Chosen Solution

The Big Blue has been recalled - out of 164,000 sold, “12 reports of the speakers overheating and catching fire, resulting in five reports of property damage totaling about $2,000 “ https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2018/brooks… Very disappointing, I really like our Big Blue! Does anyone have more information?

@twiga65 once you have the battery removed, cut the blue plastic away. The battery for your speaker looks like it is using 6 separate cells to begin with. Check the individual cells and either build your own battery by using the old one as a pattern or try and purchase one that has the approximate same values (10.6V-11.1V and whatever mAh you can get. Get something a bit smaller in physical size. The reason those things come on fire is due to overcharging and expanding, causing the two oposite contacts to touch and expanding and overcharging in a confined area. I build my own batteries for equipment where OEM batteries are no longer available. It is not complicated just a bit cumbersome to do so and as of yet had nothing ever come on fire or blow up :-) No reason to throw out a perfectly good speaker because of this.

Well, you could put in a new battery that hopefully isn’t OEM, therefore eliminating the risk of combustion due to the battery. http://xpresstekstore.com/6800mah-high-c… Brookstone Big Blue Party/360 Speaker Battery Replacement

Would it be possible to remove the battery and wire it to simply be a non battery device? I use mine primarily in the house so I would be fine with it needing to be plugged in to function.

Replace the batteries. You need 6 3.7v 3400 mah, take 3 and parallel them, do the same for the other 3, then put them in series, which will give you. 11.1 volts. Tape them together like the existing pack and hook it up. Here’s a link to a six pack of high quality Panasonic cells https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GS48XRE/ref…

They don’t know if it’s the battery or the charging circuit I checked my battery and it’s fine the charging circuit is also putting out 12 volts so I’m not concerned about it it takes 6 18650 batteries, take three of them put them in series, take the other three put them in series, then parallel them together for the extra amperage and you have the 11.1 volts that you’re supposed to have. I pulled the little plastic plugs out on the bottom of mine unscrewed it and there was the battery pack is plain as day, it’s just shrink wrapped together.

I know it’s been a while since this question was asked, and I’ve been following the answers since the recall was first announced. I’ve since replaced my Big Blue with an Aiwa Exos 9, and while it’s a nice replacement, the Big Blue is so much easier to grab and take somewhere. This evening, I decided to take a closer look and played around with the speaker a bit. Turns out, while the Lithium Ion battery pack is ~11 volts, the charger input is 18 volts… which just so happens to be the voltage of many cordless tool batteries. Sure enough, I’m currently powering my Big Blue off of my Makita LXT batteries through a cobbled together adapter - with the internal battery removed. It’s not the most ideal solution, but it means I get my speaker back to full portability without worry of fire. I hope this idea helps other people regain their speakers!

My Big Blue Party X recently quit working. It won’t charge or turn on. The light will turn blue for a couple of seconds and then shutoff. I’ve tried using a laptop charger I had around the house and same issue so it can’t be charger. I’ve tried unplugging the battery completely and it will not do anything with the battery out and plugged in. I really would like to try and fix this but I don’t know what to do. So sad this speaker only lasted 2 1/2 years.

Does anyone know if the root cause of the fire hazard is overcharging? If so, then I’m with mayer and dumping the Big Blue. If the problem is the batteries, then there are replacements available. Root Cause…..??????

Ok… so I came on looking for a fix because my unit loses connection with my network/Google home(every time I turn on the speaker to use it, I have to re-connect(pair) with google home. Am I doing something wrong? Anyone else have this issue. In other news apparently I’m the last one to find out about the recall for the battery. Which if I can repair the connection issues, I will look into repairing the battery issue.(thats easy as ive replaced lithiums in portable drills before.) Anyone?

My guess is that there is a problem with the charging circuit and not the batteries. It may fail after a period of time or number of cycles. I use the Big Blue, which has great sound, in my diesel motorcoach. I can not risk the potential fire in this enclosed and really expensive space. Big Blue is, much to my dismay, getting the deep six.

I’m still using it hard and never had a problem works and sounds great but I will send it in if they dont charge me

18v is to high . 12 v is better n safer

Anyone who doesn’t need it to be strictly portable, I would recommend just removing the battery and using it as a wired device. Anyone still set on chucking theirs I’d be willing to take it off your hands :)

Can you explain what a “cobbled together adapter” or how I go about doing it.