On Sat, 30 Jul 2011 08:47:09 -0700 (PDT), KenO
wrote:

Hi Jeff,

*"I keep a few on hand because some of the early Toshiblah laptops
would not run on charger power unless a battery (dead or otherwise)
was installed." *

I checked, the old Toshiba LT will run without a battery pack.

OK, you win.

The airplane forum link mentioned fires with Lithium Polymer
Batteries http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209187

There are YouTube videos, showing what happens when you pound a nail
into a LIPO battery. To the best of my knowledge, all battery packs
that have internal charge controllers include short circuit
protection. That doesn't help when metal chips inside the battery
cause the shorted battery condition. However, a 10-15 year old
battery is unlikely to store enough energy to do much damage.

Did some searching concerning fires with Lithium Ion batteries and
while found mention of this being caused by internal shorts
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355814,00.asp , have not yet
found any mention of this happening to these old Toshiba Li Ion
batteries.

It didn't happen until Sony produced a large number of potentially
defective batteries. The actual number of defective cells was
probably rather small, but with the risk of fire or explosion, it was
necessary to recall millions of battery packs to find those few.

I did find a recall of newer Toshiba Li Ion packs (actually Sony Li
Ion cells) sold from April 2005 to October 2005
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09035.html

Do you know if the older Toshiba Li Ion packs used Sony Li Ion Cells?

The web page lists
Satellite: A70/A75, P30/P5, M30X/M35X, M50/M55
Tecra: A3, A5, S2
as the models affected. Is your laptop one of those?
(Hint: It helps to supply details of what you have to work with).



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558