My Project Lithium Battery Caught Fire

I've also been watching from the sidelines and enjoying the fun across the different threads. Just my 2 cents that no one asked for, @mudder you are providing great technical information and having good discussions with people who engage at the same level. However I think your downfall was responding to the...critics...point by point.

Not just for mudder but general advice: you don't owe everyone (or anyone) a response. Reminds me of these old sayings; "Never argue with stupid as they'll bring you down their level and beat you with experience." and "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

As a nobody, I say continue sharing your findings, but just ignore those that aren't interested in changing their point of view, aren't adding anything constructive to the conversation, or are just responding to increase their post count. Not just here but everyone on the Internet.

 

Agree 100%

The bad actors don’t care about the safety of the end user.

 

DECU code DB.

 

I've seen several NiMh batteries come into the shop looking just as bad as these photos over the years. One exploded in a Gen 2 getting off the freeway coming to our shop and he had his child's seat in the back seat. Corrosion and clogged up non-working HV battery fans will kill ANY type of traction battery no matter how OEM or Aftermarket they are. Working in the field daily with these batteries I see more cars than this whole website combined, so let's stop playing the game like the Lithium's were the only ones to ever start smoking and melt.

 

Exactly! And if you look at fires in cars they are relatively common with fires in hybrid cars being significantly more common than fires in all gas ECU cars or all electric cars. That's obviously because hybrid cars have both systems.

Of course when your agenda is a smear campaign why would facts and science and statistics matter? It's all about using concerns of safety to scare people into ruining a business because a small number of 4 thousand packs had some problems and the whole entire packs was redesign because of it, but that's not good enough if your @rjparker and their ilk that gets off on trolling people because they don't have any friends in real life to hang out with.

To be clear no one has ever been injured, nor has anyone had their vehicle destroyed despite Jack being responsible for four thousand packs on the road.

 

I would bet my bottom dollar, that, the person you speak of has a LONG history online and real life of doing this to people he was jealous of and used his charm to get the group think bug flowing. Similar to another person in the Off-road Community we all know and love to hate.

 

I think this whole thing has gone off the rails.

Background: I own both an '08 Prius and an '01 Insight. I've posted here QTY4 times to fix a P0420. I've posted on InsightCentral hundreds of times relating to the Insight, ~30% to do with Mudder's products. I've bought some of @mudder's products and interacted with / contributed maybe 20 lines to MuddersMIMA. I bought the Prius because my Insight spun a bearing and I needed to transport an engine and have a spare car. Go figure, that a Toyota might be more reliable, right?[^2] Then I go for a day-trip in the Insight and remember why I have it.

At the top of the list, noting that this has spilled over to InsightCentral: I am ashamed to be a part of a community where infighting is abetted by legal threats and companies hoping to make a buck, whether or not people are aware of them. If you've contributed to this mess, despite me taking time out of my day to help you, personally, in good faith? I'd tell you to sit somewhere quiet without access to the internet for four hours, but after what I heard today I don't know.

I am ashamed to see cults of personality rise above the technical merits, on Jack and on Mudder's side -- primarily Jack's, but we're all caught in it now, aren't we?

Perhaps it is my aversion to conflict, but I am unhappy to see Mudder unpack every single engineering problem with NexCell's design -- why overemphasize capacity issues on the new Sodium models, when those mechanically unsound LFP packs are still out there? The Prius was not designed with any sort of capacity in mind -- the core of its battery management behavior leave its OEM configuration a gutless mess of a car that barely makes 40mpg the way I drive it[^1]. Yes, that also means it's unsinkable. I can't look myself in the mirror and say I care about the difference between 40 and 50, it won't pay for one (1) cart of groceries over a year.

I am unhappy to see Jack (more importantly the manufacturing giants behind him) be utterly blase about the safety and reliability concerns, and unwilling to openly cooperate with directly, privately given advice. My understanding is that until that can of worms got opened, the Signal Soother was still being sold. I hope to see the day I'm convinced that NexCell is genuinely regretful for that product. The videos where he rejects the feedback just irk me -- some of the feedback is really basic stuff, and some of the reply plainly deceitful.

The most important thing I have to say is that: if you're not making money off this, you're wasting your time fighting for one team or the other. It's not worth it. Help yourself and others by gathering information and focusing on facts, use the information you have to decide on which tools are best for you, and leave alone those who spend their time irredeemably debasing others and conveying legal threats. And if people would threaten to remove you for sharing information -- to heck with them. Fight your fight, work independently if you're forced to, and move on when it's time. I've experienced similar things on InsightCentral regarding the OEM Insight's Hline debugging protocol -- which certain members have decoded by sniffing a Honda HDS, while also demanding royalties for others to use. Kudos to @mudder for not ever giving those people a break, but it's at times like these when you're interacting with a community that you need to interact at the level of the simplest description of values and priorities.

[^1]: Jheubner has demonstrated just how much power the Prius inverter can move. It's all bottlenecked by the boost stage at ~100A continuous from the battery rail, so designed because the OEM NiMH pack isn't really able to push more than that without being inefficient. The battery was *always* intended to be a design bottleneck. No IMA-equipped systems ever bother with a boost stage, and yes, that means we G1 Insighters get to have more fun.

[^2]: Another edit: there has not been a single other InsightCentral member that has documented a bearing getting ate. There is not a single other photo I've found on InsightCentral. This is mostly commentary about how each car has been treated.