LG to Replace Laptop Batteries
LG Electronics has offered free replacement batteries after two users claimed that their notebook PCs exploded. Despite the recall offer, LG has so far described the incidents as “isolated “. The partial recall applies to batteries manufactured by LG Chemical for two recent laptop models, the LG Z1 and LG Z2.
Video shot in January showed a journalist’s LG Z1-AE007 notebook burning and then exploding.
LG stopped selling the Z1 last week after a second battery fire was reported, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. The first battery fire was triggered by “unusual heat and pressure”, a researcher from the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute told the Korea Times. However, the researchers were unable to discover how that battery had got into such a state. The notebook’s owner claimed that it had been put into a backpack in sleep mode a short while before catching fire, and that there was nothing unusual about the storage conditions.
Common safety standards call for Lithium-based batteries to withstand at least 10 minutes at 130 degrees centigrade.
