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Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

abc.net.au

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Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#51

Post by georgefrowny »

trollbridge wrote: post #36
jtokoph wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when they do work, my North American two prong plug falls right out half of the time.

A trick (on U.S. airlines) is to plug in an overseas adapter (British style plugs seem to work pretty well for this purpose), since those prongs see far less use and still grip well.

British plugs are just better anyway. The rectangular pins have far better contacts mechanically and electrically and they're arranged in a triangle so the plug can't wobble its way out.

It's really a very good design.

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#52

Post by [deleted] »

georgefrowny wrote: post #51
trollbridge wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trick (on U.S. airlines) is to plug in an overseas adapter (British style plugs seem to work pretty well for this purpose), since those prongs see far less use and still grip well.

British plugs are just better anyway. The rectangular pins have far better contacts mechanically and electrically and they're arranged in a triangle so the plug can't wobble its way out. It's really a very good design.

[deleted]

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#53

Post by hexbin010 »

georgefrowny wrote: post #51
trollbridge wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trick (on U.S. airlines) is to plug in an overseas adapter (British style plugs seem to work pretty well for this purpose), since those prongs see far less use and still grip well.

British plugs are just better anyway. The rectangular pins have far better contacts mechanically and electrically and they're arranged in a triangle so the plug can't wobble its way out. It's really a very good design.

Indeed! Also:

- The outlets have shutters preventing access to the contacts, until the longer earth pin is inserted

- The live pins are on the bottom, making contact harder if it's partially pulled out. And the live pins have sleeved sections so even less live metal is exposed.

- The cable drop is at 90 degrees, typically causing less pull on the plug

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#54

Post by eternityforest »

aetherspawn wrote: post #37

The issue is that these power banks are often cheapo corporate gifts or bought out of vending machines, catering to the cheapest possible price and not certified to anything. In this case they have crappy BMS that doesn’t have thermal sensors or even make sure the cells are balanced during charging, and no mechanical integrity so the cell can just get crushed and explode. The solution is to require all consumer elect…

Or better yet, create a new set of replaceable battery standards with multiple chemistry options, and certify the batteries.

Users should be able to choose LiFePo4/LTO/Sodium for peace of mind and reliability if they don't need normal lipo levels of capacity.

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#55

Post by aetherspawn »

eternityforest wrote: post #54
aetherspawn wrote: post #37

The issue is that these power banks are often cheapo corporate gifts or bought out of vending machines, catering to the cheapest possible price and not certified to anything. In this case they have crappy BMS that doesn’t have thermal sensors or even make sure the cells are balanced during charging, and no mechanical integrity so the cell can just get crushed and explode. The solution is to require all consumer elect…

Or better yet, create a new set of replaceable battery standards with multiple chemistry options, and certify the batteries. Users should be able to choose LiFePo4/LTO/Sodium for peace of mind and reliability if they don't need normal lipo levels of capacity.

It’s not that simple… the voltages are all different, and each chemistry has different charge and discharge rates, so this just makes the end product insanely complicated and expensive.

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#56

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

abenga wrote: post #47
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the odds that a lithium battery would cause uncontrolled fire? We are around them daily, ever since the 80s-90s , to this day I have never seen one in person. Look at this guy, he puts a screwdriver through phones for show off on youtube, intentionally damaging the battry...nothing dangerous or uncontrolled happens, the little smoke is the equivalent of a couple of cigarettes. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/…

Aviation rules are written in blood. Everything you snidely dismiss actually happened and people died/came close to dying, so the rule was added.

What about all other means of transportation?

Is the blood shed by aviation more red or more special then?

It's not, it's the fact that the whole concept of flight goes against human intuition so it will always feel fishy and unsafe , even though the physics is much sounder and I'd say even safer than all other forms of transportation

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#57

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

georgefrowny wrote: post #51
trollbridge wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trick (on U.S. airlines) is to plug in an overseas adapter (British style plugs seem to work pretty well for this purpose), since those prongs see far less use and still grip well.

