iPod Shuffle wins battle with knife-wielding owner

Not that we should really have to remind you of such things, but trying to fix your own gadgets by bludgeoning them with a knife is not only ineffective, it can also result in you swearing and screaming in pain after the capacitor you impaled blows up in your face.

[Thanks, Dave Z.]

[LittleJoe @ Jun 19th 2006 5:28AM]

classic.

[Florian SEROUSSI @ Jun 19th 2006 5:31AM]

happened to me a couple of times. Blew a Treo 650 not so long ago...

[Tim @ Jun 19th 2006 5:33AM]

iPod shuffle 1-0 Angry customer

[Jason @ Jun 19th 2006 5:55AM]

Capacitor? Looks more like a ruptured lithium ion battery. If you look at pictures of the Shuffle disassembled, you can see the battery is right next to the USB connector. The square molten area on the case was likely due to the battery burning.

[MobileMistress @ Jun 19th 2006 6:06AM]

I've done worse things to gadgets that were pissing me off... learn more at my blog.

[Rynth @ Jun 19th 2006 6:13AM]

Wow, brilliant, Happened to me once with an old thopmson Lyra.

[Brendan @ Jun 19th 2006 7:49AM]

I tried it once and my leg blew out the window.

[iptydafu @ Jun 19th 2006 8:00AM]

That's what hammers are for.

[TC @ Jun 19th 2006 8:12AM]

And this, children, is why Apple tell us not to eat the iPod Shuffle.

[Matt M @ Jun 19th 2006 8:13AM]

yeah... using knives inappropriately is bad... A knife slipped while I was working on an engineering project 3 months ago. I cut two tendons, a nerver, and an artery in my finger... had to go through occupational therapy for the last 3 months, and I will supposedly never be able to play guitar again (I played for 7 years, so that sucks)

I can naturally post links pictures later if requested (i'm at work, none on me)

[zafar @ Jun 19th 2006 8:34AM]

what was he thinking?

[Steve M @ Jun 19th 2006 8:39AM]

Yes - more like a lithium polymer cell rupture than a capacitor popping. When a tantalum cap goes, it's more of an explosive force than a heat. Lithium polymer cells, OTH, tend to vent with flames.

Steve

[strider_mt2k @ Jun 19th 2006 8:57AM]

A small capacitor wouldn't be able to do that much damage.
Either they hit the battery or it's "pretendy-time" with a torch or lighter.

[tekdroid @ Jun 19th 2006 9:16AM]

fryPod (TM)

[Jared @ Jun 19th 2006 9:42AM]

Good catch, Jason. I know you said Lithium Ion, but here are a couple videos of Lithium Polymer batteries exploding. As I understand, this class of battery reacts with air, ie knifing your gadget:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3690260570423705609

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8498014096287472749

[TABinWNY @ Jun 19th 2006 10:02AM]

Is this covered by Apple Care........

[John from Buffalo @ Jun 19th 2006 10:12AM]

Should have used a plastic knife, or a fspoon-fspork from Wendy's. If it can survive a Frosty, it can survive the iPod shuffle.

[Shuck @ Jun 19th 2006 10:51AM]

He only loaded one mp3 - playing in shuffle mode it pissed him off

[Moot @ Jun 19th 2006 11:07AM]

Ahahah ^ Frosty Joke...

[Vanya @ Jun 19th 2006 11:15AM]

So much for an apple a day...

[Matt M @ Jun 19th 2006 12:06PM]

Actually Capacitors when they explode are NOT really an explosive force, they are pressurized and contain super heated gassious conditions so when they are overpowered they explode in a puff of steam+smoke. This is both the case for tantalum and polar caps.

[Brian from Texas @ Jun 19th 2006 12:08PM]

Yeah, no way that's a capacitor from a sub-12volt applicance. I would like to see somebody shove a knife into the back of an old TV. :)



Matt M, my buddy did the same thing. hahaha His pinky finger still has the plastic/metal rod in it, but he never did the therapy and now his pinky is permantly curved and he looks like a gimp. hahahaha

that should be a lesson to all you boys.

[Peter Payne @ Jun 19th 2006 12:08PM]

Was once changing a video card on a G5 but forgot to remove the plug. I am not kidding when I say that FLAMES SHOT OUT of the video card. Fortunately that's all that fried, not the computer itself.

[Matt M @ Jun 19th 2006 12:22PM]

Working in electrical engineering i've seen my share of blown capacitors, and if the right circuits are blown resistances lowered, and fuses bypassed a capacitor can take on a huge surge of electricity and blow up with quite an explosion. We used to take small polar caps and overload them and watch them shoot like a rocket to the ceiling leaving a small corkscrew of smoke and steam to the ceiling.

[Stephanie V @ Jun 19th 2006 1:02PM]

Yeah, I had a lithium ion battery blow-up about two feet infront of me. I had to go to the ER and was lucky that my tear duct was all that was shreaded. Fortunately, that healed.

