Flaming Cellphones 288
phorm writes "Many of us have heard the urban legend of cellphones causing fires at the gas pump, but how about the hazards of replacement batteries? Reuters is carrying a story about a woman whose cellphone burst into flame, causing her superficial burn injuries. According to Nokia, the problem has occured before, and is related to non-brand replacement batteries. For various reasons, these batteries may overheat and catch fire, or even explode! So far I haven't found much info on whether this has happened with other brands of phone, though I do know that my little flip-phone gets very hot when running in analog mode. Perhaps some slashdot readers have had a similar experience?"
Liability. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, if this is happening there's obviously some hazardous defects with the batteries, and any responsible battery manufacturer would issue a recall. I remember that Apple had similar problems with some of the old Powerbook models, and they recalled the defective batteries/computers right away.
Really??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice. Just goes to show you that price doesn't always mean you should buy it...
I can see it now...
Woman sues battery maker for causing personal injury due to defective device. Company not able to pay the settlement, and so gives user a free lifetime supply of (fixed) product...
Such a dilemma... To use it or not to use it...
Batteries are dangerous if used improperly (Score:1, Insightful)
It's actually a little bit surprising that it *doesn't* happen more frequently, partly thanks to improving manufacturing techniques. Note that all battery manufacturers use to label batteries about this particular risk, and ask the customer to take care not to recharge batteries with improper equipment. After all batteries are storing anergy, and guess what? It can be released in a nice explosion...
This problem is one of the risks that electric car manufacturers have to solve; not that fuel-based cars are any safer, but there is much that we are still learning about batteries. We'll probably hear about a few accidents over the next years as electric cars become more common. The explosions in this case - if they ever happen -will be far more dangerous, because car batteries are considerably bigger than cell phone ones...
Re:Liability. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say that a cellphone bursting into flames is *slightly* more dangerous than a printer cartridge "damaging" a printer, although YMMV.
Gas stations and lithium ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gasoline ends in "ne" and have that "eeen" pronunciation to them. Xylene. Benzene. Toluene. All come from crude oil and all have a bloody low flash point.
Second, lithium batteries have the highest energy to weight ratio, and yes, folks are still careless with them. Most batteries I believe even have a little resistor in them to moderate the output. Lithium is nasty nasty stuff. I don't suppose anyone here remembers when Kodak started pumping out some of the first lithium cells? Guess how they stored them in the warehouse? On METAL shelves! The battery contacts shorted against the metal shelves and you can guess what happened.
Nasty thing about lithium batts is when they do burn. You essentially need Lithex to put the fire out. Granted you get a warning when something's up. There are sulfur in the batteries as well (a few other things, the mixture is part organic), so you can smell the typical rotten egg smell when the batteries are outgassing. When you smell that -- toss them and RUN. Defense contractors and places working with these things often have bomb blankets and ammo cases around for these suckers for a reason.
Point? Both of these are dangerous substances, and I wouldn't want to be near them when they start burning together!
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Cell Phones, a new weapon of terror (Score:2, Insightful)
Does this mean that any lithium ion devices (such as the Tungsten W I just bought) should be banned from airplanes?
And does the fact that I'm arab, and in fact palestinian, and in possession of a Tungsten W, immediatly make me a threat to national security?
Interesting... I think I'll go back to paper cups and string :)
Re:My story with NiCads and NiMH on my cellphone (Score:2, Insightful)
hmm....