brazilian cell phones explode on users!

i love the comments "i want one" and "Damnit. Looks like Motorola has joined the Axis of Evil. Time to bomb Japan...again. "

I will vote for this way too, but I don't really care how he dies, just as long as he dies.

leave me alone, while I lay in the bosom of Andy´s world and revel in the guilty pleasures he has to offer. Happy happy happy etc. ------Sergio Martorelli


http://www.sleazegrinder.com/garb_gunssergio.htm

Lithium-Ion batteries can be really dangerous. I'm a little surprised noone has been killed by a cell phone. And computer notebooks can be much worse.

A *LOT* of engineering goes into battery safety. No way does Motorola overlook that. I bet either the owner bought a cheap battery elsewhere or that Motorola's Brazilian importer was using fakes to pocket the cash difference. Motorola may just have to seal the battery into the phone at the factory and make it a non-replaceable item.

Computer notebook batteries have processors in them than the notebook can talk to. The notebook can reject a battery that doesn't have the right IDs but counterfeits may become a problem. A notebook battery can easily send everyone nearby to the hospital (in the 1990s an engineer across the hall had a prototype explode one night and I helped dig the shrapnel out of the walls and furniture the next day).

The last time I was in Hong Kong there were a lot of news reports about cell phones exploding. A lot of people were injured by malfunctioning batteries. I think they found out that most of the cases were due to people buying cheap imitation cell phone batteries from mainland China.

yeah, i guess they are knock-offs in question. i decided i needed to get some powertools about 8 months ago and i figured i may as well go for the next-gen batteries. my batteries have the ability to report back charge levels. what will they think of next? women voting? jeez

Li-ion batteries are extremely fragile in both charging and discharging. Pretty much all Li-ion batteries know where they are in terms of charge so that they can cut off before running under or charging over. Some devices can query the battery & show you the answer and some can't, but the battery itself nearly always knows (there's a little processor in the battery).

You can get away with all sorts of slop using & charging NiMH and especially NiCad, but not at all on Li-ion.

The exploding cell phone batteries are probably just made cheaply and suffering a mechanical failure that shorts out the battery internally, i.e., BANG!