Laptop explodes while charging at Letchworth business
thecomet.net
thecomet.net
I've also occasionally heard recommendations from people to not leave devices charging because it may potentially wear out the battery prematurely. This may be a myth. But I always wonder -- why would the charging circuit not moderate the charging and mitigate such risks? Why should I as a user be responsible for providing just the right amount of charging?
Also, the battery should be given some room to swell in the design.
I have my Dell set to start battery charge at 75% and stop at 85%.
This is just a good reminder people should keep aware of recalls for products they own, especially ones with batteries.
Useful reason to have for why you're storing marketing data under the GDPR.
It would be nice if one could run some service _locally_ that would parse some standards-compliant recall notice format from some standards-compliant location (like robots.txt, how about recalls.txt). I know, not going to happen.
Reading the replies in this subthread, it becomes (somewhat) blindingly obvious that this is an excellent space for a viable startup.
- Mobile app (all platforms) that you can carry around with you at all times so when you go "oh! I haven't registered my blah" you can do it in 30 seconds on the spot (or at least start the process) - bam, inertia gone
- App works by having you take photos of device(s); it figures out what kind of thing it is, clarifies specs it can't work out from the photo, and tells you where to find the serial number for the given device (and I can't see why you can't take a photo of that too and the app can OCR it)
- It partners with hundreds of manufacturers to communicate and electronically sign your registration information
- When you move it handles the info update process for you
- (Manufacturers that require unambiguity could send you verification emails, and while the app would (obviously) not have access to these emails or the verification clicks, it would know what files had complete/correct/wrong info and be able to call out the action items in the flood of emails you would periodically receive)
And obviously, last of all,
- When a device is recalled or anything goes wrong with it, you receive recurring app notifications and periodic emails to let you know what's going on
- The app has a one-tap flow to allow you to say "I want to return my device" which would kickstart the process of for example the manufacturer mailing you a return box
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This would be hard. Really hard. Stupidly ridiculously hard; the key word here is "vendor compliance".
But if you could pull this off, you'd wind up "baked-in" as a part of worldwide industry. You'd be the app everyone used to handle recalls if you got everything right.
I don't think this exists yet, at least not in the form I've just described.
I constantly see little recall dockets (A4 papers) at my local supermarkets (in Australia). Sometimes there's a photo, sometimes there's only a text description of the product.
Everyone's handling this themselves, and duplicating work. This system could provide centralized returns handling both for vendors and consumers. Hmm.
This seems like a fun one to take a crack at, and I'm interested enough to have a go. It'd probably take 5 years to get to minimum viability though, FWIW.
Thus, a company wanting to do this would be left performing manual data entry or automated scraping of existing sources. It would also be nice to notify users of products which have multiple reports of a defect, before recalls are put out. However I suspect companies would be quick to sue over unsubstantiated claims.
Monetization of such a product would be limited. Very few people would pay for this service. You're essentially left with building a profile based on a user's purchased products, used to sell ad space and/or push affiliate links. With how infrequently a user would be opening the website or mobile app, I can't imagine the income being enough to sustain even a small startup. Assuming there are existing public catalogues of recall information that can be scraped, I could see a solo developer doing this as a quick project for some side income. I don't see this as being a full startup due to, as you put it, "vendor compliance".
I just thought about some of the recall info sheets I've seen at the local supermarket: the cable entry on an electric blanket was misdesigned and had the potential to catch fire (:D), certain food items unknowingly contained allergens (presumably due to insufficient communication with manufacturers), the packaging (removable twist top) of a package of baby food could disintegrate (small pieces of the safety seal could break off) and present a choking hazard, etc.
These examples of recalls all share the element of preventing further injury and minimizing the chances of some disaster occurring. Hmm, I see what you mean by the goodwill aspect now.
As for sourcing data and payment, I was actually envisaging a two-sided product - creating the app described before for consumers, but also providing retailers and manufacturers with business-specific portals that allowed them to manage all aspects of a recall internally. I was thinking along the lines of "you store your data in the cloud so you don't have to maintain the associated infrastructure; this is the same, let us understand how you manage your recall processes so we can add this knowledge to a mega-system we build for you that will be ten times as good as what you've already got, and then just pay us $lessthanexpected to maintain it". Essentially solicited outsourcing.
With that done, that solves the industry integration problem (oh, and keeping the lights on); once vendors hit "publish" I'd have my customer-specific data.
Besides B2C this could work for B2B recalls of industrial and commercial equipment too. There could be pricing tiers to manage configurations of fleet or other large volumes of business-related equipment too.
Also, while pondering the idea earlier, I realized I could also expand horizontally to include warranty - it seems relevant, and I'm collecting product info anyway. Although about two seconds after the "that would be really cool" little red alarms started going off as I thought about all the spam (in the form of fraudulent claims) that I'd need to figure out a good way to filter.
I was wondering about ways to benefit (conscientiously, if you'd believe it) from customers' product profiles as well. FB (as one example) loves data, but I don't know what their appetite is like in terms of data volume or depth, and whether I'd be comfortable with what that industry would want.
