DualShock 4 controller catches fire during gameplay

A GTA Online gameplay session ended in the PS4 controller catching fire.

[Relientk77]

This usually happens to me, not because the controller malfunctioned, but because I'm The Human Torch and I forget to turn my powers off

[Abash]

This story is going to make all button mashers very uneasy when they play games now

[nX]

I don't think this story will have any effect on how anyone plays his games as it's pretty much an isolated issue.

[Abash]

@ nX

My comment was a joke O_o

[dirkdady]

Moron should have used the regular charger for the controller instead of using a cellphone charger.

Lol at the people on reddit telling him not to tell Sony he used a cellphone charger when calling into support.

If it was a iPad charger that would have been worse as those things output 12 watts.

[nveenio]

This kind of happened to my PS3 bluray remote. The batteries started overheating one day. I happened to pick it up and it was really hot. I opened the back and the batteries were swelled and the plastic housing for the batteries was slightly deformed/melted. Remote still works. Hasn't happened since.

[fr0sty]

Any lithium battery powered device, including the cell phone in your pocket, can do this.

[81BX]

Clearly a joke there

[nveenio]

How the heck did I get disagrees? This site is weird.

[XisThatKid]

@inveni
They poorly just don't like your story. It's the the lack of up vote or down vote buttons."disagree"is the only option for disdain here that gives instant grad. disagree here obviously isn't literal. Don't sweat it.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

Did anyone else notice that the controller caught on fire because the person in question was charging his controller with an electrical outlet?

HaHaHaHaaaa...

Crispy fingers was the reward for his foolishness.

[RedDevils]

The only way to fix this site stupid disagree/agree system, is by get them to force them post a comment before making the disagree/disagree appear

[UKmilitia]

he used a phone charger(fast charger)to charge it and imo would of damaged the battery.
charging something to fast when its not designed for that is dangerous imo and things like pads should be charged using console or charging docks that give correct power.

[XeroTheory]

I think that's the key term here. I've been using a wall charger for all 3 of my DS4s (and my DS3s as well), but its not that adaptive fast charge kind. Still no problems after a year of owning a PS4, and 7 years of owning a PS3.

[player911]

While you are correct about this, devices have regulators to prevent this. Typically a USB is 500mAh. Fast chargers work by communicating over the data pairs and only push higher amps IF the device responds. What I suspect is the cable was bad, shorting out the data pairs. So it created a sort of loopback to the charger to push more. In this case, I doubt it was the controllers fault, but the cable, and would have blown up any device requiring a smaller input of power. The controller was not the cause but the victim here.

[UltraNova]

fulnattybrah

hahahaahahah

hahhahaahahah

Ok I'm done pheww

This was the most ridiculous trolling attempt I've seen in years..

"but then again M$ makes great products..."

Yeah just like the xbox 360 was! I mean it only had 50% failure rate.

Dude seriously get off the coolaid...

OT:

No we should not charge controllers with cellphone fast chargers...

[nitus10]

For my DS3 I could use my PS3 to charge it but that would mean leaving it on although I could set the timeout on my PS3 to 2 hours.

For years I have been using my PC to charge my DS3 (takes about an hour) however I really need to pair it again which is not a big problem. On a whim I actually used my Sony HDTV usb slot and found I could charge my DS3 (about an hour) without the need to pair. This is now my favorite method of DS3 charging. This does not work on my son's Bravia HTDV since it is a few years older than mine.

I have not got a PS4 yet since I have plenty of PS3 games to keep me busy while I wait for a price drop or an attractive bundle and there are some very tempting ones at the moment. When I do get a PS4 I will just use it to charge the DS4 since the DS4 charges even when the PS4 is on standby.

[iceman06]

Flame ON!!! LOL

[Jalva]

Hilarious.

[babadivad]

Hmmm, is this for real?? I have my doubts.

Nevermind, seems to have been confirmed. But he wasn't using a PS4 charger so he can really only blame himself.

[Rookie_Monster]

Just an isolated incident. My DS4 controllers are cool as ice

[Volkama]

That's because you keep them in the garden, to prevent them from polluting the Xbox-haven you've built for yourself :)

[Ricegum]

Haha great laugh. Cheers bro.

[MasterCornholio]

Why do you store them in the freezer?

[wsoutlaw87]

This is why i wouldnt use cell phone wall outlet chargers. Some fast charge setups could be damaging to the controller.

[ginsunuva]

The guy above used a custom cell-phone charger to charge his DS4 that caused this incident, not playing a game.

[nitus10]

Rather silly using a custom charger since the DS4 will charge from the PS4 even when it is on standby. It is possible the custom charger is more energy efficient than DS4 via cable to the PS4 while on standby although I have not done any testing. Anyone here who has?

[sammarshall102]

Whoa

[MasterCornholio]

Just a faulty battery.

