SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Overheating

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20141126-F7EA0-2147438488. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Goal Zero 11404 (Goal Zero 11002 Sherpa 50 Battery). Incident: Bought Goal0 Sherpa 50 Battery approx 4/29/2012 from Amazon.com I bought the Sherpa 50 for my bug out bag. I took the Sherpa 50 on a camping trip, and it worked well for that trip. I used it to power some Bose speakers mounted on my backpack for a trial run. A year rolled by since then and I wanted to take it to the beach the following morning to give the Bose speakers some extended play. So, I plugged the Sherpa 50 it in at 11:30 pm. About 2 hours later my sister awoke me that she was nauseous that some noxious burnt electronic smell was coming from my office where she was sleeping near. I rushed into the room where the battery was being charged only to be sickened by the odor coming from the room. The battery had melted from the inside, and produced such a terrible smell, that I had to evacuate the house to a nearby hotel for 2 days to let the house air out. I placed the battery outside. I can still smell traces of the odor in room where I left it about 2 weeks later. When I contacted Goal Zero about the battery problem the next day, they knew all about it...I asked if it was toxic and would I need treatment for the 5 people that were present when the device failed. They stated it wasn't toxic that it was some sort of sodium battery and that it only happened on a few of the batches. They said that what happened was a few cells went dry over the course of a year and that the charger was trying to fully charge the dysfunctional battery bank, that's when the meltdown would occur. They have known about this problem for some time. I was LIVID when I realized that they didn't i