Overheated electronics can be a serious problem, as they have the potential to cause fires and extreme home damage. Many companies often manufacture their electronics to be heat-resistant. Some add extreme cooling components to the computers, while others will add temperature market materials, which will liquefy when they reach 413 °F.
One man in Dania Beach Florida is living to tell his tale about exploding electronics after his son’s overheated hoverboard caught on fire in his sister’s bedroom.
Lawrence Gaalswyk was working from home when he heard sudden popping noises from the next room over. Getting up to check, he noticed a frightening orange glow coming from his son’s room. His hoverboard had overheated and exploded and shot its batteries out like projectiles into his 12-year-old sister’s bedroom.
The hoverboard, which is a skateboard that runs on mechanized energy, had been plugged into its charger for a couple weeks. The fire damage caused by these specific boards cost Gaalswyk between $25,000 and $50,000 as the fire ransacked two bedrooms.
Gaalswyk bought the secondhand hoverboards online. Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue Spokesman Mike Jachles warns about the risks that come with buying electronics that have not been properly tested and checked for security. He tells theSun Sentinel, “If you’re buying electronics, first of all, make sure you’re buying reliable electronics that are certified and tested by an approved laboratory, like Underwriters Laboratories.It’s not worth it to buy electronics that don’t have any quality control or testing for safety.”
However, electronic aficionados have come up with a way to stop the overheating of computers in order to prevent dangerous house fires. The method is a little unconventional, and it uses copper pennies.
All you have to do is take a few copper pennies — made before the year 1992 — and simply stack them on your computer’s keyboard to absorb the heat set off by the battery.
The science behind this is easy, the copper is more thermally conductive than the material most computers are made out of, meaning they are able to draw the heat away from the machine.
So next time you are using your computer and you feel it heating up, place a few pennies on top and you won’t have to risk a combustion.
But the jury’s out on if it works on hoverboards.