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Why did Note 7's have this problem? I assume the fault is entirely in the battery (?), so did Samsung change how the batteries were manufactured this year? Doe

Why did Note 7's have this problem? I assume the fault is entirely in the battery (?), so did Samsung change how the batteries were manufactured this year? Does the Note 7 have power demands that mean they can't go back to tried and tested battery manufacture? (Hoping there are EE's or manufacturing people here that might have some educated guesses)

ssalazar 10y ago
I read on an earlier discussion that the issue is caused by the positive/negative battery contacts pressing together and short-circuiting as a result of mechanical distress, so the fundamental issue would be due to how the battery is situated within the device.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  Looks like the same thing with the Boeing 787s batteries. I'm not sure if it has to do with geometry, manufacturing defects or something like that
userbinator 10y ago
I believe Samsung doesn't make the batteries. Whoever does, however, is probably not feeling too good... It also means that this could've easily happened to another company's phones; remember the laptop fires a few years ago (Apple, Dell, IBM, Toshiba, etc. all issued recalls) that were determined to originate from defective Sony cells?
- sho_hn 10y ago
  Samsung Electronics doesn't make the batteries - but Samsung SDI do, along with Chinese Amperex Technology (for the third sold in China). My understanding is that both devices with SSDI and with Amperex batteries have caught on fire (IIRC there have been failures inside and outside of China), so maybe a chassis design defect subjecting the batteries to unexpected strain? Samsung SDI also manufacture iPhone batteries.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    > so maybe a chassis design defect subjecting the batteries to unexpected strain? It should take more than a little bit of unexpected strain to ignite a consumer electronics device.
    - sho_hn 10y ago
      Sure, I'm just saying blaming it on the battery manufacturer becomes a harder sell when two manufacturers are affected, unless Samsung Electronics proscribed the specs so tightly it's their design flaw, or they made the manufacturing equipment, or the batteries' operating environment (i.e. the phone) is a factor. Or SSDI and Amperex could have sold manufacturing tech to each other, I suppose.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - weinzierl 10y ago
      Structural design is always a compromise and it's not hat other manufacturers haven't underestimated the forces involved in the past (e.g. bend gate).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bambax 10y ago
  Are the batteries made by just one contractor, and are they exploding at random? Or are there more than one contractor, and are the exploding batteries coming from one of them in particular? Is this known?
thought_alarm 10y ago
Mobile devices have been using custom-desgned batteries for the last 20+ years. In this case, the battery manufacturer couldn't meet these particular design constraints.
- _pmf_ 10y ago
  > Mobile devices have been using custom-desgned batteries for the last 20+ years. Most have just been differently packaged units containing the same type of cells.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    In most laptops, until very recently, yes. But no one has made a cellphone big enough to hold even one 18650 in many years.
Steko 10y ago
This is the best writeup I've seen of how this happened: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-18/samsung-crisis-began-in-rush-to-capitalize-on-uninspiring-iphone https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-18/samsung-c... tldr plus my speculation: * Leaked iPhone 7 specs made Samsung shoot for the moon with Note 7 design * Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery and a lot of internal room taken up by the stylus (and sure insert headphone jack punchline here). * This is a hard problem, otherwise you'd think Apple would ship a 20% larger battery too. * Design on all the massive revisions started late and launch was moved up so design timeframe was enormously compressed * Engineers at Samsung don't have standing to tell execs something can't be done. * And so mistakes were made somewhere between not having enough time to do it right and being asked to do the improbable.
- hocuspocus 10y ago
  > Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery and a lot of internal room taken up by the stylus (and sure insert headphone jack punchline here). And that's an understatement :) http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Samsung-Galaxy-Note-7,Samsung-Galaxy-Note-5,Apple-iPhone-7-Plus/phones/10024,9462,9816 http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Samsung-G... The Note 5 was already pretty impressive compared to the iPhone, and they went from 3000 to 3500 mAh with the Note 7.
- pawadu 10y ago
  > * Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery ... The Note series has always had a better display to size ratio and a larger battery. I don't see why this particular iteration should all the sudden have problems with that. For reference: Galaxy Note 5 153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm (6.03 x 3.00 x 0.30 in) Weight 171 g (6.03 oz) Display 5.7 inches (~75.9% screen-to-body ratio) Battery Non-removable Li-Po 3000 mAh battery iphone 6s+ Dimensions 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm (6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 in) Weight 192 g (6.77 oz) Display 5.5 inches (~67.7% screen-to-body ratio) Battery Non-removable Li-Ion 2750 mAh battery (10.45 Wh)
usrusr 10y ago
Considering how easy it would be to turn batteries into time-fused bombs (that pass QA) with the tiniest of impurities in the manufacturing process, I sometimes wonder if the note 7 problems could be the visible part of Samsung trying to stand up to a protection racket. I guess it would not take that big of a network of infiltrators or blackmail-handles on factory floor workers distributed over a range of suppliers to go all "nice phones you have there, would be a shame if they burnt..." on a phone brand. The weak point of this theory is that the risk/cost of going public about this kind of threat would not be terribly high, unlike e.g. in plain old hostage taking.
usrusr 10y ago
Considering how easy it would be to turn batteries into time-fused bombs (that pass QA) with the tiniest of impurities in the manufacturing process, I sometimes wonder if the note 7 problems could be the visible part of Samsung trying to stand up to a protection racket. I guess it would not take that big of a network of infiltrators or blackmail-handles on factory floor workers distributed over a range of suppliers to go all "nice phones you have there, would be a shame if they burnt..." on a phone brand. The weak point of this theory is that the risk/cost of going public about this kind of threat would not be terribly high, unlike e.g. in plain old hostage taking.

