Dell & Sony recalling 4 million batteries

Dell (recall notice) and Sony are working together on recalling 4 million laptop batteries (CPSC notice, Breitbart article) that have been prone to burning, venting with flame, exploding, catching on fire, or whatever other terms you want to apply. My other entries here and here told some more of the story.

Hmm, I use quite a few of these Sony 18650 cells which have been removed from surplus (read: non-functioning, dead, bad, defective, etc.) Dell batteries I get from work. I've been careful with them, but I'll be even more so now!

More about Li-Ion batteries from Battery University.

More info on burning Dell at Novell

According to this article on CRN, the battery in the burning Dell notebook was not manufactured by Dell. I suppose that lets Dell off the hook for this particular incident, but I wonder if that will make anyone that owns one feel better...

In the article Edward F. Moltzen writes:

I asked Novell spokesman Kevan Barney if this was, in fact, the case. Sort of, he said, but there was more to the story.

Yes, the Dell notebook caught fire and, yes, Novell's Building D was evacuated. But a security investigator who looked into it said the person who was using the notebook inserted a non-Dell battery into the unit just before it went up. "It was not a Dell battery," Barney said.

The investigation is continuing, Barney said.

Dell Laptop battery trouble at Novell; aka "Venting With Flame"

After reading all the recent news about exploding and burning Li-Ion laptop batteries and this story today about Dell's new effort to try to buoy it's reputation, I decided to give this story a home online. Just to inform, not to bash anyone (my first Dell was a 286-12 back in 1988). It was sent to me on July 6th, 2006 by a fellow Amateur Radio operator in the local area.

"Building D of Novell in Provo was evacuated at about 1:30 PM today because of fire alarms set off by a Dell D600 battery "venting with flame" under normal use/charging conditions. It took the laptop out with it, of course.

Yesterday, he sent some pictures and I thought I'd share. Here's a sample: