Blowing a Battery

 Unfortunately, I ruined a perfectly good Li-Fe-PO4 cell last night. This was a product of possible bad treatment to the 4S2P battery produced by A123 Batteries you see in the picture. I drained the cells completely with my bike and wanted to charge them back quickly by bypassing the in-series fuse to the discharge rail. This definitely charged the pack quickly but it heated up fast and a small quiff of blueberry scented smoke flew out of the battery pack. Breaking LiFe's is much less scary than LiPo but it still smells as bad.

A friend of mine is interested in adding hall effect sensors to a motor, something like this I think.