AA battery exploded

John Koehrer · Sep 26, 2019

BrianShaw:
"NewI’ve ever experienced an exploding alkaline cell. But lithium cells can get hot, burn, and possibly explode due to internal shorts as well as other factors in their use and application."

Paul Howell:
"Never had a lithium explode, had one that hot really hot in a Pentax IQ Zoom that I could feel the heat so I was able to remove it. Has a rechargeable Lithium get so hot I fearful that it could catch fire, it was on Sigma SD 17 which is know for hot bottoms. I take all my batteries out, film and digital"

Pretty common in Lithiums, beginning to get hot and burn in airplanes, telephones and Radio control.

BrianShaw · Sep 26, 2019

Hi John... yes, it is common for li-ion batteries to fail, overheat, and sometimes “explode” - “pressure vent”. I was just talking about my personal experience. At work we’ve had li-ion battery failures both in labs and on systems. It’s a real problem but so far not one that has burned me. I keep a MP3 player (with li-ion battery) plugged into my car. I hope it doesn’t start a fire one day...

DREW WILEY · Sep 26, 2019

I don't want to start a stampede, but I can state with distinct amount of certainty that a lot of batteries of all kinds are counterfeit and potentially suspect. Nowadays they can look like the real deal. What generally happens is that they get mixed into shipments of the legitimate batteries at the port of entry in order to make the subterfuge harder to pin down - no, not a conspiracy theory - I had to combat this kind of thing as a professional buyer. Then you have the problem of rogue dealers who just don't give a damn. Counterfeiting is a massive problem when nearly everything gets imported and very very little gets inspected. At the Port here, the people committing such crimes even had their own counterfeit security labels for the cargo containers! It's hard to control when both organized crime and big box corporations are behind it. The problem in auto parts is way worse. But everything from doorknobs that look great but break in a few weeks to jackhammers that fail in a few hours are arriving as counterfeits. Cheap lithium batteries scare the hell out of me.

AgX · Sep 27, 2019

We have to differ:

-) Lithium-Ion batteries
-) Lithium cells and batteries (CR2, P28 etc.)
-) Alkaline cells and batterires (AA, P28 etc.)

The danger of Lithium-Ion batteries is well know, and meanwhile a major one.
(And they hardly play a role in the analog world.)

With the other ones it is much lesser known (I was surprised about the many reactions here).
So lets's refrain to the latter two types.

BrianShaw · Sep 27, 2019

Fair enough.

Kino · Sep 27, 2019

Lithium ion batteries are the new nitrate film; they both were/are in cameras and have about the same dangers of flammability...

AgX · Sep 27, 2019

At least over here with "Lithium-Ion" batteries are designed with high capacities and being recharchabable. You find them in mobile computers, garden-shears, e-bikes etc. A analog photographer only would come them across in his field if he uses modern, expensive cordless studio-type flashes.

jrhilton · Sep 27, 2019

DREW WILEY said:
a lot of batteries of all kinds are counterfeit and potentially suspect. Nowadays they can look like the real deal.

I have to say that was my first thought when I started to read some of the posts in this thread. Certainly a possibility these day, and your comment about fake auto parts is very true.

AgX · Sep 27, 2019

AA alkalines are amongst the most cheap consumables, more so if bought as a house-brand. There sure are more profitable products to fake.

BrianShaw · Sep 27, 2019

AgX said:
AA alkalines are amongst the most cheap consumables, more so if bought as a house-brand. There sure are more profitable products to fake.

That’s not the logic used by the knock-off companies. They seem very happy making little profit per piece part if they can flood the market. Lots and lots of tint profits eventually add up to real money it seems.

AgX · Sep 27, 2019

A major nationwide retailer hardly can afford to recall one of their standard, house-brand products for safety issues.

BrianShaw · Sep 27, 2019

Recalls are disastrous to a companies bottom line. But we’re really straying from either battery failures or photography.

Paul Howell · Sep 27, 2019

I just bought a six pack of AA zinc–carbon (dry cell) at the dollar store for a dollar, will see how they work in a winder or motor drive, may not last as long but may fewer issues with overheating and failure. Or I may be just over reacting, I've shot with alkaline batteries for a very long and so far just one failure.

DREW WILEY · Sep 27, 2019

AgX, nationwide retails can be rotten to the core. They break all kinds of laws and play the odds that they'll make more money selling junk than doing things right, even after they pay fines. These are big stock market operations; they don't care a thing about the common man. If things were legitimately inspected to begin with, there would be no need to recall them. But recalls happen only if class actions lawyer think it's worth their own time and greed to get involved. That's just the way it works. That's why I stayed employed at an ethical privately held small corporation and did business as much as possible with privately-held manufacturers. I could give you a long long list of "house brand" products that were not just substandard, but deliberately mislabeled and potentially deadly, indeed, proved to be deadly.

Luckless · Sep 27, 2019

AgX said:
AA alkalines are amongst the most cheap consumables, more so if bought as a house-brand. There sure are more profitable products to fake.

Profits are driven by how much you invest vs how much you can get back in return, and you can only get your return if you can actually sell the stuff...

