Why are hoverboards catching fire?

[smartscoots]

Hi guys,

I wrote an article explaining why hoverboard fires happen and what you can do to protect yourself. If you are interested please read more and check more hoverboard news on my hoverboard blog.

 

Hoverboards on FIRE? Why?

Recently, you may have heard some bad news about hoverboards – dangerous devices causing frightening fires and explosions. Using the term “explosion” is undoubtedly exaggeration by the media. In fact, there have been fires, not explosions. It’s not a bomb after all.
Frankly speaking, we’ve all heard of other similar accidents, smartphones on fire, laptops, even cars. You may still remember the exploding iPhones a while ago. These fires are not new at all, this problem started appearing back in 2006, when Sony had around 10 million overheating laptop batteries which they had to recall because they were burning consumers and bursting into flames and Apple recalling 1.8 million batteries for the iBook and PowerBook. In 2013, the FAA ordered all U.S. based Boeing 787 Dreamliners to stay grounded after the lithium-ion battery packs inside a brand-new Boeing 787s started catching fire.

 

Starting from April 2016, the International Civil Aviation Organization will begin to require that all lithium-ion batteries ship with less than 30 percent charge unless they are inside devices, and in the meantime, all major U.S. airlines are banning hoverboards on their planes.
But still, there are some things you need to know that are the root cause of the related incidents. All those fires were caused because of the battery, Lithium-ion batteries. Truly, Lithium-ion batteries are great because the size is small but it can hold a lot of energy, so electronics manufacturers obviously prefer to use them instead of other choices. But, loading all that power can come with its risks to fire up the product itself.
Only the root reason is not the end of the story though, the next thing is, the abuse of the boards would indirectly cause the disaster. The hoverboard batteries are placed just below the foot pad, the place where you step on every time you go for a ride. Not to mention that the hoverboards are much more abused than your laptop or smartphone. They are crashed, bumped, heavily kicked or just roughly handled. Under this situation, there’s a greater chance that the battery could suffer damage, which means more susceptible to breakdown or firing up.

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