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I want to organize some components and wiring for power distribution for a small solar panel. Voltages up to about 24 VDC, and currents up to about 3 amps. Components inside will include switches, terminals, voltage displays, buck converters, and USB ports, all of which will be active 24 hours.

I bought this food box thing:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/k38XP.jpg

It was cheaper than a "junction box", it's far nicer looking, see-thru so I can see the voltage display inside, has an easy clip-on lid, I can cut holes and install ports no problem. It will be indoors, sitting on top of a LiFePO4 battery.

However, it's polypropylene, which, as I've just read, is flammable. Now I'm worried. When I look at dedicated junction boxes, some of them are ABS, which apparently is flammable too(?), and some are PVC, which apparently is not.

I don't have any real-world context for how flammable these materials are in practice. Am I worried about something very far-fetched? Or is this a real disaster waiting to happen? If the risk is realistic, can I reduce it somehow? Or must I buy a nasty hideous gray junction box instead?

Boann
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  • Flammability is more of a property imparted by additives than inherent in the polymer, at least for the kind of thermoplastics mentioned above. – Spehro Pefhany Mar 07 '23 at 11:32
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    If it doesn't catch fire, flammability is irrelevant. If it does catch fire, it's true that some boxes (e.g. metal) are likely to prevent the fire from spreading outside of the box. So I guess you could consider: how likely is it to catch fire, and what will happen if it does? – user253751 Mar 07 '23 at 11:54
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    If you want to know how this material burns, don't forget you can take some of it to a safe outdoors location and burn it on purpose and watch. Or find someone else's results from doing that. – user253751 Mar 07 '23 at 12:01
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    You can also estimate: this plastic item is built in pretty much the same way as every other variety of plastic around your house; do you worry about them becoming blazing infernos? In my mind at least, plastic items tend to melt, or burn slowly, not being especially flammable, but not preventing fire from spreading either. – user253751 Mar 07 '23 at 12:30
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    [Here](https://www.boedeker.com/Technical-Resources/Technical-Library/UL94-Fire-Retardant-Testing-Overview#:~:text=The%20test%20uses%20a%20%C2%BD,mark%20and%20the%205%22%20mark.) is the UL94 test procedure. 94V0 is a common specification for electronic enclosures. However your description is more that of an electrical enclosure. – Spehro Pefhany Mar 07 '23 at 12:33
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    don't forget that plastic enclosure like that also presents an ESD damage risk to the electronics – jsotola Mar 07 '23 at 13:13
  • It might be a good idea to have a smoke detector inside the box, or outside close to it. And wire the alarm to a relay or shunt trip circuit breaker to disconnect the external power source in case of malfunction. You might also consider using a "Lipo-Safe" Nomex bag for the LiFePO4 battery pack, and put an overtemperature switch on the battery as well. Fortunately, these are safer than LiPoly or Li-Ion battery packs. – PStechPaul Mar 08 '23 at 02:44
  • As an alternative to the fancy box you could consider a metal box (to contain any possible fire) with the plastic box (to seal out the elements) inside. Up to you to decide whether the metal box is adequate for the task or not. – Spehro Pefhany Mar 08 '23 at 12:08
  • One consideration is life cycle. If this is a short term experiment, it's fine. But for a long term life cycle, I recommend using a NEMA enclosure for electronics. It's not just fire damage. You don't want something flimsy that could get crushed. If you don't like the color, paint it. (sand it first) A good enclosure box will also have ports pre-designated. Make sure to seal them (silicon, etc.) to keep out moisture and insects. – Jason Mar 08 '23 at 18:25
  • Will the enclosure be exposed to direct sunlight. This container might become fragile if exposed to UV radiation. – Dima Chubarov Mar 09 '23 at 06:33

6 Answers6

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I want to organize some components and wiring for power distribution for a small solar panel. Voltages up to about 24 VDC, and currents up to about 3 amps. Components inside will include switches, terminals, voltage displays, buck converters, and USB ports, all of which will be active 24 hours.

Imagine you had a fire and someone from the insurance company saw that you used fridge food containers for electronics boxes; do you think they'll understand and pay your claim without batting an eyelid?

Even if the fire was unrelated to the electronics inside the food container, don't you think that the insurance folk might judge you (rightly or wrongly) on this and investigate deeper?

The name of this site has the word engineering in its title and, that's precisely what you have to do on jobs like this. I mean, you might get away with it (providing you removed the tomatoes first) but, any recommendation from this site cannot support that.

  • Don't bodge things or cut corners unless you can justify it.
  • Use proper boxes and components from reliable sources supported by data sheets and a recognisable quality program.

However, it's polypropylene, which, as I've just read, is flammable. Now I'm worried.

Some of the best capacitors use a polypropylene dielectric but, these are high quality components that have been thoroughly tested by engineers working for the best companies in the component industry.

