Lithium batteries and flying
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 13,787
Likes: 0
From: EuroGA.org
Lithium batteries and flying
There have been loads of recalls of lithium polymer laptop batteries.
I've just bought a Thinkpad x60s only to find that there has been another recall... luckily not my actual batch.
Does anybody have information on real cases (not rumour) of them catching fire?
As I see it, they can catch fire only through one of
- getting too hot
- getting short circuited
- getting punctured
None of the above are likely to happen with a laptop that is turned off and safely stowed away.
I would also imagine that the airlines have looked into it. While they would always put business interests before most things, they would not accept the risk of a problematic fire in the cabin or in the hold, so they must know something about this...
A while ago I had some Xplore ix104 tablets for a specific (non-GA) project whose LiPo batteries would expand during operation in a warm ambient, say +30C, burst their package and something break off the connecting wires. That looked pretty dangerous to me.
A fire would be a real emergency. I suppose in some types one could chuck out of the offending appliance.
I've just bought a Thinkpad x60s only to find that there has been another recall... luckily not my actual batch.
Does anybody have information on real cases (not rumour) of them catching fire?
As I see it, they can catch fire only through one of
- getting too hot
- getting short circuited
- getting punctured
None of the above are likely to happen with a laptop that is turned off and safely stowed away.
I would also imagine that the airlines have looked into it. While they would always put business interests before most things, they would not accept the risk of a problematic fire in the cabin or in the hold, so they must know something about this...
A while ago I had some Xplore ix104 tablets for a specific (non-GA) project whose LiPo batteries would expand during operation in a warm ambient, say +30C, burst their package and something break off the connecting wires. That looked pretty dangerous to me.
A fire would be a real emergency. I suppose in some types one could chuck out of the offending appliance.
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 421
Likes: 0
From: UK
This video claims to show the effect - the initial is state staged but subsequrnt thermal runaway is representative.
More info here.
More info here.
