That could have been really bad. I hear that one way to get around these things is to add a resistor between one of the terminals and the thermal sensing terminal, such that the unit thinks there’s a battery and it is working fine.
This is about tricking a device, which is usually battery dependent, that it is using a battery when in fact it is an external regulated power source. The author could have an alternative battery like lead acid or lithium iron phosphate which has far less risks in unsupervised settings be regulated down to the needs of the device.
It’s not that they blow up, it’s that there is no pattern. OEM, third party, vacuum cleaners phones and laptops, cars… the batteries sometimes go and cause fires for reasons a human can’t predict.
Give me a gauge on every battery around me. Let me know when it’s at risk of blowing up, and I’ll adapt. Just blow up without feedback? What can I do except worry?
You have to be quite unlucky for them to blow up without warning. As I understand it, the first step in the catching-fire process is for them to leak inflammable gas. They can catch fire quite easily if the housing is punctured at this point but usually they just swell. If you see a swollen LiIon battery, it’s a good idea to move it somewhere where fire won’t cause problems (e.g. a bucket of sand). I suspect that, on the larger batteries (e.g. laptop-sized ones), you could add a pressure sensor that would warn that they are leaking gas. If the pressure inside the enclosure increases then the battery is unhappy. Usually you can spot this from the power output as well because the process that causes them to leak gas is a side effect of the power storage breaking down and so you’ll see a drop in the available capacity.
It really is rather interesting how some will be stable for years, others will expand/bloat, and some just plain catch fire. I had a relatively new lithium ion battery bloat for no discernible reason. It really is quite frustrating for what is otherwise a semi-reliable battery technology.
oof. Glad it didn’t start a fire!
That could have been really bad. I hear that one way to get around these things is to add a resistor between one of the terminals and the thermal sensing terminal, such that the unit thinks there’s a battery and it is working fine.
The solution to “batteries catch fire” is probably not “start fucking around with the circuits to trick the controllers”
This is about tricking a device, which is usually battery dependent, that it is using a battery when in fact it is an external regulated power source. The author could have an alternative battery like lead acid or lithium iron phosphate which has far less risks in unsupervised settings be regulated down to the needs of the device.
I’m a professional hardware engineer. Why is that not a solution for me?
They certainly have a hindenburg-like propensity for blowing up.
It’s not that they blow up, it’s that there is no pattern. OEM, third party, vacuum cleaners phones and laptops, cars… the batteries sometimes go and cause fires for reasons a human can’t predict.
Give me a gauge on every battery around me. Let me know when it’s at risk of blowing up, and I’ll adapt. Just blow up without feedback? What can I do except worry?
You have to be quite unlucky for them to blow up without warning. As I understand it, the first step in the catching-fire process is for them to leak inflammable gas. They can catch fire quite easily if the housing is punctured at this point but usually they just swell. If you see a swollen LiIon battery, it’s a good idea to move it somewhere where fire won’t cause problems (e.g. a bucket of sand). I suspect that, on the larger batteries (e.g. laptop-sized ones), you could add a pressure sensor that would warn that they are leaking gas. If the pressure inside the enclosure increases then the battery is unhappy. Usually you can spot this from the power output as well because the process that causes them to leak gas is a side effect of the power storage breaking down and so you’ll see a drop in the available capacity.
It really is rather interesting how some will be stable for years, others will expand/bloat, and some just plain catch fire. I had a relatively new lithium ion battery bloat for no discernible reason. It really is quite frustrating for what is otherwise a semi-reliable battery technology.