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27 Comments
- h0kiez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Anybody else think that this whole battery issue may be a slight overreaction? Seriously, what are the odds your laptop is going to catch fire? Are you guys constantly afraid of using your laptop? I'm not.
- yaosio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I think you mean don't use any Sony product, ever.
Also 10 batteries is not an epidemic. News writers need to check their facts and not just accept the first thing somebody on AOL spews onto the screen in a chat room. - anasazi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3apple had 8 reports of battery fires in 1.8 million units
dell had a similar number of reports in almost 4 million units
so for maybe 20 confirmed fires in almost 5.8 million batteries you want to swap out a perfectly good battery system for something with less capacity? no thanks, i'll take my chances with the lithium ion batteries. - lastlee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5it claims that it may have reduced run time... The reason the batteries are considered unsafe is because the inactive components of the battery (plastic barriers, casings, etc) had a size reduction in order to increase the run time. These batteries probably won't catch on because the run time is reduced.
I'll just wait for Lithium Polymer batteries to go down :P - thermus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ h0kiez: Hell, I repacked mine with new LG cells (it wasn't part of the recall...just dying), so no, I'm not scared.
I also accidentally shorted one out. And it didn't explode. It did what it was supposed to...it got really hot, then disabled itself. There are protection mechanisms built into the cells and the battery pack, itself. Others should read up on them. That's not to say Li ion batteries aren't inherently dangerous to play with and a poorly manufactured cell is a hazard. But I concur that much of this seems to be media-induced hysteria. - DanTheManPR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Anybody else think that this whole battery issue may be a slight overreaction?"
My thoughts exactly. People tend to freak out about spectacular misfortunes, even if they are never going to happen to you. - Splitt3rxx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think odds are much higher the wiring in your house will cause a fire and burn you to death. this whoel battery issue is blown way out of proportion, so some defective batteries were made, a few laptops burst into flames, it really is no reason to be afraid to use lithium batteries, I have them in my PSP and DS and I have never had anything explode on me.
- StatusQuoRules, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Solution: Just don't use a battery made by sony! Problem solved!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I never thought Digg would sucomb to stupid panic-button media topics like this. For the ammount of Lithium batteries we use, there not exactly just popping off all over the place. When they do f' up, they normally just melt. It's so EXTREMELY rare for one to actually catch fire.
- alloneword, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't think there is a safety issue with lithium-ion batteries that needs to be addressed. There has been a mssive recal, but it is ONLY certain batches of Sony manufactured batteries. They have admitted it was their fault. The fault doesn't affect all lithium-ion batteries made.
- inactive, on 01/13/2009, -0/+1http://www.babatek.com/original-hp-laptop-battery- ...
http://www.babatek.com/65w-toshiba-laptop-ac-adapt ...
two good places for you to buy laptop battery. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Dude! You got a Dell!....and 12 Makita power drill batteries all wired together to power it..."
- Yanks2435, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1HappyScrappy: A123's batteries do not explode like Lipo/Li-Ion packs do. For those of you wondering how fast a lithium pack can catch on fire google search "Lipoly fire".
- myrm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wasn't the problem with the batteries the fact that Sony had a defect in the manufacturing process?
We want more power, not less. What's a few fatalities when you consider that we can be watching movies and playing games for days on battery power. Of omelets and eggs- march on progress! - matt.rubin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1fuel cells would solve alot of this
- jguy584, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dell recalled 4.1 million batteries, and how many of those actually blew up? 5? 10? 50?
Even if it was 100 i still wouldnt flip a *****, there are many things you do each day that you have a much higher chance of getting burned (hurt) from. - matt.rubin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1wha?
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Article is hooey.
This company was all over how high-capacity their batteries were when they were being announced as part of the Tesla cars. Now they say they are safer, but with reduced capacity?
Seems like A123 is just saying whatever is necessary to get their name in the news in connection with popular stories.
Also, making electrodes thicker will not increase capacity. Only the outermost surface of an electrode does anything, the rest is wasted material. So if you make the electrode thicker, you have less room for electrolyte and thus have less capacity.
All in all, given the number of LIon batteries out there, the few fires we have seen is not actually a huge deal. There's a lot more cars that burn due to the gasoline in their tanks, and we still drive those bombs around. - h0kiez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Lol...I just did the calulation to get a percentage on what you said, and it came up 3.4*****....and then I noticed the e-6 on the end. It's hard to be concerned about anything that requires an e to describe your chance of being affected.
- tmenet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree there has been a lot of hype about the Dell/Sony fires however, except for this new wave of safe lithium batteries, MANY existing Lithium cell chemistry's are quite capable of flaming up like a flare when overheated. Most of the time it is just a lot of smoke. This applies to cell phones, laptops, mp3 players and even blue tooth headsets that have Lithium rechargeable batteries. The heat can come internally if discharged too quickly or shorted. It can also come from being improperly overcharged.
All engineers that design chargers for these cells are aware of the thermal runaway effects and dangers of using Lithium cells in a design. However, if you keep the ambient temperature around the cell below its rated temp and you design a charger that shuts off properly, the batteries can be used safely. Of course the occasional failed charge circuitry, short circuit or adjacent electronic component overheating can push the batteries over the edge. So should we worry? Well, considering that gasoline is explosive and we still drive cars, I think we can handle it.
These batteries from Sony probably burst into flame at an unusually low temperature coupled with a hot Del laptop drawing lots of power. Just my opinion... - webwidejosh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My concern is how fast and to what degree it bursts into flames.
I'm going to throw a burning laptop on the ground, my safety concern ends if I have sufficient time to do so before physical injury.
Now, property damage and data loss is a fair second to that. Will it burn down my house? That is a danger but I'd like to see laptop-caused home burnings compared to other accidents. Also, data loss? If you're worried about data loss on your notebook due to fires, you need to be far more concerned about theft, loss, destruction, and other causes of data loss! - zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Really sucks that bettery technology isn't improving at quite the same rate as the technology that required it to power.
- pbrooks100, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Maybe this whole battery hipe thing is really a ploy by Intel and Microsoft to get customers to ditch their "old" laptops and buy new, lower power dual core computers that are Vista compatible?
- GreenApple123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Just before all the Dell and Sony laptop battery fire issues surfaced, I purchased a new laptop battery for my Dell from http://www.laptopsforless.com/laptopbattery because mine wouldn't hold a charge and when it was using the battery it would get super hot. Since the battery I bought is a replacement battery, is it possible that is using safer means than the manufacturer?
- litt8899, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You all realize that the batteries exploding now, since we have had laptops for about 10 or 12 years now, is because of the oil companies. They made it so that these batteries would explode and started pumping in false claims of exploding batteries to dell and mac to destroy public confidence in LIon batteries and try to sink Tesla before they even sell there first car. They've been doing this kind of thing for years, it was actually a battery thrown at Kennedy that killed him, not the bullet.
- loonguard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0It makes sense to put safer batteries for power tools and vehicles where risk of puncture is higher. It doesn't make sense to put them in laptops and mobile devices, though. If they really want to add safety to laptops, put a thin kevlar membrane on the battery housing.
- dubloe7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0yes, but how would YOU like to be the first one to be castrated by your faulty laptop battery?
dont worry, i still agree that this is being blown way out of proportion, but still...
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