[chris @ Jun 19th 2006 1:29PM]

yea.. so maybe its a good idea not to **chew** the ipod shuffle...

[Lauren @ Jun 19th 2006 2:11PM]

That's a battery short for sure. Contacting the battery with a knife would cause a short and lithium ion batteries internally catch fire when there is a short. They would easily get hot enough to melt the casing and cause open flame.

My grandfather once burned through a jacket by putting a battery pack in a pocket with a dime.

Lesson learned: don't touch a lithium ion battery contact with something metallic...yes, even that knife you were about to murder the iPod with.

[stev @ Jun 19th 2006 2:46PM]

must resist urge to dismantle every elctric object in house with knife..............

[Rusty @ Jun 19th 2006 3:18PM]

speaking of exploding caps...back in the late 70's, I was in an electronics school and we were doing AM radio theory...these were old tube type breadboards, and had the ability to change plate, grid voltages, bias etc...
Well, someone had accidently increased the plate voltages on the I.F. stage. Our class had the only woman in the class (not a very bright one either). She was checking a connection point on a filter cap and said "wow, there is 75 volts on this capacitor (a 12 volt circuit). About a second later, the cap let go like a shotgun, and the paper went flying like confetti
all over her. She had the deer in the headlights look on her face like "what the h*** just happened to me"
Of course no one would admit to doing it, but all the
guys in class sure had one heck of a laugh.

When I worked in a TV shop, we use to charge up electrolytic filter caps and throw them at one another hoping someone would grab onto the ends LOL.....yeah, we were 'onry....

[Meltz @ Jun 19th 2006 3:19PM]

well...a battery is still a capacitor, mind you all

[Pete Avila @ Jun 19th 2006 3:34PM]

Should of let Chuck Norris do it. He can do anything!

XD

[Guruboy @ Jun 19th 2006 3:35PM]

Wow who cares about people's stupid (probably exagerated) injury stories?

It's not the iPod's fault, it's just that most people who buy them aren't too bright.

[Dan Shockley @ Jun 19th 2006 6:06PM]

I remember when someone reverse-wired a polarized capacitor the size of a soda can. The tester leaned over, plugged in the machine, flipped the ON switch, and the capacitor exploded like a rocket, punch a hole through the ceiling tiles and caught the guy's hair on fire. Luckily another guy had good instincts (Coast Guard) and put out the fire on the guy's head (and the machine) before the guy was seriously injured. Luckily he wasn't leaning just a little further over the machine, too.

[Spiralbrain @ Jun 19th 2006 7:44PM]

yes it was the battery, he could have discharged it completely before daring to open the ipod.
this will not discourage us in any way :D
it was just a silly mistake.

[SteveK @ Jun 19th 2006 9:13PM]

That's a Lipo fire. I use li-poly batts for my RC aircraft and charged one with the wrong cell count one fine afternoon. The result? WOOOOOSH!! Massive venting of flames.

[LORRI @ Jun 20th 2006 11:25AM]

ANYONE GOT ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR AN IPOD THAT WENT THROUGH THE WASHING MACHINE & THE DRYER??????

[Jordan @ Jun 20th 2006 12:52PM]

My story is stairs vs. game boy color.
The stairs lost but now the game boy is a mute.

[clinto @ Jun 20th 2006 2:45PM]

i have no electronics experience, and i opened up my guitar amp, and touched some part of it w/ a screwdriver, and it made the lights in my room go out, and it started smoking. needless to say, it didn't work anymore...

[E71 @ Jun 20th 2006 3:24PM]

I remember my 2nd last DVD drive not functioning, beat the crap out of it, sweated like a pig, took a rest, beat it some more, had some dinner, beat the crap out of it one last time then when it died and I was removing it from the case, I realized it weren't connected properly (which I didn't spot earlier thanks to the spaghetti cable mess inside). D'oh!

[Meltz @ Jun 21st 2006 1:20PM]

my friend works in the photo department of a nameless grocery store. He can get as many old disposable cameras as he needs, and the little flash circuits on them each have a capacitor (330v, i forget how many microfarads, but it wasnt that much). It's nice cause you can charge them up and shock people (only we learned with ourselves first) and it hurts like freaking heck.

anyways, about the ipod through the washer and dryer - if its a shuffle, probs the only thing thats screwed is the battery, am i right? ive washed multiple flash drives, each time they perfectly survived and worked fine. But then again, they had no power through them. So if your ipod was on, different story. good luck

[iPod Headphones @ Jun 22nd 2006 11:16AM]

Silly guy - everyone knows your supposed to use a butter knife!! haha

[DUD @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:41AM]

For the Ipod shuffle in the washer and in dryer. I once pust my ipod shuffle in my jeans and those jeans got washed but they didn't go in the dryer and all I have to say is that the Ipod is now working fine.