Is it just me, or is their choice to use mAh—a meaningless unit in this context—a major red flag? Five figures for a bag, and they can’t even get their units right? Is there some “standard voltage” of which I’m not aware?
> Our bags were tested on 4 separate occasions with an overheated laptop, each containing a 3,500mAh - 4500mAh Lithium-Ion battery. The computers melted and burned during these 1 hour tests. The bags showed zero exterior damage. The pull over flaps combined with our carbon liner also absorbed a significant amount of smoke.
That’s meaningless unless we know the voltage. Amp-hours don’t measure energy.
> Tests were conducted with an overheated laptop and cell phone battery (combined capacity of 8,000 mAh- twice as much power as a typical laptop). Our bag passed this test with 100% containment.
Amp-hours don’t measure power—that’d be watts. Neither are measures of energy. This is misleading at best.
Maybe I’m being pedantic, but if I’m paying five figures for a bag and trusting my life with this company, I think it’s fair to expect technical correctness in the product description. This reads like a scam—maybe it isn’t, but the wording is far from reassuring.
Most lithium-based rechargeable cells are nominally between 3.2 and 3.8 volts and are rated in mAh[1]. I would much prefer that they were rated in watt-hours, but they are not.
1: I've seen LMOs with nominal voltages as high as 3.8; LiFePO4 are Nominally 3.2; I think there are some exotic electrode chemistries that are nominally under 3V, but 3.2-3.8 is a fairly solid range for the nominal voltage; voltages at full charge and "empty" will be higher and lower respectively.
$1,100 to contain fire from a phone? No-one is buying it because that's is a terrible deal!
An E-bike battery is like 20x larger, is a containment for e-bike going to cost as much as a car?
But yeah let's blame the consumer, the industry can't be at fault!
Also I had a fire extinguisher, they have an expiration date and now I don't have one.
A suitable fireproof containment bag + fire-resistant gloves is about $1200 AUD (Brimstone Preventer [1], but I'm sure alternatives are available. This one is small phone/tablet sized and rated for 10k mAh). But most people won't purchase a < $100 fire extinguisher, let alone a battery fire containment device.
>A fire extinguisher large enough for a 500wh battery weighs 12 kilos - most people can barely lift that!
SafeWork Australia (our national OSHA body) recommend loads be kept below about ~16 to 20kg for a single person without mechanical assistance[2] (or up to 55kg with), and most packaging for heavy boxes recommends two person lift starting around 25 to 36kg. 12kg should be trivial for most adults.
[1] https://www.powdersafe.com.au/fire-containment-bag-small-tab...
[2] https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/documents/...