SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Overheating

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200209-14168-2147374935. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: First Alert SA320 (First Alert Model No. SA320 Ionization and Photoelectric combination smoke detector Date of manufacture: 2016 OCT 13). Incident: Upon replacing batteries in my smoke detectors, I found that most of them would not operate with the fresh batteries. I have 5 smoke detectors all of the same brand, model and date of manufacture. The same battery terminal has oxidation on most of the detectors. The name brand batteries I removed were only a year old and not corroded. To make these detectors work, I had to scrape the terminal with the end of a screwdriver then sand with emery cloth. It took several attempts to get a few of these detectors working again. I almost gave up. I know most people would not know how to aggressively clean terminals like this. It may mean that some people assume their detectors are working when they are not. This is obviously a dangerous situation. I am also concerned that with the plating removed from the contacts after sanding, that the battery connection through the terminal may cease at any time due to more oxidation forming. This would leave the device non-functional. The issue is probably the plating used on the terminals or the application of the plating. After an hour or more of concerted effort, my 5 detectors are working. The question is for how long.