there was a fire. The controller was not on the heli and the batteries have never been used.

More pictures to come.

Ya’ll be careful.

Jimmy

[jwooten]

Ben,

This kinda reminds me of your incident, only I was a little farther away at the time.

Jimmy

[jwooten]

Here are the Picts. It sure looked a lot worse at the time.

http://www.helifreak.com/album_mod/upload/fe90927ae1e1ee6b9a38bbe048473ca3.jpg

http://www.helifreak.com/album_mod/upload/9695d6352242f80c890efc635cd18840.jpg

http://www.helifreak.com/album_mod/upload/26eda240dc0f8666db54b20e9a91bc42.jpg

Jimmy

[Hotshot Charlie]

That's ugly, Jimmy !!!! The smoke and water damage will now be the worst of your cleanup. Man, I sure hate your loss. Dangit !!

Glad you came to B'ham, it was good to see you rebounding from the ordeal.

[blakka_1]

That sucks :( .

[Ben74]

my biggest cleanup headache was actually the powder from the fire extinguisher i used. it went everywhere! it even settled down in adjacent rooms. at least you don't have to deal with that :)

[jwooten]

I have black walls and ceiling from one end to the other.

Jimmy

[WillJames]

That sucks Jimmy. It was GREAT to see you at B-Ham, but it was very hard to see you without your prized heli. Very scarry, I am going out and buying one of those safe things Chris Stephenson showed me today in a few minutes, as if it can happen to you, I need all the help I can get.

If there is anything us FREAKS can do to help, please let us know.

[ThBrtmn]

Will...Put up a thread with pics of of your firesafe...I think it would be a good idea and then other can post their fire prevention methods.

[misskimo]

DANG well DAMN ! Jimmy , that just sucks , sorry about your loss , man , that hurts thinking about that , WHY??

Tony

[freezin eskimo]

Jimmy, Sorry For Your Loss! Thank God No One Was Hurt! I hope To See You Back In The Mix Soon!


Karl

[jwooten]

I will be back. Cleaning up the mess is the worst part. Give me about another month and I will have thing clean again.

Jimmy

[zak johns]

Sorry to hear about that Jimmy. :arggg: