technologyreview.com — A solution may be at hand, although it could mean accepting, for now at least, lower battery capacity. Safer materials for lithium-ion batteries already exist and are available in products such as power tools. With some modification, they could be used in laptops, and also help facilitate the widespread use of lithium-ion batteries in hybrids...
Aug 25, 2006 View in Crawl 4
anasaziAug 25, 2006
apple had 8 reports of battery fires in 1.8 million unitsdell had a similar number of reports in almost 4 million unitsso 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.
allonewordAug 25, 2006
I 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.
Closed AccountAug 25, 2006
"Dude! You got a Dell!....and 12 Makita power drill batteries all wired together to power it..."
myrmAug 25, 2006
Wasn'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!
tmenetAug 25, 2006
I 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...
litt8899Aug 25, 2006
You 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.
matt_rubinAug 26, 2006
fuel cells would solve alot of this
matt_rubinAug 26, 2006
wha?
greenapple123Aug 31, 2006
Just before all the Dell and Sony laptop battery fire issues surfaced, I purchased a new laptop battery for my Dell from <a class="user" href="http://www.laptopsforless.com/laptopbattery">http://www.laptopsforless.com/laptopbattery</a> 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?
Closed AccountJan 13, 2009
<a class="user" href="http://www.babatek.com/original-hp-laptop-battery-432306001-108v-4800mah-p-545.html">http://www.babatek.com/original-hp-laptop-battery- ...</a><a class="user" href="http://www.babatek.com/65w-toshiba-laptop-ac-adapter-pa3467u1aca-19v-342a-p-1856.html">http://www.babatek.com/65w-toshiba-laptop-ac-adapt ...</a>two good places for you to buy laptop battery.
toolcribberDec 17, 2009
Lithium ion batteries in the Dewalt cordless tools are completely safe , there has never been any fires reported using these that I know of . They're also good for up to 2000 in recharges, It'd be nice to have battery tech in all the new tech stuff