Thinkpad catches fire at LAX

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redburgundy · #61 Post by **redburgundy** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:34 am

My X60 has a 8-cell Sony battery (FRU PN 92P1173).
The Sanyo version would be 92P1171.

christopher_wolf · #62 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:20 pm

BillMorrow wrote: meanwhile, if you are concerned, store your sony cell batteries in the spare bathroom bathtub and close the door..

and check the batteries in your smoke detectors..

In addition, I would recommend wrapping them in a material that prevents a majority of both the atmosphere and moisture from getting in as well as a cool, in terms of temperature, place.

Great, now Toshiba has to recall their batteries....

*sighs*

pianowizard · #63 Post by **pianowizard** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:46 pm

Does anyone know how much money Sony has lost or will lose as a result of all these large-scale battery recalls?

christopher_wolf · #64 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:14 pm

Why is everyubody starting to worry excessively about the Sony batteries in their Thinkpads? Seriously, this isn't a spontaneous explosion without provocation (mechanical shock, short circuit, etc).

I will wait for word from IBM/Lenovo for now.

claudeo · #65 Post by **claudeo** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:54 pm

BillMorrow wrote:meanwhile, if you are concerned, store your sony cell batteries in the spare bathroom bathtub and close the door..

and check the batteries in your smoke detectors..

...especially if your bathtub is made of fiberglass.

christopher_wolf · #66 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:37 pm

For a real good show, put them in a magnesium container.

I wouldn't look directly at it, though.

#67 Post by **archer6** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 4:11 pm

pianowizard wrote:Does anyone know how much money Sony has lost or will lose as a result of all these large-scale battery recalls?

I have not seen a number, and I'm sure they are not eager to release one. However after all the articles I've read lately about the overall financial drain and various misteps in the various departments at Sony, the ominous delay of the PS3 etc, this battery situation has got to hurt them substantially. In one article about the company in general there was speculation if they would even be able to continue. An unfortunate position for such a well known brand to find themselves in.

christopher_wolf · #68 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:07 pm

archer6 wrote:for such a well known brand to find themselves in.

And, at times, an overly expensive brand for no obvious reason.

kai jiang · #69 Post by **kai jiang** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:49 am

well it's official
2006 is the year of laptops that ignite.
i think that laptops these days have horrible cooling systems which is probably why they're all catching fire.
and who knows, maybe my decent toshiba satellite is next.
(i think it's best that laptop owners start keeping fire extinguishers nearby)

Maybe,it 's a third part battery.

smek · #70 Post by **smek** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:11 pm

Although this might not be as bad as it sounds. but in the general publics view Lenovo might not be getting a good rep about this.

Both Toshiba and Apple had recalled the Sony batteries, however none to my knoweledge exploded so far. Yet a battery in Lenovos TP explodes and everything is still quiet.

#71 Post by **archer6** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:03 pm

christopher_wolf wrote:
archer6 wrote:for such a well known brand to find themselves in.
And, at times, an overly expensive brand for no obvious reason.

Precisely!

I believe that if they were to adjust their pricing matrix and reduce msrp on those products that are truly overpriced, there would be an increase in sales. This would be concurrent with an enthusiastic response from their loyal customers, as well as the software developers they rely on.

MobileGuru · #72 Post by **MobileGuru** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:55 pm

smek wrote:Although this might not be as bad as it sounds. but in the general publics view Lenovo might not be getting a good rep about this. Both Toshiba and Apple had recalled the Sony batteries, however none to my knoweledge exploded so far. Yet a battery in Lenovos TP explodes and everything is still quiet.

Quite frankly, that's pure speculation without fact. We don't know that the battery 'exploded', we don't know where the battery came from, and we don't even know how the whole incident began.

Kinda soon to be saying it blew up, eh?

MG.

smek · #73 Post by **smek** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:51 pm

Exploded might have been a bad choice of a word, but from the accouts it caught in a big flame relatively fast. And the owner of the thinkpad allegdly said that the battery was the stock battery that came with the TP.