It will be indoors, sitting on top of a LiFePO4 battery.

Have you considered how much heat may be produced by the batteries? Is this a sensible engineering solution do you think?

Andy aka
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Disclaimer: I'm no material scientist, firefighter, or insurance adjuster. I am some random Internet user.

As with computer security, safety is relative to what you are trying to protect against. Are you looking for something to help contain fires, or are you just worried that the box might make fires worse?

I've used these exact boxes. They are microwave-safe. I haven't tried putting one in the oven, but I would intuitively expect it to melt, and perhaps emit some fumes, but not catch fire. I expect that if thrown into a raging fire it would burn. They should behave how you would expect random plastic household items to behave in a fire - that's your real-world context. Certainly, this material is much less flammable than, say, cardboard.


If your device does not catch fire, then of course, it is irrelevant whether the box is flammable. So don't forget to make the device so it doesn't catch fire. Your main concern is short circuits - fix wires and devices in place so they can't move, and make sure all wiring (including circuit boards) is insulated wherever possible. Your next biggest concern is overheating. I assume your stuff is designed to work in a random room with no special cooling requirements, but you're putting it in a box so you should consider it anyway.

I don't know what stuff you have, exactly. On your list the main thing I'd worry about is buck converters, though that depends how much power they are converting. You might need to arrange them so the air can easily flow past them. Natural convection cooling is very convenient - hot air rises, so if you just poke enough holes in the top and the bottom above and below the converter, the hot air rises out the top and cool air comes in from the bottom. That's good enough for a lot of medium-power circuits. If it's not good enough, you could add a fan.

I'll point out that the same airflow path that lets hot air out and cool air in during normal operation, also lets smoke out during a fire and lets oxygen in so it can keep burning. Not much you can do about that except make it so it doesn't catch fire :)


If your device does catch fire, are you looking for a box that prevent the fire from spreading outside the box? Unless it's a special formulation, plastic is generally not the right kind of material to block the spread of fire - metal is much better. However metal boxes have their own dangers, mainly short circuits, and for this reason I would be more nervous about having any metal item near exposed battery terminals. That would be a much bigger risk than what's inside your box.

Fire protection should also be targeted where it makes sense. You will have some buck converter inside this box, but you will also have some (presumably big) batteries outside the box, right underneath. What if those catch fire - then your box material will be almost irrelevant. If you are trying to prevent the spread of fire, then perhaps instead of worrying about this box you should worry about your system as a whole. This also helps you avoid the dilemma that your cooling air holes are also fire oxygen holes.


Andy Aka's answer mentions insurance problems. I can be reasonably sure that if your house burns down and they determine the fire started from your DIY electronics equipment, and they are going to deny your insurance claim, they will deny it regardless of the box material. They'll deny it because your DIY project caught fire, not because of what type of box you chose. Perhaps if your DIY project is built to all the industry standards for household appliances then you could object, but realistically, it won't be. Plus, your house is burnt down either way. So don't let the insurance tail wag the safety dog.

user253751
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    I came to say the same thing about the insurance. I don't think the box used would sway the insurance company one bit. – notloc Mar 07 '23 at 23:00
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    @notloc Although true, if the scenario is that the OP's DIY project burns down his home, using the wrong box is probably the tail end of a series of very serious errors along the way, and the correct box wouldn't have done much. – Nelson Mar 08 '23 at 01:15
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However, it's polypropylene, which, as I've just read, is flammable. Now I'm worried. When I look at dedicated junction boxes, some of them are ABS, which apparently is flammable too(?), and some are PVC, which apparently is not.

Most plastics can be combined with flame retardant additives. This is commonly done for all electrical enclosures, but is practically never done for food items because the chemicals are not healthy.

None of this will matter until you get a fault inside the box. But if you do, the enclosure UL94 rating can very easily mean the difference between a dark stain on the inside of the box and the whole house burned down. When plastic catches fire, it is a good fuel for igniting other things.

If you have ever disassembled a broken device and found bad smell and burned parts, the enclosure may have been the only thing keeping the fire inside the box.

Proper electrical enclosures are not very expensive. In a pinch, any metal enclosure would also do - for example the case from an old computer or DVD player.

jpa
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I have often used lunch boxes for cases for electronic circuits and have had no issues. The one displayed above will handle being washed in hot water - so it can withstand 70°C. Most of them are also microwave safe - which means that they should withstand 100°C as the water in the food could boil.

Is Sistema Lunch Cube microwave safe? Microwave Safe, Dishwasher Safe & Freezer Safe For easy clean up, Sistema TO GO food storage containers and lids can go in the dishwasher (top rack). They can also be stored in the freezer and easily microwaved to defrost and reheat.

From Can you put Sistema boxes in microwave?

