Fire with cell phone

W

wasp

Joined
Jan 20, 2000
Messages
137
I've made fires with batteries and 4 0000 steel wool and was wondering if I was to try this with a cell phone battery will it fry or ruin the battery? They cost a bit much just to try this for fun...:cool:
 
I've done this before with no noticible harm to my phone's battery. Cando just posted an article about this on Klippe as well.

-- FLIX
 
Neat but I and most dont carry steel wool any more than a 9 volt EDC.

A mini bic still rules.

Skam
 
Wow! With a family, I almost always have my cell phone with me. Packing a wee bit of steel wool is no biggie.

Great idea!! Thanks for sharing the links!!
 
Wherever you're carrying your steel wool certainly has room for a 9 volt (and a mini-bic and vaseline cotton ball as backup).

Do you really want to use up the single limited resource that can power the technology to instantly be in contact with those equipped to save your life in order to do something there are half a dozen alternative ways to do?

(I know there could be situations where you need the fire now before someone could get to you, no cell phone service, etc...not saying it shouldn't be a last resort. But I think it would be stupid to consider it a legitimate use of your cell phone battery to save yourself a cubic inch of room in whatever is also carrying your steel wool.)

Next thread:
Fire with GPS screen as Fresnel lens?
Arrow tips with compass needle?
Deer hunting with signal flare?
 
bobby.t said:
Wherever you're carrying your steel wool certainly has room for a 9 volt (and a mini-bic and vaseline cotton ball as backup).
Click to expand...

You make a valid point and I don't think the fellow is saying this is the only thing you should have to make fire with.

Do you really want to use up the single limited resource that can power the technology to instantly be in contact with those equipped to save your life in order to do something there are half a dozen alternative ways to do?
Click to expand...

Again, you make a valid point, but if he has experimented with it and says it doesn't drain the batt, it sort of makes your point rather moot.

Next thread:
Fire with GPS screen as Fresnel lens?
Arrow tips with compass needle?
Deer hunting with signal flare?
Click to expand...

There is a huge difference between what is being put forth in this thread and your silly comparisons at the end. You would have to destroy a GPS to get that screen out in order to do that. He's not talking about destroying the cell phone batt. Arrow tips as a compass needle, come on. Deer hunting with a signal flare, you're just being silly. He isn't.
 
Ok so I was having some fun at the end. My point about the GPS was destroying a more "powerful" tool for a simpler function...because shorting your cell phone battery will necessarily dump a ton more current than the trickle it's designed for.

It's doubtful the battery will explode, but it'll certainly discharge at a much higher rate which in and of itself is damaging. It'll hold less of a charge in the future, and I don't think anyone here could guess just how much damage the heat generated would do. It would decrease its reliability by some unknown amount, so your successful test here will have you trotting out in the woods expecting it to work again.
 
Bobby,

The only thing I can fault the original poster for is not using 0000 steel wool which would cause less of a drain, it's easier to light off with a battery.

It's not going to harm anything.

Have you ever used a batt to light off 0000 steel wool? It's a touch my friend, you're not sitting there waiting for anything, touch, poof!
 
The last time I played with steel wool + battery was years ago as a kid. And I say "play" because that's just what I was doing...having a fun little experiment with a spare battery that then got discarded. Couldn't tell you what gauge steel wool, just that it worked.

I know it catches relatively quickly, but you're still shorting it. IE replacing the normal high-resistance, controlled, extremely low current load it sees with a much lower-resistance, high current discharge. The general rule I follow is that if I see a spark/arc when the connection is made, the battery is not faring so well. When's the last time your cell phone battery (or really, any battery in any of its designed applications) arced upon inserting it?
 
Bobby,

The point is, you're wrong, it's not going to hurt anything to touch it. Simple as that. It's not going to drain the battery, it's instantly going to catch 0000 steel wool. There is no use arguing about it any further, it's just stupid to debate it at this point. It's not going to hurt anything to do this except possibly in the rare instance and I don't work my life around incredibly rare instances.
 
All right I didn't mean to start a big debate on it...and I'm sure you have more outdoorsy experience than I. I'm an engineer with a decent understanding of electronics so I just think of it in terms of shorts and how batteries are inherently damaged when discharged. I don't know the capacity on my current phone's battery, but I do know phones tend to use 3 - 3.5V batteries, and the charge has got to be on the order of hundreds of mAH (milli Amp Hours). So your phone is drawing micro amps? And you're going to pull, I don't know, a couple of amps for a couple of seconds?

I can't claim that damage is sure to occur, I just wouldn't place any confidence in being able to try it out, put it back in my phone for daily use, and at some point in the future counting on it to work again out in the woods.
 
bobby.t said:
And you're going to pull, I don't know, a couple of amps for a couple of seconds?
Click to expand...

No, it's a touch. It's not a "couple of seconds." That's the problem, when you say you don't know, you're not kidding. You really don't know. That's why I asked you before, have you ever done it...it's just a touch.

The devil is in the details.
 
Question: How do you know when you're spending way too much time on the computer and need to get out more?

Answer: When you've spent the last five minutes reading two guys argument over the merits of using your mobile phone to light a fire in the wilderness.
 
I like the idea of carrying the steel wool wrapped in wax paper inside the cell phone cover. Ingenious!
Terry
 
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