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More Lithium Battery Product Recalls Predicted (mercurynews.com)
While "the vast majority" of lithium-ion batteries will never malfunction, lithium itself "is highly combustible and batteries made with it are subject to 'thermal runaway'," which can be triggered by damage -- or by bad design. An anonymous reader quotes the San Jose Mercury News:
Battery and electronics manufacturers take numerous steps to try to mitigate such dangers... But while the industry has tried to make lithium-ion batteries safer, 'the technology itself isn't foolproof,' said Ravi Manghani, director of energy storage research at GTM Research... And there's reason to think that the problem could get worse before it gets better. Consumer demand for devices that are ever more powerful and longer lasting has encouraged manufacturers to make batteries that can hold even more charge. To do that, they typically pack the battery cells closer and closer together...
Since June of this year, educational toy company Roylco recalled 1,400 light tables designed for kids... Razor, Swagway and some eight other manufacturers recalled a total of 500,000 hoverboards. And HP and Sony between them recalled more than 42,000 notebook computers. All for similar reasons -- lithium-ion batteries that either had caught fire or which have posed a fire hazard... Other notorious examples include the several different Tesla Model S's that have caught fire, typically after crashes compromised their battery packs, and Sony's wide-scale recall a decade ago of the batteries that powered its Vaio and other laptop computers.
In a related story, Samsung's recall of their Note 7 is now expected to cost $5.3 billion.
Since June of this year, educational toy company Roylco recalled 1,400 light tables designed for kids... Razor, Swagway and some eight other manufacturers recalled a total of 500,000 hoverboards. And HP and Sony between them recalled more than 42,000 notebook computers. All for similar reasons -- lithium-ion batteries that either had caught fire or which have posed a fire hazard... Other notorious examples include the several different Tesla Model S's that have caught fire, typically after crashes compromised their battery packs, and Sony's wide-scale recall a decade ago of the batteries that powered its Vaio and other laptop computers.
In a related story, Samsung's recall of their Note 7 is now expected to cost $5.3 billion.
Make the devices thicker. Nobody wants a thin phone, just to put in in otterbox. Just make the device as thick as if it were in a case, and use the extra space for battery. On an iPhone you will get 3 times the battery if not more
My phone blows up less, and it has a replaceable battery. It isn't any thicker than a wallet. It fits in a pocket. Maybe I'm just old, but I don't really benefit if it gets thinner. It isn't an `80s backpack phone, after all.
They really need to clue in and start taking batteries seriously again, like in the olden days. Household-name battery companies should be stepping in and releasing OEM lithium battery packs. It could be a major selling point to have "Now with Trusted Brand(TM) battery pack! Think of the Children!"
No, not totally true because no one is going to force you to buy a Samsung product, you have to see the value at the higher price for this to work.
Something rarely discussed is the toxic fumes. The hobbiest flashlight community has done a lot of research on these batteries for the past decade. The fire is the absolute least of your worries. These batteries violently vent extremely toxic gas that causes severe damage when inhaled. If you breathe this in you should immediately seek emergency attention. I just haven't seen this mentioned enough and everyone should share.
4X more expensive *and* 25% lower energy density is a pretty big hit. The whole push is to get more time out of a battery, and taking the space of a 10Wh battery and throwing in a 7.5Wh battery isn't going to make users happy. I agree that thinness is a stupid-ass metric for companies to compete on, but we're kind of stuck with it until all-powerful Apple tells us that it's not the in-thing anymore.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Been saying this a while. Anyone with an electronics background that also knows anything about chemistry could tell you these Lithium Ion or polymer batteries are ticking time bombs, just waiting for an excuse to go off. Usually there are 3 backups. 1 in the phone (or charging device) and 2 in the battery. The charging circuit, will cut off current once it reaches the programmed level. The thermistor(s) in the battery, will tell the charging circuit to stop the current flow, if the battery heats up to whatever the cutoff level is. And the fail safe, is the thermal fuse. If all else fales, and the battery continues to heat up, the thermal fuse will melt in two pieces, which cuts off all current flow (and requiring the battery to be replaced, it is a one shot device). But, if the thermal fuse is close to the breakdown of the chemicals of the battery, it might be too late to prevent a thermal runaway. If phone manufacturers would stop cow-towing to the "fashion designers" in Hollywood and make phones that aren't "slim and stylish" for the lDIOT hollywood types that run around all the time with their phones in their hand, and start "beefing up" the cases, it would provide enough ROOM inside a phone, to go back to a removable battery. The batteries in non removable battery phones, typically do not have a protective plastic case surrounding them. That plastic case takes up room, room that can be used to increase the capacity of the battery, which given the manufacturers silly idea of continuing to increase the processor speed, screen density etc, need a bigger and bigger battery, in hopes it will make it through the entire day, without needing charging. Now, the problem is you combine a battery that can flex, that has as much capacity that they can squeeze into it, coupled with a very thin casing, then, place said phone, in your tight jeans back pocket, front pocket, and sit down and get up a few dozen times a day and that battery starts to flex. Once you break down the barrier shield that keeps everything separated (anode, cathode, electrolyte) and they all get together, you end up with a thermal runaway. People "think" they wanted thinner and thinner phones, because that's what the industry produced, and they go along like little sheep. Now, you are stuck with non removable batteries, thin phones and the result is BOOM! For Samsung's part, they tried to "one up" Apple, by releasing their phone, without really testing for durability. This time, it costs them DEARLY!
Removable batteries have to have protection circuitry built in the battery (AFAIK it is the law). Protection circuits that cut off power (sometimes permanently) in case of overcharge, overdischarge or overheat. Protection circuits that you can leave out when making the battery non-removable.
Here are the reasons I came up with why the batteries exploded:
1. Bad batteries - not very likely as the new (supposedly good) batteries still exploded.
2. Bad charger circuits leading to overcharge or overheat. The protection circuits should have prevented that.
3. Incorrectly set low voltage cut-out resulting in overdischarge. The protection circuits should have prevented that too.
4. Battery overheat due to being near some hot chip or other component. The protection circuits should have cut off power.
5. Battery case squished or pierced by some component in the phone. The double case of a removable battery should have prevented that. May have helped with insulating the battery from the hot component as well.
So your phone components really get only another sticker's worth of isolation.
Both the battery case and the phone case under the battery compartment is thicker than a sticker, at least in my phones.