Kiwibot delivery robot catches fire

[Homer J Simpson]

 
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46593190

[SiliconWizard]

I'm sure this is exactly what the world needed at the moment.
 

[NivagSwerdna]

I see they are blaming the incident on a defective human.  i.e. A Human installed a bad battery.  Looks like the humans are going to be optimised out.... but then again it's a food delivering robot... so if the humans are optimised out... so very confusing...

[bd139]

https://reddit.com/r/shittyrobots/

[Towger]

That is not much of a fire. Upgrading a Disney parade car with Tesla batteries and using a Chinese charge controller produces better fireworks:

[bd139]

I bet their insurance when "yeaaahhh go away"

[Rick Law]

No problem, nothing to see here, everything is alright...  AI in action - it was an order for a hot lunch and the bot did its best...

Now, do I get my money back now that my flaming filet mignon order is not flaming and with a fire extinguisher taste to it?

[coppercone2]

hey i am glad I am not crazy with my ideas about lithium battery banks, i knew this could happen

r.i.p. having one of these in side of your house

[bd139]

Totally agree.

My house is full of them. On a small scale i.e. phones, laptops etc, I'm fine with them. Electricity storage, they'd have to be at the end of the neighbour's garden

[rfeecs]

Don't worry, the students set up a candle light vigil:
https://mashable.com/article/kiwibot-fire-uc-berkeley/#otVgkdi3M5qU

After the incident, students set up a candlelight vigil for the fallen robot. On Facebook, the robot was called a "hero" and a "legend," according to The Daily Californian.

[Stray Electron]

  UC Berkley has never been known as a School of Excellence when it comes to engineering.  Unless you're talking about "Social Engineering".

[rfeecs]

  UC Berkley has never been known as a School of Excellence when it comes to engineering.  Unless you're talking about "Social Engineering".

Oh, really?  Oh, I thought you meant UC Berkeley.
https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2018/feb/28/qs-world-university-rankings-2018-electrical-engineering

[coppercone2]

Totally agree.

My house is full of them. On a small scale i.e. phones, laptops etc, I'm fine with them. Electricity storage, they'd have to be at the end of the neighbour's garden

You can do some stuff, I keep my power tool batteries in the top compartment of a Milwaukee tool box, its fairly thick steel and it should dissipate a burn some what. I also don't leave em in the charger when they are done.

https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Storage-Solutions/Steel-Storage/48-22-8530

I have been thinking about battery safety for a while now. I think that a good worst case simulator for a lithium ion battery would be a similar sized piece of magnesium flare (often used as a high visibility flare for boating) in order to test a chassis. I am fairly confident you can reuse their formulation or just use a cast slow burning high magnesium content pyrotechnical mixture.

My idea for a battery simulator was to make a thin cardboard tube ( you can roll layers of craft paper on a dowel with elmers glue on it to make a composite tube thats stiff), put it into a jig and then use a arbor press to squeeze it into the tube and compact it to the specifications, then electronically ignite it in your chassis to see what happens.


\
maybe pop off a small salute in the end of the burn to simulate what happens if it bursts when everything is already hot.

[bd139]

I'm not too bothered with small stuff. I went on a fire safety day course a while back plus I've stabbed a few fully charged packs to see what would happen which is quite interesting.

If it goes up, it goes up. The thing to do is plan for worst case. For me this is all exits clear, no charging unattended (that includes asleep at night - everything goes off!!!), fire plan, proper smoke and CO2 detectors in the house and suitable fire extinguishers.  You can't really fight a lithium fire without a class D fire extinguisher and those are really expensive so best thing is let it burn but prevent spread so treat what's around it like it's already on fire. Then wait for the professionals to turn up.

The killers are very high energy density packs like storage. The average laptop or phone will burn out in a few seconds. RC lipo packs or above need protective storage IMHO.