Patch Lady – the battery problem

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Technology and batteries have a love hate relationship with each other. We need batteries to power many of our laptops and devices. Yet we still rely
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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NetDef, woody, Elly

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Calling up support appears to be a bit of Russian roulette.

Heh heh…and with it all offshore, with 16 different accents and 25 different dialect inflections, all with with various degrees of intelligibility and comprehension of your issue ranging from 100% to zero, I have found the gun has at least four, if not five chambers loaded.

You were lucky.

Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
--
"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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I would also address how we return these defective batteries. Many times I have returned batteries swollen or deemed defective and they send me a pre paid label. But rarely do I see a instruction to label the box correctly of a defective lithium battery or that it even contains a lithium battery. Seems to me shipping these defective batteries hundreds of miles is just asking for trouble. At least in one instance I was ask to deplete the charge of the battery as much as I could before shipping. That would at least help reduce the effects of a complete failure of the battery. I have definitely seen more battery issues with products as the devices become thinner and battery designs are probably not ideal for their capacity. In the days of removable laptop batteries It was rare to have a battery issue.

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NetDef

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The air is poluted so immediately stop breathing? Seriously, this kind of alarmism is inappropriate and doesn’t help anyone.

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Lithium Ion Batteries: Why They Explode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3GDdZkN6fg

WHEN LITHIUM BATTERIES EXPLODE… | VLOG0121

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nrsoMsEMNU

When Your Amazon Purchase Explodes

Shoddily made lithium-ion batteries can cause serious injury and even death. How do they keep ending up in consumers’ hands?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/lithium-ion-batteries-amazon-are-exploding/587005/

(The Atlantic is not notorious for being alarmist in defending consumer rights.)

There’s a cottage industry in the US of personal injury lawsuits over these events:

Injuries from Laptop Lithium Battery Fires and Explosions

https://www.personalinjuryfirm.com/injuries-from-laptop-lithium-battery-fires-and-explosions.html

I would be alarmed, even if the chances of this happening were only one in a million for bulging batteries.

Sometimes you aren’t paranoid if they really are out to get you.

-- rc primak

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woody, NetDef

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Thanks for the links, rc primak.

Society is just waiting for this to happen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nrsoMsEMNU&t=5m45s

on a laptop sitting on a child’s lap playing our beloved Candy Crush on Windows 10 on a Microsoft Surface.

THEN we will stop claiming there’s nothing to see here.

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Not alarmist, being honest.  And trying to be more honest that they should be taken seriously when they start bulging the screen.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Elly, Bluetrix, rc primak, woody, NetDef

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If anything, I think your warning is understated.

Imagine if Consumer Reports caught wind of this….

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Well, they did catch up with the MacBook bulging battery debacle, and the issue “caught fire” over social media and the mainstream press:

Some MacBook Pro Batteries Can Swell. Here’s What You Need to Know

Apple is offering free replacement batteries for eligible laptops

https://www.consumerreports.org/laptop-computers/some-macbook-pro-batteries-can-swell-what-you-need-to-know/

Nothing of this sort about the Microsoft Surface issues.

That is strange indeed.

-- rc primak

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John said:

I would also address how we return these defective batteries. Many times I have returned batteries swollen or deemed defective and they send me a pre paid label. But rarely do I see a instruction to label the box correctly of a defective lithium battery or that it even contains a lithium battery. Seems to me shipping these defective batteries hundreds of miles is just asking for trouble.

Trouble is right. From the USPS, if that is the carrier.

It is not easy to screen through all the USPS regulations for specifics, but scroll down under here to just above 349.23 Dry Ice to see that the shipment of Damaged/Recalled Batteries is Prohibited, unless approved by the Manager, Product Classification.

In additional regulations it is clear that all Lithium batteries shipments must be clearly labelled as such. And, shipment must be by surface only, not by air.

Non-USPS? Similar restrictions apply. Research before shipping.

There are instances of shippers (companies) that have shipped improperly-or-un-labelled hazardous materials – which packages have been damaged during shipment, and been discovered at a tran-shipment point – the companies are fined greatly for violating regulations.

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The lithium swollen battery score for me (so far):

*  Two Microsoft Surface Books; swollen batteries detached screens

MS replaced the first at no charge.  VERY special shipping was
required to return that bad one.  Microsoft supplied the container
and hired the special shipper.

Then the replacement failed the same way after less than a year.  I
gave up on Microsoft Surface Books at that point.  I donated the
second one for parts to a local institution that scraps PCs, warning
them about the battery problem.

*  Kindle Fire HDX; swollen battery detached screen

Amazon replaced the HDX with a Kindle Fire HD 10 (not HDX) at no
charge.  I recycled the bad HDX at our local hazardous waste
facility.

*  Apple iPhone 7; swollen battery detached screen

The local Apple Store replaced the bad phone for just the price of a
new battery.  They took and scrapped the bad phone.

Probably more to come.  I have other lithium battery devices.

Some time ago I heard about some much safer lithium technology.  You
could even stab the battery with a screwdriver and it wouldn’t explode.
Whatever happened to that?  No idea if it had swelling problems like
what we have today.  Jeff

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