Apple battery explosion

[tukaniray]

Well, about 5 months ago, my battery on my MacBookPro decided to grow a Hernia. After, about a month it got to the point where I couldn't even sit my portable computer flat.

So, I bought a new one and left my sickly one on my shelf. Last month I just saw this thing grow and grow.

So, today I decided to take a photo of where it's at now and show you what Portable Computer batteries look like when the explode ... well I guess actually this is a bit of implosion, since it never leaked out.

I'm throwing this away to the Apple Recycle at the Apple store, for proper disposal.

Here are the pics ... enjoy the funky looking Battery.







-Ray-

[PeteQ]

Wow! So glad nothing really bad happened!

[tukaniray]

I know, so am I. I was on a location shoot in Denver when the bulge started to grow.

The battery was still chargable, I think because of the other 2 cells that were still intact.

But I was definitely concerned. Being a DIY-er, I started with a new battery. Luckily that was the only thing that was wrong.

-Ray-

[S-Man]

I hope it didn't damage your case :/
I've heard of this happening. Won't apple replace it for you for free?

[Flea77]

Apple considers batteries as consumables, even under AppleCare(snotatall) they will not cover it. As a matter of fact, before they included wording in their warranty to that effect I tried to get them to replace one and went so far as the BBB, Apple lied to the BBB and said it was in the warranty as specifically excluded. I provided my original warranty card which did not have that exclusion. Apple's answer to the BBB was "Well we can change the warranty at any time and do not have to inform existing customers, too bad"

Allan

[tukaniray]

Correct Allan. I use to work for Apple and that was the policy. No worries, my new battery wasn't to bad. Perishable items like batteries are not covered by any one from PC to Mac.

And that's not Apple's or any other manufacturer's fault. It's the companies that sell the batteries to them.

And I am pretty handy when it comes to fixing the Portable Macs. so I could have fixed the damage if there was any.

Recycling computers is cheaper and better than buying new ones.

-Ray-

[Bob_S]

Good thing you caught it. If those cells would have continued to be charged, it would have burst and started to vent fire. I'm kind of surprised they use li-po cells in instead of li-ion but I guess it is a weight savings issue. The down side is they can't vent.

Google li-po fire for some views of what could have happened had you not stopped the charge.

[Todd Lambert]

I've had two MBP batteries do this, and both were promptly replaced by Apple with 1 phone call - one battery in warranty and 1, well outside of warranty - so I'm not too sure about the notion that Apple will not handle this.

They do have the legally reqd text in place, but I assure you, a phone call along the lines of "Hi, my MBP battery is bulging and I am concerned about my well-being" or something along those lines, and voilà - new battery, delivered to your door, the next day, for free.

They also request the old battery back, so you won't have a potentially harmful device sitting in your house.

[tukaniray]

Nice. I went to the Apple Store, so I guess that was my downside. Should have called in like you.

I actually gave the battery to the Apple Manager to dispose of properly. They have a recycle program from the store. So, no harm in the house anymore.

-Ray-

[bomboman]

My friend has the same problem as you.

[Brains]

I've not had that problem with my macbbok pro, but I've had it happen with TWO Tmobile G1 batteries.

[tukaniray]

Yeah, it was only an issue ... so far, with the older MacBook Pros. The new uni-body ones haven't had this issue ... maybe changing from the Sony batteries to another company helped.

-Ray-

[Brains]

My original battery for my 2008 SR was a Sony, but it just died of old age. Wouldn't hold a charge for more than about 40 minutes. I gave it a whirl with a Chinese knock-off, which is still in there as I type this, but it works nowhere near as well as the real deal did. I only get about 2 hours out of this one, where my when-new Apple battery got about 3.5.

I'll upgrade to a whole new MBP one of these years to solve that issue though

[tukaniray]

Is that 3.5 hours you get doing the creative fun stuff, photoshop and illustrator type programs, or just watching DVDs and playing on the net?

I would say, doing the creative software, I get about 2-2.5 hours of play time.

I also would like to see if the new ones can hold up to their time run under photoshop and illustrator playtime.

-Ray-

[Brains]

I would get 3.5 doing more casual stuff - surfing the web, checking email, importing into LR, simple edits (crop, white bal, levels, sharpen), etc. If I did anything that ramped up the CPU enough to kick the fans off idle, battery life trended more towards the 2 - 2.5 you're seeing.