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iPod Dangerous When Wet
puggsincyberspace writes "What do you do when your mom washes your iPod? Fix it, of course. A teenager in Australia found out the hard way that messing with the insides of his iPod is dangerous and needed medical attention after it exploded."
The kid pierced the Li Ion battery with a screwdriver. It wouldn't matter if this was an iPod, rio, nomad, dell dj, mobile phone or the interior of a LiIon laptop battery from any manufacturer.
The kid tried to argue with the laws of physics, and as always - lost.
as is opening up any electrical device which was not designed to opened by end users... Hints such as no screws on the outside case spring to mind.
No, all that matters now is that when the press runs a story with the words 'iPod' and 'exploded' it won't matter how much you talk about LiIon batteries, people are going to believe that iPods are the problem and that they randomly explode.
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I think this is where RFID could help a LOT. There's just no reason for electronics class device to be inside a washing machine.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
More times I've seen devices that don't even have the power to lightly shock you, but are , imo, just made that way so once it breaks, you're fudged, and you have to buy a new one (long live the quick-consumer society we're living in).
For example, my Logitech mouses, all are a hell to get opened : Once opened, it's even more trouble to get them closed up again.
While a mouse isn't a million dollar investment, I find it very consumer-unfriendly that I am not able to, for example, replace my right-mouse-button myself after it fails to work properly.
Well, might as well wave farewell to cellphones for the same reason then.
You don't see what really happened until much further down the article (around 3/4 of the way through) emphasis mine:
Gotta love the media. Anything for a sensational headline.
H
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
Due to demand for higher power and longer life, batteries in all mobile devices are approaching power densities of explosives. It's a chemical compound that is designed to hold a lot of energy in its structure, and be able to release it at varying rates. This is only going to become more of a problem as battery technology improves. Fuel cells especially will be tricky to get aboard aircraft.
Why weren't you expecting it to explode?
The tool probably damaged the lithium ion battery pack.
Those things turn into small flamethrowers when nicked with a knife or other pointy object.
They're even more dangerous when they're shorted (which soapy water is apt to do to batteries, naturally), although I presume the kid let it dry before poking at it.
It's one of the reasons why most lithium ion batteries come in a hard case (like mobile phone and laptop batteries).
Of course, for the consumer device market, that're not designed to be openable, they often use soft cells (less weight).
This is one of the reasons I much prefer my Iriver H140 that has a lithium polymer battery instead. Supposedly, lithium polymer's not supposed to go up in flames when the packaging is compromised.
Andrew