Man's Pants Catch Fire At Airport

Man's Pants Catch Fire At Airport:
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/14271878/detail.html

Apple's hot, new product...

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Hot chit mon..
X..

I hope he wasn't being questioned by the TSA at the time. you know; "Liar, Liar, ........."

The iPod uses a lithium ion battery -- the same type of battery under recall for setting laptops on fire.

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this reminds me of the time several years ago when the lithium polymer cells were barely into the market when someone found out that overcharging/discharging caused the battery's to swell or burst into flames [aka ]. but I guess even though the technology of manufacturing Li-Po's have improved, obviously the risk is still there. I was told that Ipods use essentially "paper thin" Li-Pos, if thats the case the statement, though accurate in terms of the accident it causes, is incorrect because 18650s don't behave like Li-Po's [or do they? :candle:]

the mans lucky this happened in the airport, not while cruising at 30,000 feet....

Not enough info there -- was the iPod running, or locked out?

Cause from all the cases of hot battery vents I know, not a single one happened WITHOUT a current flowing. Batteries do not just go up in flames just sitting there -- it happens during (dis)charge.

I guess it would be a pretty good bet that the guy did NOT lock-out the pod, and it was quietly doodling along and discharging in his pocket, which additionally trapped heat.

Hahaha messiah Steve now has brought fire to mankind with his marvelous creation called ipod nano.

I would bet that some part of a circuit got fused closed which drained the batteries quickly enough and deep enough to cause fire, while very volatile under normal usage Lithium cells are completely safe. The causes for fire are , internal cell shorting (physical damage)


external shorting/overly high discharge rates (design error/discharge device error)
over charging (charging device error)
over discharge (lack of or error in Low voltage cutoff device)

They don't just burn up. Physical damage is the most likely case if you work around machinery that could pinch the device. Most likely it was an error in the device that either caused the LVC device to malfunction or there was some type of short circuit that caused the cell to either over discharge or discharge too fast.

About 15 seconds before the end of the video there is a side shot that sure looks like he slammed into a corner/edge and likely bent and crushed it....and blaming it on the Li-Ion battery. Hard to know one way or the other if this damage happened first, or if the reaction/his prying it did this.

Since the shot is taken after the accident could there be a possibility that the battery seal on the side burst open and crimped the [aluminum?] cover up?

the dented in charger port is a dead giveaway for user abuse but I've seen ipod's stepped on, fell from tables, and one that got the edge crushed from someone driving over it...but non of the ipods above [friends] have indicated anything related to an explosion:duh2:

LuxLuthor said:

About 15 seconds before the end of the video there is a side shot that sure looks like he slammed into a corner/edge and likely bent and crushed it....and blaming it on the Li-Ion battery. Hard to know one way or the other if this damage happened first, or if the reaction/his prying it did this.

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After I've read some of the stories (some of which hinted that the guy is not perfectly truthful, and there are no other witnesses of the event), I had the suspicion that he damaged the iPod in some way, which caused the battery to malfunction ...

elgarak said:

After I've read some of the stories (some of which hinted that the guy is not perfectly truthful, and there are no other witnesses of the event), I had the suspicion that he damaged the iPod in some way, which caused the battery to malfunction ...

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mmm, someone wants to flame apples:thinking:
I can never justify beating up my own MP3 but if its for the record of going national TV with it, thats a different story

Strange that it burned up a good pair of trousers but not a blender.
There is a video of one getting blended to bits in a blender on youtube without fire.

Still, I will be keeping my cellphone on the dash on my driving trips instead of in my pants from now on.

At least we now know the guy was wearing good, clean underwear.

Apple realy needs to get it together when it comes to lithium ion charging.
This is not the 1st time they have had issues with these newer batteries.
As for me, I have never had one flame out despite my naughtiest efforts with my flashlight mods. :devil:

Everyone reading these pages or anybody into RC should be well aware of the failure rates and dangers of Lithium batteries. We've certainly seen it a lot here. THe computer and iPod industry now have reached such volume with their production that they are going to see an occasional failure like this. Just like Apple did with their laptops a while back and lenovo and dell and everybody else.

Sony made the batteries from the last set of recalls. I wonder where Apple got these LiPoly ones from?

I can't believe in a certain headlamp thread here on CPF, a bunch of users are eager for a lithium ion powered headlamp. Boom, right between the eyes! I'll stick with nimh please.

Illum_the_nation said:

mmm, someone wants to flame apples:thinking:
I can never justify beating up my own MP3 but if its for the record of going national TV with it, thats a different story

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I didn't want to imply that it was on purpose. He might have damaged it accidentally, and then it burned... Meaning the problem was not the battery in the first place, but the mechanical damage.

And yes, I've seen the video on willitblend.com where they put an iPhone in the blender, turned on. If you look closely, you see flames somewhere around the time the phone completely disintegrates. Li batteries do not explode, they "vent with flame". In the case of the blender, there's no case anymore that hinders the expansion of gasses, and a lot of dust that can limit the force of the event by taking away heat from it.

Having dropped one of those nano's myself, i dont believe that it's that easy to damage them internally and cause a fault. You can google the take apart photos and see whats in there. But they are just so light that there isn't enough mass to do more than scratch them when you drop them. To make a dent like that (assuming it was there prior to the thing catching fire) you'd have to use it to prop up the desk, or drive over it or something. No battery is meant to survive that sort of thing.

But I'm still betting just on a defective battery.

Apple flambe?

Whatever the results, I hope they send it to Apple for analysis. I'd sure like to know whether this was a spontaneous event or whether the case was damaged prior to it.

elgarak said:

I didn't want to imply that it was on purpose. He might have damaged it accidentally, and then it burned... Meaning the problem was not the battery in the first place, but the mechanical damage.

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no fault on your side elgarak , it was a personal assumption