(Not disagreeing that this is a dupe), but this is The Verge's coverage of Lumafield's findings.
Not sure if there is any additional value in the re-coverage, though it does feel like the message is important enough to be spread, and I suspect there is more readers of The Verge than the original source.
Because retailers take the legal responsibility for what they sell to the public. In the same way statutory returns go to the retailer, not the manufacturer (unless the manufacturer has volunteered an extra warranty to use on top). They can take it up with the manufacturers if they want.
The customer doesn't enter into a contract with the manufacturer when they buy an item from a retailer. They do so with the retailer.
Which is not to say the agencies shouldn't also ban the product from the market. But that doesn't absolve the retailer of their duties.
This feels gross. If the manufacturers are not held accountable, then they will never stop making shite products. If the retailers are knowingly selling shite products, then sure. But most of the time, retailers are just selling products they think customers will want to buy. Lots of shite products get returned to the manufacturer when the retailers cannot move them, or other issues arise from the products.
The retailers are the front line for returns as that's the point of contact for the customer. That's just the nature of the beast. If a company establishes itself as a maker of decent products that retailers can trust suddenly gets lazy/cheap/profit focused to the point they cheapen their products, it is not the retailer's fault.
> This feels gross. If the manufacturers are not held accountable, then they will never stop making shite products. If the retailers are knowingly selling shite products, then sure. But most of the time, retailers are just selling products they think customers will want to buy. Lots of shite products get returned to the manufacturer when the retailers cannot move them, or other issues arise from the products.
Retailers shrugging their shoulders is what I would call gross. You shouldn't sell a product to the public that you're not willing to stand behind. Retailers have a lot more ways to protect themselves from from shoddy manufacturers - and, fundamentally, operate at the kind of scale where they can do so - than customers have to protect themselves from shoddy anything.
I take it you're not in the US? Retailers here generally must warrant against DOA, but almost anything beyond that can absolutely be shoved off onto the manufacturer.
Those who wonder why Americans can get so many things so cheaply - yes, we have lower tariffs (or at least did), but also we don't have those minimum-duration warranties that allow the consumer to return to the place of purchase as much as a year or more after purchase and demand satisfaction from the retailer. Those are expensive to provide.
Do not assume that the only reason people return items while claiming a defect is that there is, in fact, a defect.
Yes, if a technically-savvy person tells me "I've done X, Y, and Z, and it still doesn't work", I will believe them. A member of the general public? Even if they aren't scammers, it is entirely possible that they will eat up hours of effort at the store trying to do this.
It's obviously not free. I've seen a low-staff store - I was in a pharmacy (erm, if you're not in the US or Canada, our pharmacies carry a lot more than just health products, though in this case I was there to buy a product you would find in one in the UK or Europe) last week in Canada where they didn't have a cashier at the front. Only the pharmacist and a couple of techs at the back. If you needed assistance rather than self-checkout, you had to ring a bell to summon someone.
Our company is building batteries that are easy to repair, and therefore you can remove and put back the cells easily. This allows you to fly with them :)
I actually had a battery for a drill meltdown on me earlier this year. If I hadn't been home (and it hadn't been on my stone counter when it happened), I probably wouldn't have a home.
Was it a brand name battery, or a discount battery? When you look at the price of the price of replacement Ryobi/Milwaukee/Dewalt etc batteries, and then see third-party knockoffs on Amazon for 1/3 or less of the price, it's tempting to save money.
I really scaled back when I started going back and looking at old purchases, only to find out 8 of my last purchases were all counterfeit stuff. These were not just random electronic resellers. They were Lucky jeans, a Microsoft keyboard, a JBL bluetooth speaker, Under Armour shorts, Adidas work out tshirts and some other stuff. But altogether, I thought I was buying brand name, safe stuff that was priced in the same range as stuff you'd buy retail and I still got burned.
Just made me distrust everything I was seeing on Amazon.
The problem is that Amazon will sell things on your behalf and just puts all identical items in the same bin, since on paper they are fungible.
In reality, scum bags are going out and buying cheap counterfeit junk, sending it to Amazon, which just throws it in the bin with every other item. Then someone buys it and gets a counterfeit one.
If you understand that the battery management controller is built into the battery pack and not the tool itself, the temptation to save money is replaced entirely by the fear of burning down a building. Not worth it.
Nah, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Fundamental attribution error and all that. Plus, the 'Boots Theory' is a reality for a lot of people.
Ultimately, society only works on a foundation of trust. We trust that our food is safe, our medicine is effective, and our products won't explode. When folks have that trust broken, I view it as a systemic failure, not a personal one.