Lastly, I envisaged the app as "install and forget" - maybe even going so far on Android as to hide the app icon completely (if that's deemed polite?). No bandwidth is used (with background messaging etc) until a recall occurs - only then does it spring into action. (Maybe if warranty stuff is factored in it could alert when devices are about to go out of warranty too.)
I recently bought a toaster which came with a "Photoregister" [1] icon, which apparently works exactly like this.
By the time it happens, it is generally too late to shut off the charging circuit -- it helps and it happens but the battery destruction is already underway. The question next is whether it will catch fire or simply 'swell up'. At this point it's mostly up to luck, the available fire-prevention mechanisms are stronger battery enclosures, which would be heavy, bulky and expensive -- exactly the things most consumers do not want and would vote against with their money, reducing the profits of the company innovating in this direction.
Another way to prevent fires would be attempting to detect dendrite growth by the changes in observable battery state (capacity, amperage, etc). This is hard, expensive and will likely give a lot of false alarms requiring warranty replacement, once again hitting the would-be innovator in their pockets.
They said it’s not a fire hazard but I should replace it and not use the laptop.
And, refused to replace it because it was in a “vintage” laptop.
Carefully crafted language.
Just replaced the battery with one from ifixit
I still haven't grokked the decision to abandon magsafe.
I think my problem might be that I treat my laptops more like desktops and keep them plugged in 24/7 and hardly ever run them off batteries. Last battery only had 2 cycles on it.
I want to get into vlogging at some point, so might at some point upgrade to a 15 inch with a GPU. I love Apple's software but disappointed the newer hardware isn't user serviceable anymore.
That really seems to spare the battery compared to keeping it at 100%. I've replaced the battery in other laptops much more often.
echo 40 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh
echo 80 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh
[0] http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-man...
It would be nice if this feature defaulted to charging to 95% or whatever. I usually know in advance if I'll need that extra 5% for a long journey.
I’ve heard separately (no source, sorry [edit: see below]) that Apple products also do this, they just don’t confuse the user by telling them that it’s happening. I wouldn’t be surprised if HP et. al. have since changed their user notification behaviour, too.
Source: forum posts going back almost a decade. https://www.google.com.au/search?q=apple+laptop+stops+chargi...
Here, the time isn't based on an alarm (none is set), but on when the charger was disconnected the previous morning.
It would be nice if you could set it even lower to prolong life, but there's just not enough demand for it to be a common feature.
I think it's Li-Ion batteries in laptops, not LiPo.
LiPos have a tendency to degas/explode unexpectedly even when the charger is good.
Multicopter/drones use LiPo batteries and there are multiple horror stories of pilots having their house destroyed. We have now learned to store them in special fireproof bags/containers even when not charging, never charge them unattended, always have a fire extinguisher near the charging station, etc.
BTW I see a phantom hanging on the wall... Maybe he tried to charge the laptop battery with the LiPo charger?
These incidents are relatively rare in consumer devices (so exempting RC lipos and cheap knockoff products with no protection).
Temperature monitoring has become very common. The primary heat source is almost always the LED, not the battery, but it would be sufficient to detect a battery nearing thermal runaway. Low-voltage protection is common, but sometimes only a warning blink rather than a hard cutoff based on the idea that leaving the user in the dark might be worse than damaging a battery.
Some models have onboard charging, most often through MicroUSB. Correctly charging a single Li-ion cell is not difficult, and I haven't seen one get it seriously wrong yet.
LiFePO4 has seen a little use, but is not popular due to its much lower energy density. I suspect this has kept it out of other portable devices as well since users always seem to want longer runtime in ever smaller devices.
The important difference between the two is physical construction more than chemistry, though the electrolytes differ slightly. Cylindrical Li-ion cells have a rigid metal case and a breakable seal that will release gas and permanently disable the cell in the event of excessive internal pressure. Pouch and prismatic cells do not have a rigid metal case and are at higher risk of mechanical damage. Since they're made of softer materials, they often don't have a valve to release pressure, and bulge instead.
Pouch cells may be a little less safe than cylindrical cells for these reasons, but are present inside literally billions of consumer devices such as phones, laptops and tablets. Catastrophic failures are quite rare, hence Samsung's incendiary phones being a huge news story.
I suspect the high failure rate of drone batteries is due to the extreme loads drones put on batteries. Very few other devices are continuously operated at loads that will drain their batteries in a few minutes. There may also be an issue of sellers making claims about the maximum safe discharge rate of their batteries that are not based in reality.
Indeed. The charge / discharge cycle causes physical strain on the carbon anode. Microscopic pieces of it break off with use, and are part of the cause of capacity degradation over time.
But batteries in consumer products, like laptops and ready-to-fly drones, should be protected both physically (with a harder plastic case) and with integrated charging circuitry. That seems to be the case with consumer drone batteries, like the DJI Phantom: https://m.dji.com/product/phantom-3-intelligent-flight-batte...
"Steve bought his HP Envy laptop in 2014, and had never had an issue with the charger. He only decided to leave it on charge when he unplugged it and it turned off immediately."
He knew there was a problem with the battery. He just didn't know the possible consequences.
I thought it was a myth too, so when I got my first cell phone, I left it plugged whenever I was home, even when I had used it so little that it was still showing full charge. After a time, however, its battery started to get "fat".
