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Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 202
3
32VAC Offline OP
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From correspondents in Kolkata
September 01, 2007 04:50pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse

A PREGNANT woman in eastern India suffered burns after the battery of her Nokia mobile phone exploded minutes after she put the handset on charge, police said today.

The Finnish phone maker warned last month in front-page advertisements in leading Indian dailies that some of its batteries were overheating after around 100 such incidents were reported globally.

But the battery that exploded was from the firm's BL-D3 series, and not from BL-5C that Nokia recalled a month ago, police said.

"The injuries were not serious. She was discharged from the hospital after first aid,'' police official Ananda Sarkar said in Kolkata.

The battery - purchased with the handset in 2004 - blew up about 10 minutes after it was put on charge.

"I became nervous for a few seconds when the handset blew up triggering a ball of fire. Then I ran out of the flat,'' 30-year-old Kishori Saha said.

Nokia said the woman might be compensated.

"It was an isolated incident. I guess the battery was obsolete,'' Sanjoy Jaiswal, floor manager at a Nokia care centre, said.

"If we find that the handset, battery and charger are original, she would be compensated.''

The Bl-5C batteries were manufactured by Japan's Matsushita Battery Industrial Co., Ltd.

The product advisory issued by Nokia in August applied only to 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22345375-23109,00.html

Arc Flash PPE Clothing, LOTO & Insulated Tools
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Cat Servant
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Let's see ... with millions of such batteries out there, and after a warning is issued, a different battery from the same maker suddenly goes from 'overheat' to 'explode' .... in front of a pregnant lady, no less.

Why am I suspicious here?

Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,443
Likes: 3
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Off topic (but still related to phone charging),
have a read of this, it seems there may be a new urban legend in the making, circulating the Net:

Quote
Charging Cell Phones

I've done this too! Never thought about how dangerous it might be!

I went to snopes.com to be sure it wasn't an urban legend & it's not. It is very true! And I do this all the time! Not anymore!! This seems important enough to forward to others.

It's wise to be safe and safe being wise. This was also on Pittsburgh's WTAE channel 4 News. Never, ever answer a cell phone while it is being CHARGED!!

A few days ago, a person was recharging his cell phone at home. Just at that time a call came and he answered it with the instrument still connected to the outlet. After a few seconds electricity flowed into the cell phone unrestrained and the young man was thrown to the ground with a heavy thud. His parents rushed to the room only to find him unconscious, with a weak heartbeat and burnt fingers. He was rushed to the nearby hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival. Cell phones are a very useful modern invention. However, we must be aware that it can also be an instrument of death.

Never use the cell phone while it is hooked to the electrical outlet!


OK, so I can understand the burns to the hand, but death???.
This doesn't sound plausible at all. crazy
What do you guys think?

Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 5,445
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Cat Servant
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http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/cellcharge.asp

Interesting how the legend claims to have been validated by Snopes, when Snopes has something very different to say about the subject.

Check the sources!!!

Snopes appeared to give the story some 'benefit of the doubt.' No surprise there; it's almost never possible to 'prove a negative.' Just try to prove, say, that a UFO did NOT land in your backyard last night laugh

With this obvious re-write of an old story ... and the tale that started in this thread also coming from India (source of the original electrocution claim) .... I pronounce both tales FAKE.

Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 853
L
Member
Oh so now you don't believe that UFO thing!!!?

It is true!

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,391
I
Moderator
Originally Posted by renosteinke
With this obvious re-write of an old story ... and the tale that started in this thread also coming from India (source of the original electrocution claim) .... I pronounce both tales FAKE.


Do some checking around, batteries have exploded.

The fact the it this particular story comes from India has no bearing on it's validity whatsoever.

The CPSC seems to take it seriously.


Bob Badger
Construction & Maintenance Electrician
Massachusetts
Joined: Jan 2005
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Cat Servant
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No need to bother; Snopes already did the legwork. The story was pretty marginal the first time around; this obvious rehash is clearly bogus. I'd consider an "Elvis seen in UFO" story from the 'supermarket press' to have more credibility.

CPSC? Who takes them seriously? We recently had a lively discussion here about connections involving aluminum wiring ... and even those who disliked aluminum wiring failed to reference the CPSC's position.

I'll worry about more likely risks to my well-being .... lightning strikes, alien abduction, winning the lotto laugh

Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 14
D
Member
a "spark" of truth wink Cellphone batteries do regularly explode or catch fire. There is a LOT of energy stored in that little can of lithium. Without very careful charge and discharge monitoring they become quite dangerous. If you're interested the radio control forums on the internet have lots of articles on their rather high powered ones going up in smoke during charging. A LiIon battery requires a protection circuit to monitor current flow and temperature and to shut the battery down if either one is out of scope. If you short a lithium battery it must shut down because otherwise it will explode. The protection circuit normally handles this OK, but not always. And some counterfeit brands dont bother with that little feature at all... Then ask Sony how much it hurts that their defective cells caused thousands of recalled batteries form dell and apple and lenovo and I dont know how many more because even with the protection circuitry they still caught fire...

But the rest of the story is completely bogus. Nobody has gotten electrocuted from a 5v battery charger.. I suppose it's possible that the power supply failed in a way that just send line voltage through to the phone... but I would not expect the phone to actually be working in a way that it could accept a call after that happened...

Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,803
Member
Why would anybody in India be remotely interested in someone getting killed by a mobile phone when 3500 people are routinely killed on Bombay Railway's suburban tracks alone each year and no one bats an eyelid?
Source BBC / Wikipedia

Last edited by Alan Belson; 09/05/07 06:48 PM.

Wood work but can't!

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