~15 years ago I was visiting New Orleans, and I had an old Canon 1D DSLR with me. I was a little nervous about leaving my camera batteries charging in the small b&b where I was staying, fearing I'd unintentionally destroy a historic house.
Reading the original report in the dupe from 14 days ago, it seems pretty clear that the conclusion is that counterfeit/low-cost lithium batteries are a safety hazard, and we should probably have stricter import regulations for batteries to shutdown the counterfeit/gray-market operations, as they are a serious fire hazard.
I once watched a video of a man holding what looked to be a bicycle battery walking into an elevator. After the doors closed, it seemed to have exploded and burst into flame in his hands, and the aftermath was charred remains.
After seeing this I refuse to sleep near my 20,000 mAh power bank. I saw this Jackery power station for sale for an ultra discounted price and noticed it was not lithium iron phosphate and I noped so fast.
The main risk factor is cells, you have to source them from reputable manufacturers. After having monitored a few battery fires, we went on to design a casing with multiple features to contain fires, you can check it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NXXfCA2CY
How much is this mitigated by well-behaved charging circuitry?
I.e. my understanding is most devices are not like the 3s lipos I put in my hobby robots, but instead have integrated charging circuitry that you just give an appropriate voltage to... and that proper charging behavior avoids a lot of the dangerous scenarios with lipos?
I ask because, loosely, the # of battery fires seems like a function in part of: (1) use of good charging logic; (2) cell manufacturing quality; (3) # of cells in the wild. While the growth of 3 probably dominates the improvements to 1 and 2, I'm guessing the number of battery fires has grown but not "exponentially".
> I.e. my understanding is most devices are not like the 3s lipos I put in my hobby robots, but instead have integrated charging circuitry that you just give an appropriate voltage to... and that proper charging behavior avoids a lot of the dangerous scenarios with lipos?
I'm not sure your understanding is correct. There are assembled packs with a BMS on them, laptop batteries this is usually the case. The cells themselves can be lipol, prismatic, or cylindrical (like 18650's). The cells almost never have active BMS built-in. It's always external (either on a board on the pack or on the device itself charging it).
I really think the battery fires are mainly qc issues and running bad qc cells beyond limits (either fast charging or discharging). If capacity is staggered a ton between cells then even charge balancing the cells isn't going to do much good. Pouch cell fires probably more related to physical damage due to expansion in places they aren't designed well to expand (so it pushes the jellyroll down and causes a short/thermal runaway).
There will always be a realy fucking bad failure mode attached to any energy dense storage medium.
This is basic physics. The diffrence between a roaring fire in the wood stove, your car engine, an ultra high tech rocket motor and a bomb, is only the speed of the "flame front"
A battery has the same issues, in that the higher the energy density and the greater the expected rate of energy transfer, the greater the chance of
finding a way to detonate all the energy at once, which is actualy possible ,with a wood stove, if things go exactly wrong.Exceptionaly large explosions have happened with nothing more than dust, or flour.
4 things, you can pick 3.
fast, powerfull, cheap, safe.
A Lithium iron phosphate battery is significantly more stable and less likely to go thermal runaway in a fireshow-like fashion. The battery chemistry is important for this.
There are lithium ion chemistries that are less likely to thermal runaway, LMO (Lithium Manganese Oxide) is used in power tools and they don't seem to go up. Tradeoff is lower capacity.
Yes, but this article is mostly talking about TEMU or Amazon fly-by-night brand batteries, so you have to take their word that they are using Lipo4 cells and not just blatantly lying like they do for every other aspect of the product.
14 days ago | 120 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364932
Lots of dupes lately.
I've personally commented on lots of dupes lately.
Makes me wonder if HN dupe detector is broken/changed recently.
(Not disagreeing that this is a dupe), but this is The Verge's coverage of Lumafield's findings.
Not sure if there is any additional value in the re-coverage, though it does feel like the message is important enough to be spread, and I suspect there is more readers of The Verge than the original source.
I've been seeing this link as a promoted post on Reddit.
To Lumafield or TheVerge's reporting of it?
It's kinda crazy that we don't yet have an approval process for "flight safe" batteries.
Kind of crazy that retailers of these things don't get absolutely hammered into the ground by national testing agencies.
It's called a CE mark or equivalent, there is already a system, penalties and tests.
Why the retailers instead of the manufacturers?
Because retailers take the legal responsibility for what they sell to the public. In the same way statutory returns go to the retailer, not the manufacturer (unless the manufacturer has volunteered an extra warranty to use on top). They can take it up with the manufacturers if they want.
The customer doesn't enter into a contract with the manufacturer when they buy an item from a retailer. They do so with the retailer.
