Slashdot Mirror
Not Just Samsung? The Increasing Frequency Of Battery Fires (sltrib.com)
Dozens of aircraft fires have been caused by lithium batteries, and after 2013 Tesla even strengthened their battery shields after several of their cars caught on fire. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the AP:
Samsung's Note 7 isn't the only gadget to catch fire thanks to lithium-battery problems, which have afflicted everything from iPhones to Tesla cars to Boeing jetliners. Blame chemistry and the fact that the batteries we rely on for everyday life are prone to leaking and even bursting into flame if damaged, defective or exposed to excessive heat...
Still, lithium batteries are so ubiquitous that ordinary users of phones and computers shouldn't worry. Research suggests that you're more likely to get hurt by a kitchen grease fire or a drunk driver than the battery powering your iPhone, Kindle or laptop. "It's not like we live in a world where people's smartphones spontaneously combust," said Ramon Llamas, research manager of research firm IDC's mobile phones team. He said owners of Galaxy Note 7s should err on the side of caution and contact Samsung for a replacement that doesn't run the same risk.
The article also reports that hoverboards were linked to at least 99 electrical fires in America that were presumably caused by battery problems. "Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers dumped the products after videos of burning hoverboards went viral."
Still, lithium batteries are so ubiquitous that ordinary users of phones and computers shouldn't worry. Research suggests that you're more likely to get hurt by a kitchen grease fire or a drunk driver than the battery powering your iPhone, Kindle or laptop. "It's not like we live in a world where people's smartphones spontaneously combust," said Ramon Llamas, research manager of research firm IDC's mobile phones team. He said owners of Galaxy Note 7s should err on the side of caution and contact Samsung for a replacement that doesn't run the same risk.
The article also reports that hoverboards were linked to at least 99 electrical fires in America that were presumably caused by battery problems. "Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers dumped the products after videos of burning hoverboards went viral."
This was a big issue with Asus also when I worked there. Took them awhile to figure out that it was the camera wire that crossed the battery that was causing it.
Like gasoline, or propane, or radioactive plutonium.
there is one critical thing about the excessive heat that is being left out, the batteries are generating the excessive heat. the basic issue is that if you exceed a certain rate of charge or discharge then your battery is going to go up in flames. this is why battery cells are rated for maximum charge and discharge rate. when companies ignore the charge/discharge ratings you end up with devices that are prone to combusting.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Technology improves every year. Batteries just get better and better. This must be a lie.
cutting corners leads to building shitty products... and in china where every corner has already been cut, they make new ones... and cut those.. and then products go boom if they don't fall apart first.
I bet that when this Ramón Llamas* guy is around for a Li-ion battery test at work everybody keeps close to a fire extinguiser
* Not the Drama Llama
I'm submitting from one of these. The question I have is am I trading a 1 in 50,000 chance of fire for a 1 in 1 chamce of crappy charging and low battery life. If the problem was an aggressive charge cycle the resolution might well ne to wimpify it.
Incendiary devices that the dumb majority will actually pay to take into their homes and self-cull? Nothing but pure genius.
It's not Apple, so "ho hum, this has been happening to everyone more and more often".
Unit growth in Li-ion sales has been 18%+ for quite a while and is projected to continue at around 18% for years to come.
until I read this weird PR piece on Slashdot.
It's all about our expectations of energy density. Think about it: would you be surprised to hear that a small container of gasoline caught fire? Of course not, and the risks involved in a gas-powered phone are obvious. Modern batteries don't store as much energy per mass as gasoline -- not even close -- but as we push in that direction we shouldn't be surprised that they start behaving less like electronics and more like explosives.
Apple, at least, has the common sense and decency to defend themselves when their phones bend, lose signal when pressing the antennas, ...
Samsung does this through paid shills. Do your own freaking work, Samsung!
Lithium iron phosphate batteries have about the same energy density and yet they won't randomly explode or catch fire. You can shoot them, use them as bowling balls and Intentionally destroy them by massively over charging or pulling current down yet they are not going to explode or catch fire.
There is obvious still risk with stored energy. You could short a conductor and start a fire by resistive heating yet the assertion this is unavoidable "cuz energy density" is BS. Food in your fridge has a much higher energy density than lithium ion batteries.
I manage an electronics recycling company. We are all hand disassembly, but even we have seen lithium battery fires. The companies which switched to shredding (to reduce labor costs) have had a serious and growing problem with fires from charged lithium batteries exposed to oxygen.
We use this youtube video for staff training
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Gently reply
Isn't it a bit disingenious to lump a whole lot of unprovoked fires started during standard normal operation of a device in with Tesla having major accidents? I mean every time we hear of a Tesla fire it's after the car got airborne, flew through a brick wall, and impaled itself on road debris. It's like lumping deaths due to mobster killings in with death due to medical conditions.
For real!
I'm more likely to be hurt in a kitchen grease fire? No.
