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   Laurie Voss (seldo@alpaca.gold)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 14:09:14 JST Laurie Voss

   Warning: if you are operating a 30 year old cellphone it has greater value as an antique.

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     feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 14:09:12 JST feld

     in reply to
     Was there ever any hard evidence of this? What radio frequencies from an ancient cell phone could ignite gasoline fumes?
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     feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 22:55:04 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Stephen Spencer
     I'm calling bullshit. Take any battery with leads like that and yank the cable. Try to make it spark. Good luck.
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     Stephen Spencer (vitaminj@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 22:55:07 JST Stephen Spencer

     in reply to

     • feld

     @feld @seldo it was to do with people dropping them, detachable batteries (remember them!) pinging loose and making a spark.

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     feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 23:07:53 JST feld

     in reply to

     • SlicerDicer
     I haven't run any calculations or anything but I'm highly suspicious those batteries had enough voltage to spark that gap simply by unplugging even if they were at max discharge rate at the time of the incident
     
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschen%27s_law
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     SlicerDicer (slicerdicer@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 23:07:54 JST SlicerDicer

     in reply to

     • feld
     >> Was there ever any hard evidence of this? What radio frequencies from an ancient cell phone could ignite gasoline fumes?
     
     I dunno we had ours in a pelican case when I lived on the island out there with no utilities. I mean the larger concern was sinking.
     
     >> it was to do with people dropping them, detachable batteries (remember them!) pinging loose and making a spark.
     
     NiCd SPERKS ER NER!!!
     
     I am calling bullshit. Just like when they had them in armrests of audis and things that talking and driving is dangerous.
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     feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 23:19:17 JST feld

     in reply to

     • SlicerDicer
     Here's the manual and a battery of a Motorola MicroTac from 1996-ish and a photo of a MicroTAC 950 (~1990) battery. No leads on the battery.
     
     I have never seen leads on a *cell* phone battery, only a 900mhz cordless phone battery.
     
     source: I worked at Radioshack lol
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     SlicerDicer (slicerdicer@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 23:19:18 JST SlicerDicer

     in reply to

     • feld
     @feld I know of no 8 cell phone running at 12 volts. This is what it takes to spark. Galvanic corrosion and voltage with incorrect contact.
     
     Speaking of that I should probably clean them before the springs destruct themselves.
     
     Ohh and these batteries expired in 2016 too so that.
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     feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 23:23:41 JST feld

     in reply to

     • SlicerDicer
     Here's the Nokia Mobira Cityman from the late 80s that Gorbachev used. The battery has no cables either.
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     SlicerDicer (slicerdicer@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 23:23:42 JST SlicerDicer

     in reply to

     • feld
     @feld Death by radio shack flames was not a thing afaik.
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     feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2023 23:33:45 JST feld

     in reply to

     • feld
     • SlicerDicer
     Remember, Mythbusters also did an entire episode on this and determined it is not possible. However, it is possible to happen with static electricity.
     
     So imagine you're in the late 80s and the economy is still in the dumps from Black Tuesday. You had to sell your BMW and now you're driving a Toyota. It's winter. You've got the heater cranked in your car. It snowed a lot, and you got snow in your car because you had to move and you don't have covered parking / garage anymore so snow got inside. The snow melted. It's getting humid in your car. But it's cold as hell out. Luckily one of the few things you didn't have to sell to survive the downturn was your wool coat. You love your wool coat.
     
     Damn it's cold out as you're pumping gas. You go in your car to stay warm. You get out of your car dragging your wool coat across the cloth seats. Static electricity builds. You're on your phone, oblivious, trying to get the bank to give you a break. The static electricity has built up. You reach for the handle of the gas pump which is NOT coated in rubber (not for a few more years!) and **ZAP** there's the 20k volts required to make a spark
     
     
     That's about the only plausible explanation.
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     Stephen Spencer (vitaminj@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Oct-2023 00:01:05 JST Stephen Spencer

     in reply to

     • feld

     @feld @seldo not like that kind, the kind with exposed contacts, or of the era of the phone on the sign (Motorola MR20, StarTAC) where the whole back is a battery and slides off and exposes spring-loaded contacts, which can skid along rough tarmac. Still, highly unlikely, but back in an era still happy with NiCd crap, I'm not sure I'd take my chances.

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     feld (feld@bikeshed.party)'s status on Friday, 13-Oct-2023 00:01:05 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Stephen Spencer
     But where is the spark coming from if the battery skids along the tarmac? The contacts are not touching each other (and if they did, still won't spark) and the metal-on-tarmac is not going to magically spark. Plus there's a million other possibilities of non-cellphone metal scraping the tarmac near a gas pump and that's not taken into consideration.
     
     Plus the gas fumes don't stay near the ground anyway. It would take a LOT of gasoline on the ground -- a spillf that needs attention, not being ignored -- to create enough fumes down there to cause ignition.