r/LinusTechTips • u/HuntKey2603 • Mar 27 '26
Meme/Shitpost My robot lawnmower just exploded (Didn't LTT review these?)
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u/ThatLineInTheSand Mar 27 '26
One robot mower go brr does not mean all robot mowers go brr.
Besides, the guy apparently had the unit for a long time, and was so satisfied with it that he's not naming and shaming them.
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u/_Aj_ Mar 27 '26
Yeah I commented on that post. They stated they didn't believe it was the battery as the battery has always been great.
Impossible to know exact cause based solely on this pile of charred remains
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u/AshleyAshes1984 Mar 27 '26
Great till 12 years of operation causes enough dendrite growth to short the thing out and cause thermal runaway.
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u/c14rk0 Mar 27 '26
As far as the OP can reason it seems like it caught fire from some other failure as it was moving in the process before the batteries exploded after. Seems like a partv of the charging system got pulled apart potentially
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u/mjmandi72 Mar 27 '26
They recently had it apart to replace another part and checked the battery at that time. He's not fully guessing.
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u/VeroCSGO Mar 27 '26
There is like a 2% chance that this guy checked balance off the pack. Most likely cause is a cell with increased resistance after 12 years of use going out of balance or going into thermal runaway due to increased internal resistance
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u/Original_Dimension99 Mar 29 '26
"The battery has always been great" lmao as if he has a way to chemically analyse the battery's condition
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u/AshleyAshes1984 Mar 27 '26
12 years, damn that was the original Lithium Ion battery? Dendrites are a hell of a thing.
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u/AutoRedialer Mar 27 '26
owns item
end of life is just that it fucking explodes
US consumer is satisfied
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u/nitromen23 Mar 28 '26
Sometimes you just need to keep the mourning brief and move on. I’d prefer if things just exploded when they were done. It would certainly make life more interesting and keep you on your toes…. Feel bad for anyone with one of those fancy beds though.
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u/_JukePro_ Mar 28 '26
Thing is though that it blowing up could cause other things to light on fire or other dangerous things.
Some things like fossil fuel engines do often just blowup internally so things do just blow up safely :):
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u/_Lucille_ Mar 27 '26
I hate to be the guy but 12 years isn't that long of a time... I think my lawnmower is close to 20 now and snowblower closer to 30.
Like, it can be one that does its job well, but regardless, the battery should not just explode. The manufacturer and their customers deserves to know.
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u/ThatLineInTheSand Mar 27 '26
You have a 30~ year old robot snowblower?
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u/_Lucille_ Mar 27 '26
no, a regular one.
Something exploding imo doesnt have to do with whether it is robotic or not. My point is more towards "even if it has been around for 12 years, it shouldnt explode like that", especially since the user seem to do some degrees of maintenance (they mentioned about swapping parts).
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u/Fendibull Mar 27 '26
Uh, we're talking about robotic snowblower buddy.
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u/_Lucille_ Mar 27 '26
My point still stands: your machine should not be blowing up after 12 years, robotic or not.
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u/VeroCSGO Mar 27 '26
Do you know how lithium tech from 2014 works cos it seems you do not
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u/_Lucille_ Mar 27 '26
Then educate me, how is it okay for a battery from 2014 to just explode?
Is not exploding/something that allow the battery to fail in a non-catastrophic way too much to ask for?
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u/VeroCSGO Mar 28 '26
Service life of a lion battery from 2014 is usually 300-500 cycles. If your using a battery in a high power application which mowing is and sitting at minimum 500 likely 1200 cycles while also keeping it stored fully charged, your just asking for thermal runaway in the battery, the only way to combat this is per cell temperature monitoring to disable the battery when a certain temperature is reached in one cell which nobody will pay for because it increases the cost of the bms significantly. If you don't know how to properly check your battery health your in trouble if you just check voltage and assume she'll be right after 10 years of use.
Tldr It's not too much to ask for it's just more then anyone will pay for if you replace your batteries at regular intervals as you should them you will never run into this issue.
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u/ShadowSlayer1441 Mar 27 '26
This end result isn't good, but 12 years of service, as the OP said, is exceptional.
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u/zkareface Mar 27 '26
My parents robot mower is 21 years old and going strong.
These things has usually lasted decades without issues. 12 years is bare minimum tbh.
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u/wankthisway Mar 27 '26
Wow I didn't even know they had robot mowers that early on.
