The PSP's On Fire! No, Literally!!
Liar, liar, pants on fire! No, wait, you mean that PSP in your pocket is exploding? A seventh grader at Warner Middle School in Detroit, MI, was burned during band class when the PSP in his pocket overheated and sent him to the hospital! His injuries were apparently not terribly severe, and no one else was injured. They're still trying to figure out what caused the PSP to overheat, although the article mentions that on Sony's website they urge gamers to only use official Sony PSP battery packs and chargers "that meet our quality standards to avoid hazards such as firing or explosion."
Explosion? Seriously? Yikes! Good thing I keep my PSP in my bag, not my pocket! I mean, I've always gone for the official products nine times out of ten simply because I like the reassurance of the brand name. But I guess Sony wasn't kidding around when they warned of the dangers of sub-par batteries! Any of you encounter this kind of crazy overheating and fire-catching?
Sony PSP Overheats In Boy's Pocket [Detroit Free Press]
Wootini
Posted to Video Games on 6 February 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: battery packs, overheat, psp, sony
You know when they make recommendations like that I've come to find they're not kidding. I actually had my dreamcast start smoking and short out 2 controllers and a keyboard plugged into it because I also had a third party controller plugged in to it.
LiCoO2 (battery) + charge -> heat
LiCoO2 + heat -> Li + Co + O2
Li + O2 + heat -> BOOM! (more heat)
This is why rechargeable AAs are still nickel-based. Lithium batteries need an onboard computer to limit their intake. There's a new lithium ion process that use iron in place of the cobalt, which forms a more stable crystalline molecule and prevents the chain reaction, but there hasn't been enough invested in them for them to be ready as far as performance/price. The fiery explosions are just too rare to move the market.