For a while, Chris has been worried about lithium ion batteries suddenly going up in smoke and setting fire to everything. Now, the risk is real but there’s probably not a lot we can do about it since there are so many items in the house with Li Ion batteries, from laptops, to book readers, phones, tablets, watches… you get it. Lots of stuff.
Regardless, I thought I might be able to help out with some of the highest energy batteries, my cordless tool battery packs. To be fair, the charger was positioned right behind my compound saw and copped a lot of sawdust, increasing the risk of fire, so I decided I would move it.
I have a gun safe that was down in the shed full of books. I hauled it out and up into the garage, then hunted around for a place to put it. The corner near the door inside was too cramped, so I cleaned out the space next to the garage door. I removed the rifle clips and stored them in the ammo locker. I had a piece of plywood lying about that was the perfect width, so I cut it to length and drilled mounting holes. The charger was easy enough to fit, using the screws I had already used with it and I repurposed the 4-way GPO switch bank that I’d had on my little workbench for years.
I used the mounting holes for the gun safe, the top one to mount the plywood and the bottom one is where the power cord feeds into the power board. I added an extra couple of screws, making use of the holes that the rifle clips had been bolted into. So no drilling into the safe was needed.
Once I finished the job, I decided I needed a little shelf, for a charger that couldn’t be mounted vertically. I used a piece of the plywood I had cut off and bent up some brackets from 20mm aluminium strap from the old lift. The shelf was more difficult to fit than I expected and then I had to cut the brackets shorter so the door would close. But after all that, the charging station has a little shelf that the other charger can sit on.
The theory behind the design is that if a battery does catch fire, the metal enclosure should offer some protection for the surrounding environment. Well anyway. It’s done and the charger will net be getting covered with sawdust and I have an excuse to make a new bookshelf.