I opened my laptop for unrelated reasons and was greeted by a slightly bloated battery. Idk if the picture makes it clear, but the individual segments of the battery have slightly raised above the solid structure pieces in between. Laptop is just over a year old. I have already contacted the manufacturer, but with the holidays and everything I'm not sure when I'll get an answer.
Basically, I'm worried about the potential danger. I use my laptop a lot (usually plugged in). Since the battery seems to be screwed in and not glued, I could just take it out, but idk if that would be better than just leaving it in until the manufacturer sends me a new one or has me send it in for battery replacement.
Also, I hope that consumer hardware posts like this are accepted in this community. The rules at least don't state otherwise.
Edit: thank you all for your comments. I brought the bloated battery to a recycling center the day after I made this post. Communication with Medion support eventually led to me talking to a very pleasant service technician on the phone. He sent me a new battery, which I just installed. Everything is working great again.
Every bloated battery can start igniting any second. So please remove it and store it somewhere outside, ideally on concrete. Li-Ion fires cannot be stopped, not even with water.
Source: I‘m a firefighter.
Thank you for the reply, but I live in an apartment and I don't think people would appreciate me placing potentially explosive things on the road outside. I'll take it out of the laptop and bring it to a local recycling center tomorrow.
The battery will most likely not explode, but just ignite. The melting of the chemicals and metals just gets really really hot, so anything else around it will start to burn eventually. So don’t treat it like a bomb, more like a very hot iron. If you can, find a temporary spot for the battery. Maybe in a garage or basement. If also possible, use a metal container. Dirt/sand is also a good option.
I feel like Lemmy is hitting a critical mass, where "am Y, [explanation]" followed by an informal AMA is starting to happen, and it's great to see!
If the battery is quickly removable I would put it into a sand bucket and cover it with sand.
So a previous employer's direction to store all of the bloated batteries together in a network closet WAS a bad idea?
Someone should have told them that. Oh wait, I did.
Just glad I'm not there anymore.
What about with a fire blanket?
I actually had to check some resources myself, as I was unsure if it was really useful in that case. Those blankets usually help stopping a fire by limiting the amount of oxygen that gets to it - without oxygen, no fire. Unfortunately, many batteries have oxygen in them, not much, but enough to keep it going. So the fire won’t stop in that case. But what the fire blanket does, is give a layer of insulation, thus reducing sparks flying around and reducing the temperature directly above it.
Fire blankets are always a very useful tool, as they are easy to use and at least protect the person holding it (in small fires, obviously). If it doesn’t help, it does not make it any worse.
I'm going to go against what you just said, even though you might be a firefighter.
Take that battery OUTSIDE AWAY FROM ANY TREES OR YOUR HOME and put it in salt water to kill it completely. The water should have so much salt in it that the salt refuses to stir in and you can see the salt at the bottom after heavy stirring meaning the water cant dilute the salt anymore. .
The salt water bath over the next two days will completely drain the battery to 0 volts at which point it is no longer dangerous.
The salt water method is the only fully safe way to handle that battery.
What you are describing is just dangerous, for the simple fact that people then think they are safe, as soon as they put the battery into salt water. You even say yourself that it takes days until fully drained. During those days, the battery could still ignite. When that happens, the salt water will not help at all. What then will happen is, that the water will immediately turn into steam. You know what happens if you put water into hot oil - similar effect, just less dangerous. The water will be gone in no time and everything around it starts to burn.
That‘s why we always recommend what I was suggesting in my initial comment. And please don‘t say things like „it is the only fully safe way“. This is just straight up wrong.
You are welcome to disagree, but putting a lipo in salt water is the only safe way to discharge it. Obviously this should be done outside away from any trees or the home.
You should add doing the salt bath outdoors to the post and recommend leaving it there for a couple of weeks to ensure it is fully drained.
Done. Won't matter the downvote brigade already sided with the self proclaimed firefighter.
I learned this from R/C cars many years ago when Lipo came put. It's a tried and true method that many people in the hobby use to make the battery safe for transport to the recycling facilities.
The downvotes are most likely because you said to go 'against what was said' instead of adding to it with the long term solution. It read as if you disagreed with taking it outside where it would be immediately safer.
Are you implying that lithium will only burn on contact with air if it's in a charged battery?