Andrew and Don -
I’m not sure that appropriate chargers and methods can make up for random manufacturing variations and defects:
(There are lots more stories like this.)
This story from HB9BIN in SOTA News June 2014 should also be considered.
LiPo battery catches fire
On the second evening of our stay we were on the way back from the hotel bar to our room and were quite amazed to see a crowd of people (hotel manager, his assistant, security officers and cleaning personnel, etc.) standing in front of our room’s door with a fire extinguisher and discussing something in a very excited manner. Recalling the large number of videos on YouTube about Lithium-Polymer batteries catching fire, I quickly determined that I was a victim of Murphy’s Law – you should never charge LiPo and LiFePO batteries unsupervised. Because the burning LiPo battery set of a fire alarm, the diligent building services personnel sprayed everything very liberally with the fire extinguisher. We quickly got a new hotel room, but for the rest of our vacation our clothes and my equipment smelled of white powder and the black layer of soot! The unfortunate aspect of this event was that it was exactly the 3-cell LiPo battery for the KX3 that had burned up. Thus, for the rest of my visit, I had to operate with my FT-817ND. In contrast to the KX3, which immediately shuts down if it sees a battery voltage higher than 16V, it accepts a 4-cell LiPo or LiFePO without any problem.
In the end, everyone was happy: the hotel manager was proud to see how well his fire alarm system and the fireproof wall-to-wall carpeting had worked, and I was happy about the fact that I always take a complete backup station with me including battery and charger. It seems like the end of every fairy tale: if the LiPos have not already died, they simply burn up!