Lithium Ion batteries in the News for Major Airlines

[Baditude]

This thread is not specifically related to vaping, but it does relate to the batteries that we use in vaping. Lithium Ion batteries.

This news article was brought to my attention by a friend and fellow vaper. I found it very interesting on three counts. First, that we as vapers have a difficult time finding the specifications of the batteries that we use from the manufacturers and vendors that sell them. Second, the secretive nature of the battery manufacturers to withhold this information to us, their customers, because they claim proprietary secrecy and intellectual property rights as a reason not to disclose important information. And finally the third, the battery manufacturers admit that they don't fully understand the ways that lithium ion technology can fail.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ing-787-dreamliner-is-safe-enough-to-fly.html

Some highlights:

"The agency that investigates every airplane accident is telling the FAA to look again at hazardous lithium-ion batteries after an entire fleet was cleared for takeoff following two accidents last year.

Thousands of hours of testing by the NTSB, Boeing, the battery manufacturers and various other technical teams have failed to exactly replicate what happened to cause the Boston fire. It has been established that a short circuit caused what is called a thermal runaway in one cell of a battery which then spread to other cells and ended up frying the whole unit—and causing extensive damage to the rear electronics bay where the batteries were housed...The more that lithium-ion battery technology develops, the more it appears that the battery industry doesn’t fully understand the ways in which the technology can fail. A commonly-used euphemism for this phenomenon is that the technology “is not yet mature.”

...The absence of transparency seems to be related to the composition of the membership of the Special Committee. It includes representatives from developers and manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries who are...lawyered up and ready to invoke proprietary secrecy and intellectual property rights to protect themselves from competitors. This materially affects what can be revealed about the behavior of batteries during testing."

Thoughts? Discussion?

 

[brickfollett]

Shoulda went with AW lol

 

[beckdg]

upon completion of examination of that article, i hereby demand that USPS purchase, gut and retrofit all boeing 787s with full cabin "battery boxes" and utilize the entire fleet to expedite the timely shipment of all my personal lithium needs.

thank you
gov'na

 

[Ryedan]

Shoulda went with AW lol

That was my first thought too, then I wondered about the charger they used, LOL.

There's really not much to go on here. From your quote Bad we know what they think happened. They did think they would not burn though after puncture testing for internal shorts. Of course that's not the only way to get a good cell to burn.

We have no idea about the construction or design of the cells they were using or of the control electronics used. Either of these could have influence on the burn. The article didn't mention the electronics, just talked about the batteries.

Which could be quite exotic. Who knows what amp draw they are capable of and what capacity they have. At a replacement cost of almost $500,000 a battery I doubt these are made using the same cells we use but I could be completely wrong here. Having two of these batteries burn in such a short time period and from such a small sample of batteries is alarming though. Someone missed something here.

We've had a bunch of IMR and hybrid cells vent the last couple of years and I know of none that have burned. It will be interesting to find out what the problem actually was. Let's hope no-one dies before that happens.

 

[The Ministry]

This news article was brought to my attention by a friend and fellow vaper. I found it very interesting on three counts. First, that we as vapers have a difficult time finding the specifications of the batteries that we use from the manufacturers and vendors that sell them. Second, the secretive nature of the battery manufacturers to withhold this information to us, their customers, because they claim proprietary secrecy and intellectual property rights as a reason not to disclose important information. And finally the third, the battery manufacturers admit that they don't fully understand the ways that lithium ion technology can fail.

This is my worry.

The fact that information is sparce from the people making them, and they are not inclined to make data available to the consumer for fear of intellectual rights. I had to ask here for advice on certain batteries as I literally didn't know what they were capable of (and thankyou Bad for helping out, numerous times!)

I worry when I don't know what I'm buying is meant to do - what it's limits are, etc.

doesn’t fully understand the ways in which the technology can fail

Worrying. To say the least! Seems to me like profit/advancement are being hindered by not wanting to give "too much away" to the competition, or I may have that wrong. *shrug*

I got all excited about my new Sony VTC5 order today too! heh heh.

I can't add much to a discussion, as I'm very much a newbie to vaping and batteries, but I do like to try and keep up at least, so thanks for the post

 

[suspectK]

"The more that lithium-ion battery technology develops, the more it appears that the battery industry doesn’t fully understand the ways in which the technology can fail."

This is golden.. makes me think about companies like efest. Pretty much using pulse ratings as their continuous rating... or maybe they just say 10.5amp and leave it to distributors to decide what that means.. don't know. Point being what has been said a few times. A continuous rating is a big layer of safety, but electricity is weird. There is a pretty solid understanding of electricity by people, but I'm certain there's more to it. Ohm's law is labeled a law, but it's actually part of electrical THEORY.