consumer and otherwise electronics questions

[jeremy at itassist.net.au]

On 23 Aug, Sam Couter wrote:
> Antti.Roppola at brs.gov.au <Antti.Roppola at brs.gov.au> wrote:
>> 
>> Aka if you open the (dead) battery and it has micrcontrollers as well
>> as cells, we probably shouldn't fool with it?
> 
> If you find a microcontroller, it's probably a lithium ion cell. These are
> very dangerous creatures because of their high energy density. The
> microcontrollers are to stop them exploding at inopportune moments.

Well I was trying to avoid the word explosion because it's a bit
dramatic, but I suppose if the battery mix spilled on anything damp it
would be hard to tell the difference between that and an explosion.

In any case, the problem isn't going to be the battery exploding, it's
someone trying to connect the output of some dodgy rectifier or Duracell
to where the battery normally goes.  Unless you have a laptop like
Anti's (where you can see the cells) you are probably going to cook
something in your laptop.

-- 
I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
A bit or byte to read or write,
I/O, I/O, I/O...