Ok.. bear with me this is going to be quite a long one

1) Charging Table = Epic Fail

Come on guys, think about this stuff - you're suggesting that one person should have the responsibility of supervising a table full of LiPo's charging ? If the risk is big enough for us to take these steps, then we are suggesting there is likelyhood of an issue.

What happens when something goes wrong, what if there is damage to a building or a fire, what happens if that person gets badly burned trying to rescue your LiPo's from the building as they were 'responsible' for them ?

If (god forbid) any damage hapenned to the building the insurance company would immediatley ask who was responsible for supervising where the fire took place, and I don't believe that any individual should have responsibility for someone else's LiPos over which they have no knowledge of condition or past treatment, and due to not having a low voltage discharge, don't even know if a danger is present.

I am happy to supervise my own batteries charging, but to ask someone to be responsible for others is naieve and inappropriate.

Sometimes I think this stuff is just thrown together without any thought for impact or legal sides.

If you charge, YOU are responsible for supervising YOUR charging.

2 - Low Voltage Cut Off

Just because there isn't a low-voltage cut off that will work in our environment (and I have not done research on if there is) doesn't mean we should just say 'oh well then we won't use them' - there is a REASON that they are used elsewhere ! The effort involved in getting such a device is small, even smaller given that we have such a close relationship with those who manufacture our speed controllers and this could EASILY be written into the PIC code. I am sure that Ian would be willing to up-version his software for those running LiPo's and that should just be considered part of the investment required in doing it safely.

This is like saying 'because I can't find a welding mask that fits my head today, I just won't bother with one'

We have identified a risk that we can't currently mitigate, so rather than hiding from it and saying it get's all a bit complex to deal with so we'll just make it reccomended, let's come up with a way of mitigating it. To not do so would be remiss ! Any person doing an investigation into an incident would Google LiPo's and Robots... find this thread on the FRA's own forum and realise we knew about the risk but didn't do anything about dealing with it ?... We need to think this stuff through in terms of the impact of something going wrong, not just some guidelines for the sake of guidelines.

3 - Fire Extinguishers

Just the very fact that people are saying 'we should have CO2 fire extinguishers around in case of a fire' scares the living daylights out of me that people simpley DO NOT understand the technology we are talking about here. A CO2 fire extinguisher will be next to useless for a LiPo fire - the ONLY extinguisher that would be of any use is the new Type D (yellow) ones - for details see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_extinguisher#Class_D. The other option is water which will ensure that any material around the LiPo fire (which will get VERY hot for a VERY short space of time) will not catch fire except that then reacts with the Lithium in nasty ways. Bottom line, where is this guidance for event organisers ? Do you guys understand what you would need to provide to do this in safety ?

A Consultation is a great thing to have, and I think those reacting with the 'how dare you approach' should view this as what it is, an opportunity to discuss. I am sure that those writing this stuff will take on board all the feedback and requests for clarification.

Happy to speak to anyone who has any questions, FRA or otherwise - at the moment 10/10 for the FRA starting a consultation, now we need to ensure that we all work together to drive the right plan, and don't shy away from dealing with difficult/awkward issues along the way.