Tag: batteries

  • Spicy pillows: what are they exactly?

    Ah, ‘spicy pillows’. It’s basically a term the techies among us use to describe how batteries which puff up overtime. Now, chances are you notice a battery in your tech gadgets which looks like it’s about to pop at any moment. In fact, there’s even a whole subreddit that showcases pictures of swollen batteries!

    An example of a spicy pillow. This spicy pillow was from a tablet
    A swollen battery from a tablet – courtesy of Reddit

    Batteries come in various shapes, sizes and chemical compositions. They power all kinds of everyday things that we take for granted. But we often associate spicy pillows with “pouch” lithium batteries. These are the ones that power laptops and mobile devices.

    Today, we’ll discuss what the term actually means, and how and why batteries can puff up overtime. We’ll also explain how you should safely handle a swollen battery.

    What are ‘spicy pillows’ anyway?

    Spicy pillows refer to the way lithium batteries in various mobile devices fail. These batteries are typically either lithium-ion (Li-ion), or lithium polymer (Li-Po) batteries. They rely on chemical reactions to produce energy for operating those devices.

    Sometimes, something goes wrong that causes the battery to enter ‘thermal runaway’. This is where a battery gets too hot, as it can’t cope with the excessive current flow and dissipation. In turn, the heat damages the layers in the battery, causing gases to form inside. The gases make the cell(s) gradually inflate until it looks like a pillow. Hence, the term ‘spicy pillow’.

    What causes batteries to become spicy pillows?

    There are three main reasons why batteries become swollen:

    1. Age: As batteries get older, chemical reactions are more likely to go wrong when the battery charges. When this happens, flammable gases form inside, damaging the separators between layers inside the battery. In the process, this makes the cell(s) of the battery expand.
    2. Physical damage: Manufacturers usually make the outer casing of batteries for mobile devices using thin materials. If we don’t install them correctly, or drop or hit them in anyway, we risk rupturing that casing. As a result, this exposes the chemicals in the battery to the air, causing it to inflate, ignite or explode.
    3. Manufacturing defects: Sometimes, little flaws develop in the making of batteries. These flaws make the layers inside the battery less likely to properly remain separate while in use. As a result, this makes them more likely to become swollen while charging.

    What makes spicy pillows dangerous?

    Swollen batteries present a fire hazard, in that they can catch fire without warning. Flammable gases can escape out of the casing, due to splits or cracks created by the excess pressure. Gases may also vent and catch fire if the battery has sustained a puncture.

    They are also an explosion hazard. Lithium is an alkali metal that violently reacts when exposed to air or liquid. That’s why we carefully store it in a vacuum, inert atmosphere, or in mineral oil or other inert liquids. Explosions can also happen due to bad product design. An infamous example of this happening is the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Samsung recalled this smartphone from sale, after a small number of phones exploded. This was because the 3500mAh battery had no wiggle room in its recess, in case it became a spicy pillow.

    Fortunately, batteries have safety measures built-in to minimise the risk of fire or explosion. As long as you protect it from heat and physical damage, it’s unlikely to vent gas or catch fire. Thus, spicy pillows are not inherently dangerous as long as you take proper precautions.

    How do I know if I’ve got a spicy pillow?

    You can find out if your device has a swollen battery by looking at the device or the battery itself. There are three main ways you can do this:

    • Are any parts of your device out of alignment? Batteries exert pressure on neighbouring parts, pushing them aside as they swell up. You can see that this happens if there’s any gaps between parts of the case. It also happens with the displays on smartphones and tablets.
    • Is any gas escaping from the battery? Gases from the battery are especially poisonous, and inhaling them can damage your lungs. Therefore, never directly sniff or inhale deeply from near the battery! Instead, keep a safe distance and gently waft the area near the battery towards you. If there’s a sweet, metallic smell, then gas may be coming out of the swollen battery.
    • Does the battery itself look swollen? If you can easily access the battery without disturbing it, you can check the physical condition of it. Loose or wrinkled wrapping, a more rounded shape, or any lifting from its recess, are clear signs of a swollen battery.

    What should I do if I’ve got a spicy pillow?

