
Hoverboard fires - Animats
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22hoverboard+fire%22&tbm=isch
======
Animats
Hoverboard fires continue.

Underwriters' Laboratories has now announced 1) that as of Feb 2, they have a
test program to certify hoverboards for not catching on fire or blowing up,
and 2), all UL labels on hoverboards so far are fake.

Amazon is refusing to pay hoverboard manufacturers for their products, and is
taking returns on all hoverboards. The hoverboard industry in Shentzen has
collapsed.[1]

There are still daily hoverboard fire news stories.

Good technical analysis is rare so far. However, so far, the following have
been reported:

\- Fake Samsung batteries

\- Batteries without cell-level protective devices

\- Battery pack mismatched to charger, causing overcharging.

It takes about seven protective devices to make a lithium-ion battery safe.
Some cells come with a small round circuit board at the end of the cell to
provide protection and thermal monitoring at the cell level. Some don't. Some
cells have overpressure vents. Some don't. Some have thermal fuses. Some
don't. Chargers need to follow a charge curve, monitor cell temperature, and
have a backup cutoff circuit to stop overcharging. (If you overcharge a LiIon
cell, it _will_ catch fire unless some safety device trips first.)

This may be the worst product launch in modern history.

And these things aren't even Internet-connected.

[1] [http://qz.com/582542/chinas-makeshift-hoverboard-industry-
is...](http://qz.com/582542/chinas-makeshift-hoverboard-industry-is-imploding-
after-amazons-safety-crackdown/)

~~~
pjc50
_The hoverboard industry in Shentzen has collapsed._

This is a classic "market for lemons" event. People might say that there is a
market for safe electric skateboards, but since consumers have no way of
identifying a safe one and all the safety markings are forged, they're not
going to buy one at all.

People need to bear this in mind when asking for deregulation in general.
Sometimes it's necessary to remove the actively dangerous vendors from a
market.

(When life gives you flammable explosive lemons, what would Cave Johnson do?)

Edit: arguably this is already happening in the consumer IoT market. The
default assumption is that a product will spy on you, be uninteroperable,
insecure, and vulnerable to remote-bricking by the manufacturer. Each
individual product has to swim upstream this current of skepticism. Hence the
joke about at least the exploding skateboards not being internet-connected.

~~~
EliRivers
On a tangentially related subject, I ran into an old chum over the weekend who
has spent the last four years living in a major city in China, and he's coming
back because he says he just can't trust anything. He can't breath the air, he
can't trust the water (even sealed bottled water, having seen enough sealed
bottled water that was actually taken straight from the factory tap), recently
some people were executed for selling plastic rice (which did exactly what you
would expect to the people eating it). Regulation is so necessary. To be fair,
he did make it clear that the penalty for fucking with the food supply is
death.

~~~
pjc50
Indeed. Public trust is an important shared resouce, and like any other shared
resouce vulnerable to people who want to asset-strip it for a profit. People
forget that in the West the level of general trust we enjoy is high, took a
long time to build, and requires continuous engagement to maintain.

That's why incidents like Flint, MI need to be addressed with a national
response, or in a few decades people will be struggling to work out where to
get safe water in the US.

------
rasz_pl
For anyone wondering how come chinese product with Li-ion battery explodes
here is a good entry level walkthrough/explanation based on ~$20 LED "20W"
floodlight example.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5XknXGkZ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5XknXGkZ8)

Sins:

\- absolutely atrocious manual build quality.

\- no real load current control, replaced with wishful thinking and best case
scenario back of a napkin calculated circuit.

\- nasty power supply pretending to be a charger with ZERO protection and NO
CUT-OFF. It will charge until something melts or blows.

\- all electronic components underrated.

\- 100% fake parameters.

Now you might say not everything from china is like that, there are good and
bad engineers everywhere. That is true, except better engineers work at
Xiaomi, Rigol, Lenovo‎, etc. You simply cant expect any quality from no name
fly by night Shenzhen outfits. Just read Chinese reactions to excellent Amazon
move from the link Animats gave earlier:

[http://qz.com/582542/chinas-makeshift-hoverboard-industry-
is...](http://qz.com/582542/chinas-makeshift-hoverboard-industry-is-imploding-
after-amazons-safety-crackdown/)

They are shutting down and moving on to counterfeiting something else instead
of working on security of this product!?!?!! Actually hiring an engineer is
too much hassle. :/

~~~
buserror
I've seen the process many times, for many 'cheap' chinese produts.