Even so, that still doesnt change the fact that both Toshiba and Apple recalled without an incident to my knowledge. And from a perspective of an avergae consumer looking for a laptop and keeping up with the news it might send the wrong message.

christopher_wolf · #74 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:05 pm

smek wrote:Exploded might have been a bad choice of a word, but from the accouts it caught in a big flame relatively fast. And the owner of the thinkpad allegdly said that the battery was the stock battery that came with the TP.

Even so, that still doesnt change the fact that both Toshiba and Apple recalled without an incident to my knowledge. And from a perspective of an avergae consumer looking for a laptop and keeping up with the news it might send the wrong message.

But that is missing the most important fact, the Thinkpad was dropped and something inside the battery case, perhaps a cell, ruptured and *that* is what caused the fire.

Note it did not spontaneously ignite itself like the Dells. Which I am pretty sure that the Apples and, possibly, the Toshibas might have gotten around.

Dropping a laptop and damaging the battery? It should be protected against, and is within the Thinkpad, but that is, at the very least, half the fault of the user who dropped it.

Show me any commercial LiIon battery in a plastic case for a laptop and I will show you a battery that can flame up like that given a severe enough mechanical shock.

#75 Post by **GomJabbar** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:47 pm

Batteries not laptop design at fault - Blame placed firmly at Sony's door

PC Advisor wrote:Following a series of massive notebook PC battery recalls in August, a group of PC vendors met last week to seek safer lithium-ion cells, resolving to draft an improved standard for battery manufacturing and quality control by the second quarter of 2007.

About 20 representatives, including people from Dell, HP, Lenovo and Polycom met on 13 September in California........
-----------------------
Sony skipped the meeting because it was never invited........
-----------------------
Another hurdle for the nascent IPC standard is criticism from some experts that well-designed laptops shouldn't catch fire even if they do have faulty batteries.

If PC vendors had used standard safety precautions in their notebooks, the defective batteries would have merely shut down, not overheated, said Donald Sadoway, a chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"The technology came out in the mid-90s; we know how to build a safe lithium-ion battery," he said.

Engineers typically avoid overheating in lithium-ion batteries with safety features such as microcircuitry that monitors the charging process, an additive that makes the electrolyte less flammable or a porous polypropylene spacer that melts at high temperatures, automatically shutting down the battery's chemical reaction.

Sadoway pointed out that it is PC manufacturers who typically specify requirements to battery suppliers.

"So the question in my mind is: 'Why are people not building batteries with these safety precautions?' Something is wrong here, and I believe it has to do with human behaviour, not electrochemistry," Sadoway said.

"In our attempts to bring portable power to the masses, we may have been too aggressive in our cost cutting. If you want something that's quickly recharged, delivers high bursts of power on demand and is cheap, cheap, cheap, I would say that's over-specified."

mattbiernat · #76 Post by **mattbiernat** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:51 pm

christopher_wolf wrote:Show me any commercial LiIon battery in a plastic case for a laptop and I will show you a battery that can flame up like that given a severe enough mechanical shock.

well check out what jdhurst did to his battery:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ght=sledge

what seems to me is that batteries don't usually explode when dropped. Jdhurst gives one example but also in general \before '06 people never had so much trouble with exploding laptop batteries.
i think we could safely assume that there is some kind of manufacturing error in the production line.

christopher_wolf · #77 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:55 pm

mattbiernat wrote:
christopher_wolf wrote:Show me any commercial LiIon battery in a plastic case for a laptop and I will show you a battery that can flame up like that given a severe enough mechanical shock.
well check out what jdhurst did to his battery:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ght=sledge

what seems to me is that batteries don't usually explode when dropped. Jdhurst gives one example but also in general \before '06 people never had so much trouble with exploding laptop batteries.
i think we could safely assume that there is some kind of manufacturing error in the production line.

I've had trouble with batteries doing that, and not just laptop batteries. One of my Prof and several of my friends have had their batteries crack and start to fizz after they were dropped in a laptop (wide range of brands). One of them was when the laptop was being inspected by the TSA agents at the airport.

