Laptop battery explosion

[BuZz]

My laptop battery exploded today. Luckily I had just moved away from the machine when it happened. After evacuating my family (partner and 3 year old daughter) out of the house that was being filled with noxious fumes, I managed to get the laptop out of the house into the lean-to. It continued to burn vigorously until the fire brigade came round to put it out.

Luckily no-one was hurt. The laptop is a right off of course.

Had I been using the machine on my lap, or even sat in front of it, I may have had some serious burns. Had I not been at home, it could have burnt the house down. I'm very relieved that the outcome was that no-one was hurt, and the only damage is to the laptop and table it was sat on.

See attached a photo of the machine taken after it had been put out, and my house was safe to enter again (Fire Brigade used a fan to clear the house of fumes and smoke).

[Geeba]

Holly cow! What model was it?

Glad everyone was safe!

[BuZz]

Acer travelmate 8104 (quite old)

[whufclee]

Bloody hell mate, what a choker (no pun intended).

Sounds like you had a lucky escape there, hope you didn't lose too much data. One of my HDDs caught on fire last year and it was less than a year old, luckily I was at home and caught it in time but that was pure luck as the computer was right next to the curtains in the lounge and the case was open - that could have ended badly if I wasn't there too!

If you want a cheap replacement then I highly recommend the Lenovo X61's, great battery life (and cheap to replace), fairly lightweight, good screen resolution and amazingly robust. I picked mine up as an IT company refurb for about £80 last year. Think the company still knocks them out nice and cheap, however maybe you'll be upgrading to something better with the insurance payout

[BuZz]

no problem about the data - All backed up, and it was my secondary machine also.

not decided about insurance claim yet - need to check my policy. If they do new for old, ill do it. else (if they only do say current market value) I probably wont, since they will fleece me on the premiums for very little in return.

table has a burn mark also. need to photograph it and see how deep it goes. probably can sand/polish it a bit if needed. Was a spotless table though before :/

[Kozz]

WTF

This is an unfortunate event, you are unbelievably luck it happened when you were present and alert. I've heard about manufacturer battery recalls and claims that they can overheat and catch fire, but something like this never comes to mind. Now I'm paranoid gonna remove the batt on one of my "always-on" laptops, its older I don't trust it

Just glad you and the family made it out safely

[sealeysonic]

glad all of you are ok.....ive herd of this but never thought it could happen tbh

[professor_jonny]

This happens more often than you are lead to believe id talk to the manufacturer you might get a new one no charge they are usually keen to keep tight wraps on this sort of things.
I have had one of my radio controlled cars explode it had a lithium polimer battery pack full charged and got pierced by part of the car after a crash which shorted the thing out and woof it went up, they burn in the thousands of degrees and it is really violent.

i seen a guy who over charged a rc li-po battery at the track in his van and there was nothing left of his van by the time he got back to it all his gear in the back too.

good all are ok and you still have somewhere to live!!.

[BuZz]

It was something like this btw - After watching this I realise moving it was pretty risky as another cell could have gone while I was carrying it. guess i got lucky. I assume another cell went as it got out into my lean-to, as it was in flames moments later. Certainly happy I did manage to get it out of the house before it did some real damage.

[xman]

Lenovo X61's, great battery life (and cheap to replace)

Does it have a "Self Cremation", feature as BuZz's original did?. That's one way of avoiding disposal fees on the old batteries I guess but a bit extreme.
Glad you and your family are safe BuZz. That could have worked out a whole heap worse rather than a valuable lesson to all about "lithium batteries" and something to joke about.

[bigkidoz]

I have read of it happening but thought it was one of those urban myth's, glad your family and yourself weren't injured .