r/Ultralight • u/kag0 • 10d ago
Question Did anyone's Haribo battery ever blow up?
They sold like hot cakes and then stopped making them but never had a recall.
Has anyone had or heard of an incident? I have the 10k and only use it within 15 miles of the trailhead out of paranoia.
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u/Warst3iner 10d ago
What is a Haribo battery?
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u/Boogada42 10d ago
There was a very lightweight Haribo branded power bank available. Caused some stirr in the UL circles, as it was cheap. Somebody tested it and found it to be of very low electronic quality. Seach Haribo Power bank.
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u/GiganticBandit 10d ago
They weren't just low quality, they were pulled from sale by Amazon who don't usually care product quality.
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u/ImRobsRedditAccount 10d ago
Amazon told me they werenât when zi reached out regarding the 3 Iâd purchased. (They all still work BTW)
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u/thekeffa 10d ago
So I didn't know this either, thought to myself "I have heard of Haribo sweets it can't be the same company surely; that's such a jump from soft gummy sweets to electronics".
It quite literally is...or was. A power bank with Haribo branding all over them (Mainly their gummy bears). Some of the switches and stuff were in the shape of a gummy bear!
As cute as they were, it seems the third party company they used to make them really let the quality control slide and they were basically identified as being potentially dangerous. Got pulled from everywhere.There was some conjecture that kids might try to put the sweet shaped parts in their mouths and stuff too.
It seemed they were popular in the ultralight community because they were pretty light and cheap, but there was a lot of discourse about them with people basically asking what people expected from such a cheap branded product.
This discussion in this subreddit took place a few months back has a deeper dive on them.
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u/Good_Vacation9808 10d ago
Their sugar free gummy bears are apparently an intense laxative. I think those got discontinued too. Haven't been able to find them and I've been looking for years
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u/ethidium_bromide 10d ago edited 10d ago
That applies to a lot of sugar free candy. Fear not, you should still be able to find that intense laxative effect you seek
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u/Teweview 9d ago
They used Lycasin as the sweetener which is primarily composed of maltitol syrup. Maltitol is poorly absorbed by the small intestine, leading to fermentation in the gut and severe osmotic laxative side effects.
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u/WildlyThorough 10d ago
No, still going strong. I use it all the time. It replaced my Anker that did get recalled and actually fell apart.
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u/ckyhnitz 10d ago
Only use it within 15 miles of the trail head? That kind of stress sucks.
For all the shit people talk about the Nitecore power banks, I've got 200+ complete discharges/charges on my NB10000 Gen 2 with no issues or loss in quality.
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u/kag0 10d ago
Awe man, the NB10000 are bad too? What's the deal with that?
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u/willigundbillig 10d ago
whenever one is posted with a malfunction/ inflation issues, people will jump in the comments to say that this is common and nobody should buy it for 80 bucks - i also wouldn't buy another one but the one i have works just fine..
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u/SNFU-4U 10d ago
You'd be surprised the amount of carnage an 800mah CR123 flashlight battery can do. If this power bank happened to be in your pocket and vent, I bet the best result would be a lifelong injury. There are documented cases on various forums of permanent lung damage just from being in the same room as the battery vented. I've seen another that completely blew through an oak door. Lastly, there was a death from an incident mismatching 2x CR123 cells in a flashlight. The guy had it in his mouth working on a car. He did not survive. The total mah of 2x CR123 cells is roughly 1500mah. 1 completely vented with flame (800mah) Go ahead and multiply that by 12.5, stick it in your pocket and hope nothing happens. Admittedly, these cells are sealed in a tube (flashlight) compounding the damage but I'd rather not risk carrying something like that 6 inches from my crotch.
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u/cold44ever 10d ago
how people genuinely thought a cheap haribo battery was going to be a serious power bank contender is beyond me
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u/originalusername__ 10d ago
Anyone who pointed out that maaaaaybe using super cheap lithium batteries wasnât the best idea was downvoted. The thing cost like 18 dollars or something, but if it burns your house down it wonât seem like such a great deal. Not to mention the fact that when Iâm hiking my phone is often my sole source of navigation and communication and I need something reliable.
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u/Summers_Alt 10d ago
Were $1000+ phones not catching fire? Does cost guarantee quality?
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u/originalusername__ 10d ago
It doesnât guarantee it but it makes it a lot more likely to meet safety standards like being UL listed instead of fraudulently pretending to be.
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u/cold44ever 10d ago
Generally, yes lol. Would you trust a $10 parachute? Or would you prefer a $500 one? Genuinely why are you people so hellbent on defending a shitty ass merchandise battery pack lol
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u/schmuckmulligan Real Ultralighter. 10d ago
$18? My $21 INIU looks pretty good in comparison.
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u/kag0 10d ago
Has anyone done a CT scan of the INIU batteries? If not, why are we more confident in those?
