| Electronics > Repair |
| Bathroom scales just exploded !! |
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| MathWizard:
I was just doing some soldering, and I hear a seriously loud bang in the next room, louder than any capacitor or part I've heard blow up, closer to a gunshot. I though maybe it was the furnace, or my computer PSU, or the lithium battery in my MP3 player. But it was a regular 1.5V AAA alkaline battery, 'ruwido' brand. It was in a cheap ebay, digital bathroom scales (they've worked fine for +10years). The scales use 2xAAA batteries, and has auto off. I've never had any issue with it killing rechargeable batteries, so I can't say there was any shorting problem that might heat up a battery. But I went into the kitchen where the scales are, and there's a little pile of like carbon/charcoal looking type stuff on the floor, and the side of the battery split open like a sausage, and I can see some white cylinder inside. And it's almost hot, IDK if it's still cooking, so I put it in a can outside. I used the scales today maybe 5-6hrs ago, the battery case looks a little dirty but otherwise ok. But holy crap, that startled me, makes me realize I should get a fire extinguisher. I never knew regular batteries are sealed so tight, as to make such a bang. I don't remember buying these batteries, they might have been from a remote control I got somewhere. Lucky they weren't packed away. |
| EEVblog:
Wow, first I've heard of that. Leaks, yeah, all the time, loud explosion? :-// |
| amyk:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on June 05, 2024, 04:04:32 am ---Wow, first I've heard of that. Leaks, yeah, all the time, loud explosion? :-// --- End quote --- The alkaline chemistry evolves hydrogen as it discharges. There is a hydrogen absorber (used to be mercury, but newer cells have something else), or maybe the cheap ones omit it entirely? Most of them aren't sealed well enough and just leak. The ones that are, will instead let go with a bang. There are many other accounts of this happening to the thin cylindrical cells found in some 9V batteries, but I've personally experienced the seal popping loudly, followed by leakage, after discharging AAs at a very high rate (near short-circuit conditions.) |
| IanB:
Alkaline cells are either going to leak or explode. One way or another the pressure building up inside has to escape. Maybe enough people have been complaining about leakage that they have tried to seal them up really tightly and cause them to explode instead? |
| Berni:
I seen a cell inside a 9V battery explode before. But never seen anything like that happen to a AAA cell, let alone have it explode this violently. Dang |
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