How I prevented a Godox speedlight from setting my studio on fire
Feb 3, 2019
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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Yup, is a harsh title, clickbaity even. Sadly, it’s true. I do think that this story (and lesson) could have ended up very differently. Luckily, no one is hurt and no harm as done to my studio aside one dead battery.
I am a big Godox fan. I shoot quite a bit with the AD600, AD200 and the V860II for Sony. Well, mostly with the AD600 and AD200. The 860II is many times waiting in the drawer for when we need an extra light. Since it is rarely used, I don’t top off the battery. It usually stays in the drawer next to the strobe. I charge it before a shoot and sometimes after a shoot as well. Now, before I talk about exploding homes, let’s take a look at the tech that powers the V860II.
What are Lithium Ion batteries?
Back in the days, strobes used to be powered with AA batteries. Actually, all my small strobes aside the AD200 and V860II still use a quadra of AA batteries to run. When I was starting out, I used Duracells and the likes for my strobes (strobes = Nikon SB26 and SB28, remember those?) I can’t say that this was a nice thing to do to mama earth as each job would get a new set of batteries. A few years later, I started using rechargeable batteries. Those were not the nice rechargeables that we have today. They were using a technology called nickel–cadmium (NiCd), and they would lose charge after a few days if you did not top them off. For my process, I charged the batteries before every job.
Then, a few years ago nickel–metal hydride (NiMH) AAs were introduced. Those batteries would hold the charge for a very long time, so you could charge them, put them in storage and use them when you need them. (Hi there Eneloops).That changed my workflow from Charge-before-usage to Charge-after-usage. You see, I could charge them when I get back from a job and not worry if they will be full when I need them, They did no lose charge. The only issue with those AAs did not have a huge capacity, so a single job could go through two or three sets of 4xAA loads. When I could I would use one set and the other set would charge. then I switched and let the first set charge when I shot with the second set.
Frustrated with this, in 2013, I suggested strobe makers to use Li-ion batteries for strobes. A year later, Godox (under the NEEWER brand) heard my call and made the first Li-ion strobe, the V850. That was great news, where AA needed constant replacement, the V850 was a workhorse. I still think that the huge success that Godox is showing today was seeded in that Li-ion powered strobe.
There is one problem though. Li-ion batteries have a great capacity, true. The flip side is that they need to be treated with respect otherwise they explode. Remember that Samsung Note 7 debacle? If note, just look at the “No Samsung Note 7!!” signs when you board a plane next time. If an Li-ion battery is overcharged it goes boom. Here is a video that explains it better than I can:
What happened with my V860IIs battery
I should probably start this story with sharing that I love my V860II. It has served me well and I love how it integrates with the entire X1 system from Godox. As I mentioned before, it is my “third go-to strobe” so I don’t always use it.
After the last job, I stuck the battery in the charger (both are standard Godox issue: the battery is a VB18 and the charger is a VC18, both bought at an authorized Godox retailer).
After the last job, I left the battery in the charger. I left it there for quite a bit. maybe a month or so. When I picked it up from and tried to place it in the strobe it would not fit it. The battery got swollen and the plastics expanded. This is a bad thing. If the battery kept getting energy, it will end up heating and eventually burning or exploding.
There are two places where protection for overcharging should be enabled: the first is the battery. All batteries should contain a protection circuit, and that circuit should protect, among other things, against over-charging. Looks like this protection circuit is either non-existent or that it failed. Another fail-safe should be installed on the charger itself. It should “read” the battery state and stop the charge when the battery is overcharged. Or as a more stupid solution, it should stop charging after a certain amount of time. Looks like this protection failed as well.
Why I got upset?
I got in touch both with the Godox community and Godox Customer Support to ask what going on.
To my surprise, I learned that this is not an isolated case and swollen batteries are pretty common with Godox strobes. There were comments on my post saying that this happened “plenty of batteries“.
I was also disappointed with the response from Godox Customer service. I was contacted by Cai Colin, Sales and Marketing Manager at Godox, and her advice was to not over-=charge the battery when it is fully charged: “the light will be green when fully charged.” Now, would the battery have exploded if I left it there for another month? I don’t know. Maybe not. Google suggests that it’s a hazard and I am not going to test it. I’ll just get a fresh battery.
I consider this to be a bad answer because even if leaving your battery in the charger is not the right thing to do, a burnt house should not be the reward.
I also take the blame on this. I should not have left the battery in the charger. But again, the punishment for such a mistake should be a slap on the wrist, not an exploding battery.
What’s next?
I still love my Godox strobes and will not give them up. We did make a new protocol with the team that Godox batteries will never be charged overnight. the chargers will be disconnected at the end of the working day and only be charged when someone is in the studio and can look over them.
