T
Story
X-ray scans reveal the hidden risks of cheap batteries
  • xnx
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14 days ago | 120 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364932
Lots of dupes lately.

I've personally commented on lots of dupes lately.

Makes me wonder if HN dupe detector is broken/changed recently.

(Not disagreeing that this is a dupe), but this is The Verge's coverage of Lumafield's findings.

Not sure if there is any additional value in the re-coverage, though it does feel like the message is important enough to be spread, and I suspect there is more readers of The Verge than the original source.

I've been seeing this link as a promoted post on Reddit.
It's kinda crazy that we don't yet have an approval process for "flight safe" batteries.
Our company is building batteries that are easy to repair, and therefore you can remove and put back the cells easily. This allows you to fly with them :)

https://infinite-battery.com

Aren't carry ons limited to 100 Wh total for batteries. For more you need airline approval, no?
  • diob
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I actually had a battery for a drill meltdown on me earlier this year. If I hadn't been home (and it hadn't been on my stone counter when it happened), I probably wouldn't have a home.
What was the brand/model?
  • diob
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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LFWN86Q

Joiry

Was it a brand name battery, or a discount battery? When you look at the price of the price of replacement Ryobi/Milwaukee/Dewalt etc batteries, and then see third-party knockoffs on Amazon for 1/3 or less of the price, it's tempting to save money.
  • diob
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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LFWN86Q

Joiry

Yep, big mistake.

I've tried to stop buying stuff on Amazon.

I really scaled back when I started going back and looking at old purchases, only to find out 8 of my last purchases were all counterfeit stuff. These were not just random electronic resellers. They were Lucky jeans, a Microsoft keyboard, a JBL bluetooth speaker, Under Armour shorts, Adidas work out tshirts and some other stuff. But altogether, I thought I was buying brand name, safe stuff that was priced in the same range as stuff you'd buy retail and I still got burned.

Just made me distrust everything I was seeing on Amazon.

If you understand that the battery management controller is built into the battery pack and not the tool itself, the temptation to save money is replaced entirely by the fear of burning down a building. Not worth it.
~15 years ago I was visiting New Orleans, and I had an old Canon 1D DSLR with me. I was a little nervous about leaving my camera batteries charging in the small b&b where I was staying, fearing I'd unintentionally destroy a historic house.
  • tzs
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If the internet is to be believed that would have used NiMH batteries. Those are a lot less likely to cause fires than lithium based batteries.
You're correct. I didn't know much about the various battery technologies at the time, but they were pretty old batteries.
Mind sharing brand name?
Was it in the charger?
  • diob
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Yes! One of the lessons I learned with this, which is if you're charging it you're supposed to supervise it or charge it somewhere "safe".
As a new homeowner that's one of my fears. I'm surprised there aren't more fires with how many lithium batteries are kicking around.
Then you are obviously overestimating how dangerous they are, are you not?
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Reading the original report in the dupe from 14 days ago, it seems pretty clear that the conclusion is that counterfeit/low-cost lithium batteries are a safety hazard, and we should probably have stricter import regulations for batteries to shutdown the counterfeit/gray-market operations, as they are a serious fire hazard.
  • cko
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I once watched a video of a man holding what looked to be a bicycle battery walking into an elevator. After the doors closed, it seemed to have exploded and burst into flame in his hands, and the aftermath was charred remains.

After seeing this I refuse to sleep near my 20,000 mAh power bank. I saw this Jackery power station for sale for an ultra discounted price and noticed it was not lithium iron phosphate and I noped so fast.

Is this on YouTube ?
  • Kenji
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[dead]
The main risk factor is cells, you have to source them from reputable manufacturers. After having monitored a few battery fires, we went on to design a casing with multiple features to contain fires, you can check it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NXXfCA2CY

If you're interested, you can order them here https://infinite-battery.com

How much is this mitigated by well-behaved charging circuitry?

I.e. my understanding is most devices are not like the 3s lipos I put in my hobby robots, but instead have integrated charging circuitry that you just give an appropriate voltage to... and that proper charging behavior avoids a lot of the dangerous scenarios with lipos?

I ask because, loosely, the # of battery fires seems like a function in part of: (1) use of good charging logic; (2) cell manufacturing quality; (3) # of cells in the wild. While the growth of 3 probably dominates the improvements to 1 and 2, I'm guessing the number of battery fires has grown but not "exponentially".

There will always be a realy fucking bad failure mode attached to any energy dense storage medium. This is basic physics. The diffrence between a roaring fire in the wood stove, your car engine, an ultra high tech rocket motor and a bomb, is only the speed of the "flame front" A battery has the same issues, in that the higher the energy density and the greater the expected rate of energy transfer, the greater the chance of finding a way to detonate all the energy at once, which is actualy possible ,with a wood stove, if things go exactly wrong.Exceptionaly large explosions have happened with nothing more than dust, or flour. 4 things, you can pick 3. fast, powerfull, cheap, safe.
A Lithium iron phosphate battery is significantly more stable and less likely to go thermal runaway in a fireshow-like fashion. The battery chemistry is important for this.
Yes, but this article is mostly talking about TEMU or Amazon fly-by-night brand batteries, so you have to take their word that they are using Lipo4 cells and not just blatantly lying like they do for every other aspect of the product.