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More Than 500,000 Hoverboards Recalled Because of Fire Hazards (go.com)
501,000 self-balancing scooters -- more popularly known as hoverboards -- are being recalled due to fire hazard concerns, said The U.S. Consumer Product Safety. The lithium-ion battery packs in the hoverboards can overheat -- which could result in sparking, smoking, fire, and explosion -- the agency added. ABC reports:The recall involves hoverboards from eight manufacturers/importers that are made with lithium-ion battery packs as well as 4,300 from Overstock.com and 1,300 from a store in Pennsylvania. Amazon.com is not listed in the recall, but in February, the online giant worked with the CPSC to offer refunds to any customer who wanted to return hoverboards purchased on the site. Hoverboards by Swagway make up more than half of those recalled -- 267,000. "We are urging consumers to act quickly," CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye told ABC News. "We've concluded pretty definitively that these are not safe products the way they were designed."
... because they can't hover.
this is the way US manufacturing used to be. until ladder manufacturers were sued, ladder makers would skimp every penny from the final product and 80's news stories are full of companies whining about spending an extra nickel for some safety part.
Is the usual li-ion battery circuitry preventing overcharging missing/broken? Does the battery get crushed from the weight of the human? What's going wrong here?
"It can be dangerous!" doesn't tell me anything I don't already know about compact stores of energy.
Cheap, uncertified charging circuit designs and components rushed into production by about a zillion chinese companies trying to cash in on the craze. Combine that with the size of the battery packs (much larger than what you would find in most consumer electronics) and you get a nice, big fire hazard.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Or did some go into other devices
This isn't likely a battery problem but a device problem. Safe operation of LiPo batteries depends on sophisticated charging circuitry, and if a manufacturer cuts corners on that, the user won't know it until the fire starts.
One way of cheating on safety: Design the charger to deliver high current for a fast charge. Good example here: LiPo's have largely supplanted IC engines in model airplanes, and there's an incentive to charge at high rates so you can get in more flying in a day. Modelers take the battery out of the airplane and fast-charge it in a fireproof bag. They could leave it in there and get away with it most of the time, but they usually have the good sense not to.
An adolescent kid doesn't want to wait several hours to charge his hoverboard, and a fireproof bag would be an alarm bell to Dad, so the manufacturer has a motivation to work on the edge.
The companies selling dangerous ones will get sued out of existence.
No, the shell corporations that own them will blow away with the smoke and business will resume under another shell.
What is it about hoverboards that pisses everybody off? Sure, a douchebag on one is a pain in the ass. So is a douchebag on rollerblades or a skateboard or a scooter, but I haven't seen them arouse the same kind of animosity...I don't get it.