Goal Zero Yeti 400 Near Catastrophic Failure

Sharkey

Word Ninja
I've had a Yeti 400 for several years now. It's been a love/hate relationship. It failed on me during the first day of a three day Jeep trip (fortunately my OEM battery did the job of running my ARB fridge fine) and Goal Zero replaced the battery free of charge.

Since then, I have primarily kept the battery plugged in and sitting on my garage work bench. When needed, I use it to power my Milwaukee tool battery chargers, a cell phone when I'm working in the garage, and sometimes a small bluetooth speaker. Basically, it is rarely under load and when it is, the load is only for a few hours. Well, all of that changed yesterday.

Nothing has been plugged into the Yeti for a week or so, but yesterday it started beeping and the screen was blinking. Upon further inspection, this is what I found:

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The battery was literally in the process of expanding/exploding within the Yeti unit. The entire casing was very hot to the touch, and the metal casing bolts were too hot to hold in my hand for very long. The battery has expanded so much that I can’t even remove the battery from the unit.

Needless to say, this could have resulted in a catastrophic failure that could have destroyed my garage, my house, or worse....resulted in the loss of life.

I have contacted Goal Zero and will report back on their response. If you have one of these though, please thoroughly check it often.
 
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jeeeep

Hooked
do they use a lithium battery?

That could've been disastrous.

I have a NOCO boost that I use to leave in the Jeep until I smelled the smell of burnt plastic and found the battery had swollen so much it broke the case.

It got replaced by NOCO but I no longer leave it in the Jeep nor the hot garage.
 
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Primo82

Caught the Bug
I think more and more use of lithium ion batteries and the drive to reduce cost have put a lot of BAD batteries on the market.

About 6 months ago I picked my work laptop up to go to a meeting and the bottom of the case was bowed out. When I got back to my desk I opened it up to realize the battery had bulged like that. Immediately took it to IT who kind of freaked out, obviously pulled the battery and gave me a new one. But it easily could have burnt my office area down...
 

Sharkey

Word Ninja
do they use a lithium battery?

That could've been disastrous.

I have a NOCO boost that I use to leave in the Jeep until I smelled the smell of burnt plastic and found the battery had swollen so much it broke the case.

It got replaced by NOCO but I no longer leave it in the Jeep nor the hot garage.

This is not a lithium battery but they do make a version that is lithium.

I think more and more use of lithium ion batteries and the drive to reduce cost have put a lot of BAD batteries on the market.

About 6 months ago I picked my work laptop up to go to a meeting and the bottom of the case was bowed out. When I got back to my desk I opened it up to realize the battery had bulged like that. Immediately took it to IT who kind of freaked out, obviously pulled the battery and gave me a new one. But it easily could have burnt my office area down...

Agreed, but this isn't lithium ion. It is a regular AGM Lead-Acid battery that is supposed to be kept plugged in (which it was). You will notice what appear to be water droplets in the photos from inside the unit case. That's from the battery itself.
 

jeeeep

Hooked
This is not a lithium battery but they do make a version that is lithium.

Agreed, but this isn't lithium ion. It is a regular AGM Lead-Acid battery that is supposed to be kept plugged in (which it was). You will notice what appear to be water droplets in the photos from inside the unit case. That's from the battery itself.

AGM battery? damn, I thought AGM was safe and not supposed to do that.
 

Speedy_RCW

Hooked
I think more and more use of lithium ion batteries and the drive to reduce cost have put a lot of BAD batteries on the market.

About 6 months ago I picked my work laptop up to go to a meeting and the bottom of the case was bowed out. When I got back to my desk I opened it up to realize the battery had bulged like that. Immediately took it to IT who kind of freaked out, obviously pulled the battery and gave me a new one. But it easily could have burnt my office area down...

I had the same thing happen to my work laptop battery a couple months ago. I couldn’t even open the latches by hand when I went to replace it. Finally pried them open with a screwdriver and when it opened the battery came shooting out like a fat queer chasing a dick sandwich.


Sent from my iPhone using WAYALIFE mobile app
 

Brute

Hooked
I had the same thing happen to my work laptop battery a couple months ago. I couldn’t even open the latches by hand when I went to replace it. Finally pried them open with a screwdriver and when it opened the battery came shooting out like a fat queer chasing a dick sandwich.


Sent from my iPhone using WAYALIFE mobile app

Quite descriptive...
 

Brute

Hooked
My Yeti 400 came with my XVenture trailer and has been plugged in sitting on the garage floor collecting cobwebs ever since my Dusy run with SpeedyRCW...fortunately my garage walls are concrete...
 

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