[Discuss] Dead Batteries, Leaky Caps, Plagues and Plugs

I’m currently preparing a workshop with artistic experiments so, recently, I got a huge box of untested old Point-and-shoot digital cameras from the 00’s. About half of them will turn on and more than half of those seem to work. Some of the broken ones show obvious signs of rough treatment – cracked cases, missing buttons, misaligned lenses, etc. But others look just fine but won’t turn on. The interesting thing is that almost all of the ones that work take AA batteries. Those with lithium batteries are all dead. Now some of those are possible to find but the replacements are often expensive old stock or new and of dubious quality. It’s a rather limited, arbitrary sample but it seems we can make an argument that the Lithium-based rechargeable battery is one of the biggest factors that can lead to shortened device lifespans.

Add to this the possibility of a “spicy pillow” – a situation where the lithium-based battery chemistry fails and puffs up, like a pillow, potentially resulting in physical breakage on the device or even fire if the battery casing is ruptured.

This is not a totally unique situation. Ugrnm reminded me recently about the “Capacitor Plague” of the early 00’s where