Its not like we didn't have exploding batteries before.

[sinspirit]

Better switch to gasoline powered controllers!

[SniperControl]

@remix

Dont you mean Bunny?

https://upload.wikimedia.or...

[Rookie_Monster]

@MasterCornholio
"Its not like we didn't have exploding batteries before."

You are right. Several year ago we had a laptop brand that had recalled batteries due to exploding issue.

http://www.cheatsheet.com/t...
Watch Out for Exploding Laptops: Sony Recalls 26K Vaio PCs

Hmmm, maybe it is a Sony battery issue. Coincident?

[SniperControl]

@rookie

If you had bothered to click the link and read some of the comments, you would have realised that the damage came from the circuit board underneath the battery, the battery itself is less damaged than the plastic it was sat on.

The burning came about because the numpty used a fast charging phone charger, but you already knew this and just wanted to have a dig at Sony.

[nitus10]

@sinspirit

Gasoline powered controllers? Well you do have the problem with noise as well as pollution not to mention the weight, but you could emulate rumble really well on one of these. It would be interesting to get gaming hours for one tank.

There is a major problem with a gasoline controller and that is you have to be very careful of the gaming police pulling you over and testing you for alcohol and other banned substances and don't get me stated on mobile phone users. :-)

[DJustinUNCHAIND]

Should have included a built-in sprinkler system along with the battery, night-light, and speaker.

[Rodney25]

This happens when I use my ps4 to write my rap lyrics

[Gazondaily]

Share dat mixtape yo

[iceman06]

Yo...You spit hot fire like Dylon!?!? LOL

[Jrmy84]

Lmao!

[Rodney25]

Dylan is in my top 5

[remixx116]

Yeah I put your latest mix tape into my ps4.........I no longer have a ps4 but you are now in my top 5.

[iceman06]

LOL!!!

[kraenk12]

Damn those PS4 games really are hot!

[carmelo43]

HA

[fulnattybrah]

hot garbage

[ApocalypseShadow]

Pro tip:

Don't use cell phone chargers to charge your controller. It was given its own charger for a reason.

[rainslacker]

You can actually, but you shouldn't leave it plugged in to charge while playing, and you should unplug it when it's actually done charging.

On the technical side, it will get the job done, but over the long run it can actually cause the batter to weaken and not retain a charge(like all these batteries do) much faster than the proper voltage would do.

The reason you can use a regular charger is because the battery capacitors aren't going to draw more power from the cord than they're designed to do...much like a 40 watt light bulb won't pull more than 40 watts even if stuck in a 60 watt recepticle.

However, since it turns into direct current within the controller, the controller is now pulling the juice from the battery, while also pulling power in for the charge, and since with the normal voltage this would be spread out among the capacitors to not cause a problem, while playing, you are drawing more power than the capacitors were designed to handle. Capacitors work by dissipating heat to get rid of excess power, so they get hot, and as this example shows, can catch on fire given enough time and heat applied to the ceramics inside.

[mixelon]

This can happen in any battery line. :( The battery in my wife's old MacBook caught fire and took the laptop with it, and could have easily taken the house too considering it was while we were sleeping. Wasn't even plugged in. No warning or signs of a fault until it melted and started belching weird grey smoke everywhere.

Also, there's nothing wrong with using a cell phone charger if it's the correct amp/wattage/v/etc..

[SniperControl]

I work in the IT department for a big automobile manufacturer, years ago, one of the design guys bought me the remains of his laptop bag filled with a charred laptop. Turns out he had been driving on the motorway when he smelt a acrid smell in the cabin, followed by smoke, he pulled his car over thinking the car had broken down but realised smoke pouring from the boot. He opened the boot to see the smoke coming from his lappy bag. Upon further investigation, the battery had caught fire and in turn set fire to his lappy bag and several paper documents.

[mixelon]

It's frustrating how many people here are like "well, it's never happened to me so I don't accept it as a real thing!"
It'd never happened to anyone else either.. until it did.. :/

That sounds scary.. A moving vehicle is one of the last places I'd want it.. We were really lucky.. The smoke woke my wife up, but it's only luck that had the laptop in a different room to our (then) baby. And it came close to setting a laundry basket alight.

The laptop was so fried though that the battery make/model was unidentifiable.. Apple assumed it was one of the recalled (coincidentally Sony produced) ones and replaced the MacBook with a MacBook Pro, despite it being years outside of warranty.. So that was something positive at least.

[rainslacker]

I've seen lots of devices which have caught on fire back when I did repairs on electronics. It's not that uncommon at all, and usually happens because lithium is a highly volatile substance, and if given enough juice, it can overreact and catch fire. In this case though, it appears it's the capacitors which caught on fire, so he was likely charging while playing.

Heck, Boeing grounded their entire fleet of 737's a couple years ago because a battery caught on fire.