They first design (or more often copy) a product, then they start removing the
bits that 'aren't needed' \-- like filtering caps and so on; sometime even
fuses in power supplies, and pretty much ANYTHING they can save $.0002 on.

So when the first 'wave' of the product appears, you actually have a pretty
good chance of having something of good quality/value -- however very quickly
it degenerates into a pile of fire-hazard or device-destructing poo.

The rule #1 of buying cheap gadget is ALWAYS TAKING IT APART before even
plugging it in or trying it. There are no alternatives. Often you can tweak it
to make it safe/good, but sometime, it's instant return.

------
martin-adams
Fortunately I don't own a hoverboard, but I do own a Vauxhall Zafira car and
there have been reports of them catching fire recently. Huge product recall,
but does make you think.

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22hoverboard+fire%22&tbm=...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22hoverboard+fire%22&tbm=isch&gws_rd=cr&ei=qG64VtP1JMjeUaTWi9gO#tbm=isch&q=%22zafira+fire%22)

~~~
ollie87
You own a Zafira?

I'm so sorry.

~~~
martin-adams
haha, apology accepted.

------
chris_wot
If sellers have knowingly sold hover boards that aren't safe, then as far as
I'm concerned I think they deserve having their funds frozen so that consumers
can get refunds.

These manufacturers are bleating that Amazon has been "unfair", but they say
nothing about how unfair it is to endanger the lives of those who bought a fun
electronic toy to make a fast buck.

So zero sympathy from me!

------
cenal
I'd like to point out that there are responsible players in this industry.

My buddy has one of these: [http://onewheel.com/](http://onewheel.com/)

It's very well constructed and it's his daily transportation to and from work
(weather permitting).

The problem units all seem to be inexpensive products built to fail. The same
is true with second hand batteries for laptops and has been covered by the
media.

[http://www.howtogeek.com/172680/danger-why-you-shouldnt-
buy-...](http://www.howtogeek.com/172680/danger-why-you-shouldnt-buy-cheap-
third-party-batteries-for-laptops-or-smartphones/)

The trouble is with Hover Boards you get shoddy quality electronics gear with
dangerous power sources. It's a terrible mix.

~~~
LoSboccacc
woah! I'm generally skeptical on motorized boards because small pebbles at
speed will murder me and roads here are quite bad, but this is the one that
might actually work for me.

~~~
CaptainZapp
Add to this that use of those gizmos on public greound is outright illegal in
a lot of countries.

While the consequences, if caught may not be dire, causing an accident may
hurl you into a world of pain, since your insurer won't pay squat. Or they may
pay and hound you for the rest of your life in order to get reimbursed.

Being responsible for personal injury can get very, very expensive.

~~~
gambiting
It wouldn't be any more expensive than walking into someone, with them falling
down and breaking their back. Hitting someone with a bicycle can cause serious
harm and cost you a lot of money, yet I know one person who owns insurance for
riding a bike - 99.9% of people riding bikes don't care. I don't see why it
would be different for this, it's slightly faster than walking and slower than
riding a bike.

~~~
CaptainZapp
If you cause an accident on foot, or riding a bicycle your third party
liability insurance pays for the damage.

If you cause the damage by using an _illegal device_ your insurer will not pay
for the damage.

It's not a matter of being slightly faster, it's a matter of the device not
being certified for use on public grounds.

~~~
LoSboccacc
how many are actually insured for that specific liability? just asking, I'm
unfamiliar with the other countries insurance policies, but I've rarely heard
people being insured that way in the European countries I lived.

