Dell laptop catches fire at Yahoo research building

Kol · 4 Oct 2006 at 17:17

Phew, had a read and no mention of my Vaio needing a replacement. Cheeky ploy Sony pulled.

RE: batteries exploding, my old man had a portable DVD player from eBay :eek:

and whilst we were in Scotland it exploded whilst were out and set fire to the bedroom! It wasn't a pretty sight.

Clarkey · 4 Oct 2006 at 17:54

VIRII said:
I see Fujitsu are also now recalling batteries, I don't know if they are Sony made or not. I think a test house somewhere is in deep trouble though.

They have been running a batteryb exchange program for some time, i think only some older models are affected, it says on their website anyway.

saitrix · 6 Oct 2006 at 08:42

VIRII said:
LOL. No it won't.
If you pierce it you will get covered in battery acid though and it'll stink.

I see Fujitsu are also now recalling batteries, I don't know if they are Sony made or not. I think a test house somewhere is in deep trouble though.

Getting Lithium based batteries tested in the UK is a problem, most test houses (including the one I work in) will no longer test these batteries as we've all had some interesting experiences with lithium cells during type approval for one company / product or another.

VIRII,

No offence but have you ever handled with Lithium Polymer batteries? I fully well know what they do, used loads in electric RC planes. If you really knew that much about Lipo's then you would know that when they balloon it is because some of the battery has changed form to a gas. Which when the outside layer is peirced, the friction against the sides produces enough heat to ignite the gas and battery. This is why you never peirce a ballooned battery.

VIRII · 6 Oct 2006 at 10:32

saitrix said:
VIRII,

No offence but have you ever handled with Lithium Polymer batteries? I fully well know what they do, used loads in electric RC planes. If you really knew that much about Lipo's then you would know that when they balloon it is because some of the battery has changed form to a gas. Which when the outside layer is peirced, the friction against the sides produces enough heat to ignite the gas and battery. This is why you never peirce a ballooned battery.

Yes mate. I have tested them for various applications at weights of up to 22kg each for manufacturers and various world military bodies.
Altitude tests, temperature tests, vibration tests, shock tests (150g 6ms) and so on.
Our tests are to international standards and are accredited by the UK Govt (a body known as UKAS).

I have seen them leak, become very, very hot, balloon, crack and once catch fire in a most spectacular way.

I have tested (amongst others) Lithium Sulphur Dioxide batteries and Lithium Thionyl Chloride batteries generally to IEC 62281.

So, with respect, I know rather a lot about them.

Premier · 6 Oct 2006 at 10:39

weve got about 35 d610's that needed replacements and they were shipped to us within a week or ordering the replacements.

Gerard · 6 Oct 2006 at 11:34

Their leader of r&d for battery development is a mission imposible fan. This laptop will self destruct in 5 seconds...like it or not..poof :eek:

Muban · 6 Oct 2006 at 15:25

It really depends on the battery type that you need as to how quick they are. I ordered mine on the day they made the announcement, I got the replacement yesterday.

saitrix · 7 Oct 2006 at 10:45

VIRII said:
So, with respect, I know rather a lot about them.

Fair enough.

Though the RC lot seem to get ballooning a lot with the skin being peirced due to the pressure so it catches alight. Are the cells you test ~20C sort of rating out of interest.

manoz · 7 Oct 2006 at 13:44

Muban said:
Ordered mine the day the recall was announced... still don't have my replacement Pretty spectacular when they go boom! :

There was a video of this happening on the net, can't remember where I saw it though.

MikeHunt79 · 7 Oct 2006 at 15:46

Yep, any li-ion battery can be dangerous if it get too hot when charging or discharging... Normally a protection circuit should prevent this sort of thing, but obviously it has failed here. There have also ben reports of the same thing happening with cell phones, but like this, it seems to be a 1 in a million type thing. :eek:

In fact a new battery chemistery has recently been developed which if safe. (lithium-saphon) the only problem is that the capacity is less, as it's in it's early stages.

VIRII · 8 Oct 2006 at 12:57

saitrix said:
Fair enough. Though the RC lot seem to get ballooning a lot with the skin being peirced due to the pressure so it catches alight. Are the cells you test ~20C sort of rating out of interest.

Lipos are different to the general use cells in laptops etc.
Mostly the batteries we test end up in military applications, be it aircraft or tanks. The last lot I tested were 20kg each and were to power a "pipe pig" - an electrically powered device that travels up and down pipelines looking for cracks.

Storage temperatures from memory are around 70 centigrade, sadly the cells that we were storing at that temperature went boom lol.