Hydrogenaudio Forums > Nano Defect

w1L50n

Mar 12 2008, 10:23

CBC reported this morning that the iPod Nano may have a defect in the LiOn battery; that sparking may occur during charging. Sony and Dell have all had their probs with LiOn. FYI if 'ya own a Nano.

audioadam

Mar 12 2008, 10:46

Is this the story?

iPod battery defect in Japan

Reading the comment posted at least gives me a little hope for apple:

QUOTE

As technician who repairs cell-phones and i-pods I would like to express my thoughts on sparks flying from such a device. Not likely. For example you will need 20,000 volts for said electrons to jump an inch, with a 3.7 volt li-ion battery that would be next to impossible. An educated guess...the user plugged the unit directly into a mains source, had a build up of static electricity or a small capactitor inside exploded but a battery causing sparks to fly from the unit...no way.

Hope that guy knows what he's talking about.

Edit: Added quote.

w1L50n

Mar 12 2008, 10:59

That was not the source I was referring to (although it may be connected). I saw it on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) which is a national network with journalistic integrity still in tact (as opposed to some others). Furthermore it was on the Business Report section of the news....so there's something to it.

Just don't recharge your nano next to your antique collection of open ether jars and gasoline containers for now!

greynol

Mar 12 2008, 11:17

That was not the CBC's story. It came from the Associated Press.

w1L50n

Mar 12 2008, 11:37

I didn't imply source in any way...only where I saw it and the point that the story was deemed accurate by a responsible agency to report to the public.

greynol

Mar 12 2008, 11:40

It probably just came in on the wire and they decided to run it. I doubt they (the CBC) did any vetting of their own.

I'm not suggesting the CBC is like certain unnamed "news organizations" that you may find in the US.

Ok this is getting wayyy OT from me now. I'll shut up.

cabbagerat

Mar 12 2008, 12:49

QUOTE(audioadam @ Mar 12 2008, 08:46)

QUOTE

As technician who repairs cell-phones and i-pods I would like to express my thoughts on sparks flying from such a device. Not likely. For example you will need 20,000 volts for said electrons to jump an inch, with a 3.7 volt li-ion battery that would be next to impossible. An educated guess...the user plugged the unit directly into a mains source, had a build up of static electricity or a small capactitor inside exploded but a battery causing sparks to fly from the unit...no way.

Hope that guy knows what he's talking about.

I would say not. In the right conditions, you can make ugly sparks from fairly small voltages - try (please don't) shorting out a car battery if you don't believe me. Sure, making big lightning like sparks does take a certain amount of voltage, but you can make some impressive flashes and sparks by shorting low impedance low voltage sources with thin conductors.

Of course, your milage may vary.

greynol

Mar 12 2008, 13:01

Upon further reading, it does appear that this is credible. Not only is the AP running it, Reuters is as well.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyN...=22&sp=true

Soap

Mar 12 2008, 16:37

When Sony-manufactured laptop batteries had, shall we say, "issues" hundreds of reports of separate incidents flooded the media.
Apple has sold (can I use SI units here?) a metric buttload of iPods. If there was an engineering defect I would have expected more than the trickle of stories we have seen regarding catastrophic battery failure since 2001 (or even since the 3rd gen Nano launch).