Battery Overheating

Hardware
1

I normally have very little to do with tablet repairs as there is little to work on or with. Except installing apps or removal for beginner guidance. But a few days back a friend brought her tablet in to look at…. It had exploded and was 3 times the normal thickness. battery problem was my reaction through over charging but she assured me it had not been charged or used for over a week just sat in the cupboard.

No repair possible due to age and make, cost of new battery plus deformation of case age of tablet etc.

But I took it apart for my own learning process before scraping.

Yes the battery had exploded and was so fat plus leaking fluid (gel) it went very quickly into the recycle battery bin well wrapped to protect others.

Had an apple laptop a few years back did the same but was able to continue without battery just lived with external keyboard due to damage internally, tried the same with a no name windows laptop but that just rocked as no weight in base to keep it stable.

There are many reports of cheap bikes and scooters catching fire through faults with electricity

So point of discussion

New tablets are often left plugged into the mains (ok they have circuit cut out technology)

The battery is no longer removable built into the mother board, no clips to remove, no screws to take apart.

Do you leave yours plugged in all the time

If not in use charge battery to maximum

Run down before storage

Transport in car in the heat

The other side is the need to reduce electricity costs for the home

Interested in your contribution to the subject.

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2

Hi Paul,
Please don’t misunderstand me, but I’ll start with the answer I gave in another thread.
If necessary, I can expand on my opinion.

Jorge

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We leave ours on the charger overnight, every night.
That is a convenience option.
I have seen no experimental evidence regarding how to best manage charging of laptops, phones, etc. It is all opinion or baseless assertions.

My only experience of that was a camera battery… it swelled but did not explode.
We did have a tablet battery cease to function, but it merely refused to charge, no swelling.

Rail authorities here have banned taking of cheap bikes or scooters on trains. There is a genuine problem with Lithium batteries.

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4

As lithium batteries age they give off gas (hydrogen, I think) which is trapped in the plastic that encases the battery. This causes them to swell. I had one that expanded enough to crack the trackpad on a Macbook Air.

“They” say that it’s best to not charge lithium batteries above 80% to get the best lifetime out of them. My friend’s Tesla car came with that recommendation, as did my Samsung phone and my FrameWork laptop.

I think the tablet Paul was looking at simply died of old age.

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5

Only seen LIPO batter swelling a few times…

e.g. on my Nexus 5 - which I used as a Linux machine with MaruOS… so stopped using the Nexus 5 - it was great having a Linux (Debian Jessie with XFCE) in my pocket - the Debian ran as a chroot under Android - so I still had access to Android apps and play store… But it only had 32 GB of storage (I need 100+ GB as a bare minimum)…

I just left the Nexus running 24 x 7 on charge… and when the battery expanded - it warped the whole chassis…

But also seen it happen on a Dell Latitude - easy enough to replace the battery…

Just looked at the battery health of my ThinkPad E495 - reckon I’ll get a new battery for it and start letting it discharge a few times :

╭─x@fenrixii ~  
╰─➤  upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0                   

  native-path:          BAT0
  vendor:               Celxpert
  model:                5B10W138
  serial:               1454
  power supply:         yes
  updated:              Tue 07 Oct 2025 11:34:41 AM AWST (17 seconds ago)
  has history:          yes
  has statistics:       yes
  battery
    present:             yes
    rechargeable:        yes
    state:               fully-charged
    warning-level:       none
    energy:              36.93 Wh
    energy-empty:        0 Wh
    energy-full:         37.28 Wh
    energy-full-design:  45.73 Wh
    energy-rate:         0 W
    voltage:             12.222 V
    charge-cycles:       338
    percentage:          100%
    capacity:            81.522%
    technology:          lithium-polymer
    icon-name:          'battery-full-charged-symbolic

i.e. it’s only got 4/5 capacity since factory… and wouldn’t surprise me if there’s some dodgy cells - I’m lucky to get 3 hours out of it… Unlike my MacBook Pro M1 - which can go 6-8 hours at least (I’ve never really pushed it)…

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6

But if you don’t charge your car fully the range is very much reduced making a long journey impossible. We are currently in Spain and the route we took had no services for over 100 km and no charge point at that stop plus the village we are staying in has no charge options not even in the hotel.

