One of the world’s leading computer manufacturers is recalling tens of thousands of potentially faulty lithium-ion batteries that could set the devices on fire.
And if a fire caused by lithium-ion batteries broke out on a plane it could cause a serious problem, especially at 35,000ft.
HP has revealed there have been eight recent reports of battery packs in the US overheating, melting or charring, leaving one person with slight injuries.
It admits on its website: “These batteries have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to customers. Many of these batteries are internal to the system which means they are not customer replaceable. HP is providing battery replacement services by an authorised technician at no cost.”
A formal recall notice has now been sent out by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
The batteries were sold at retailers nationwide and online along with notebook computers and mobile workstations between December 2015 until April 2018 and cost between $300 and $4,000.
The batteries were also sold separately between December 2015 and December 2018 for between $50 and $90.
HP first recalled 50,000 of the batteries in January 2018 but has now recalled a further 78,500.
The lithium-ion batteries were used for HP commercial notebook computers and mobile workstations including HP Probook 64x (G2 and G3), HP ProBook 65x (G2 and G3), HP ProBook 4xx G4 (430, 440, 450, 455, and 470), HP x360 310 G2, HP ENVY M6, HP Pavilion x360, HP 11 notebook computers and HP ZBook (17 G3, 17 G4 and Studio G3) mobile workstations.
They were also sold as replacement batteries for those products as well as the HP ZBook Studio G4 mobile workstation, HP ProBook 4xx G5 series, HP ENVY 15 and HP Mobile Thin Clients (mt21, mt22, and mt31).
HP recommends checking their battery safety recall and replacement website (https://batteryprogram687.ext.hp.com/) for instructions on how to have the defective batteries replaced.
* The problem of fires in personal electronic devices such as faulty laptops on passenger planes seems to be growing. One way to tackle such incidents is to use an AvSax fire containment bag which can deal with fires in personal electronic devices and are now carried on aircraft operated by 65 airline companies across the world – including some of the biggest and best-known.
AvSax – which won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2018 - has been used 28 times to deal with emergencies since the start of 2017.
More than 13,500 AvSax are now carried on aircraft worldwide. Deployment is so effective that extremely expensive diversions to alternate airports are avoided.
* Written by Andy Hirst at AH! PR http://www.ah-pr.com/