Which is not to say the agencies shouldn't also ban the product from the market. But that doesn't absolve the retailer of their duties.
This feels gross. If the manufacturers are not held accountable, then they will never stop making shite products. If the retailers are knowingly selling shite products, then sure. But most of the time, retailers are just selling products they think customers will want to buy. Lots of shite products get returned to the manufacturer when the retailers cannot move them, or other issues arise from the products.
The retailers are the front line for returns as that's the point of contact for the customer. That's just the nature of the beast. If a company establishes itself as a maker of decent products that retailers can trust suddenly gets lazy/cheap/profit focused to the point they cheapen their products, it is not the retailer's fault.
> This feels gross. If the manufacturers are not held accountable, then they will never stop making shite products. If the retailers are knowingly selling shite products, then sure. But most of the time, retailers are just selling products they think customers will want to buy. Lots of shite products get returned to the manufacturer when the retailers cannot move them, or other issues arise from the products.
Retailers shrugging their shoulders is what I would call gross. You shouldn't sell a product to the public that you're not willing to stand behind. Retailers have a lot more ways to protect themselves from from shoddy manufacturers - and, fundamentally, operate at the kind of scale where they can do so - than customers have to protect themselves from shoddy anything.
The _retailer_ has the relationship with the manufacturer and will need to return the returns to them and get a refund.
I take it you're not in the US? Retailers here generally must warrant against DOA, but almost anything beyond that can absolutely be shoved off onto the manufacturer.
Those who wonder why Americans can get so many things so cheaply - yes, we have lower tariffs (or at least did), but also we don't have those minimum-duration warranties that allow the consumer to return to the place of purchase as much as a year or more after purchase and demand satisfaction from the retailer. Those are expensive to provide.
They're only expensive to provide if the retailer is providing absolutely rubbish quality goods.
Do not assume that the only reason people return items while claiming a defect is that there is, in fact, a defect.
Yes, if a technically-savvy person tells me "I've done X, Y, and Z, and it still doesn't work", I will believe them. A member of the general public? Even if they aren't scammers, it is entirely possible that they will eat up hours of effort at the store trying to do this.
It's obviously not free. I've seen a low-staff store - I was in a pharmacy (erm, if you're not in the US or Canada, our pharmacies carry a lot more than just health products, though in this case I was there to buy a product you would find in one in the UK or Europe) last week in Canada where they didn't have a cashier at the front. Only the pharmacist and a couple of techs at the back. If you needed assistance rather than self-checkout, you had to ring a bell to summon someone.
UN 38.3? https://www.intertek.com/batteries/un-38-3-testing/
Our company is building batteries that are easy to repair, and therefore you can remove and put back the cells easily. This allows you to fly with them :)
https://infinite-battery.com
Aren't carry ons limited to 100 Wh total for batteries. For more you need airline approval, no?
I actually had a battery for a drill meltdown on me earlier this year. If I hadn't been home (and it hadn't been on my stone counter when it happened), I probably wouldn't have a home.
Was it a brand name battery, or a discount battery? When you look at the price of the price of replacement Ryobi/Milwaukee/Dewalt etc batteries, and then see third-party knockoffs on Amazon for 1/3 or less of the price, it's tempting to save money.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LFWN86Q
Joiry
Yep, big mistake.
I've tried to stop buying stuff on Amazon.
I really scaled back when I started going back and looking at old purchases, only to find out 8 of my last purchases were all counterfeit stuff. These were not just random electronic resellers. They were Lucky jeans, a Microsoft keyboard, a JBL bluetooth speaker, Under Armour shorts, Adidas work out tshirts and some other stuff. But altogether, I thought I was buying brand name, safe stuff that was priced in the same range as stuff you'd buy retail and I still got burned.
Just made me distrust everything I was seeing on Amazon.
How could you tell that they were counterfeits?
The problem is that Amazon will sell things on your behalf and just puts all identical items in the same bin, since on paper they are fungible.
In reality, scum bags are going out and buying cheap counterfeit junk, sending it to Amazon, which just throws it in the bin with every other item. Then someone buys it and gets a counterfeit one.
If you understand that the battery management controller is built into the battery pack and not the tool itself, the temptation to save money is replaced entirely by the fear of burning down a building. Not worth it.
> fear of burning down a building
or the plot line to an arson investigation procedural
What was the brand/model?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LFWN86Q
Joiry
Thanks for that.
As a sidenote, Amazon is truly a dumpster.
At the risk of victim blaming...you had to have known the risk was >0% with that purchase though, right?