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Yes, Spain can be a real challenge in this manner.

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Yes, but only when severely degraded. There are other gases too, including CO and HCN.
The gases are a hazard in themselves.

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Not just that but the gel burns on skin contact

Before we wore electric static bands now we need rubber gloves and aprons not to mention eye protection. Dangerous game this computer lark plus virus and bug protection needed …. Health and safety hazard.

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Re laptop batteries : I regularly check laptop batteries with the cmdline app inxi by inxi-B which shows both the actual charged percentage and the percentage of the original new battery capacity (very useful)

I type this message on an old Apple MacBook Pro from 2011 running Zorin 17.3 OS and am lucky with the battery capacity still 80.6 percent of the original new capacity . Like other laptops I use (all from the 2013-14s ) I don’t charge batteries to 100 percent but to 80-90 percent .

Frank in County Wicklow - Ireland

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11

Hi,
My laptop battery has degraded by 11%, meaning it is at 89% of its maximum capacity.

In recent weeks, even when limited to charging up to 80%, it started to take a long time to charge, with the last 1% taking almost an hour to charge, and even in eco mode, the battery discharged very quickly.

On Saturday, while charging the battery, I noticed that the laptop was very hot in the battery area, almost “boiling.” It was charging, of course, but the outside temperature was extremely high.

The power supply was also extremely hot.

I opened the power supply, but unfortunately, it is completely filled with glue, which prevents me from replacing the power supply capacitors.

I had already bought the battery second-hand with 89% capacity, and even so, it lasted over a year (I don’t remember if was two years) with inconsistent charging and discharging and no charge and discharge limits, shutting down at 5%.

I’m only changing it because, to me, the battery is heating up much more than normal for a new battery, but I could be wrong.

The battery before this one was also used, no longer had maximum capacity, lasted about 4 years, and also started with the same symptoms I mentioned above: long charging time and excessive temperature.

Why buy used batteries:

  • They were the laptop brand, not alternative brands.
  • The person I bought it from, someone I trust completely.

Conclusion: I ordered a power supply and a new battery, but this time a generic brand, because a secondhand battery was not available.

I’m a little worried about this battery.
I think I’ll set limits of 80% for charging and 20% for discharging, not because the laptop doesn’t turn off the charging circuit when it reaches 100% and stops charging the battery, but because I don’t trust generic batteries and don’t want to damage the laptop.

It’s unrelated, but here’s an example: when you buy AA 1.5V batteries, do you buy generic brands or brand names like Varta, Duracell, etc.? They are all AA batteries and should not leak, but that’s not true (I’ve also seen branded batteries leak), but there are batteries and batteries and, most importantly, a little luck involved.
The same thing happens with batteries.

Jorge

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i buy Australian made brand name batteries. The brand is EverReady

I have had that battery expanding business with a Lithium battery in a camera.
I can only get aftermarket batteries for the camera.

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Did not réalisé that mark still existed

Duracell is the main mark here but they still have problems for a time they had wear indicates on the side but they were not useful so stopped that. But they also explode and leak

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They might be leaders, but also at very high costs. Some cheaper brands are available at a more reasonable price. (Varta, Panasonic)

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But at what standard of power or durability ?

Does one excuse the other

Ok the are all the same size a aa etc but the advert suggest Duracell lasts longer never tried a difference

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As mentioned, they are excellent but damn expensive. Most of the time, cheaper batteries are acceptable.

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There is more expensive.
You can get non-rechargable lithium based a and aa batteries. I use them in the keyboard. Have gone 5 years so far.

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