[Richard230]

My son-in-law thought it would be a good idea to charge a small motorcycle lithium battery that was completely dead as the last time it was charged was 6 years ago.  And he decided to charge it with a 6-amp car battery charger.  Naturally, he almost burned down their house, but caught the melt down just in time. 

[Guaire]

I used Shorai’s charger on my Shorai Li-On battery in my Honda VTR250. It took about 20 seconds. But, this looks more colorful.

[Yamahawk]

When these type of lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are allowed to discharge below about 9vdc, they are junk. You will not be able to charge them again, and it is dangerous to try to force a charge into them, as they can get hot and burn something up, as we see here. I bought a Ballistic 4AH LiPO4 battery for the RD350 once, and that is the LAST one I will ever purchase. I would rather deal with a lead acid battery and replace it every other year, than to deal with the Lithium dilemma.
Charlie

[Otto_Ing]

I've put one in my GT, could be a mistake. Hopen it doesn't catch fire under my ass...

...wonder that it doesn't have inbuilt some sort of electronic that would prevent this situations. Maybe it was just too expensive for the bean counter.

[Chasfield]

I am still amazed that they allow phones with LiPo batteries on aircraft that are only pressurised to 11 psi when at altitude. Seems like a giant game of Russian roulette to negative-pressure test 300 of these tricky little items every time a commercial jet heads for 30,000 feet.

[Adrian II]

Wasn't it an exploding Lithium fuel cell that crippled Apollo 13 years ago? 

A.

[Richard230]

Here is a photo of the 1985 Kawasaki GPz-550 motorcycle (my son-in-law's all-time favorite vehicle  ) that the lithium battery was installed in when he took the bike out of service for a few years.  Likely the battery remained connected to the electrical system and the LCD screen probably drained the battery over time and turned it into a brick (the technical term for a lithium battery that drops below a certain voltage). 

[Otto_Ing]

Well the EU plans apparently an electric car quota of 15%. That will be the mobile crematorium's I suppose. China is way ahead, they are already aware of the fire issue, their proposed  solution is to connect all electric vehicles to alibaba. How that will prevent the battery from catching fire I got no clue, but maybe it might be useful for targeting political enemies. Who knows....what an outlook. 

[gizzo]

lucky he caught that in time. 6 years +, that's an old battery. does it have the external charging circuitry? newer lithium batteries have the balance and overcharge circuit built in and that kind of meltdown ought not to happen. but, I still would take sensible precautions. FWIW if I need to charge a bike battery I use my Turnigy Accucel 6 charger. it's for model aeroplanes, works for lipo, pb and ni batteries.
never had a problem with lithium batteries in bikes personally, and I wouldn't hesitate to use another.