Lorry,
Every manufacturer has product failures so I wouldn't get paranoid about your Rode mic 🙂
It isn't a common failure, either the battery itself had an internal short causing a meltdown or an external short within the mic caused rapid battery discharge with resultant heat. It can and does happen with even mil-spec battery packs HOWEVER the probability is so low that it isn't worth considering. Unless you are old order Amish, you have many appliances, devices, and even lowly electrical outlets inside your home that are far more likely to fail (worried yet?) 🙂
I spent much of my career doing quality and risk management consulting and every activity (AND inactivity) has an entire menu of associated risks but risk management does not mean risk avoidance and this is something I have sometimes had to remember. When my daughter was 3, I took her on our first father/daughter camping and hiking trip to the Colorado Rockies. While I was setting up the tent, Anna sat in a chair watching while I thought of all the things that could possibly go wrong and by the time I was finished setting up camp I had almost convinced myself to take her to a hotel in Estes Park instead of camping in the mountains. I walked over after setup and Anna proudly showed me the little wooden marbles she had found to play with, those were of course animal "poop" and that was the closest to a bad thing that happened on the trip. Anything that cleans up with soap and water was never a real problem 🙂
We had a great time with elk wandering through our camp on the way up and down the mountain every day and she saw and experienced a lot of entertaining and educational events. My only regret was one morning we left very early to get down to CO Springs and the Garden of the Gods at sunrise; I drove through Estes and at the last stop coming out of town a moose lumbered up and stuck his head in through the pickup's rear window to get a close look at my daughter. She was giggling and I didn't have a camera handy to capture the moment of Anna trying to introduce her large stuffed moose "Mortimer" to the real beast.
Enjoy your functioning mic and worry about the truly probable risks like missing a once in a lifetime moment.
Rodger
EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video
