London Euston CLOSED due to an e-cigarette causing a small explosion 29/08

[Nym]

London Euston is currently closed due to an on going security alert

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tra...evacuated-due-to-security-alert-a3622441.html




*A quote couldn't be added at the time of posting as this story was just breaking and the original article was mainly tweets embedded in*

Dammit, I knew that ACME e-Fags would cause problems...

 

[ValleyLines142]

I didn't realise it was possible to terminate 11-car Pendolinos at Harrow & Wealdstone, but apparently so.

Correct, the 1756 from Manchester (1A61) terminated there.

Has happened before during disruption.

 

[scruffer04]

Completely agree. Made for pence in Asia- its a matter of time before this occurs in an aircraft hold.

That's a real worry

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[QueensCurve]

How long has Euston had 3rd rail electrification then?

Since long before it had 25kV.

The "DC" [formerly "electric"] lines from Watford go onto platforms 9 and 10, both of which are dual electrified.

 

[QueensCurve]

Perhaps this will finally prompt HMG to properly regulate these devices.

But the right wing of British Politics, including many of the current ruling elite, consider any form of regulation an infringement of their right to profit.

 

[physics34]

Completely agree. Made for pence in Asia- its a matter of time before this occurs in an aircraft hold.

Hope lessons have been learned from the Valujet DC9 crash and that smoke detection equipment prevents a disaster, cos i can see it happenimg one day

 

[Eccles1983]

So one or two ecig explode out of the millions in use and now extreme regulation is required?

Get real. It could of as easy happened with a mobile phone or laptop, largely all madr in asia (why this was highlighted I have no idea but there you go)

Occationally electrical items explode. Its the nature of the beast.

 

[CentralTrainer]

So one or two ecig explode out of the millions in use and now extreme regulation is required?

Get real. It could of as easy happened with a mobile phone or laptop, largely all madr in asia (why this was highlighted I have no idea but there you go)

Occationally electrical items explode. Its the nature of the beast.

And something WAS done when it happened. You don't remember the fallout over the whole Galaxy Note 7 debacle where it was banned by airlines etc?

The Asian thing was flagged up by the poster there due to most of those cheap e-cig devices being made over there and not subject to any regulations - unlike those made in the EU which are subject to stringent checks to gain the "CE" mark on them to allow them to be sold.

Those devices DO need regulation - and it's not extreme in the slightest.

Would you be sat there when a fire breaks out on an aircraft/train due to one of those things spontaneously combusting smiling and thinking to yourself "everything is fine, nothing needs to be done, nature of the beast this"...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Occationally electrical items explode. Its the nature of the beast.

Lithium batteries pose a specific threat much nastier than most other threats from electrical items. I think they would stand some regulation to weed out the dangerous cheap rubbish, not just in the context of E-cigs.

 

[Eccles1983]

And something WAS done when it happened. You don't remember the fallout over the whole Galaxy Note 7 debacle where it was banned by airlines etc?

The Asian thing was flagged up by the poster there due to most of those cheap e-cig devices being made over there and not subject to any regulations - unlike those made in the EU which are subject to stringent checks to gain the "CE" mark on them to allow them to be sold.

Those devices DO need regulation - and it's not extreme in the slightest.

Would you be sat there when a fire breaks out on an aircraft/train due to one of those things spontaneously combusting smiling and thinking to yourself "everything is fine, nothing needs to be done, nature of the beast this"...

Tell me where most if not all mobile phones and batteries are made?

I'll wager that asia is the answer.

I think knicker wetting statements like the above are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Therr must be millions of these devices used every day. From my recollection 2 have caused issues reaching the press. One on a bus on the m6 and this incident.

Hardly a ticking timebomb is it.

 

[CentralTrainer]

Tell me where most if not all mobile phones and batteries are made?

I'll wager that asia is the answer.

I think knicker wetting statements like the above are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Therr must be millions of these devices used every day. From my recollection 2 have caused issues reaching the press. One on a bus on the m6 and this incident.

Hardly a ticking timebomb is it.

Most e-cigarette explosions that occurred before early 2015 involved no reported injuries. However, people began to experience different types of e-cigarette explosions when sub-ohm vaping and mods with removable batteries became more popular. More than ever, e-cigarettes explode during use. Explosions resulting from people carrying spare batteries in their pockets are also far more common. Regardless of the circumstances, e-cigarette explosions are far more likely to cause injuries today than they were in the past.

There have been 243 documented cases of incendiary incidents involving those devices over the past few years - with 158 resulting in personal injury.

 

[rebmcr]

The Asian thing was flagged up by the poster there due to most of those cheap e-cig devices being made over there and not subject to any regulations - unlike those made in the EU which are subject to stringent checks to gain the "CE" mark on them to allow them to be sold.

Rubbish. The CE mark is self-certification.

 

[physics34]

So one or two ecig explode out of the millions in use and now extreme regulation is required?

