Tag: Explosion

This Video Shows That Humans Still Don’t Understand How Smartphone Batteries Work!

Tech can be confusing at times. Moreover, people can let their preconceived notions about technology get the better of their decision-making skills. This isn’t a secret that a smartphone battery can explode. Samsung and Galaxy Note7 users, unfortunately, learned that the hard way. It appears that people still don’t understand how smartphone batteries work.

Image: CNNMoney

What’s The Story?

A video coming out of a Chinese gadget store reveals the incident of a man biting into a smartphone battery. Before getting the new battery installed, he decided to check the authenticity of it by biting into it. We still don’t know what he was expecting from that bite. Despite the incident occurring very close to his and another person’s face, nobody was said to have been harmed in the incident.

While it is true that fake lithium-ion batteries can explode or overheat, this method was counter-productive. It is a known fact that lithium-ion batteries can explode if punctured. Lithium-ion batteries are made up of layers, with positive and negative electrodes are wrapped around each other. These positive and negative electrodes are insulated from each other.

This is done because explosions can occur if the positive and negative leads on a battery touch each other. So, the biting would not have made a difference as he won’t know whether the battery exploded because it’s fake or because he damaged it with his teeth.

Biting into a battery can essentially trigger an explosion because lithium-ion batteries are prone to explosions if punctured.

January 25, 2018
Your Samsung Washing Machine May Explode Too Warn US Feds

What appears to be an excellent street of horrible luck for the South Korean tech giant, Samsung, the latest news paints a poor picture for the home appliances division .

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning that models of Samsung top-loading washing machines have safety issues.

This comes after several disgruntled Samsung Washing machine owners who suffered the “explosion” in their homes, in some cases with parts flying all across the living room, in other ripping the wall of their garage. According to the suit filed by the complainants, Some washing machines, vibrate violently under heavy loads, causing the tub to “become unfastened, resulting in a dramatic centrifugal explosion that destroys the machine and nearby property.”

Three independent women from Texas, Indiana and Georgia have filed the suit, and claim that Samsung has been aware of the problem for many years and has done little or nothing to warn the consumers.

According to the warning by the CPSC people use only the delicate cycle to wash bedding and water-resistant and bulky items because the lower spin speed “lessens the risk of impact injuries or property damage due to the washing machine becoming dislodged.”

An investigation revealed that 21 people have reported to the CPSC that their machine exploded or blew apart since last year, according to ABC News. Samsung and the CPSC are advising consumers to use the delicate cycle only when washing bedding and bulky items.

Samsung’s website offers the following statement:

In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items

And also goes on to say, that its consumers of the washing machine “have completed hundreds of millions of loads without incident since 2011.”

This incident comes right after the Note 7 explosion fiasco faced by the company, which has reduced not only the market value of the company but the public morale towards the brand as well.

September 29, 2016
5 Tips to Prevent Your Phone Battery from Exploding

With recent news of Phone batteries exploding, a lot of people are getting worried whether their phones are safe or not.

Follow these simple five tips as a precaution from overheating and exploding phone batteries.

September 16, 2016
One of the Exploding phones Was Not a Galaxy Note 7 But A Galaxy Core Prime

Samsung may be already suffering from a Galaxy Note 7 recall crisis, but that does not mean it is entirely out of the water. One of the phones reported in the initial set of exploding phones, the only one which physically harmed any one turned out to be a galaxy Core Prime. A 6 year old boy was rushed to the emergency room when a the Galaxy Core Prime exploded. This means that the battery incident may not be isolated but across other Samsung handsets as well. The 6 year old boy has suffered bodily injury and burns on his hands.

The 6 year old boy was reportedly playing video games, when the phone caught fire and filled the whole room with smoke. Luckily the grandparents were around to rescue the boy and take him to the Emergency room.

A few weeks ago Samsung initiated a global recall of it’s Note 7 handsets that have a battery manufacturing defect causing the batteries to short out and catch fire. Samsung is also planning to push a software update to the devices not yet recalled limiting the charging capacity to 60%.

As a reminder, please be vigilant when allowing children to play with electronics.

September 14, 2016
Researchers Develop a Lithium Battery That Won’t Explode

Battery is one of the major concerns of the tech world these days. Developers have to ensure that batteries are not only efficient and capable of providing sufficient support to gadgets, but most important of all, they can withstand high temperatures without exploding.

The explosion-scare in batteries is even though not very high when it comes to phones, but exploding hoverboard batteries have made everyone sit up and listen. Fires caused by malfunctioning hoverboards actually forced retailer websites to take the product off and stop selling them for a while.

An exploded hoverboard.

But it looks like a team of scientists at Stanford University have found a cure for these lithium-ion batteries in hoverboards that are the culprit behind all these fires. The team of researchers have developed a lithium battery that has a plastic over-lay filled with nickel particles. If this battery gets over-heated, it shuts down and cuts all power-supply. The supply is resumed only once the temperature has dropped to a safe level. This will ensure that the battery’s electrolyte never catches fire.

The same tech of self-shut down has been seen in batteries previously as well if they sense an explosion threat. However once they shut down, the battery is not functional again. This is primarily what this new battery will be able to take care of, among other things. Though these explosion-proof lithium batteries seem to hold great potential, there are still several years before they can be produced and used in smartphones and other gadgets on a mass scale. We wouldn’t advise you to get your hopes high about them hoverboards just yet.

January 13, 2016
Amazon Removes Hoverboards From its Website Due to Rising Explosion Scare

Earlier in December, the UK government had been forced to confiscate over 15,000 hoverboards because they were considered “unsafe” and potential fire hazards.

“Many of the items detained and sent for testing have been found to have noncompliant plugs without fuses, which increases the risk of the device overheating, exploding or catching fire,” said UK’s National Trading Standards

When security tests were conducted on hoverboards as they were shipped from different manufacturers, about 88% of them were declared a safety threat for users. These self-balancing scooters have also been in the news for getting banned by the UK government based on the 1835 Highways Act.

In the wake of accidents related to hoverboard-explosions that have continued to persist despite these measurements by the government, Amazon has finally decided to look into the matter. Not only has it started questioning the safety standards of manufacturers, it has also removed many hoverboards from its website as was reported by Best Reviews.

This little piece of tech has been at the receiving end of many jokes on social media. Users have been tweeting and condemning the “evil” hoverboard all over.

lol all these hoverboards exploding got me like pic.twitter.com/4eDXxPLjBZ

— EYE-SLAY-YA (@kingIsaiah16) December 9, 2015

In the recent weeks, the United States has witnessed ten recorded incidents of hoverboard fires in nine states, leading to active investigation of the situation. Additionally, major airlines all over the world have banned hoverboards from flights as market gets flooded with more and more cheap rip-offs.

The future of hoverboards seems very uncertain at this point. It would be interesting to see how these self-balancing scooters come back after such a major blow. Watch this space for updates.

December 14, 2015