Samsung Says Batteries Caused Note 7 Fires, Delays New Phone - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 03:19:31 pm
content: Quote

author: ZeTeX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 03:25:50 pm
content: Yeah no shit it was the battery, it couldn't be the display obviously lol.if it was something in software they would just release a new update and force everyone to update probably..

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 03:26:39 pm
content: Quote from: ZeTeX on January 23, 2017, 03:25:50 pmLOL

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 03:58:09 pm
content: Quote from: ZeTeX on January 23, 2017, 03:25:50 pmWell, there was a chance that it was the hardware charging the battery beyond limits or failing to detect critical temperatures.

author: Jay_Diddy_B
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 05:07:39 pm
content: Hi,The numbers are staggering. In one report I read they had 700 engineers involved in the testing, 200,000 phones and 30,000 batteries.That is around 285 phones each !!Regards,Jay_Diddy_B

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 05:10:36 pm
content: I don't know if I fully buy that...they are blaming 2 different battery manufacturers, for 2 different extremely severe unrelated faults on the batteries, that seems a little bit unrealistic that their engineers dont have anything to do with all of thatfirst because amperex is apple supplier of batteries and to this day iphones may have a lot of faults, but spontaneous combustion at will is not one of them, so they clearly know how to design and produce safe batteries; also SDI is a samsung subsidiary and likely producing batteries for a lot of other samsung products (if not why would they have a li-ion producing arm?) and they also are not catching fire at randommy guess is that marketing set a number for battery capacity, since the dimension of the battery compartment were also set (as a result of defining the form factor and case design) so the battery manifacturer had to cut corners in order to fit the capacity in the small space, and so they probably used very thin insulator and battery corners rounding that led to short circuit and ultimately fire.and I'm also willing to bet that they were already aware issues with the battery before the launch, since the first problem had a incidence of 100% even basic QA testing would have found something, and ok ,samsung might not produce the highest qualyty stuff, having owned a lot of samsung consumer products I personally think they are cheaply designes and manifactured to almost aliexpress level (ok that might be an hyperbole but still their products have a much lower quality than other south korean firms) my guess here is that for fear of discovering something serious, that would delay the product's launch someone decided to not diagnose further the problem and take the gamble...

author: ZeTeX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 05:30:14 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 23, 2017, 03:58:09 pmIt's pretty hard for a bunch of engineers and such a big company to fuck up something like the charging circuity which is generally not that complicated or hard to troubleshoot, something like the battery is much harder to troubleshoot and check IMO.

author: bitwelder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 06:17:32 pm
content: I saw retweeted today the pictures of the 'testing lab' from CNET writer. Quite impressing. Here's the article:https://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-answers-burning-note-7-questions-vows-better-batteries/

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 06:51:10 pm
content: I'm sure this is good news for them. They could more or less use the same hardware/software and a different battery.Part of the issue is this race for the thinnest device, while not sacrificing battery life. Puts lot of stress and demand on the battery manufacturer.

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 11:03:55 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on January 23, 2017, 06:51:10 pmNot necessarily ... if the battery compartment was too thin/cramped then the battery design would have to be perhaps too thin as well and you're back to the same problem. My guess is the design of the phone package led to the design of a battery to fit that package and .... pooof!Hopefully the need to make each generation of phone ever thinner has come to an end.Brian

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2017, 11:30:02 pm
content: Quote from: filssavi on January 23, 2017, 05:10:36 pmhttps://www.google.ca/search?q=iphone+burned&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=XI agree with the capacity point, most iphones have tiny batteries (<1900mAh), so the explosion would be less violent. Maybe they are being conservative on design.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2017, 05:24:23 am
content: Found this same news story on Anandtech with some pretty pictures :http://www.anandtech.com/show/11060/samsung-reveals-root-cause-of-galaxy-note7-battery-firesCan't be bothered to check all the links in the thread to see if they're the same.So yeah, very tight pouch squeezing the layers at corners and causing problems near the negative terminal for the first batteries. Crap spot soldering leaving sharp points on the positive terminal on the second batteries (from other manufacturer).

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2017, 07:31:45 am
content: Is it just a coincidence that Samsung got so many bad batteries from two different companies for the same line of phone? Perhaps. It seems more likely that Samsung's design decisions were the catalyst, especially if these manufacturers were able to produce safe batteries for other customers. Also, quoting from the article in the OP, "Samsung said Monday that it was responsible for not ensuring the design specifications given to its suppliers were failsafe..." Sounds like it was built to a price.

author: Hypernova
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 24, 2017, 08:02:54 am
content: Quote from: Jay_Diddy_B on January 23, 2017, 05:07:39 pmThat's full-mobilization when shit hits the fan for ya.