British plugs are just better anyway. The rectangular pins have far better contacts mechanically and electrically and they're arranged in a triangle so the plug can't wobble its way out. It's really a very good design.

BS1363 is an abortion.

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#58

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #32
zamadatix wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the concept of comparing risk being the meaningful approach, but I disagree this is how you go about measuring risk. How many people are being injured/killed per million km or something is the type of metric. Air travel far exceeds those types of metrics vs other common modes of travel, yet is always the first one to be further focused on how bad it could potentially be.

I would argue at the performance of aviation safety, and the constant focus on how bad it could be, is exactly why aviation is safe. The day that we decide to stop focussing on what could go wrong, is the day that aviation stops being safe. For example, if aircraft come within five nautical miles or I think it’s 1000 vertical feet, it’s considered a very serious incident. Not because anyone is in danger at five nauti…

> > The day that we decide to stop focussing on what could go wrong, is the day that aviation stops being safe

A rebalancing vis a vis cars, buses, ships and trains is due. All the effort and man hours wasted trying to clear the last 0.01% in aviation would be better spent focusing on the other means of transportation, or other stuff that actually kills people period. The goal is not to die period. Not avoiding dying of aviation crash, and planes are about the last culprit as far as stuff that kills people worldwide on a yearly basis.

They are far behind dogs, actually my intuition says that they are behind a very calm and friendly breed such as German Shepherds, they are calm and friendly alright but as far as dog breeds worldwide for sure they kill > 200 people yearly.

I'd board a 95% plane if it means that once landed I could step on a 95% safe train or bus. Or a 95% safe city for that matter , Instead now the values are:

Plane : 99.9999999% safe

Train: 80% safe depending on the city and amount of crime in subway

Bus : 70% safe again depending on the city and amount of crime

City as a whole: Between crime, 6000 puounds vehicles speeding through the streets etc...I guess much less than 70%

The cognitive dissonance of people living in urban hells where crime is rampant and risk of death from assault , robbery or outright murder and then being afraid of flying tells you all you need to know. And no, it doesn't happen solely in Africa....San Francisco is a good example of that.

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#59

Post by abenga »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #56
abenga wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aviation rules are written in blood. Everything you snidely dismiss actually happened and people died/came close to dying, so the rule was added.

What about all other means of transportation? Is the blood shed by aviation more red or more special then? It's not, it's the fact that the whole concept of flight goes against human intuition so it will always feel fishy and unsafe , even though the physics is much sounder and I'd say even safer than all other forms of transportation

There are reasons more than a million people die on the roads every year, but that number only cracks a thousand for commercial aviation in particularly bad years. Most of those reasons are that all aviation incidents and accidents are analyzed to inform how the industry operates, but for road accidents we just shrug and say, "people die in accidents, whatever can we do?"

Re: Virgin and Qantas to ban use of portable power banks after string of fires

#60

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

abenga wrote: post #59
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about all other means of transportation? Is the blood shed by aviation more red or more special then? It's not, it's the fact that the whole concept of flight goes against human intuition so it will always feel fishy and unsafe , even though the physics is much sounder and I'd say even safer than all other forms of transportation

There are reasons more than a million people die on the roads every year, but that number only cracks a thousand for commercial aviation in particularly bad years. Most of those reasons are that all aviation incidents and accidents are analyzed to inform how the industry operates, but for road accidents we just shrug and say, "people die in accidents, whatever can we do?"

Exaclty. And this is fucking wrong and insane because the goal of a human should be not to die, not to avoid a particular type of death (eg. aviation death) . It's not like if you die on the car drive to the airport or because you are stabbed in the subway it's okay because you respawn

This is the same cognitive failure that happens with

Sharks v. Mosquitos and

Nuclear v. Fossil fuels

It seems to me you are defending the cognitive failure instead of arguing for the re-establishment of risk/reward parity also considering the enormous benefits of aviation which enables us to get from one point of the globe to the opposite in less than a day

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