~~~
CaptainZapp
I can only speak for Switzerland: Most people here have have "household
insurance", which covers theft, damage to property and mostly third party
liability.

Third party liability won't cover usage of a motor vehicle (needs to be
insured seperately, and is mandatory). It does cover damages caused by riding
a bicycle, though.

------
ck2
Why aren't they using LiFePO4 batteries like we did for ebikes?

They are extremely hard to catch fire.

But more expensive and less energy available per square inch.

~~~
runholm
High-end products that compete with the hoverboard do have much more safe
designs. The problem is that the market has been flooded with flawed products
that have been pushed past what is safe to lower the price.

------
dchest
[https://www.google.com/search?q="christmas+tree+fire"&source...](https://www.google.com/search?q="christmas+tree+fire"&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

~~~
ars
Almost all of these seem staged for safety demonstration, not real fires.

~~~
adrianN
When your christmas tree catches fire, you probably won't want to stick around
to take pictures.

~~~
robin_reala
I had a Christmas tree catch fire once when I was a kid, but that was probably
due to the real candles (!) that were being used as lights.

~~~
thecatspaw
> due to the real candles (!)

is using real candles such a unusual thing where you are that you felt you
needed to include the (!)? I never had fake lights, only real candles

~~~
dagw
I can honestly say I've never seen anyone use real candles in a christmas tree
in past 30 years.

~~~
thecatspaw
Im in europe, and have quite the opposite experience. Fake candles seem common
in the US, are you from there?

~~~
pluma
German here. It was common a few decades ago but there have been a lot of
safety campaigns and these days it's unthinkable for most young adults and
exceedingly rare.

Only exception I can think of is the German president, who had real candles on
his tree during the traditional Christmas address. But I wouldn't be too
surprised if there were fire safety officers keeping an eye on the tree in
case it spontaneously decides to do something dangerous.

I would be surprised if live candles on Christmas trees don't void your
insurance in Germany, actually.

~~~
robin_reala
This was in Kiel in the early 80s, so that fits in with your timeline.

~~~
pluma
Not sure what you're referring to.

The Christmas address with live candles was last year:
[http://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/DE/Joachim-G...](http://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/DE/Joachim-
Gauck/Reden/2015/12/151225-Weihnachtsansprache-2015.html)

~~~
robin_reala
Uh, as in ‘common a few decades ago’.

~~~
pluma
Ah, the _Christmas tree catching fire_ was in Kiel in the 80s? I wasn't aware
you were talking about Germany there.

------
dutchbrit
I was thinking about making an electric bike using hoverboard components but
think I'll be building the battery pack myself after all the news I've seen
lately...

~~~
teekert
Or use the (excellently tested) Xiaomi battery packs? Make very sure they are
the real deal though!

------
shoinwf
Thanks to this careless engineering, anything with a large lithium battery can
no longer be checked in on flights. No more traveling with electric
skateboards or drones.

------
InclinedPlane
Turns out, when you build electronics using li-ion/li-po batteries that don't
have the proper protection circuitry built in, you get fires pretty easily.

~~~
sjtrny
That's not necessarily true. Most people in electric RC hobbies use Lithium
batteries without any form of protection circuitry on the battery or cells
themselves. The fire rate in the hobby is very low.

~~~
avian
> The fire rate in the hobby is very low.

As far as I know the percentage of hoverboards that catch fire can also be
low. It may be just that RC hobbyists usually don't post pictures of their
flaming batteries on Facebook with a comment that they are a terrible fire
hazard and demand to be taken off the market.

For what anecdotal evidence is worth, I know of one house fire and one car
fire due to lithium batteries among the members of my local RC club.

------
ars
(The google link is simply a Google image search for Hoverboard fires, not
extra info on the topic.)

------
omegote
A search in Google images reaches the front page of HN. That's quality content
right there.

~~~
justhw
I think this is still a relevant topic for HN. There have been great
discussions here about batteries etc...(Tesla) and some really knowledgeable
people chime in.

------
bobsgame
This is horrible and I feel for their losses.