Unless you are really driving the electronics hard, its temperature should be comfortably below 50-50°C

Even a Raspberry Pi will normally run below 50°C.

My Pi 4B's with a decent heat management system (I've used several varieties) will typically run in the mid to upper 30°C's to the low-mid 40°C's when either idle or under typical/normal workloads (not pegging the CPU cores).

From What temperature range is normal or... how hot is too hot?

Even food is supposed to be reheated to 70°C.

When it comes to the reheating of food, they should be heated to a temperature of 70 °C (158 °F) for at least 10 minutes in order to ensure all bacteria has been killed. Warmers and Bain maries cannot be used to reheat foods because they do not rapidly increase the temperature, allowing time for bacteria to grow and survive.

From How to manage hot foods

If you are going to consistently reach 70°C, then I would advise against it.

JRE
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Rohit Gupta
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    Nothing inside will get hot enough to damage the plastic under normal conditions. My concern was if there was a component failure causing a hot spot. – Boann Mar 08 '23 at 14:39
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  • 24V × 3A is 72W.
  • Plastic is a good insulator (thermal and electrical).

Have you calculated how hot this will be when it reaches a stable temperature where it can radiate 72W?

But, even assuming that it can handle it, the real consideration is what happens if it catches fire because of a short, component failure, or other extraordinary event.

Most other answers talk about burning the house down, but that isn't the real danger. All it needs is for the plastic to get hot enough to slowly smolder for a while, and the house could fill with hydrogen cyanide gas. There won't be any physical damage to the house, but neither will there be any living occupants to care about it.

"These cats were in that bedroom with that smoke for less than 10 minutes," Davison said. "They were exposed to smoke for that short amount of time, and it was enough to be lethal."

Soukup said with the increased use of plastic in modern homes, it's more important than ever that people don't try to run back into their burning homes to recover items or pets.

Once a fire alarm is going off, Soukup said, everyone needs to get out of the house and shouldn't go back inside for any reason.

Firefighters warn about the danger of burning plastic and hydrogen cyanide poisoning

Ray Butterworth
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    It doesn't radiate 72 watts, it just converts and distributes power to other things. – Boann Mar 08 '23 at 14:37
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    I am not recommending the use of this container, but polypropylene will not produce cyanide when decomposing or burning. To produce cyanide requires a nitrogen containing compound. – Math Keeps Me Busy Mar 08 '23 at 19:07
  • @Boann until it shorts out. Personally I probably *would* use the box, but I'd also make sure I can't have 72W (or more) for very long if something *does* fail (shorted LiPo batteries, for instance, need serious respect and will supply far more than that). On the other hand, since you're worried, buy an enclosure and have another box in the kitchen you can actually find the lid for. But don't rely on your enclosure to save you from shorts either. – 2e0byo Mar 08 '23 at 22:23
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At least in my native language, "soapbox" is used as a term for a custom-made electronic device that probably uses a plastic soapbox or another household-related container.

For a small, battery-powered (AA/AAA cells) or wall-adapter powered device that has no profound reliability requirements, this is OK. A friend of mine used an outdoor long-distance wifi antenna made of an empty blank CD box. It ran flawlessly for years. On the other hand, the power fed to it was like 100mW and the fire risk was not an issue.

On the other hand, devices handling significant power (more than 2-3 Watt) need some more attention.

  • First, think about the heat dissipation - not only when the device is used properly, but also in the worst-case failure modes (e.g. an internal short-circuit).

Is it possible that the box allows some wires to heat up all the way to melting their isolation, making the fuse moot? You do have a fuse in your setup, don't you? Is it inside the box as well?

Is it possible that the box deforms because of the heat and you are unable to open it in order to disconnect something quickly?

  • Second, is your electronic device static electricity safe? Plastics that are not made for electronics are usually static-friendly. It is OK for food or cosmetics or cutlery to have few thousand volts somewhere just because you touched it with your sleeve. For electronics, something may fail catastrophically and then see above.

  • Third, think about the aging modes. It is absolutely possible that your shiny plastic needs an year or two to develop cracks and maybe even disintegrate into pieces, leaving whatever is inside in direct contact with the battery. The tiny (or not so tiny) gas emission from the battery or the heat from your device may accelerate the process. I have even seen a plastic developing electrical conductivity after like 10 years in otherwise human-friendly conditions.

  • Other answers already dealt with the fire properties of the plastic

In short, your idea is workable but has significant and pretty much avoidable risks.

fraxinus
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  • Is it possible that electrical boxes also have aging problems? – user253751 Mar 08 '23 at 20:40
  • @user253751 yes, they do. But this is a controlled property so one can be confident for few decades. Well, mostly. Some of the best materials in this regard are wood, ceramics and glass. But they have other problems - wood burns and the other two are fragile. Nothing is perfect. – fraxinus Mar 08 '23 at 20:57