Second hand e-go battery just flashed and started smoking a bit

[Lyra]

I have two ego 650 mah batteries that I got second hand. One of them just started to smoke a little. It's freshly charged. The light flashed a few times as if it was out of power, and then a bit of smoke came out from the led button. This can't be good. It gave off a slight smell of burning plastic, perhaps, but that is just a guess. It was like plastic, but not like plastic. I am not sure what sort of burning thing it smelled like.

What do?

 

[mwdenko]

Battery vented. It's dead.

 

[Lyra]

vented? Meaning that an airtight seal is broken? Is it safe to keep around to recycle?

 

[mwdenko]

Sorry. It sounds like the battery has failed. Venting is the gas from the battery leaking out. Once that happens it is inoperable and dangerous to recharge.

I assume it is ok to recycle but don't quote me on that. I'm not an expert. Just sharing info that I've gleaned over the past few months.

If I'm wrong someone please correct me. But, that's what it sounds like to me.

 

[Kent C]

mw is right - can't put that smoke back in. Pitch it and watch the charger you charged it on as well.

 

[markfm]

It's safe to keep it to drop off at a battery recycling place, just not to use.

 

[Lyra]

Why should I watch the charger, too?

 

[markfm]

In case the charger over-charged the battery. There are 2 failure paths:
1) The battery by itself gave up the ghost. Charger is fine, just the battery is bad.

2) The charger over-charged an otherwise good battery, drove it to a bad point, and the battery had an event after removal from the charger due to the stress placed on it. Charger is bad, could damage other batteries.

 

[Lyra]

Actually, the charger seems to have ceased to work at all I just checked the battery I have on it, and it has no charge. When I put another uncharged battery on it, the light does not turn from green to red. I wonder what happened there, and I hope it did not just destroy my other battery. I just put it on to charge at the same time as I made this post. The charger is not at all warm, and I don't even think the light turned red. Was there a short in my charger, maybe?

 

[markfm]

Really can't tell, but these chargers are so cheap, mass produced, that sometimes something just goes bad. It's always a good move to test-fire a battery about 20 minutes after a charge, to see if it is okay. If not, time to contemplate a new charger as well as battery.

Also, a battery failure can then cause a charger failure, if you get a short on the battery side. The charger can then break other batteries going forward.

Rare, but things happen...

 

[Kent C]

mark got it right. One thing I do as a regular action is I have Qtips at each charging 'station' and wipe the inside of the batt and the outside of the charger before charging... each time. Otherwise a buildup on the charge can cause a short eventually. I had some that really looked nasty before starting to do that

 

[Lyra]

Yes, that could be it. There was some black gunk in there...

 

[cmknight]

All electronic things have built-in smoke. It's a safety feature. IBM started this manufacturing practice many years ago. If something went wrong in one of their systems, they just looked for the chip that was releasing the smoke. Saved them lots of troubleshooting time. Now everyone puts smoke in their electronics.

 

[DavidOck]

Hey, CM, Nikola Tesla started to put the smoke in electrical devices, back when George Westinghouse commissioned him to build the first commercial AC generators in the US, Niagara, NY. If the smoke gets out of the generator, it no longer works.

As a retired hydro-electric plant electrician, I have direct experience there. Letting the magic smoke out is a baaaaad thing to do!

The charger's circuitry is designed to deliver a maximum current to the battery under charge. A fault in the battery can cause the battery to draw current in excess of that, and damage the charger. While it is possible for the voltage regulator IC in the charger to fail and cause the charger to deliver too high a voltage, damaging the battery, it's probably not likely, as the most common failure mode for them is to go open, and deliver zero volts. (But strange things DO happen! )

More likely that the second hand battery just reached the end of its life.

If it failed after charging and in normal use, the charger MAY be ok, but they are cheap (in many ways!), and you do have a spare charger, right?

I see it often said here on ECF - you do have backups for your backups, right?

Besides, at least in my case, you might want to be charging more than one battery at a time...

 

[Karma]

Ugh I had that happen with a 900 mah battery and it smelled TERRIBLE. I also lost a 650 to the same charger. Turns out though, it wasn't my charger. It was the outlet I was using it in.

It's one of those bathroom outlets with the buttons. Maybe if you used that you should try a different one.

 

[DavidOck]

Must be something else going on with your outlet, Karma. The GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) in the bath shouldn't affect the quality of the voltage at all. It functions just like a regular outlet unless it senses a ground fault (commonly called a "short"), at which time it turns off the power. That's all it does. As long as it's "on", i.e. the GFCI isn't tripped (button out), it should be providing 120 volts to anything that's plugged in.

Do other things plugged into it work properly? If not, then you might want to check it or have it checked by someone qualified to do so. GFCIs can fail simply due to age. The electronics in them actually do have a "life", like other electronics. (Although with GFCIs the failure mode is usually seen as nuisance tripping, i.e. tripping when they shouldn't. But stuff happens.

 

[cags]

like DavidOck said, you need backups for your backups
when you get a new charger, get at least 2
when you get a new battery, get at least 2
when you get to your next to last bottle of liquid, get 2 more at that time!