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Originally Posted by B0SC0
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Just thought I would throw this little tid-bit out there.
This past week I was watching the news about cheap 3rd party cellphone
batteries.
Apparently these manufacturers are selling them cheap because they do not
include the electronics to shut the battery down if it is shorted or overheats.
It showed a woman, whose hands were bandaged due to burns, from using
one of these batteries in her cellphone. The device got hot and exploded.
So, for those skeptics out there, this is for real.
Yeah, the batteries work find, but if they ever experience an internal short or
external short, well, can you say "melt down"? This can apply to the cheap
no-name axim batteries we are seeing on the market.
You can be carrying a spare battery in your pocket with change and this
could short out the battery. Can you say "OUCH"?
They mentioned that there are not only 3rd party batteries, but rip-offs of
what appears to be original manufacturers batteries.
So, my point is "BUYER BEWARE".
Is it really worth it?
This tip brought to you by......B0SC0
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Then what about those plain old cylinder batteries? Last time I checked, ordinary cylinder batteries (even the high power rechargeables) have no protection circuits. Which means very dramatic results when I accidentally short circuited a homemade circuit (a wire melted, and that's from 4 AAA NiCds).
I suppose that the cost of a thermal fuse (even a PTC self-resetting) can't be that expensive, can it?
One thing's for sure, if the battery has a UL listed mark, it's safe (UL labs require some form of fuse/circuit breaker for rechargable battery packs).