Hoverboard bursts into flames during first ride
The gadget had cost £240 from eBay
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Your support makes all the difference.Video shows the moment a hoverboard went up in flames while being trialled for the very first time.
When Stephen Lee Nott, 32, tried the brand new hoverboard, he hardly expected the device to burst into flames seconds after he would step on it.
Mr Nott, who is British vlogger living in Indonesia, uploaded the footage of the incident to his YouTube channel on Wednesday and has since received more than 500,000 views.
As the video shows, just moments after he steps onto the hoverboad, smoke starts coming out from one of the wheels and suddenly the gadget bursts into flames. He later doused the device with water to extinguish the flames.
Still shocked by what has just happened, in the full version of the footage he can be heard saying: “"No wonder you're not allowed to bring them on flights."
Mr Nott told The Independent how he had hoped to just film himself have an embarassing accident for his channel.
"I had two cameras set up that was to catch any fall I might have had on my first attempt using it," he said.
"I thought that the footage might be funny for my channe,l then when i seen a little smoke and heard a hissing sound you see me hesitate and before I knew it the thing burst into flames."
Mr Nott later said that he had bought the hoverboard from eBay for £240 and that the device had been charging for around ten hours before the incident.
He has contacted the seller for a refund, but is yet to receive a response.
The gadgets are powered by lithium ion batteries, with high quality devices having special circuits that prevent the batteries from overheating or being overcharged. However, poorly manufactured units usually do not have these additional safety systems.
In Britain, safety watchdogs have inspected 17,000 hoverboards that have been imported into the country since October 2015 and found 15,000 - or 88 per cent - to be defective.
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