I cook something capable of creating a grease fire maybe 40 times a year (a very liberal guess), and I'm monitoring that situation while the danger exists, and I have two fire extinguishers in the kitchen on opposite sides of the stove.
I have a laptop and a couple of phones on my person almost all the time, and I guarantee it will be a surprise if a battery explosion occurs. I doubt I will have a fire extinguisher handy.
Lies. Damn lies and statistics.
...apparently not, but it looks like Christmas might have something to do with it.
RECALL JESUS.
Heh, no. Close but no. You have the layout entirely wrong. I have been there. It isn't that scary but your tale amused me.
Stop calling them hoverboards!! They do not hover in any shape or form the are a device that carried its load on WHEELS.And the wheels are firmly planted on the ground.
Jack of all trades,master of none
I don't worry about the one off situations that occur for the end user. The real issue is what brought down the UPS 747 outside of Dubai in 2010. While this was a freight aircraft, pallets of these things are routinely shipped as cargo commercial airlines. Scores of lithium batteries left unattended in the cargo hold does concern me.
About six weeks ago I woke up to a fire started by a lithium-ion battery. It was pure luck I woke up because I had disconnected the smoke detector while seasoning cast iron cookware the evening before and hadn't yet reconnected it.
It was a cheap chinese LED camping lantern with an integrated USB charger. I had it charging and went to bed. I woke up and put the fire out, and put the hot melty charred items in the freshly-seasoned cast iron skillet and let it cool off. Once it was cool enough I started disassembling what was left of the 18650 cell - it turns out that it was the typical problem - it was a counterfeit -"remanufactured" battery where the protective circuit was removed, a like-sized metal disc with no circuitry was put in its place and it was re-wrapped with a new shrink label. So, if the integral charger was relying on a protected battery to cut off charging, and the battery had no actual protection circuit there was nothing to make it stop charging so it just kept heating up until it went into thermal runaway.
Too bad because it was otherwise an excellent camping lantern in terms of brightness and light spread but it was overall cheaply made. In fact when I received it I had to re-solder the leads to the LED strips because they were oringally connected with obviously too-cold solder, and the switch was misaligned with the case - and no there was no external damage to the packaging and there were no signs that it had been previously unpackaged. :-(
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I strap propellers to 1300mah lipos and drain them at rates exceeding 100amps. I will drain said Lipo in approximately 180 seconds. Sometimes less. And when they land they are often exceeding 60c.
Not only that but I will often slam them into hard surfaces, trees, rocks, or pieces of plastic that are rotating at 30,000 rpm +. Despite this I have yet to have a single one spontaneously go up in flames. I have seen the after effects of over charging lipos when people decided to charge them to too high a voltage or charge them too fast. But if you treat them inside their design specs they are very unlikely to ever cause you a problem.
People complained about integrated batteries when the note 5 came out; They should have made it removable on the new one. While this wouldn't help thermal runaway, it sure would make a recall easier!
I was taking apart an old failed tablet, was going to use the battery for a fun project with mw daughter. When trying to cut away some adhesive I accidentally sliced the battery which immediately sparked and smoked. I was aware of that possibility but it was surprisingly easy to cause.
99 per cent fires
99 per cent head injuries
they should make hoverboards covered with syringes with aids, thats the only way to make them more lethal
also, people that have never picked up a freaking skateboard when they were kids should avoid trying stuff like this, you WILL HURT YOURSELF, make no mistake about it. People that never really learned to control a bike when they were kids manage to hurt themselves every single day on pretty safe stuff like mountain bikes and stuff like that, if you are one of those, a hoverboard will hurt you badly in under 10 minutes or use
"To catch fire" or "to be on fire", not "to catch on fire", you nitwits.
You may be using LFP batteries, which are much safer and support much greater loads than the LCO batteries found in phones.
The downside is that they have about half the energy density.
To be fair, it's only surprisingly easy if you're already in the process of taking apart something that probably says "no user-serviceable parts inside". It's not as though you can accidentally slip and puncture the battery of a device that's still in one piece.
I'm honestly not sure. They are always referred to as Lithium Poly. Claimed power density is 0.15-0.17kw/kg. They are 4 cells in parallel and operate at 16v
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobby...
Your batteries seem to weight about twice as much as my cell phone batteries per Wh. They are however much, much more powerful.
It seems to match a phosphate or manganese chemistry rather than the more common and more energy dense cobalt. I am no expert though.
See : http://batteryuniversity.com/l...
They are also a lot larger. I don't know what the internal chemistry of them is.
I do know though if you puncture them they will burn, especially when they are fully charged.
The real risk comes though when people charge them the wrong way.
...from Hoverboard electric fires, but my car going up ain't one of them.
On a more serious note, Lithium batteries are scary when you look at their tolerances for heat and temperature they live in a tiny "happy box" where if they step outside they start their decay chain and end up in thermal runaway (for some reason I can't find the paper I'm thinking of right now to source but then again I'm posting just after waking up).