Exploding hoverboards

Do you enjoy playing whack a mole?

[quote=Bort]

Jury’s still out on that one, getting caught up with the x’mas parcel rush, it may well end up as the ‘mole’, or worse me as the mole. :smiley:

edit…oh you mean the dealers, never had any luck at THAT fairgrounds. Gave up long time ago :frowning:

People could try suing the local resellers but the original sellers are in china, out of reach of lawsuits or any consequences.

Eventually you have to decide whether to keep playing the game or stop.

Has anyone seen any indication from news that the boards which have caught fire actually had faulty cells or packs? It seem like the same cells/pack design would be used in other products and they would suffer the same flaming fate, but this doesnt seem to be the case.

Most people attribute the problem to the battery cells but maybe problem lies in the electrical or charging design or rough treatment of the devices.

It’s giving 18650’s a bad name but I haven’t seen anything to indicate that the flaming boards couldnt contain pouch type lipos. I know most hoverboards use 18650’s but haven’t seen anything specific to the affected boards.

My son’s hoverboard arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take apart the battery pack to see what brand cells they contained.

My impression of the quality and workmanship is that it seems to have been assembled right. A few sloppy gobs of silicone here and there, but soldering seems to be well done. The one thing that I noticed was the lack of weatherseals anywhere on the unit. Seems like water can enter from any of the joints or ports.

Here are a few pictures:

Left Side

Right Side (opposite view)

Left Inside (bottom plate removed)

Right Inside (bottom plate removed)

36V !!! That’s a lot of cells in series. I’d be more worried about the kind of charge balancing and cell monitoring they have in there than the quality of the cells.

Note the line “Remove battery from device ….”

(the rest is obscured in that picture)

From I can glimpse of the label from other photographs that I took, the label reads:

4. Remove battery from device when not use for …

Not sure what finishes the sentence. Maybe “… prolonged periods of time” or “… storage”?

Sorry, the hoverboard has already been gift wrapped for Christmas. So, the mystery will have to wait. 0:)

The rest says “unless you have a morbid fear of a long, unroasted life…” J)

I found this clip while looking for battery replacements on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvgURN5Np_Q

Interestingly, while the carbon fiber exterior shell, lights, and ports appear to be identical to the one I purchased, the inside looks completely different!

Did you see balance leads on the pack?

After Christmas, do you plan to open up the wrapper on one of the battery packs? Personally I’d have to know that they were real quality cells. It was advertised as Samsung cells, correct?

i would try to be 101% sure that a gift i made is save
especially when that things are known as dangerous…

an german news magazine tested one which blocked the wheels after a few minutes of use
every reporter who tried that felt. until one broke his elbow.
but the testlacked details in electrical points…

It would probably not qualify as "budget," but wouldn't it be nice if Tesla made one of these? It knows how to properly manage large banks of cells.

Why is it that we are not reading similar stories about e-bikes? Some of them use a humongous number of Li-ion cells.

Look at all the lithium batteries for power tools. I haven't heard of many exploding drills and such. I was reading the box today for a Dewalt drill and for the batteries it says they come from Japan, China, Thailand,Malaysia and one other I think. So you are rolling the dice with them too.

maybe its just because they did not save the 2,50 for a proper charging ?

Dewalt is major brand that can be sued if they designed unsafe li-ion packs purposely to save a buck. When a hoverboard burns down your house (which has happened already) you have no one to sue, manufacturer is out of reach in china. It’s only the risk of consequences that forces most manufacturers to follow safety requirements. Many people seem to think “It’s all made in china, it’s all the same.” It’s not true at all. Major brands actually follow safety requirements in their designs and have oversight of manufacturing.

No, I did not.

That depends on whether…
… my son allows it. (He’s aware that Daddy isn’t 100% perfect when fixing things. 8) )
… the wiring harness is reasonably easy to untangle after removing the battery retaining strap.
… I can figure out a way of weatherproofing the battery pack after cutting it open.

I wouldn’t want to cause any damage or introduce new flaws to the product, just to satisfy my curiosity.


All of the fire/explosion reports that I have seen so far are for the 6.5 inch and 8 inch models. Not sure if that is because they are the most popular models, or whether the 10 inch model is safer. I hope it is because they are safer, since I purchased the 10 inch model. 0:)

Holy crap. So basically the battery pack is 10S with no balance leads? That alone should send up all sorts of red flags whether it has legitimate cells or not.

I did not NOTICE whether there were or were not any balance leads.

And none of the pictures show anything like a simple 10-wire lead (assuming the pack contains 10 cells to achieve the nominal rating of 36V).