Laptop Battery Fire

[chris]

A Lithium Ion laptop battery fire

[2cvbloke]

As a laptop repair technician, that actually scared me a hell of a lot, and as my current laptop uses a Li-Ion battery kinda worries me a lot if it ever fails in that way, I'm glad that my work room has a CO2 extinguisher handy incase of one of those batteries going up like that....

[PoloMint]

Scary...I remember when lithium Ion batteries were still under development and rumoured to be the cells of the future - many sad they were a great idea but could never be made into a safe consumer battery pack, perhaps they were right?!

[Salty25]

Blimey. I don't think mine has one of those in it, although I'm a lil worried now. That's very worrying.

[PoloMint]

My phone has one, and my Iriver has a Li Polymer, which I think is similar to Li Ion but can be made into different shapes.

I've got into the habit of never leaving anything charging when I'm out of the house, wouldn't like to come home and find that had started, well I wouldn't like that to start when I was at home either, but it would be better.

[Topper]

Well I am not too sure there PM as the average household doesn't have a class D extinguisher which I think is powder is it not?. Still you can bet your bottom dollar that the insurance companies have already incorporated that one into their exclusions and how many houses have laptops these days? Ok I accept not all have Li ion batteries but I have two for my daughters defunked Iriver sat less than 12 inches away from me... not for much longer!

[satscaner]

As an electrician I used to test UPS battery strings for IBMs machine rooms, these battery strings consist 204 2.25V cells (these cells are about the size of a car battery) giving you an overal voltage of 460V DC. each machine room had a total of 6 strings giving you a total of 1224 Cells.

When I was being trained up on how to work on theses I was show a video from BT of a 48V battery string in a disused phone exchange. To demonstrate the affects of one of these thing going up in flames they deliberately cause a direct short circuit on the battery string causing all the insulation to instantly melt, burn & expode off the interconnections before the cells started to explode & catch fire. Now thats impressive

[PoloMint]

Topper, yea, I'm not sure how I'd put it out, but at least I could phone the fire brigade as soon as I saw it, rather than when the neighbours noticed smoke from the roof. Would a fire blanket help slow its spreading?

[Topper]

Would a fire blanket help slow its spreading?

I suspect it would PM as any fireproof material that also restricts oxygen supply would improve the situation but 2000 degC would burn through just about anything in a very short time

[2cvbloke]

Why not just use a CO2 extiguisher on a battery fire? Surely that would cool the fire fairly rapidly?

I really should learn how to use an extinguisher, then later on I could go flying along a smooth floor on an office chair with a CO2 extinguisher....

[Topper]

Why not just use a CO2 extiguisher on a battery fire? Surely that would cool the fire fairly rapidly?

Hands up anyone who has one of those at home................... ermm come on now don't be shy, put your hands up

As I understand it that is the equivalent of pouring water on a chip pan that has burst into flames Not a good idea

But if there are any budding firemen on the forum please put us in the know

[2cvbloke]

As I understand it that is the equivalent of pouring water on a chip pan that has burst into flames Not a good idea

I really should get some fire safety training then....

[PaulR]

I recall many years ago at school being shown an experiment where a piece of burning magnesium was placed in a jar of carbon dioxide gas and continued burning with a cracking noise.

Magnesium "wants" to combine with oxygen so badly that it splits the carbon off the molecule. The cracking noise is the sound of small lumps of carbon being deposited around the jar. Magnesium will also continue burning in nitogen, in fact it takes a real inert gas such as argon to extinguish the flame. In an engineering works when turning magesium alloy on a lathe they have to be soooo careful not to dig in too quickly and cause the magesium waste to catch fire! If that hppens the only thing they can do is throw a fire blanket over the lathe until it burns out and ship he pile of melted scrap out.

Now IIRC lithium metal is even more reactive so I wouldn't put my money on anything putting out a fire. That's if there's metal in the battery. Ifit's "just" a compund then none of this necessarily applies of course.

And here I've been happily tapping away on the keyboard of my laptop while it's resting on my legs... It'll never happen to me it's always someone else.

Isn't it?

[Channel Hopper]

Topper, yea, I'm not sure how I'd put it out, but at least I could phone the fire brigade as soon as I saw it,

Or maybe email them from the glowing embers of the laptop.....

[BarMoo]

The best extinguisher for this type of fire would have been a BCF (vapourising liquid/Halon) extinguisher (container used to be green).

Sadly, these were banned a couple of years ago since halon is a CFC - I suppose there's more halon in an extinguisher than in a can of hairspray (sic).

My fav way always the carbon tetrachloride extinguisher. Not only famous for killing fires - it would most likely give you cancer and/or liver failure with prolonged exposure - leading to death, naturally. They were banned many moons ago. Never forget the smell of those things

Now you'll just have to make do with a class BC/ABC class powder extinguisher and make a mess of your house (if you are at home).

That said. Electronic parts stink when they are about to erupt (as we all know). I don't have a laptop, so I can't imagine how difficult it would be, but, surely its possible to yank-out the pack and throw it somewhere (safe that it).

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[rolfw]

How many people know anyone, or have heard of anyone who has had a laptop catch fire?
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I rest my case.

[wod]

wow didn't know it would catch fire like that

[2cvbloke]

Now you'll just have to make do with a class BC/ABC class powder extinguisher and make a mess of your house (if you are at home).

Yep, I've done that, took weeks to get the bloody stuff out of the carpet, off surfaces and out of my old laptop!!! And no, my old laptop didn't catch fire, I dropped a candle on it and unluckily knocked an open bottle of yakky aftershave, then WHOOOMF!!! It was lucky I bought the extinguisher the night before otherwise my old lappy would have had a shorter life than it did!!!

That was a fun night...

[BarMoo]

Yep, I've done that, took weeks to get the bloody stuff out of the carpet, off surfaces and ..........

I feel sorry for those blokes who have a lady friend around them. Safety is one thing - two weeks of mess is another [read: quite a lot longer - lets say months]. Its not like Shake-n-Vac

As for you, 2CV - I have given up conjuring-up images of how you live - you spoil it by coming up with something new: at least twice a week. Mind, I still think of Frank Spencer every time.

Or do you make all this up, hehehe. Nope. I don't believe its possible to make it up: must be true.

Heho.

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[2cvbloke]

Or do you make all this up, hehehe. Nope. I don't believe its possible to make it up: must be true.

Heho.

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Definitely all true, but I was quick to save my laptop, and there was only very minor heat distorting on the lid, and I still have that lid now on my current laptop, and looking at it there's still minor bumps in the plastic...

Thinking about it, I should get myself a new extinguisher, just incase...

[BarMoo]

Well the extinguisher should have a gauge. If you only used a quick blast, it should be OK for a couple of months ;-)

Keep in mind thought - that now your extinguisher has been activated it will most likely be leaking pressure - so the gauge might be happy one minute and dead the next.

Read: the next time you are sat by candle-light and spill over your OLD SPICE - you might well be ******.

.

[2cvbloke]

There's no worries of me doing that again, I hate aftershave, makes my nasal passage feel like it's on fire, and I have no candles either, so there's little chance of that happening...

As for the extinguisher, that put out another fire (not my doing!!!) before turning into a powdery dribble, and once it was gas-free I took it apart to see what was inside (you know, like a gas cylinder or something!!! ), but it was just a load more powder that got left behind...

But I should get a new one though, but not one from Asda, they don't last very long...

[petengade]

Would hate to be on a long haul flight when that happened, could'nt call the fire brigade as mobiles are a no-no when airborn. (smile)