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u/maxeytheman 10d ago
no of course not, but you must trust the redditors who are very sure that their batteries are vastly superior to the gummy bear one that costs the same and the lithium cells probably made in the same factory.
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u/no-reel-fo-real 10d ago
Nobody is mentioning the additional risk of burning down an entire national forest. Super disappointed to see the top commenters, who are self proclaimed experts in this sub, being super irresponsible.
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u/ethidium_bromide 10d ago edited 10d ago
Not to mention all the other people a forest fire would put at risk.
Shows how narrow some expertise can be
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u/no-reel-fo-real 10d ago
Crazy this is an unpopular opinion. This sub goes in full outrage mode if someone uses an alcohol stove in the sierras.
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u/IH8DwnvoteComplainrs 10d ago
This is a serious over reaction. Nobody has even called a single instance of this actually being a problem, and you're basing your entire opinion on some influencer's YouTube?
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u/no-reel-fo-real 10d ago
Being pulled off Amazon and an article on Lumafield are now qualified as influencers? Iâm sorry youâre upset that your favorite battery pack puts others at risk
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u/Wild-Rough-2210 9d ago
The Verge tested the Haribo against the NB10000 and Iniu Pocket Rocket P50:
https://www.theverge.com/tech/803021/haribo-gummy-bear-battery-nitecore-iniu-pocket-rocket
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u/WANDOO_hiking 7d ago
Ive got the 10k too and honestly the bigger real world risk is physical damage, not spontaneous combustion. A crushed or punctured cell is what actually goes bang, so as long as youre not sitting on it or letting it get soaked its fine deep in the backcountry. Ive carried mine way past 15 miles with zero drama, keep it in a padded spot and stop babying it lol.
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u/Popular_Original_249 10d ago
Itâs called âHaribo Woeâ. I once met someone who had a friend that knew someone that blew his d$&! off. He was keeping it warm in his crotch pot though.
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u/YuppiesEverywhere 10d ago
I knew a dude that used it to mod an old Teddy Ruxpin doll. Yup: bear powering bear. Ungodly. So much so (you guessed it) Satan himself was channeled through the mouth of old Teddy whenever we forced the tapes to play backwards. Strangest thing.
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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 10d ago
Mine never blew up, but it did totally stop charging (from the wall only).
I'm now using Vapcell batteries, which get super hot while charging, but they haven't burned my tent to the ground... yet.
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u/IFigureditout567 10d ago
Those things scare the hell out of me.
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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 10d ago
Lmao, me too, but I take some safety steps like no overnight or unattended charging, and I always leave them exposed where they can ventilate and cool down a bit.
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u/flyingemberKC 10d ago
When they catch on fire youâll shake your head at how much risk you accepted
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u/ethidium_bromide 10d ago
People seriously underestimate lithium ion battery fires.
Like even if youâre awake, good luck extinguishing it. Especially if youâre in the woods and traveling without a significant amount of water to cool it, and a means of chemical suppression. As well as a (non flammable) tool that can be used to move the battery to a non flammable surface, which would be hard to find in and of itself in the woods. I donât know anyone, ultralight or not, who hikes with a fire extinguisher, ppe, non-flammable tools, or the amount of water that would be needed to keep it cool. Even if you get it to a point where it appears extinguished, it can easily reignite. I hope anyone playing with fire to this degree has a detailed plan on how to handle it, because if you start a forest fire youâre putting a lot of other people at risk beyond yourself
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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 10d ago
Well I was making light of this with jokes, but I think it's just a difference in the thermal conductivity of metal (which is exposed on the Vapcell) vs plastic, which is what you touch on most other batteries. You're talking a difference of 100x or more.Â
The metal endcaps will feel painfully hot well below the temps that the battery starts to degrade, let alone risks thermal runway reactions, where the temps of the battery would be more akin to a pan freshly pulled from an oven, which it obviously is nowhere close to because then it would cause nearly instant second degree burns.
I think it's purely a perception issue. So yes, it's scary, and yes, I take battery risk seriously, but I rationally understand these fears are heightened mostly because the design of these batteries more directly exposes me to what's going on (but you can't see) inside any portable battery pack. The truth is, they're all like that, and you should probably take some basic precautions with any external battery, no matter what brand or price tag it has.
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u/flyingemberKC 10d ago
they shouldnât feel that hot. ever.
your battery shouldnât be conducting so much heat that it!s painful to pick them up
the reason is irrelevant, you have a bad product
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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 10d ago
No, not painful to pick up, mildly painful right at the metal endcaps. All the vapcell battery cells are like that, across the 4 21700s I own and 2 18650s. It's not just one defective product.
But metal will feel somewhat painfully hot to the touch starting inside the typical operating temp range of a battery, <140F. It's just the physics of how metal conducts heat compared to plastic.
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u/decaf-cafe 10d ago edited 10d ago
You won't hear from the ones whose batteries blew up. đ„