    As soon as you notice a spicy pillow, don’t charge the battery in the device! Instead, disconnect it from the device if possible, put it into a fireproof container and take it outside. If your device has a sealed battery, try to discharge it as much as you can. Leaving your device turned on uses up power stored in the battery. This reduces the chances of a fire or explosion. You can back up any important data on the device to an external drive or microSD card while it discharges.

    If your laptop or smartphone has an easy to remove battery, then you can simply remove the battery from it. On older smartphones and some newer ones, you simply pull off the back cover and remove the battery. For batteries inside laptops, the base cover on most of them has screws. You can unfasten these with a Philips screwdriver. They connect to the motherboard with a short cable from the battery itself. You unplug the cable, the remove the screws holding the battery to the chassis.

    However, most smartphones and tablets have sealed batteries held in place with adhesive. If yours has a sealed battery, then we recommend taking the device to a repair shop. Technicians in repair shops typically have the necessary tools to safely remove swollen batteries. They will also help safely dispose or recycle them for you.

    What not to do with spicy pillows?

    First of all, never ever deliberately puncture a battery! Punctures can cause the battery to swell up, expel gas or catch fire. This video demonstrates how to safely handle swollen, dead or faulty batteries:

    This video, courtesy of iFixit, offers a useful and informative guide on how to safely handle batteries

    Also, you should never put swollen or defective batteries in household waste. That’s because they may damage the environment if they go into landfill! Instead, take them to your nearest recycling centre or in-store collection facility. Just in case, you can cover the contacts or connectors with some tape. This keeps them safe while you take them there. You can find out where your nearest recycling centre is here.

    Quickly summing up…

    For more information, iFixit has a useful guide on how to handle a swollen battery. It’s useful for those of you with suitable tools and who really know what you are doing. Spicy pillows are very unlikely to blow up on you as long as you handle them safely. So until next time, keep calm and keep on fixing – oh, and remember, no popping pillows!

  • The logical extremes of obsolescence

    Obsolescence is quite the nice little earner for OEMs everywhere. They love seeing ordinary folks like us pop into shops buying their latest stuff. Throwing away perfectly usable things we otherwise can use for other tasks. And when we point out the vast mountains of waste growing around the world, they shrug and say “so what?”

    And so, we don’t put it past them to take obsolescence to (logical) extremes. After all, giving them more ideas just makes the e-waste problem worse. But…here we are. So, here are just a few items we imagine the pesky OEMs baking obsolescence into them. Here’s hoping their reps don’t barge into our repair cafes and take notes…

    Stitching obsolescence into sewing machines

    Ah, sewing machines. Complex bits of machinery with spool holders for strings and physical controls. People make all kinds of clothes and fancy costumes with them. Over the years, they mostly withstood the scourge of planned obsolescence – or have they?

    Well, not if manufacturers have their way! Because, we imagine OEMs making sewing machines as one solid unit with everything inside! Spools full of threads of a certain colour, all the components, the controls, the works! So here, you need a smartphone app to control everything, and have the machine do all the sewing for you.

    But, what if you need a different colour thread for your project? Basically, just buy a new sewing machine containing the colour of the thread you want – duh! And what if it breaks down while it sews up your new garment? Buy a new one! Oh, and don’t even think of trying to repair it yourself, or take it to a repair centre other than the manufacturer’s! You know, their techies who soooo won’t try to charge you an arm, a leg and a kidney. Because if you open it up, it instantly self-destructs! So now, you void the warranty and the whole device!

    Blowing obsolescence into fans

    Fans are simple in both form and function. They keep rooms – and computers – nice and cool, especially on hot summer days. Many fans have simple controls to allow you to adjust the speed. With a little TLC, they last quite a long time before they eventually conk out. But crafty OEMs always get creative in finding ways to force rapid replacements.

    For instance, rigging fans in a way which makes them over-volt to make the fans spin beyond their design specifications. Then, just before they break, they eject the brown stuff inside hidden charges onto the fins. This brown stuff then sprays all over the room right as the fans completely fail. Okay, it will get messy for customers, and OEMs will risk the odd lawsuit or two. But then, the extra sales of new fans will be all worth it, hahaha!

    Breaking the longevity of computer cases

    Now here’s something BitFIXity – we gotta have something about computers and mobile devices, after all! And here’s one part which lasts a very long time with a little TLC – computer cases! The chassis houses the core internal components – CPU, RAM, internal storage, PSU and all the other good stuff. In particular, desktop cases are a bastion standing in the way of obsolescence!