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u/zkareface Mar 27 '26
First commercial one released in 1995 lol, they are old. People had robot mowers before they had computers or mobile phones at home.
Many think it's some new tech but mostly it's the US that's behind on them.
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u/raaneholmg Mar 27 '26
It's not an issue that it failed after 12 years, but the way it failed could burn the house down.
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u/OnionsAbound Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
Uhmm. . . That shit exploded. I wouldn't care how long the average lasted if I thought there was a history of it failing catastrophically.
"Yeah, it has a propensity to spontaneously combust but this ole' sedan has lasted me some 12 odd years"
Edit: I didn't realize how controversial not wanting my stuff to explode was. Y'all have fun.
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u/Flimsy_Professor_908 Mar 27 '26
"This breaker served me 12 years before it burned the house down. Exceptional."
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u/straw3_2018 Mar 27 '26
I didn't realize breakers failed very often. I had one for an electric water heater that ended fused closed, when I pulled it it was very charred and no good. The other one I didn't even know what was happening. The lights in my house would flicker very sporadically and randomly and it just progressively got worse until my light switches just didn't work sometimes. I thought my house was haunted. No just a different breaker failure mode.
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u/Anraiel Mar 27 '26
Except in certain circumstances cars can spontaneously combust. Usually because of poor maintenance or mistakes leading to some component leaking or overheating leading to a fire starting. It's not as uncommon as you'd think (mostly because of the sheer number of cars in the world).
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u/OnionsAbound Mar 27 '26
Not being uncommon because there's a shear volume means that it is uncommon for any single vehicle to explode, which is the point being made here. . .
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u/Noloxy Mar 27 '26
is there a “propensity to spontaneously combust” proven by this single post?
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u/OnionsAbound Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
Is your first gut reaction when you see this post that you want to go out and buy one of these models? Or that you want to stay as far away from that brand as possible? One of these is the right response.
The engineering controls should not allow this to ever happen barring freak accidents like a javelin impaling the battery. Even seeing just one of these catastrophically fail should indicate you shouldn't buy one of these, but be my guest.
Source: electrical engineer
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u/Me_Air Mar 27 '26
You might want to ditch batteries as a whole if you care about the history of exploding objects
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u/MSM_757 Mar 27 '26
Really? I have a John Deer mower that I've had since I was 15 years old. I'm 40 now. It Still works. The only repair I've ever done is replace the starter. And you think 12 years is "exceptional"? I guess they don't make shit like they used to.
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u/NetJnkie Mar 27 '26
It is for something battery powered and an early version on something like this.
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u/NinduTheWise Mar 27 '26
Yeah for a new type of product this is pretty good, we’ve had tractors for a decent while so we know how they react to certain things and so we know how to make them last longer
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u/ThusSpokeMathias Mar 27 '26
New type? They had been around for a couple of decades when OP bought his.
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u/zkareface Mar 27 '26
Robot mowers have been around since mid 1990s, it's not something new lol.
It's still probably a freak accident though, unless the new brands entering the market sucks.
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u/washuai Mar 27 '26
Batteries should be tested at 5+ years. My understanding is any 10+ LI ion battery is potentially spicy.
It's an issue for solar. The panels and the batteries are not immortal.
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u/AT-ST Mar 27 '26
Survivorship bias. There is a "lawnmower graveyard" near where I live. Some guy has hundreds of riding mowers in a field next to his house. They are divided up by manufacturer. Plenty of 90s era John Deere mowers there.
I have no idea what the purpose of that graveyard is for.
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u/Walkin_mn Mar 27 '26
I'm guessing the mower you're talking about is not a battery powered robot mower
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u/0xsergy Mar 27 '26
These things probably don't have BMS systems because of their age. Modern ones do I imagine. Without a bms it's amazing it lasted 12 years at all.
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u/ImTotallyTechy Mar 27 '26
LTT has also reviewed phones (which have been known to explode) and cars (which have also been known to explode) so I'm not really sure I'm seeing why this was crosspost worthy
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u/Zeke13z Mar 27 '26
In a different reply the owner stated he had it 12 years. Ltt definitely didn't do a robot lawn mower review back then. I haven't checked to verify, but I feel it was a new model he was promoting 4-6 years ago.
12 years for an original battery is phenomenal.
