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Sanyo Blamed in Lenovo Battery Recall
ukhackster writes "Those overheating laptop batteries are back. Lenovo is recalling 205,000 'extended' batteries which shipped with its ThinkPad machines, or were bought as replacements. Slashdot readers will doubtless remember the flak which Sony attracted last year, after it was blamed for exploding Dell notebooks and several massive recalls. This time, the batteries were made by Sanyo. Their engineers determined that the failure was repeatable by dropping machines using the batteries from a certain height and at a certain angle. As soon as the repeatable nature of the flaw was determined, a recall was issued."
As soon as the repeatable nature of the flaw was determined, a recall was issued.
Correction: As soon as finance and legal determined that the:
1 - The cost of settling out of court with the projected number of people harmed by this defect.
2 - Lost business due to bad publicity caused by this defect.
would exceed the cost of recall, a recall was issued.
.... as there have been others:
0 DE2DB1731F93BA35751C1A9609C8B63m -cellphone-battery-recall.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C
http://www.techspot.com/news/23809-sanyo-faces-13
I guess this proves that it's not just Sony that puts the "boom" into laptops.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Oh let me guess, someone dropped their laptop while it was turned on, and instead of flopping and the plastic taking the abuse, it exploded, right?
*reads article*
Nope, it was folks complaining of a hot lap from their laptops.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Lets hope that no one gets hurt from this though... Also I hope people don't do this and get hurt purposely to get money either.
hello
It is pretty good and Lenovo is being proactive about recalling their batteries, rather than waiting.
Since the two types of exploding batteries we have seen so far are from two different producers (sony and sanyo) I am wondering if this is an inherent flaw in the battery type itself, or if it is just that both manufacturers use similar production methods?
Regardless I think I will wait until we have hydrogen cell batteries before I go buy a laptop, at least that way if one happens to explode you don't need to worry to much about a recall, since a large percentage of your market (read the world) will be destroyed along with the batteries.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
Their engineers determined that the failure was repeatable by dropping machines using the batteries from a certain height and at a certain angle.
While it is almost unimagineable for engineers to lab-test this kind of failure, I'm equally surprised by that fact that they received five complaints on this (assumed same) problem.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Since they were made by Sanyo, there's a good chance they can make Sanyo accountable for at least part of their loss.
Ave Maria
A Sanyo spokes-person reports that the recall involves affixing a sticker to the affected batteries as to the proper height and angle from which to drop a laptop to avoid battery failure. All other procedures will void the warranty.
[Actually, their methodology reminds me of an old Police Squad episode where the detectives were trying to determine how a body fell into the chalk outline by repeatedly shooting volunteers from different angles. In the background was a pile of bodies from previous experiments.]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
First Sony batteries explode, then Sanyo batteries overheat..
Note to self: avoid Stony silences, stay away from Sandy beaches, and don't talk to people named Sonya.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
[quote]Slashdot readers will doubtless remember...[/quote]
lern2edit
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
I have a sanyo DVD player and the back of it states that it was manufactured by Sony corp. Sanyo a shell/subsidiary of Sony? Which would once again put the issue is Sony's lap.....
Even if the joke is silly it is hardly a troll
And of course:
I for one welcome our new but not original lap heating exploding overlords
Ave Maria
Does that mean that the airport security screeners will be checking battery serial numbers?
OK, no-one make a move or I'll throw my battery at the pilot's cabin door!!!
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
When I saw that the first post was a correction, I thought that someone would be saying that Sanyo was a really bad typo of Sony :-)
a beowolf cluster of thoBOOOOOM... BOOOMM... Boom...
Ave Maria
Lenovo - Bad batteries
Sony - Rootkits
Microsoft - FUD / monopolistic designs
Apple - DRM
I'm just going to sit here in the dark and enjoy my sense of self-righteousness.
Mmmmmmm.....
Gotta love 'Fight Club'
Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on planeNarrator: A major one.
And yes. I just confirmed my work Thinkpad T60P battery is recalled. Am about to check the bosses which will probably be recalled also. And here I thought that IBM, Lenovo, and whoever else they're in bed with had their SHIT TOGETHER.
Another one bites the dust folks. Mark the board.
Judging by the frequency of these recalls, this seems to be a bit of a risk with Li based batteries. Is it just bad manufacturing with laptop batteries or is the manufacture of Li batteries generally troublesome? I was watching an piece on the Tesla electric car (0-100 km/h in 4 s!) last night and the manufacturer explained that they use Li batteries, having seen videos of exploding laptops I really wouldn't want to be in a Telsa (or equivalent) when the batteries blew up!
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
So I suppose that Sanyo tested this by dropping the volunteer and their
(company-provided) laptop from the proper height and angle.
Of course, you need to do "negative testing" so you need to conduct
the test from improper heights and/or slightly-off angles.
Man, that's going to a rather large pile of laptops...
"Their engineers determined that the failure was repeatable by dropping machines using the batteries from a certain height and at a certain angle."
So they had to "drop it like it's HOT"?
The details of the recall are here. Essentially, if you have a battery of model type 92P1131, then you need to be concerned.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Batteries are pretty dense and thus tend to have a lot of inertia relative to the rest of the guts of a device. If you drop an electronic device (or anything for that matter) onto a hard surface, it is in for a good few gs of acceleration. Sure, there are posts and reatining plastic etc, but these tend to be stronger in some angles than others.
Sometimes certain damage only happens within a certain "shock window". Eg. Drop from 2 ft and nothing breaks, the plastic retains everything; drop from 3ft and the two posts retaining the battery fail allowing the battery to strike the hard disk and get dented; drop from 6 ft and a different buch of posts fail causing the stress to be relieved in a different way and the battery does not strike the hard disk.
And, actually, lab engineers do routinely test for drop and vibration failure but that is more in the interests of seeing at what point a system fails rather than looking for safety issues a battery explosion.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You give Lenovo your ThinkPad product and serial number, battery serial number, shipping address and they'll ship you a new battery in 4-6 weeks. Go to it if you have a battery of model 92P1131.
You can use `cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info | grep model` to find your battery model without removing it.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
The batteries used nowadays are LiPo (Lithium Polymer) batteries. The upside of these is that their WattHours/weight ratio is the highest available. The downside is that these batteries can get in a so called thermal runaway situation, where the chemicals in the battery more or less provide their own shortcircuit. As LiPos can deliver massive amounts of current, this quickly leads to the cell rupturing and venting hot flammable gasses. The heat from this reaction will set off the reaction in the other cells (usually there are multiples of 3 cells in the pack). This runaway condition can be triggered by faulty charging, piercing the aluminium outer layer, or just chance/manufacturing defects.
Basically the chemistry of LiPo is asking for these kinds of problems. There is a much safer Lithium battery chemistry available (Lithium Sulfur-phosphate), but that has a lower watthours/weight ratio.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
C:\cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info | grep model
Bad Command or File Name
C:\
*ducks*
People go to conferences about, and take notes about... Go?
Wow.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.