Knocking off AA's is easy, and you can hire a factory to make you a bunch of far lower spec, slap a high quality [and easily made] copy of all the labels on them, and turn around to the internet to sell them at 'just a little cheaper than the real ones' so that customers are both strongly encouraged to buy while unlikely to question it too much.

You can't really do the same thing with a sports car or something. And if you spin up a factory producing knock off batteries then you can keep moving them through different 'new sellers' and ship to people willing to bet a few bucks on a good deal.

In short, would you rather take $10,000 from one sucker [who might be angry enough to try and find you] or take a dime off a million people who will forget you in a heartbeat?

Alan Edward Klein · Sep 27, 2019

darkosaric said:
Did anyone experienced same problems with CR123A? I have many point and shoots that are using those. After reading this, one more reason to use 100% mechanical, pretty scary stories.

If you use flash with a mechanical camera, those could explode. Do you use flashlights? Cellphones? Pretty hard to get away from batteries.

AgX · Sep 27, 2019

Alan Edward Klein said:
If you use flash with a mechanical camera, those could explode.

I do not get your point.

DREW WILEY · Sep 27, 2019

Well, just look what's happening right now with E-cigarettes. Several serious issues. But the first that became apparent was the risk of facial burns or worse from exploding batteries. Would you want a battery that inherently has to be cheaply made to factor into the cost of something itself expendable, mere inches from your face and eyes? Do you realize that several entire transport planes have gone down due to air shipments of volume ordinary batteries, catching fire? That's why air shipping of batteries is now being tightly restricted. I happened to sell industrial batteries along with the cordless power equipment they were intended for. Industrial does NOT mean the kind of cheap toys that you get at Cheapo Depot outlets, known to substitute outright fake batteries frequently. These might not routinely blow up; but lots of them don't work very long or at all (up to a 50% failure rate right out of the box brand new). But more houses have burned down than the public realizes. These same big retailers have legal depts bigger than most counties, as well as special exemptions from reporting interstate issues. Do you realize that lithium batteries aren't even allowed in true aerospace or combat applications? And I'm speaking of the good ones, not cheapos or fakes. Yes, we're dependent upon batteries for a lot of things, way too many things, even mere flashlights. That's why I routinely check all my camping and backpacking gear before every trip. This last time I discovered that one of my miniature emergency flashlights was not working - the alkaline battery had exploded inside it, and had permanently ruined it for further use. Well, light meters and cameras aren't cheap to replace, so I'm extra careful with any batteries in those cases, though most of my cameras need exactly zero batteries to function.

AgX · Sep 27, 2019

E-cigarettes use Lithium-Ion batteries, not Alkalines or Lithium.

DREW WILEY · Sep 27, 2019

Same darn thing, Lith-Ion, "lithium" colloquially. Manufacturers and resellers use the terms interchangeably for labeling and marketing purposes. Millions and millions of packages make that convention perfectly apparent. There are also certain proprietary brand names for the same category. Alkaline is obviously different.

AgX · Sep 28, 2019

DREW WILEY said:
Same darn thing, Lith-Ion, "lithium" colloquially.

No, completely different technology/chemistry.

There are

-) Lithium cells (primary cells)
-) Lithium-Ion batteries (rechargable batteries)

DREW WILEY · Sep 28, 2019

It's not anywhere near that simple. There are all kinds of variations, mfg techniques, levels of quality. Then all that gets complicated by labeling & marketing terminology which is often misleading at a consumer level. I've sold types of industrial batteries most of you have never heard of. But camera batteries do not fall into that category of quality control. We just have to do our best to avoid brands with a bad reputation, and stick with dealers who follow through with complaints. And the old axiom still applies : You don't get something for nothing. If it's too cheap to be true, it is untrue.

mitorn · Sep 28, 2019

Paul Howell said:
I just bought a six pack of AA zinc–carbon (dry cell) at the dollar store for a dollar, will see how they work in a winder or motor drive, may not last as long but may fewer issues with overheating and failure. Or I may be just over reacting, I've shot with alkaline batteries for a very long and so far just one failure.

Paul, I wouldn't use a Zinc-Carbon-cell, those are prone to leak.... usually the cell-wall is made of zinc and gets thinner over time till the cell leaks.
Stay with the alkaline ones. Or you could try Lithium-Iron-(Di)Sulfide batteries, they should have a higher capacity.

gorbas · Sep 28, 2019

In the last year or so I had serious leaks with brand new Duracell AA and AAA alkaline batteries bought in Canadian Costco. Never had to deal with so many bad fresh batteries. I pulled them out of all my devices. Costco own Kirkland brand brand batteries are also in the same category - garbage.

Paul Howell · Sep 28, 2019

mitorn said:
Paul, I wouldn't use a Zinc-Carbon-cell, those are prone to leak.... usually the cell-wall is made of zinc and gets thinner over time till the cell leaks.
Stay with the alkaline ones. Or you could try Lithium-Iron-(Di)Sulfide batteries, they should have a higher capacity.

Will they leak when in use or when left in device? I take all the batteries out of my devices right after use which is why I was surprised when the alkaline exploded. I use Lithium AA with my Sigma SD 9 and 10, Energized Iithum package says guaranteed not to leak for what ever that's worth.

AA battery exploded

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