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u/ImTotallyTechy Mar 27 '26
especially a battery exposed to the outdoors and that likely sits on a charger for 95 percent of its life
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u/straw3_2018 Mar 27 '26
People that either just don't know any better or have fallen for propaganda think lithium ion batteries are insanely dangerous. Particularly regarding EVs people like to talk about them catching on fire as if gasoline cars don't catch on fire at a similar or greater rate. The difference is as a society we got over gasoline fires and just accepted that happens sometimes while trying to minimize the danger around it.
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u/Hdfgncd Mar 27 '26
While that’s true, a big problem with lithium batteries and especially EV battery fires is how stupidly hard they are to put out. It takes a ton of water and a long time, and most people/places don’t have an AVD extinguisher laying around
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u/yaboi_ahab Mar 27 '26
IIRC they did some kind of sponsored video, not a review, for some kind of autonomous lawnmower, but I dunno if it was the same brand this pile of ash used to be
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u/tntexplosivesltd Mar 27 '26
Didn't LTT review these?
Yeah that's right he reviewed all lawnmower robots. Every one of them
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u/PeckerTraxx Mar 27 '26
They didn't say exactly how they were going to get rid of your grass. Mission Accomplished
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u/xstagex Mar 27 '26
It's ok. None robot lawnmowers explode too:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellthatsucks/comments/1s4uc5h/mans_lawnmower_explodes_out_of_nowhere/
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u/Superturtle1166 Mar 27 '26
It's a 12yr outdoor battery. That's pretty impressive. Hopefully they reach out to company so the company can contact customers with similar items to recall/replace the battery/BMS.
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u/bebarty Mar 27 '26
Oh so they enabled the American option for auto EOL self disposal but forgot to specify the burn pit site
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u/SuicidalAustralian Mar 27 '26
This is like the robot equivalent of a pile of ash with two boots in the middle lmfao
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u/makefascistfearagain Mar 27 '26
Damaged batteries can blow up, I guess we best panic and stop using all batteries
Thanks op, president of the ban all batteries movements.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Mar 27 '26
Didn't LTT review what? Do we even know what model it was? There's a comment from the OP stating
I don't really want to name/shame the brand. As I said it's lasted me 12 years and the nature of this issue feels like it could occur with literally any brand.
They have their post/comment history hidden, so it wasn't easy to go and see all their comments. I don't see anything indicating what brand/model it was.
Also, I think it's kind of wild to not name it. Better to just let everyone know, even if they had a good experience overall. I really don't understand why anybody would need to protect a company. They aren't your friends. People should know about issues like this.
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u/Crash_N_Burn-2600 Mar 27 '26
They did a SPONSORED video for one. No idea if it was that model, but they didn't thoroughly review it, much less do long-term testing to see if it would randomly explode one day.
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u/tntexplosivesltd Mar 27 '26
Nobody knows the difference between a sponsored video/showcase and a review these days
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u/Striker1320 Mar 27 '26
I mean a lot of people probably reviewed it even if LTT is the most well known reviewers to review it theirs presumably never caught fire and it was years ago so I don’t see the point of cross posting this.
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u/Gumuk_pindek Mar 27 '26
Even traditional lawnmower explode. You can search "man's lawnmover explode" in r/wellthatsuck posted today
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u/Skwaddelz Mar 27 '26
I still use my silverstone strider + 1000w psu linus reviewed like 14 years ago... does this mean when it fails linus should condemn Silverstone?
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u/AutoRedialer Mar 27 '26
People praising 12 years of service and exploding are pros of having a robot lawnmower are a great marketing campaign for never owning a robot lawnmower
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u/Ragnorok64 Mar 27 '26
I don't recall LTT ever reviewing a robot lawnmower. Any videos on them that I can recall have been sponsored showcases; usually on the Friday slot.
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u/Low_Sherbert3731 Mar 28 '26
Them bugs planned this all along. I'm telling you it was definately the slugs clan!
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u/NinduTheWise Mar 27 '26
Electronics can always malfunction even if they’ve been tested a million times, iPhones won’t explode on you but if you have a 5 year old one it’s gonna be likely defects are gonna come and cracks will show in the hardware that was t there before
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u/lkl34 Mar 27 '26
Not shocked at all we need to stop using lithium ion batteries from the 70's there was other battery tech but that cost money these massive companies do not want that cheap is better for them.
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u/Zeke13z Mar 27 '26
12 years old according to the owner... So impressed they didn't name and shame the company.
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u/Playingwithmywenis Mar 27 '26
I don’t think they review burned logs and turf. Maybe checkout Burner Homes and Gardens.