I meant to get one of these when my wife got a new EE contract recently. Sort of glad I didn't now. Lithium batteries are great but they do seem to be pretty risky…

cheesemp
I meant to get one of these when my wife got a new EE contract recently. Sort of glad I didn't now. Lithium batteries are great but they do seem to be pretty risky…

they prob went for cheap cells .. simples .. instead of going with lg 25amp or sony vtc4's

that's the problem with 18650's they have to be able to take the charge or drain .. cheap one's cant ..

my guess is they used ultrafire or trustfire branded cells .. complete rubbish ..

To get one you send the text POWER to 3650
- but I did this today and received

“We've temporarily suspended the EE Power Bar program. We will contact you when we restart.”

As for total number of powerbars given out:

we were happy to have given out over 1.5m Power Bars since April this year.

http://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Announcements-from-EE/More-about-the-Power-Bars-Batch-E1-06-Recall/td-p/331382

Also giving out £20 vouchers:

As a gesture of goodwill for customers affected by the recall, when they return their Power Bar to store we will offer them a £20 voucher that can be spent on accessories at ee.co.uk.p

flearider
they prob went for cheap cells .. simples .. instead of going with lg 25amp or sony vtc4's

that's the problem with 18650's they have to be able to take the charge or drain .. cheap one's cant ..

my guess is they used ultrafire or trustfire branded cells .. complete rubbish ..

Problem is even Sony have had recalls recently. It just seems to be a risk with Lithium that small unnoticed issues in production can be very dangerous and no one is immune to it. (Although I do agree some brands are better than others!)

flearider
they prob went for cheap cells .. simples .. instead of going with lg 25amp or sony vtc4's

that's the problem with 18650's they have to be able to take the charge or drain .. cheap one's cant ..

my guess is they used ultrafire or trustfire branded cells .. complete rubbish ..

I doubt any manufacturer would use xFire cells, which are generally just rebranded/QC-failed/recycled cells from the actual manufacturers. They're not a wholesale brand themselves AFAIK.

It would be interesting to know if this happened on the charge or discharge cycle. The thing with LiIons is the protection circuitry has to be properly functional and they shouldn't be abused. It only takes some out-of-tolerance protection circuitry to allow a cell to overdischarge and become a danger upon the next charge cycle for instance.