Believe me, you can get any *LiIon* battery to undergo just such a reaction through *just* mechanical shock and a certain period of time; all you have to do is impact it with enough force, sufficient enough force to make the internals of at least one cell come into contact with moisture in the atmosphere.

#78 Post by **GomJabbar** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:56 pm

mattbiernat wrote:well check out what jdhurst did to his battery:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ght=sledge

what seems to me is that batteries don't usually explode when dropped. Jdhurst gives one example but also in general \before '06 people never had so much trouble with exploding laptop batteries.
i think we could safely assume that there is some kind of manufacturing error in the production line.

I asked jdhurst regarding the batteries he was referring to above in his UPS. He thought they were sealed lead-acid batteries - not lithium. Makes a big difference.

briansmith · #79 Post by **briansmith** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:13 pm

christopher_wolf wrote: But that is missing the most important fact, the Thinkpad was dropped and something inside the battery case, perhaps a cell, ruptured and *that* is what caused the fire.

I didn't read anything about it being dropped until after it was already burning.

DIGITALgimpus · #80 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:33 pm

It officially was a Sony:
http://news.com.com/2061-10792_3-611826 ... &subj=news

rbsrao79 · #81 Post by **rbsrao79** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:33 pm

Yet another thinkpad....

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/22/anot ... -explodes/

#82 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:46 pm

rbsrao79 wrote:Yet another thinkpad....

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/22/anot ... -explodes/

Headline: Alan Cox's ThinkPad battery explodes

engadget wrote:Telsa Gwynne, wife of famed Linux kernel programmer Alan Cox...does note, however, that the battery was third-party and was bought on eBay, so it may not be an authentic IBM pack at all.

#83 Post by **jdhurst** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:32 pm

I read the article and one quote (not out of context I think) was "the public demands and deserves complete and rapid disclosure". How true! ... JD Hurst

christopher_wolf · #84 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:58 pm

jdhurst wrote:I read the article and one quote (not out of context I think) was "the public demands and deserves complete and rapid disclosure". How true! ... JD Hurst

Speaking of such....When exactly is Sony going to fess up completely to all of this?

pianowizard · #85 Post by **pianowizard** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:58 pm

GomJabbar wrote:Headline: Alan Cox's ThinkPad battery explodes

The photo shows a TP600-series laptop.

#86 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 5:26 pm

engadget reports: New switch puts an end to exploding batteries

engadget wrote:Smaller, but more reliable than ceramic sensors, the new switches use a Mott Metal-Insulator Transistor or MIT, to prevent batteries from swelling and exploding in a violent discharge triggered by overheating.

#87 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 5:26 pm

pianowizard wrote:The photo shows a TP600-series laptop.

A 600E to be exact. The label area above the barcode has more certification icons on the 600E than on the 600 and the 600X would have a miniPCI slot. That must have been an after market battery.

smek · #88 Post by **smek** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 7:50 pm

Are there any signs of an explosion nearing? Maybe the battery gets above a certain temp or something in that nature.

#89 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:04 pm

smek wrote:Are there any signs of an explosion nearing? Maybe the battery gets above a certain temp or something in that nature.

Where there's smoke; there's fire.

christopher_wolf · #90 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:50 pm

GomJabbar wrote:
smek wrote:Are there any signs of an explosion nearing? Maybe the battery gets above a certain temp or something in that nature.
Where there's smoke; there's fire.

Heat, fizzing, more fizzing, popping noises, etc.

Those are the most audbile; but, depending on the kinetics and thermodynamics of that particular reaction, you may see very large fluctuations in the voltage and/or current from the battery in the Power Manager. So you could actually get a chance to shut the system off, then pull the battery and toss it quite some distance if need be; only the tossing part will push it over the edge if it does start fizzing audbily and it will most likely combust upon impact or shortly thereafter. You could also, after pulling the battery, leave it lying in a safe area and then get yourself and your Thinkpad *far away* from it.

Thinkpad catches fire at LAX

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