I approached Godox for a formal reply and none was received as of this post going live
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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26 responses to “How I prevented a Godox speedlight from setting my studio on fire”
I’ve not had this happen with any of my Godox kit, but the original battery from my Tascam DR-100 recorder expanded to the point where I thought I was going to damage it removing it from the recorder.
LiIon/LiPo batteries do require some care to increase their longevity and prevent expansion/explosion, but it’s something that manufacturers should build into the batteries to make them ultra safe, and prevent hte issues from coming up, really. DJI does this with their batteries – of course, that’s why they’re 5x the price of generic LiPo drone batteries of the same capacity. So you do pay for that tech to be integrated.
Why am I getting some storytime youtuber vibes from that title?
Underwater scene?
Li-ion batteries do not like to be fully charged over extended time.
They take a beating out of that and it much better to store them at a state of charge of 50-70%.
And then simply charge them before use.
Nimh cells are happy being stored charged and ready – the lithium ion cells are not. It’s the negative side of that chemistry.
Your title and article is exactly what you pointed out not to be in the opening statement. So, don’t leave your batteries in the charger for that long.
Charging time is about 2 or 3 hours on most models. Then the green light comes on and you can unplugged it and store it. Did you left unattended a battery charging during ONE MONTH? Why? Just to check?
I’d suggest picking up a dedicated lithium battery charger used for RC car batteries. They have an auto cut-off charging when full. It also uses the standard cc-cv charging method.
Connect the rc car charger using a barrel jack to the godox battery charger. And not use the ac wire on the godox battery charger. I opened up the godox battery charger and discovered that the barrel jack bypass the charging circuitry and directly to the battery. Thus its able to use an external li-ion battery charger like the one used for rc-cars.
You could buy a B606 battery charger and diy a dedicated cable to connect.
I never charge batteries over night. I never over charge batteries. When they are full I take them out of the charger.
Even more, if I leave my home/office I unplug all the charges.
We should exercise common sense, batteries can explode or start leaking so we should treat them as hazardous material. There is a reason we are told not to chuck them in the garbage.
This is a bad and over the top title.
So do they, or don’t they have overcharge protection? you need to find that out, it’s good journalism. Li-ion batteries swell when they are charged to 100% and sit for long periods of time without being discharged. Li-ion also swells when they are dropped. Have you ever dropped that speedlight, or had a light stand fall with this speedlight installed?
we asked Godox before the article was published, to this time, we got no reply.
Udi needs to add a major mea culpa to his article. Who does this, leaves batteries on a live charger, unattended, for a month?
Agree.
have you read the article all the way? I am saying it is my error. Twice :)
I am also saying that no user error should end up in a burnt house.
And yet you use godox name in the title so anyone with a quick glance will assume is a godox issue. Smells fishy to me… like a rumor a certain desperate over priced competitor will try to spread around..
I must have missed the part when your house was burnt because uses error.
Oh wait, it didn’t.
So you’re the reason we have Li-ion batteries in these units?
Very impressive, but don’t you own a tripod?
This author of this article turns the story around to make it sound like they are a hero, when really it was totally dumb to leave the battery in the charger for a month, then try to make it work even though the warning signs were there. Typical blame storming – yeah its not Godox’s fault – just saying! Um does no one have any sense of responsibility?
I was an early adopter of these Godox Ving flashes and bought several spares, just in case. I just want to share that if you store them fully charged, there’s a chance they will expand if they remain unused for a long time, even if they’re not being charged while stored. Even worse, if you leave them in the flash while they’re stored, there’s a chance they’ll expand while in there and will be very difficult to pull out. I know this from personal experience as of the 7 batteries I have, 3 of them expanded, 1 of them while inside the flash. Thankfully, no damage was done to the flash, and I have no explosions to report.
This is reason why I always choose strobes with AA batteries.
I personally find it crazy wrong that you would leave a battery charging for over a month. Yes, protection switches are great, but yet, leaving a battery connected to a charger for more than a month and also wondering what would have happened had you left it for a month longer is simply crazy!!
Not being able to trust and charge batteries overnight is equally crazy. The reality being that if you do location work, which is the main interest of owning Godox battery operated flash units, you would typically use them during your working day and leave them to charge in your hotel room at night??! Unless you get tons of batteries and charge them on location while working but that will not be possible in all working scenarios which is a real limitation??! It would be nice to have @Godox_photo_equipment #Godox ‘s point of view here.
@udijw:disqus , did you ever get a formal response from godox about this? Thinking about pulling the trigger on getting one.
The local distributor replaced the battery at no cost. But that’s about it
Useless Article, misleading tittle and a very bad photoshoop job on the thumbnail.