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Yes, batteries can be fire hazards - a public service announcement

EarlyMon

EarlyMon

The PearlyMon
VIP Member
SlashGear: iPad Air explodes, faulty overcharge protection circuit suspected.

http://google.com/producer/s/CBIwlfSfnw4

I'm going to ask that this not be turned into yet another Apple bashing thread.

And enforce it.

There was a report earlier this year on an Android that many refused to believe.

I've maintained since joining this forum that battery ignition is both spectacular and scary because I've seen it with my own eyes.

Safety tips -

Avoid snake oil advice about draining your battery to calibrate it.

If your device becomes very, very hot, turn it off and don't try to charge it.

If your battery is old and starts swelling up, REPLACE IT.

Don't tinker with your safety or charging circuits.

~~~~~~~


Freak occurrences like the one in the article are thankfully very, very, very rare.


Please keep it that way. ;) :)
 
EarlyMon said:
If your device becomes very, very hot, turn it off and don't try to charge it.
Click to expand...

I had that happen with a Casio G'zOne or however its spelled. The old school dumb phone one, not the current Android version. They didn't mess around when I called, they swapped it out immediately. It was burning my hip through the holster.
 
Yep battery faults and shorting of them can be quite dangerous. There are many cases of laptop batteries catching fire. Rechargeable batteries can dump a lot of power very quickly if shorted, way more than a non rechargeable alkaline battery. I worked at Energizer a while back, and you were not allowed to wear rings on the production floor while handling the unlabeled cells, as a ring could easily short the battery and become a heating element, burning the person badly.
 
I get worried about my Chromebook, as the charger and the chromebook gets really hot. I mean REALLY hot. Some devices are like that. Hopefully, Apple will look into this, safety is first. Then we can debate the Apple vs Android war, just as long as we are all safe.
 
I go for those USB powered laptop trays with fans.

Heat is never silicon's friend anyway.

I use them for my laptop and when it was hurting for airflow in one setup, for my Directv box.

You can get the 2-fan models for cheap at Best Buy or like that.

I've found those cheapos work great.
 
EarlyMon said:
SlashGear: iPad Air explodes, faulty overcharge protection circuit suspected.

http://google.com/producer/s/CBIwlfSfnw4

I'm going to ask that this not be turned into yet another Apple bashing thread.

And enforce it.

There was a report earlier this year on an Android that many refused to believe.

I've maintained since joining this forum that battery ignition is both spectacular and scary because I've seen it with my own eyes.

Safety tips -

Avoid snake oil advice about draining your battery to calibrate it.

If your device becomes very, very hot, turn it off and don't try to charge it.

If your battery is old and starts swelling up, REPLACE IT.

Don't tinker with your safety or charging circuits.

~~~~~~~


Freak occurrences like the one in the article are thankfully very, very, very rare.


Please keep it that way. ;) :)
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on the draining and calibrating thing?
 
breadnatty08 said:
I've noticed using my wireless charging pad with my G2, it gets quite warm. Something I don't leave it on overnight. :)
Click to expand...

I should imagine they're not as efficient as directly wired charging. They use magnetic inductive coupling, there's a coil in the base and a coil in the back of the device you want to charge. It has to induce enough power into the phone to charge the battery. Wouldn't know what the actual efficiency is though, could be quite poor. It's basically a transformer, but with air and plastic between the primary(the base) and secondary(the phone) windings. Normally transformers have iron or ferrite closely coupling the primary and secondary windings, so they can be quite efficient.

Other thing is you're actually paying for that heat as wasted energy, with the increased power consumption over directly wired charging.

Inductive cookers work on a similar principle. Coil in the base under a ceramic plate with high frequency AC going through it, and metal cooking pan on top. The high frequency AC magnetic field induces large eddy currents to flow in the metal pan and so it gets hot, because it's effectively a short circuit. The ceramic plate itself doesn't get hot, apart from the heat generated by the pan.
 
The defective batteries were manufactured by Sony, Apple was affected as well and had to recall Macbook batteries.

It's li-ion and li-po, lithium rechargeable batteries, they can be very dangerous if not charged, handled and/or manufactured correctly. That's what caused the battery fires and other battery problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. AFAIK aircraft had never used li-ion batteries for their electrical systems before. They probably used traditional lead acid or ni-cad.
 
OptimusL said:
Can you elaborate on the draining and calibrating thing?
Click to expand...

Certainly. :)

How charging works for all phones and what's up with calibration, from an HTC One thread -

EarlyMon said:
The myth about battery calibration -

https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/FV3LVtdVxPT

Your phone does not trickle charge.

It runs off of the battery at all times.

Even while on the charger.

When the battery hits full charge, it shows 99 to 100%, stops charging, and runs until it hits the set point established by HTC - these days, typically about 96%.

Then charging kicks back on and the cycle repeats itself. Over and over until you take it off of the charger.

And it shows 99 to 100% the whole time.

After you take it off of the charger, over the course of several minutes, it adjusts the user display until a more accurate reading is available.

Your phone doesn't lose 5% in minutes - it didn't have it when you took it off of the charger.

People used to post videos of a current meter showing the cycle with the screen display being constant. I haven't seen one lately, but that's the way it works.

It's due to the nature of the safety circuit involved in charging.

Do not run your phone dry unless you need to as a normal matter of use - it degrades the battery.

And to help you, your HTC will shut down before you truly hit 0% anyway.

If power consumption is different after an update, then it's likely services have changed or an app is less than optimal with the new version.

To find out, I recommend GSam Battery Monitor.

Getting a clean slate after an update is always the right idea.

It's easy if you're rooted - wipe cache and Dalvik.

If not rooted, I suggest Helium Backup, then a factory data reset (do not erase your internal storage, just reset) and then restore from the backup.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

As you push to 0%, your chances of the battery heating up increases.

Under those conditions, the metal structures in the battery will begin to deform.

Do that enough and battery lifetime will degrade and your phone won't hold a charge for as long.

Keep it up, the battery will start to swell.

Push it after gross swelling occurs and your chances of other trouble increases.

It's ok to run your phone until it shuts off.

When that happens, charge it, leave it off to cool for a little while.

Do it often, plan on replacing your battery.

(Don't do it, your battery will last and work well for a few year. Make it a daily habit and you could need a replacement within a year.)

It's all about the heat as the battery charge goes down.
 
Recently I learnt something about Li-based batteries.
You can't take any practical advantage off it, at least not for our relative small phones' batteries ... but maybe it's interesting to know :)

The chemical reaction that takes place during the charging of a lithium-chemistry cell is endothermic, as it absorbs heat ... unlike the discharge reaction which is exothermic and produces heat.

So, why can't we take any practical advantage off this charging behavior?
Well, the battery itself procuces heat while charging/discharging, caused by the protection ciruit which is embedded in Li-based batteries.
Unfortunately, with our phone batteries, this heating's amount while charging is much larger then the cooling effect of the chemistry.
Only with the big Li-based batteries into e-cars this cooling effect while charging is noticeable and practically usable.
 
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