iPod Nano suicide bombs own charger
"After being plugged in for somewhere between 5-10 minutes I heard a sizzling sound. I looked down on the iPod just in time to see it explode open and start shooting sparks and spewing smoke."
Dale's tale of battery-'sploding woe would be quite enough by itself. He journeys on, however, into the light-bathed smiling helpfulness of Apple support, whose agents refer only to a cabal of all-knowing Engineers. But The Engineers are not replacement iPods: soon enough, the smiles fade and the Kafka begins. A flinty manager at his local Apple Store informs us that iPods don't explode, that there are secret safety-related reasons why he cannot help you today, that only the Engineers can help you, and that Sir, phone support should not have promised you anything.
On the other hand, the guy did go windmilling into the Apple store, at the weekend, expecting instantaneous out-of-warranty beneficence.
iPod Nano Explodes While Charging [Consumerist]
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Whoa whoa there, isn't this shit Underwriters Laboratories tested?
Tell that to LiCoO2!
I think Rob's point is an important one. Lithium and NiMH batteries are a pretty decent amount of energy packed into a small package, and quick-charging in particular involves putting them under a certain amount of physical stress as well as heating them.
As with anything, they _can_ fail, and if they do so the energy can go right into heat. I haven't looked at the spec sheets on lithium cells, but I know that if NiMH batteries catch fire the recommendation is that all you can do is let them burn themselves out -- pouring water on them will not stop the fire, though it may help keep the surroundings cool enough to keep other things from igniting.
The surprising thing may actually be that this doesn't happen more often. Apparently the failsafes designed into these (pressure relief valves; internal fuses in some designs; I'm not sure what else) work pretty darned well.
But there's always going to be the occasional case where a failsafe fails to fail safe. UL approval just means it's designed right; it doesn't guarantee you against either manufacturing defect or act-of-god randomness.
This sounds like the latter.
I think the fact someone says 'They don't explode' would be a perfect reason for getting a new one... not so much because said person can eat crow, but because they would want to look at it for pure awe like WOW effect. If I was an apple engineer I would be like "It exploded? I gotta See THAT!"
Clearly, the Nano committed suicide.
It has happened before. CNN has an article: http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/19/news/international/ipod_japan.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008081912