Thinkpad catches fire at LAX

[BillMorrow]

OKOK..
TOUCHE' you guys..
i withdraw the bathtub suggestion..

this is much ado about very little.. so far..

but WAIT, there's MORE..
for just five cents more you can have a TOO HOT to handle AC adapter for your X60s..!

ok, the background..
a new user, while emailing me to activate his account, asked about the AC adapter for the X60 series..
he said his got so hot he could not handle it..
called in and got a replacement..
same thing, too hot to handle..

so i felt up MY X60s AC adapter..
warm but no where NEAR "too hot to handle"..

looks like lenovo might have a bad batch of AC adapters for the X60 series..

[NS]

I am chuckling at Mr BillMorrow's & Christopher's post. Thanks for the joke guys...

I had tried to connect and power up all my thinkpads at once and left it to run for more than 8 hours yesterday night and guess what? The hottest AC that i can feel is from my R52, T30 & R60... The minute i touch the AC, i can as if my finger was being submerged into a basin of hot water

As for my T60 and X60, the AC temperature is slightly higher than normal room temperature but i can still pick it up and hold it in my hands.

*Psss... I did this experiment in a room WITHOUT switching on the air con & the fan*

~Cheers~

[briansmith]

From Alan Cox's wife's website about his episode:

Quick update from Alan: ... Kudos to IBM - having phoned them to report it they are actively investigating even though we are not yet sure if the battery is genuine IBM. The remaining bits of the label I dug out of the remains seem to indicate it may be. I also took the other two unexploded battery cells out of it and put them outside.

http://zeniv.linux.org.uk/~telsa/boom/

[beeblebrox]

Lenovo confirmed today, that they examined the battery left overs of that burned LAX T43. And yes, it is the very same Sony cell type, that malfunctioned in the Dells and Apples.

Since Sony is the second largest cell manufacturer in the world and the cells are being used almost in any type of laptop, it is only a matter of time, when other brands will have similar problems.

And yes, it is a cell problem. The new Sony cells have a very aggressive capacity design i.e. VERY high capacity. By decreasing the charge insulator of the anode and cathode they could increase the charge capacity dramatically. Now having those tiny metal impurifications and the constant thermal width increase and decrease of the the fluid it is only a matter of time when the metal particles consolidate and punch a microscopic hole through the insulator.
The rest is a ever increasing shortcut with tremendous heat, leading to the devastating chain reaction, of one cell and then all cells.

BTW: It is more than silly of the airlines to command the transportation of lithium cells in the freight department and not cabin. It is and was proven to be impossible to extinguish a lithium fire through their Halon systems.

Three (3) major jets and hundreds of people perished due to lithium fires on board. Just check the FAA reports on Lauda Air crash (lithium fire in the freight room), the South African 747 (same fire on a lithium freight) and the UPS freighter in Pennsylvania (Lithium batteries from China).

There is nothing on board to stop a 800°C Lithium fire.

[DIGITALgimpus]

BTW: It is more than silly of the airlines to command the transportation of lithium cells in the freight department and not cabin. It is and was proven to be impossible to extinguish a lithium fire through their Halon systems.
...

There is nothing on board to stop a 800°C Lithium fire.

It makes people feel safe... and that's all it's about. We had a discussion about airline security recently. It's all about feel, over actual security.

It was great marketing to ban them... makes people think that these airlines are "real sticklers for safety"... meanwhile, it was all decided by the marketing department.

[lev]

BTW: It is more than silly of the airlines to command the transportation of lithium cells in the freight department and not cabin. It is and was proven to be impossible to extinguish a lithium fire through their Halon systems.
....
There is nothing on board to stop a 800°C Lithium fire.

Even if it were true that they're not going to be able to put the fire out with halon (it's not true), it's still not a bad idea to put the cells in the hold. I can think of at least 2 reasons:

1) these types of catastrophic cell failures produce very noxious gases, and on an airplane you can't just open a window to get away from them. At least if it's in the hold, these fumes won't be poisoning the passengers (as much).

2) The cells are much more likely to fail if they're being used (especially if they're being charged, and especially if they're warm). Keeping them in the hold ensures that they're unused and kept cool, making them less likely to fail.

Anyway, halon will not extinguish a lithium primary cell fire, but will put out a lithium-ion rechargable cell fire (as will a conventional fire extinguisher) according to Motorola's Jason Howard's testimony to the NTSB inquiry into UPS flight 1307.

As to your quoted disasters, most of them relate to cargo shipments of lithium primary (non-rechargable) batteries, a practise which has been banned on passenger-carrying flights since December 2004. A single lithium ion battery in a passenger's bag is quite different to a palette full of primary cells.

The Lauda Air disaster had a shipment of wristwatches, with their batteries, which was initially suspected, but later cleared (it was actually caused by a problem with the thrust-reverser isolation valve).

South African Airlines flight 295 had a bulk shipment of lithium batteries that was kept in the passenger deck, rather than in the cargo hold (this practise was disallowed shortly after, and as I said, now bulk lithium primary battery shipments are not allowed on passenger planes at all). And it seems likely that a big factor in this accident was that the fumes overcame the crew, although the official verdict is inconclusive.

There's a good summary of lithium battery incidents by the NTSB here:
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2005/HZB0501.pdf

There's also a good document by the CAA into extinguishing lithium battery fires on passnger planes (in which they intentionally set fire to Thinkpad 380Z's). They conclude that:
*) Lithium fires are uncommon, but possible.
*) There will likely be severe harm to any passengers in the immediate vicinity, from fire, fumes, explosion.
*) Any explosion doesn't pose a threat to the integrity of the plane.
*) There will be panic on the aircraft
*) All the types of fire extinguishers they tested were effective.

The document is here:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2003_04.PDF

[BillMorrow]

http://zeniv.linux.org.uk/~telsa/boom/

great photos of the exploded battery and damaged thinkpad..

would love to invite this thinkpad owner to join this forum as, from reading her web page, i think she and allan would be real assets..

but a cursory reading at the above link shows no email addess..

and besides they might be off thinkpads for a while..

[rkawakami]

Okay, first the T43 and now a 600-series system... hmmm.. things don't look too good for Ray at this moment (checking his sig...) .

Enough third-person talk.. Is there any information about date codes or mAh capacity on these Sony batteries which are causing the apparent self-destructions? I have several of the re-celled 600 batteries from batteryrefill.com that I'm beginning to wonder about. I have just e-mailed them a question about what kind of cells they are using. Their current FAQ states Sanyo or LG but it could be out-of-date.

[GomJabbar]

Is there any information about date codes or mAh capacity on these Sony batteries which are causing the apparent self-destructions?

I don't know if this is any indication, but: "Toshiba will replace batteries installed in eight models of its 'dynabook' and 'dynabook Satellite' series produced between March and May this year".

[archer6]

If it says IBM ThinkPad on the cover and on the lower right corner of the palm rest, don't boot it up, just Run........for the hills.......

[rkawakami]

I have just e-mailed them (batteryrefill.com) a question about what kind of cells they are using. Their current FAQ states Sanyo or LG but it could be out-of-date.

Have just received an e-mail response from the support department:

Regarding your e-mail below, we still use Sanyo and LG cells. So you do not have to worry about an exploding battery. We do not recell our batteries with any sony cells.

Well, that makes me sleep a little easier (and crossing fingers hoping not to hear any reports about Sanyo and LG batteries).