[mixelon]

Better safe than sorry.. Don't even want to think how bad chemical fires on planes could get.

Saying that.. Despite having experience with this happening, I still leave things plugged in and so on. I do have much better smoke and heat alarms though so hopefully nothing else like it can do real harm.

http://creeping-me-out.tumb... - toasty! (I particularly like how it melted the touchpad to the screen, haha!)

[rainslacker]

No doubt in the case of a plane. Better to make sure it really is the battery and find the cause so it doesn't happen again. It's not always the battery which is the problem, but sometimes the current supply or other things related to it which can malfunction.

That picture looks pretty bad. Good thing there wasn't damage outside the notebook itself. And yeah, there's not reason to be overly cautious with leaving things unplugged. It's possible this can happen even when unplugged, and the instances of it happening are actually pretty slim, particularly with enough volatility to catch the rest of the house on fire.

[Tobsesan]

Guess he played a hot GTA session

[Immorals]

Lithium is a pretty volatile element, he's lucky it was his controller and not a phone in his pocket!

[Jrmy84]

Doesn't look like the lithium ion battery caught fire, when they catch fire they burn like a toruch. Seems to be circuit under the battery caught fire, possibly due to using the wrong charger.

[rainslacker]

Looks like one of the capacitors which regulates the charging voltage intake to the batter caught on fire. Capacitor is much more likely to catch fire than a battery, and it's not likely to burn long.

Thing is, there should have been plenty of warning signs that it was going to happen, which were likely ignored. Controller would have been extremely hot to the touch, maybe a popping sound, possible smoke, and after a while, you'd get a full fire if there was enough oxygen present.

Kind of surprised no fuse blew which cut the power connection earlier, but may not have mattered if it continued to draw power internally.

[zodiac909]

Some people may whine and complain....but I find it totally badass that the controller catches fire.

[Max-Zorin]

That's what happens when you don't use the intended charger.

[DeToX420]

That game he was playing must have been fire

[Xavior_Reigns]

Hmm no more using my fast charger then, though my controllers have been fine.

[Loktai]

I'm one of the posters on this, it didn't catch fire it smoked a little, just a bad battery. No harm

[Perjoss]

User error

[iliimaster]

man this guy might be the ultimate button masher and ive ran across a few crazy styles but nothing on this level lol.

[feraldrgn]

The guy used a phone charger to charge his DS4 battery.

That is 100% user error & stupidity.

[DoomeDx]

Not at all. They are both using Micro USB cables. It really doesnt matter.

[nitus10]

The USB to micro USB cable is what is called a "passive" device. When you plug the USB cable into a charger and the micro USB into the controller then a circuit is made.

If the so called charger is not within the USB specs then it could damage the device that the cable is connected to.

Basically the so called charger did not conform to the USB specifications and damaged the controller. The issue has nothing to do with the USB cable or any passive cable for that matter.

It is possible to connect 10,000 volts or more to a USB cable and nothing will happen till you plugged the other end into the controller then you would most likely have a molten blob of plastic were your controller was as well as a smoldering corpse if the player was silly enough to be holding it.

This is why anyone who has worked in the electrical industry has developed a very healthy respect for electricity. If they haven't they are usually dead.

[MinnesotaFatts]

Yeah...dude may have voided his warranty opening the controller like that. Never seen that happen in all my life, though. I've had buttons -- and in the case of my xbone, the analog sticks -- on my controllers stop working, but I've never had one up and catch fire.

[Ozmoses]

I haven't personally experienced this issue but its always in the back of my mind.

In the first year of the PS4 I went through about 4 DS4 because of the trigger buttons breaking and the rubber analog coating coming off.

I've been more reluctant this generation to game for hours and hours and hours without giving my system a break.

I smoke a lot (cigarettes and weed) and that means at times I will pause the game and be outside for upwards of an hour or more. So I'm always paranoid that it's going to blow up or something when I'm not using it lol.

I also never put my systems in standby or rest mode.. When I'm done using the system I turn it off.. Sometimes I'll turn in off because I think I'm done playing only to turn it back on 20 minutes later.. It might be bad for the systems turning them on and off all the time I dunno, but I don't trust that "standby/rest mode" BS.

[TwoForce]

Well, that's a bad luck for that guy. Don't use cell phone charge.

[alfcrippinjr]

not using the correct charger will unstabilize the charger

the sony battery has a built in stabilizer for the battery
so it does not overheat it shut down the controller.
if there a issue

person had a unknown charger plugged in playing the ps4\at the same time

the person is trying to spread this bullshit
story to get free stuff from sony.

[hazelamy]

and the moral of the story?
probably best to to try and charge you pad with a phone charger.

[Xyconaut]

My friend had his ps4 and HDMI ports on his TV fried because a USB charging cable he had plugged into the console fell and touched a metal vent for his central air - weird times are a coming!!