Earlier this year I purchased from Amazon the Wize Lithium battery. It has similar parameters of the earthX battery line including a battery management system (bms) preventing overcharge, over discharge etc. It too is designed to function up to 60C. But, on a hot July 4 day I had the misfortune of a thermal runaway. I flew to a neighboring state for breakfast, returned to my normal fuel stop and was heading for my base airport where at 400’ things went sour. Circuit breakers opened, smoke rolled out from under my panel, Noise canceling headsets no longer functioned and so on. I returned immediately and landed safely to evaluate this situation. When the smoke cleared, pun intended, I discovered I no longer had a working gps,navcom radio, tach, voltage regulator, and of course the battery itself was also destroyed. I have been grounded ever since but expect to complete the repairs by weeks end.
Do with my experience what you will. My takeaway is that I am glad I had a Mag ignition coupled with an electronic ignition. It was a lifesaver. I will not be putting another lithium battery, EarthX or otherwise. Or for those that do use the Lithium battery maybe a cooling tube should be considered. Just food for thought…
WOW! so glad you are ok, and will be able to recover. What battery will you use, will u have to re size the battery box?
Does your aircraft or the battery have overvoltage protection? If the battery isn’t overvoltage protected it’s possible a failed voltage regulator could be the root cause.
Wow, that’s scary. I had a VR failure and went over voltage. The EarthX disconnected itself and flashed the warning light. Not a place I would go Amazon on. EarthX is pricey but worth it for the real protections.
Designed for up to 60 degrees C doesn’t sound like enough if mounted under cowl, does anyone know how hot the Earthex is good for?
-30C to +60C for EarthX.
Here are the EarthX docs:
Here is the Weize battery on Amazon:
The Weize is definitely chinesium. Also the EarthX will flash the LED for overtemp.
Very good that it ended well enough. One of my greatest fears is an inflight fire.
My Corvair conversion requires power to run and I will not consider using any battery other than an Odyssey PC-680. For 13 years that I’ve used them they have been rock solid reliable. I put a new one in the plane every third annual and the older ones power my VW Beetle, Z-turn mower, and even my solar panel array in an out building. They have weight and are not cheap but reliability is worth it to me.
Dale
3.0 Corvair/Tailwheel
I have selected the Die Hard 20l-bs agm battery. It is old school, but so am I. The LifePO4 Battery was just too good to be true. Weight loss, longevity and more power was very inviting. Thank you for your concern, I too am delighted to recover from this chapter with only scars on my bank account…
specs on the battery says the management system does indeed protect from over voltage. My bird only has breakers for protection, not over voltage.
I’m glad you are ok. That’s a scare nobody needs.
Another issue with LiFe batteries being experienced by auto restorers. If the battery requires charging after engine start, they can put a much higher charging load on the regulator, much higher than an AGM type battery. The car guys are experiencing numerous regulator failures due to this issue. I wonder if your regulator failed similarly.
I fly model helicopters (10s, 5500mAh batteries). In my years of experience, lithium batteries fail mostly during charging.
This is a good point and brings us back to the John Deere voltage regulator that Dale told us about. Made with quality Japanese parts rather than chinesium.
Here is the thread copied over from Sonexbuilders:
Don’t put anything important in your plane from China. EarthX is good of course, their battery management however leaves me with too many doubts. I went with Shorai, dual Shorai specifically, so one of them is (almost) always sitting on the sidelines, untouchable.
Have the BnC voltage regulator on a 20amp PMG strapped to the back end of my corvair motor.
the Shorai are good quality, good reputation (search VAF among other sources), and while not cheap feel reasonably priced for quality gear.
With my simple system, I can combine batteries for start if needed, use either battery as primary, and directly switch to the backup ignition powered directly from whichever battery is the backup with one switch.
One downside is I need to switch from one battery to the other periodically to ensure both are charged, though there is no draw on the standby battery.
I also have a cb that de-powers the VR, AND opens the ac circuit between the PMG and the VR.
The plan for my design is that my electrically dependent engine should never run out of electrons before it runs out of gas. We shall see 
Gordon