    “But wait!” I hear you say. “Why needlessly shorten the lifespan of computer cases in the reckless pursuit of profit?! Don’t manufacturers already make tech gadgets and everything else break quickly?” Because dear friends, we should never underestimate the ability of the boffins inside OEMs to find ways to shoehorn obsolescence into anything! Like making the rivets, welding points and fixings in computer (and laptop) cases corrode within a certain period of time. Sure, you might see your case spontaneously fall apart with your very own eyes. But hey! At least it spares you the trouble of disassembling it yourself!

    And by the way, what about the panels, frames and bezels? Well, noticing how flimsy some of them are, particularly on the cheap ones, we can certainly try making them using some sheets of papier-mâché! It reduces the weight of computers and laptops, and makes them look nice. You can more easily customise the look and feel of your computer this way! Just keep them away from liquids, cold and heat sources, though. After all, we really don’t want any catastrophic failures arising from compromised papier-mâché panels now!

    Making batteries go boom with obsolescence

    “Oh, for goodness sake!”, I hear you shout out. “Seriously, now you want to turn our gadgets into bombs in pockets!?” Well, sure, why not? After all, batteries become useless once they can’t hold a charge any more. Oh, and they have a habit of turning into spicy pillows! So, let’s take advantage of this and speed up the rate of which they become spicy pillows. And, why not add into devices, hidden mechanisms which puncture the batteries and make them explode? Makes for a nice anti-theft feature, right?

    Oh, and besides, batteries need dedicated places for recycling – which costs mon-eh, you know! But why recycle them, when you can just skip the ‘recycling’
    part altogether? How about taking advantage of spicy pillows to hardware-brick gadgets? Like making the batteries sufficiently puff up to break the internal hardware components. Sure, we can’t fully realise the explosive potential of spicy pillows this way. But at least it would ensure rapid replacements of tech gadgets. (Oh, and by the way, we secretly love mushroom clouds. Just not necessarily the giant ones – we don’t want OEMs to wipe vast swathes of their consumer base off the face of the planet, after all. Sucks for corporate profits otherwise!)

    But for us, all the obsolescence in the world which go into batteries just plays right into our hands. We really wanted to chomp at the bit to prove we are indeed a safe and effective place to repair all kinds of tech! But don’t worry about the loud bangs, small mushroom clouds and the smell of chemicals, though. We just can’t help ourselves here!

    And now, the (dis)honourable mentions!

    Oh, you think we finished at four ways to bake obsolescence into all kinds of stuff? Nope! There are many other ways OEMs cripple the lifespans of various everyday items. So, here’s some more dastardly ideas!

    • Self-destructing screens – We accidentally break screens on various devices at least once in our lifetimes. From phones slipping out of our hands and hitting hard surfaces, to wayward objects hitting TVs or monitors. But what if we add glass screens with round edges and corners to every side of these devices? Now you and your mates can doomscroll on social media together! Just don’t let it shatter on impact with anything even slightly hard, lest manufacturers shut down warranty claims with “too bad, you broke it”!
    • Self-disassembling furniture – This is a doozy. Weak adhesive, fixings which degrade quickly, materials which wear out quickly. The end result? Sofas, book shelves, tables and chairs, desks, TV cabinets – all fall apart by themselves. Good luck putting them back together again. And if you manage to reassemble them – well, they just fall apart again later on!
    • Planned obsolescence – Imagine baking obsolescence into planned obsolescence itself. A world where we do the exact opposite of how manufacturers make products. Infinite durability, pro-repair measures, easy-to-replace batteries and parts, always available product support, programmed longevity, perceived endurance. And if the big OEMs and their shareholders subsequently go on a financial diet? All worth it for the planet!

    Welp, there we have it!

    Just some of the various dastardly ways of inserting planned obsolescence into all kinds of everyday items! Of course, this is just scratching the surface, and we have no doubt manufacturers have other tricks up their sleeves to force rapid replacements of everything. And so, remember folks, don’t get mad over messing up a repair job – just laugh it off! Keep a mental image of reps from manufacturers and big brands reading this article from a tiny, humble repair cafe, and are like, “OMG! What great ideas! We gotta add obsolescence into all these products! Yeah, let’s also bake obsolescence into planned obsoles~ wait, what!?”