Nah, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Fundamental attribution error and all that. Plus, the 'Boots Theory' is a reality for a lot of people.
Ultimately, society only works on a foundation of trust. We trust that our food is safe, our medicine is effective, and our products won't explode. When folks have that trust broken, I view it as a systemic failure, not a personal one.
I know the electrical cord is a nuisance, but I prefer the plug in versions.
~15 years ago I was visiting New Orleans, and I had an old Canon 1D DSLR with me. I was a little nervous about leaving my camera batteries charging in the small b&b where I was staying, fearing I'd unintentionally destroy a historic house.
If the internet is to be believed that would have used NiMH batteries. Those are a lot less likely to cause fires than lithium based batteries.
You're correct. I didn't know much about the various battery technologies at the time, but they were pretty old batteries.
Mind sharing brand name?
Was it in the charger?
Yes! One of the lessons I learned with this, which is if you're charging it you're supposed to supervise it or charge it somewhere "safe".
As a new homeowner that's one of my fears. I'm surprised there aren't more fires with how many lithium batteries are kicking around.
Then you are obviously overestimating how dangerous they are, are you not?
That's not necessarily a bad thing though. There's few things in life where an over abundance of caution becomes the worse outcome.
Reading the original report in the dupe from 14 days ago, it seems pretty clear that the conclusion is that counterfeit/low-cost lithium batteries are a safety hazard, and we should probably have stricter import regulations for batteries to shutdown the counterfeit/gray-market operations, as they are a serious fire hazard.
I once watched a video of a man holding what looked to be a bicycle battery walking into an elevator. After the doors closed, it seemed to have exploded and burst into flame in his hands, and the aftermath was charred remains.
After seeing this I refuse to sleep near my 20,000 mAh power bank. I saw this Jackery power station for sale for an ultra discounted price and noticed it was not lithium iron phosphate and I noped so fast.
Is this on YouTube ?
[dead]
The main risk factor is cells, you have to source them from reputable manufacturers. After having monitored a few battery fires, we went on to design a casing with multiple features to contain fires, you can check it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NXXfCA2CY
If you're interested, you can order them here https://infinite-battery.com
How much is this mitigated by well-behaved charging circuitry?
I.e. my understanding is most devices are not like the 3s lipos I put in my hobby robots, but instead have integrated charging circuitry that you just give an appropriate voltage to... and that proper charging behavior avoids a lot of the dangerous scenarios with lipos?
I ask because, loosely, the # of battery fires seems like a function in part of: (1) use of good charging logic; (2) cell manufacturing quality; (3) # of cells in the wild. While the growth of 3 probably dominates the improvements to 1 and 2, I'm guessing the number of battery fires has grown but not "exponentially".
> I.e. my understanding is most devices are not like the 3s lipos I put in my hobby robots, but instead have integrated charging circuitry that you just give an appropriate voltage to... and that proper charging behavior avoids a lot of the dangerous scenarios with lipos?
I'm not sure your understanding is correct. There are assembled packs with a BMS on them, laptop batteries this is usually the case. The cells themselves can be lipol, prismatic, or cylindrical (like 18650's). The cells almost never have active BMS built-in. It's always external (either on a board on the pack or on the device itself charging it).
I really think the battery fires are mainly qc issues and running bad qc cells beyond limits (either fast charging or discharging). If capacity is staggered a ton between cells then even charge balancing the cells isn't going to do much good. Pouch cell fires probably more related to physical damage due to expansion in places they aren't designed well to expand (so it pushes the jellyroll down and causes a short/thermal runaway).
There will always be a realy fucking bad failure mode attached to any energy dense storage medium. This is basic physics. The diffrence between a roaring fire in the wood stove, your car engine, an ultra high tech rocket motor and a bomb, is only the speed of the "flame front" A battery has the same issues, in that the higher the energy density and the greater the expected rate of energy transfer, the greater the chance of finding a way to detonate all the energy at once, which is actualy possible ,with a wood stove, if things go exactly wrong.Exceptionaly large explosions have happened with nothing more than dust, or flour. 4 things, you can pick 3. fast, powerfull, cheap, safe.
A Lithium iron phosphate battery is significantly more stable and less likely to go thermal runaway in a fireshow-like fashion. The battery chemistry is important for this.
There are lithium ion chemistries that are less likely to thermal runaway, LMO (Lithium Manganese Oxide) is used in power tools and they don't seem to go up. Tradeoff is lower capacity.
Yes, but this article is mostly talking about TEMU or Amazon fly-by-night brand batteries, so you have to take their word that they are using Lipo4 cells and not just blatantly lying like they do for every other aspect of the product.