Get real. It could of as easy happened with a mobile phone or laptop, largely all madr in asia (why this was highlighted I have no idea but there you go)

Occationally electrical items explode. Its the nature of the beast.

youve just failed your interview at the H&S department.

All it takes is a one in a million event to cause a disaster.

They do need to be regulated to be fair

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Wasn't there also problems at one time with the aux power batteries on the Boeing Dreamliners? iirc they're li-ion batteries

 

[coppercapped]

youve just failed your interview at the H&S department.

All it takes is a one in a million event to cause a disaster.

They do need to be regulated to be fair

And 'regulation' would eliminate the failures completely? Or would regulation reduce the number of fires and explosions by some percentage? How big is 'some'? What is an acceptable value of 'some?

What would be regulated? The whole thing? Just the battery? How would the thing be regulated?

Or maybe smoking tobacco is safer than these e-cigarettes? How often do lighters catch fire? Or boxes of matches? Should they be regulated?

 

[dgl]

But what exactly is the problem with e-cigarettes?

The main problem with e-cigarettes is not necessarily the devices them selves but the batteries that power them.

Lithium batteries primarily have three major faults, over charging, under charging and high current delivery.

The high current delivery is actually one of the main advantages with lithium batteries, the fact that they can power high drain appliances being useful in so many applications (e-cigarettes being certainly one of them). This, however, also means that if something goes wrong and there is a short in the pack/cell they get very hot very quickly which can cause the battery (as with this incident) to explode or catch fire.
This fact combined with a lack of understanding by most people of how lithium batteries behave, the fact we want ever higher capacities in a smaller battery, inadequate storage and the plethora or badly made cheap lithium batteries without the requisite protection circuitry to protect against shorting exasperates this problem.
The note 7 battery being an unfortunate consequence of a battery that was just two small for it's capacity.

The next problem relates to the charging of the battery, primarily one of batteries being incorrectly charged and damaging the cell(s) making them unsafe during subsequent use or causing them to catch on fire or explode.
This (generally overcharging) is caused by using chargers that are not designed for lithium batteries and as such either don't charge in the specific way lithium batteries like to be recharged (i.e. just having a voltage put across the terminals of the battery, something that at low currents is fine with Ni-Mh/Ni-Cd) or failing to stop the charging process when the battery has reached full capacity.
A good example of this was e-cigarettes being supplied with what looked like a standard USB charger with a standard USB A connector. Given that a standard lithium cell is nominally 3.7V and USB is defined as nominally 5V using a phone charger to charge the e-cigarette caused the battery to quickly overheat and either explode or catch on fire.

The last problem is one of over discharge. Lithium batteries can be permanently damaged if the cell voltage is too low casing problems and possible overheating during charging, this generally happens if there is no circuitry either in the battery or in the device to completely cut the battery when the cell voltage has fallen below a certain threshold and as most devices now use soft power on/off as long as the battery is connected to the device then it is being constantly drained.

But what is the solution?

Firstly better regulation is needed both in the quality of the batteries and charging methods. Lithium batteries should have a government mandated inspection scheme that the product needs to pass for the device/battery to be legally sold. Ideally this would form part of a worldwide scheme that all countries adhere too.

Secondly as part of this regulation the charging of batteries also needs to be looked at, making sure lithium battery chargers/charging circuits charge the batteries correctly and banning the use of chargers that whilst have USB sockets use different voltages removing the problem of supplying a device with 5V where the battery id expecting 3.7V.
should not be possible on a device legally sold in Britain to have a voltage applied to it that can cause an internal battery to explode.

And lastly educating people on the dangers and showing them how to store lithium batteries safely. Putting a lithium battery in the same pocket as keys and such like will eventually cause a short and you WILL know about it.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Wasn't there also problems at one time with the aux power batteries on the Boeing Dreamliners? iirc they're li-ion batteries

Please don't go there! At the time of that issue it generated many hundreds of pages of discussion on just one aviation forum though the spats between the Airbus and Boeing fanbois was quite amusing. In fact the incidents mostly occurred during a few weeks in early 2013 and the authorities are nowadays perfectly satisfied that the problems will not happen again. Indeed the regulators having had too light a touch in the first place was accepted as a significant contributory factor. But e-cigs have been relatively under the radar thus far: will it take someone suffering life changing injuries before action is taken?

 

[zuriblue]

And 'regulation' would eliminate the failures completely? Or would regulation reduce the number of fires and explosions by some percentage? How big is 'some'? What is an acceptable value of 'some?

What would be regulated? The whole thing? Just the battery? How would the thing be regulated?

Or maybe smoking tobacco is safer than these e-cigarettes? How often do lighters catch fire? Or boxes of matches? Should they be regulated?

It's not unknown, Swan Vestas had a habit of spontaneously ignited. My father had a box of Swan go off in his pocket years ago, he could have been quite badly burned.