I bought a new battery, and since then only plugged the charger when the phone was no longer showing full charge. That battery still works, and is still as "thin" as it was when bought.
You could even try some implicit haptic UI ideas like having two power ports, one for operating (that only charges when the battery is dangerously low) and one for complete charging (that also runs the device, but it's clearly designated as the "charging port"). With USB power delivery that would not even waste case surface, it would be an entirely internal change to make one more USB-C power capable.
It is true that overcharging a battery will do damage, potentially fire-type damage. The issue is that every "device" contains a charge controller to manage this. A laptop should not / will not overcharge its battery. By leaving it plugged in you are relying upon the charge controller to do its job. But remember that we trust such voltage regulators 24/7 in our cars, on our planes, and with nearly every consumer electronic plugged into a wall outlet.
Not battery fires in general, like I've heard/seen enough Youtube videos about quadcopter LiPos, and the Samsung Note 7 or whatever it was, but laptop batteries specifically. There's enough space to build safety in, and they don't fly around at high speeds like quadcopters.
The owner of course gives the advice of always unplugging laptops when you're not there and stuff, but I'd say the same if it was my office which burned down (hindsight bias). It's beneficial for battery makers to be slim on safety margins because then you can squeeze more juice into it, but as far as I know there's still lots of safety features on modern Li-ion/LiPo batteries, and this seems like either a one-in-a-billion or a (factory) defect.
No external mechanisms can help with issues originating within a cell (mechanical damage etc.), which methinks is a more common cause of catastrophic failures.
https://my.mixtape.moe/kceuko.jpg https://my.mixtape.moe/zbvjdu.jpg
It was in a closed ziploc bag, which showed no evidence of high heat, but kind of disturbing in that I assumed after a year of sitting it would have fully discharged.
Related question - best way to safely dispose of old LiPo batteries? I don't want to just toss it in the regular trash (for one thing, might ignite in there.)
Batteries are a fire hazard and a heavy pollutant if thrown in the regular trash, but most of the raw materials can be recycled if disposed of properly.
I have an 2008 MacBook pro, and one of my older batteries have shown the warning. After a year or so that battery has also swollen, albeit in a milder manner than yours.
He's seen so many fires and has gone to the root cause of them that he sees chargers and batteries as incendiary devices, not consumer electronics.
I'll send this video to him, not that he needs more examples but it is quite striking how fast this goes from 'laptop charging on a desk' to 'office on fire' and what little if any warning there was that this was about to happen.
(Like, if you pick _one_ takeaway from this and change _one_ thing about your life, maybe that one?)
I purchased an artificial in no small part for the safety aspect. I do miss the smell though.
That comparison video was by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, from not long before Trump neutered them (http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/375273-trump-is-decim...).
Definitely gave me an appreciation for the hazard they pose, tho. Ridiculously flammable.
Sounds like the first warning sign that something was going wrong; if it wasn't dead prior, I would have been wary of keeping it on charge...20/20 I guess
If your battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, don't keep it plugged in. There should probably be a PSA for battery handling at this point.
If I'm totally honest, I simply and somewhat cynically figured it was a ruse by the manufacturer to bilk some money from us on an unneeded replacement, given its software's likely counting daysSincePurchase!
It's at least possible for the manufacturer to be using this information instead of simply counting the hours.
Lithium dendrite growth, the (mostly not understood) cause of the battery catching fire.
I doubt the battery in question was overcharged or this was because it was left on charge, but because it was faulty or damaged.
This one is a relatively small one: https://youtu.be/bqcX1AjdxSw
Like, what the heck, there were long jets of burning stuff spurting out of the battery. It was like it was designed to light the place on fire on a failure.
I was quite surprised that the employees didn't think anything of the potential for a damaged battery.
I’m afraid I know little about battery construction to know whether this is a valid concern, or what specifications/designs to look for. Do any of the battery experts of this thread have any advice?
Not the same battery chemistry, so much reduced (if nearly zero) fire risk from a UPS.
If you do buy a UPS, get one with a good warranty from a reputable supplier. In my (biased) experience, it's quite common for the internal electronics to fail. The repairs are usually pretty straight forward, but it's easier under warranty :)
Never had a problem with it. Not sure if batteries are just getting worse or if it's a result of the trend of trying to make things thinner-and-lighter such that there's not room for the battery to expand as it's likely to do over time without exploding.
Search for "battery explosion fire containment bag"
Do you know of any laptop brand with products <$1k which never had an overheating problem?
Also, I did not see a barometer in the footage and if expanding gas did not propel those pieces of shrapnel outwards I wonder what did. So maybe there was a shockwave, just not a very large one and that was probably mostly due to the confinement of the battery not being very strong.
If there is one way to turn a small bang into a bigger one it is by confining the gas a little longer by using a stronger package.
Still an explosion!
It would be really interesting to see what each company does to protect the health of batteries. I bet there’s a huge difference between them.
That being said, I have bought a lot of no-names over the years and haven't had even so much as an abnormally hot one yet. More often they just perform at 3/4ish capacity of the new "real" one.