AOLWhen you think of an explosion, a computer is usually not the first thing that comes to mind. But one woman in Pennsylvania had a big scare when her laptop battery blew up while she was using it.
KYW-TV says, “It flipped my computer back and everything — like the battery pack and all — came out this way.”
Fox News reports, “My shirt caught on fire. So I [quickly] got my shirt off and that’s when I think I singed my hair and probably my face and all…”
Well Loretta Luff then used that shirt — and water from a dogs bowl– to put out the fire.
The pieces reportedly flew about 6-feet across the room. 72-year-old Loretta Luff was treated for burns on her face, foot and arms, but she says it could’ve been a lot worse.
WCAU says, “She’s glad she was home when it happened because if she wasn’t, her house may have burned down.”
“I took my shirt, smothered that out. Then all these little fires started popping up,” she said
“I’ve been a volunteer firefighter for almost 25 years now and fire chief. I’m in my fourteenth. I’ve never seen anything like an exploding laptop before,” Chief Frank Farry said.
It was Luff’s first laptop and she’s had it for six years. However, she replaced her battery three years ago and wasn’t sure if the new part was from Dell.
According to WPVI, Dell issued a statement.
“Dell will take appropriate steps to investigate this incident. Dell tells customers that ‘using an incompatible battery or a third-party battery may increase the risk of fire or explosion and that they should replace the battery only with a battery purchased from Dell.'”
Luff says that if she ever gets another laptop, she’s not taking any chances and will take the battery out at night.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/07/01/laptop-battery-explodes-and-burns-owner/20923379/?a_dgi
oh been there seen that… i can almost guarantee it was a lithium ion battery pack…. it don’t matter what manufacturer or even if it is used as directed, it can still go Chernobyl…
they are dangerous enough to be classified as a class 9 dangerous product and takes special precautions to transport them..
if you puncture them they will explode.. if you over charge then they will explode.. if you short them out then they will explode.. if you mix with other batteries then the mismatching can cause them to overheat and explode. if stored over a certain temperature they will explode.. if deep cycled and fast charged will explode ( i have personally seen that one, tell ya in a second) they have a condition that causes thermal runaway, a condition there is no stopping once started where they will just get hotter and hotter till they explode…
with all the problems and the dangers it is puzzling why the hell it is even allowed on the market…. these are the most unstable dangerous batteries on the market.. these are the same ones that keep blowing up in the new dram liner plane from Boeing..
but on the personal experience..
i had a 12v battery pack made out of these things for one of my lights i built.. it worked great, over 12hour run time an 1700 lumens output..i charged them right back up after a use one night..
all was well till i started smelling something like acetone and i traced it back to the batteries.. they were a little warmer than room temp but nothing too bad..
i figured being one was smelling id take the pack out and set it outside.. at this point they were getting hot..
something told me to take them out in the yard which i did and put them into a metal pan to cool till the morning…
well a little while later i started to hear a pop and a hissing sound coming from the front yard…
i looked out the window and then all hell broke loose..
they were going off like roman candles and shooting fire and flaming lithium metal over 20ft in the air.. imagine a pack of 21 batteries going off like a small war in the front yard and being as loud as a shotgun every time they popped…
fire everywhere and no way to get near it till it settled down which it finally did.. every battery there went off. all 21 of them.. i found pieces over 40ft away from the can they was in..
what is worse is i was about to go to bed with that thing in my room.. beside my bed when i started smelling them…
i went with a small SLA 12v battery after this because Li-Ion is just too dam dangerous.