total catastrophic failure and fire and exploding cells VEMDIA 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 group 31 battery

Really sorry to hear this happened — that sounds absolutely terrifying. Hope nobody was hurt.

I've been doing a fair bit of research into budget LiFePO4 options for my static caravan and boat setups, and threads like this are exactly why I keep hesitating on the no-name brands. The price difference between something like a Fogstar Drift or a reputable Victron-compatible cell and these generic imports feels worth it when you're reading about incidents like yours.

A few questions that might help others piece together what went wrong:

• Was the BMS showing any warnings before the failure, or did it go straight to thermal runaway with no indication?
• What charger were you running — was it properly set to LiFePO4 profile rather than AGM/gel?
• Any idea if the cells were genuine prismatic LiFePO4 or potentially a different chemistry mislabelled?

The "Group 31" form factor is quite popular for marine use, which concerns me given where people are typically installing these — enclosed battery compartments on boats where ventilation is limited and a fire is catastrophic.

Has anyone else had experience with VEMDIA specifically, or is this a rebadged version of something that's been flagged elsewhere? I've seen a few of these obscure brands appear on Amazon UK and eBay and they all seem to share suspiciously identical spec sheets.

Would be really useful to know if you've reported this to Trading Standards or the retailer — there may be grounds for a serious complaint given the safety implications.

@HMK_Sparks mate, pump the brakes on the budget hunt for a second.

"VEMDIA" — I've never heard of them, and that's usually the first red flag. If you can't find a UK importer with actual liability, you've got nobody to sue when it goes wrong.

For static caravan and boat, you're not just risking a battery — you're risking unattended fires. That's a completely different risk profile to a van where you're present.

Seriously consider:

• Fogstar Drift — proper UK warranty, well-tested cells
• Victron if budget allows
• Renogy at minimum has a traceable supply chain

The £40 you save on a no-name cell isn't worth much when you're filing an insurance claim that gets rejected because you fitted unverified lithium chemistry to a marine application.

Cheap isn't cheap when it burns your boat down.

@HMK_Sparks a boat and a caravan running budget mystery-brand lithium is just two fires looking for a postcode.

Fogstar Drift for the price-conscious, Victron if you want to stop worrying entirely — both actually show up in UK warranty claims, which is more than can be said for "VEMDIA" (I genuinely cannot find a single registered entity under that name, which is doing a lot of heavy lifting as a red flag).

My shepherd's hut runs Fogstar, the boat runs Victron, neither has attempted to become a fireball — sample size of one but I'll take it.

The £40 you save on a no-name cell is roughly what you'll spend on a fire extinguisher you'll actually need.

@HMK_Sparks living aboard a narrowboat I can tell you the calculus changes completely when your battery bank is also your home.

Had a look at VEMDIA — can't find a single UK importer, no CE documentation trail, nothing. That's the tell right there.

Fogstar Drift cells are what I run now, and the peace of mind versus the marginal cost saving on a no-name unit genuinely isn't worth the maths. On a boat especially — you're talking a confined bilge space, limited egress, and a fire service that needs to actually reach you on water.

The caravan's arguably worse in summer — polycarbonate roof, dry grass underneath, neighbours three feet away.

Budget hunting is fine, but there's a floor below which you're not saving money, you're just deferring a catastrophic expense onto your insurance company — if they'll even pay out on unverified cells.

@HMK_Sparks worth noting that "Group 31" is an American form factor designation — seeing it used by a budget brand targeting UK buyers is itself a small red flag, suggesting rebadged stock with minimal localisation or proper CE documentation.

For the shepherd's hut I run a pair of Fogstar Drift 100Ah cells with a Victron SmartShunt monitoring everything. Before committing I spent an uncomfortable amount of time cross-referencing the actual BMS protection specs — not just the headline figures, but thermal cutoff thresholds and short-circuit response times.

The critical question with any budget cell is whether the BMS documentation is independently verifiable or just marketing copy. If the manufacturer can't provide a genuine UN38.3 test report, walk away regardless of the price differential. That paperwork exists precisely to prevent the scenario the OP has described.

What's your intended installation environment — enclosed locker or open space?