Exploding Lighter

[rabbithutch]

BIL in south Florida just sent me these pics of a Scripto lighter that exploded while stored in a waterproof box on his lanai. He found the box with the blowout then pulled the lighter out and examined it. He has no idea what caused it to explode. He has several in his RV that he is concerned about because the RV is in for service.

Has anyone here ever experienced anything like this? I buy and use this type of lighter all the time but have never experienced this.

2015-11-16 15.41.13.jpg

• rabbithutch
• Nov 16, 2015

2015-11-16 15.40.01.jpg

• rabbithutch
• Nov 16, 2015

2015-11-16 15.40.25.jpg

• rabbithutch
• Nov 16, 2015

 

[crazymoon]

RH, SCARY! I saw one blow up on a commercial gas range once and it was heat related. Maybe the box acted as an oven on a hot day ?

 

[bbqbrett]

Never seen that happen before. I know so many people, myself included that keep these around in the house and other various places and never heard of anything like that.

 

[floridasteve]

That is scary!

 

[mowin]

Guess I'm going to remove the 3-4 from my camper tomorrow.

 

[forluvofsmoke]

Yes, it is heat related. About 5 years ago, I had a scripto cigarette lighter rupture while laying on the dash with the vehicle parked facing north...mid-September, if I recall correctly. Deep window tinting and shades on the side and rear glass was not enough to prevent this. That incident scattered plastic shrapnel in every direction and back more than 12 feet from the dash...I'm just glad no one was in the vehicle, or worse, driving it, when this critter went into vapor-pressure overload. Gotta read our labels and pay attention, as the manufacturer's warnings are right there in black & white.

Eric

 

[rabbithutch]

Sent my BIL a couple of 30 cal. ammo boxes to store his lighters in. Picked up one for myself, too.

 

[walta]

Was it one of the refillable type lighters?

The fuel is stored in a sealed container as a liquid when the liquid is heated it expands and compressing the vapor in the container. If too much liquid and not enough vapor is present in the container the pressure can become high enough that the container must fail.

Pressure vessels are designed to fail in a safe way. In this case the vessel was made of low mass materials so the flying bits are unlikely to have enough energy to injure anyone. A steel container would have a rupture disk designed to fail in a safe way.

If you want to keep this type of lighter in a hot vehicle. Try using up about half the fuel before you store them.

Walta