Oliver Haslam·

Video Shows iPhone Battery Exploding As User Attempts A DIY Repair

It’s a well-known fact that exploding phone batteries are bad news. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it usually makes for quite the firework display. That’s something one DIY-er found out when trying to open up an iPhone 5s.

A Reddit user posted a video showing a coworker trying to open up an iPhone 5s. The outcome was pretty catastrophic, with the phone bursting into flames. The man threw them phone onto the floor and stamped on it to extinguish the fire which raises its own concerns.

Battery had been replaced by coworker who originally owned the phone and he thinks it was faulty equipment. Battery was swelling up when I charged it and he was taking it apart to see what was going on.

First of all, don’t take iPhones apart unless you are absolutely sure about what you are doing. It’s all-too easy to puncture the battery which is what we suspect happened here. And if you do that all bets are off.

Secondly, don’t stamp on a phone battery when it’s on fire. These things get very, very hot and will likely burn through your shoe before you’re able to extinguish the fire as one Redditor pointed out.

Just for next time, don’t ever try to put out a lithium ion battery fire unless you have a big bucket of sand (which won’t put it out, but will at least insulate it from other flammable materials while it melts through the floor). Absolutely don’t step on it like you might with paper.

Lithium ion batteries burn at over 1,000F, which is awfully close to the temperature where aluminum melts […] it’ll burn straight through your shoe and foot before you block oxygen to the violent reaction.

If you have an iPhone that needs to be services, take it to someone who knows what they are doing. Even Apple won’t work on a swollen battery in-store which should probably tell you something about the risks involved here.

Check out the video over at Reddit here.

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