dimensions and materials for LIPO battery caddy?

[coppercone2]

What would a good lipo battery caddy look like, that allows for expansion and has minimum flammability?

The idea being to make a battery bank inside of something like a VHS cassette shelf, so each battery is I guess glued with tape to one side of the 'shelf' and is given expansion room as it ages.

What should the dimensions be? What dielectric materials are good? Glued ceramic blocks and plates?

The enclosure would still be metal with this thing floating in the middle by some air gap.

[Technomaniac]

I replaced three 12v SLA batteries in my battery bike with a bunch of LiPo cells that I bought on the bay. The "cells" are about three times the length of a D cell and slightly larger in diameter. There was plenty of spare room in the plastic battery cassette that fits the bike, so I used rubber strips to hold them firmly in place. The strips are glued to the box, and there should be no problems with expansion. The "cells" put out something like 3.3 volts, and have a nice metal thread screw on each end. I had to make up lots of link wires with lugs on the ends and because I don't trust crimping, everything was soldered, and because soldering the lugs swells and misshapes the plastic sleeves they come with (automotive lugs from Utilux) I removed the sleeves. This meant that there was a risk of shortcircuiting between lug and the outer cases of the cells which had heatshrunk sleeves. Jiggling along the edge of the bitumen which where I live is full of patches and irregularities, may have worn through the batteries sleeves, so I used a hole saw of the appropriate diameter to make Laminex washers to go between the lug and the end of the cells.  I bought a charger which is purportedly designed for LiPo. This was a cheapie, because the expensive ones were above my budget by heaps.  I have been using these cells for at least a year.  I was led to believe that the Po versions of the batteries don't explode. The original sealed lead acid batteries were not giving me good service because I would run them down too low - if you're at the supermarket you need to get home!  I believed that LiPo batteries were more tolerant of abuse in that regard.  So far they haven't blown up or caught fire. The capacity of the cells is 10AH. The Lead acids were 12AH. But the choices when buying the LiPo were non-existent. Particularly the Po variant.