ssalazar 10y ago

I read on an earlier discussion that the issue is caused by the positive/negative battery contacts pressing together and short-circuiting as a result of mechanical distress, so the fundamental issue would be due to how the battery is situated within the device.

raverbashing 10y ago
Looks like the same thing with the Boeing 787s batteries. I'm not sure if it has to do with geometry, manufacturing defects or something like that

userbinator 10y ago

I believe Samsung doesn't make the batteries. Whoever does, however, is probably not feeling too good... It also means that this could've easily happened to another company's phones; remember the laptop fires a few years ago (Apple, Dell, IBM, Toshiba, etc. all issued recalls) that were determined to originate from defective Sony cells?

sho_hn 10y ago
Samsung Electronics doesn't make the batteries - but Samsung SDI do, along with Chinese Amperex Technology (for the third sold in China). My understanding is that both devices with SSDI and with Amperex batteries have caught on fire (IIRC there have been failures inside and outside of China), so maybe a chassis design defect subjecting the batteries to unexpected strain? Samsung SDI also manufacture iPhone batteries.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > so maybe a chassis design defect subjecting the batteries to unexpected strain? It should take more than a little bit of unexpected strain to ignite a consumer electronics device.
  - sho_hn 10y ago
    Sure, I'm just saying blaming it on the battery manufacturer becomes a harder sell when two manufacturers are affected, unless Samsung Electronics proscribed the specs so tightly it's their design flaw, or they made the manufacturing equipment, or the batteries' operating environment (i.e. the phone) is a factor. Or SSDI and Amperex could have sold manufacturing tech to each other, I suppose.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - weinzierl 10y ago
    Structural design is always a compromise and it's not hat other manufacturers haven't underestimated the forces involved in the past (e.g. bend gate).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bambax 10y ago
Are the batteries made by just one contractor, and are they exploding at random? Or are there more than one contractor, and are the exploding batteries coming from one of them in particular? Is this known?

thought_alarm 10y ago

Mobile devices have been using custom-desgned batteries for the last 20+ years. In this case, the battery manufacturer couldn't meet these particular design constraints.

_pmf_ 10y ago
> Mobile devices have been using custom-desgned batteries for the last 20+ years. Most have just been differently packaged units containing the same type of cells.
- throwanem 10y ago
  In most laptops, until very recently, yes. But no one has made a cellphone big enough to hold even one 18650 in many years.

Steko 10y ago

This is the best writeup I've seen of how this happened: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-18/samsung-crisis-began-in-rush-to-capitalize-on-uninspiring-iphone https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-18/samsung-c... tldr plus my speculation: * Leaked iPhone 7 specs made Samsung shoot for the moon with Note 7 design * Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery and a lot of internal room taken up by the stylus (and sure insert headphone jack punchline here). * This is a hard problem, otherwise you'd think Apple would ship a 20% larger battery too. * Design on all the massive revisions started late and launch was moved up so design timeframe was enormously compressed * Engineers at Samsung don't have standing to tell execs something can't be done. * And so mistakes were made somewhere between not having enough time to do it right and being asked to do the improbable.

hocuspocus 10y ago
> Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery and a lot of internal room taken up by the stylus (and sure insert headphone jack punchline here). And that's an understatement :) http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Samsung-Galaxy-Note-7,Samsung-Galaxy-Note-5,Apple-iPhone-7-Plus/phones/10024,9462,9816 http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Samsung-G... The Note 5 was already pretty impressive compared to the iPhone, and they went from 3000 to 3500 mAh with the Note 7.
pawadu 10y ago
> * Specs designed in boardroom called for Note 7 be lighter, shorter and narrower than iPhone 7+ but also have a larger screen, a significantly larger battery ... The Note series has always had a better display to size ratio and a larger battery. I don't see why this particular iteration should all the sudden have problems with that. For reference: Galaxy Note 5 153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm (6.03 x 3.00 x 0.30 in) Weight 171 g (6.03 oz) Display 5.7 inches (~75.9% screen-to-body ratio) Battery Non-removable Li-Po 3000 mAh battery iphone 6s+ Dimensions 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm (6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 in) Weight 192 g (6.77 oz) Display 5.5 inches (~67.7% screen-to-body ratio) Battery Non-removable Li-Ion 2750 mAh battery (10.45 Wh)

usrusr 10y ago

Considering how easy it would be to turn batteries into time-fused bombs (that pass QA) with the tiniest of impurities in the manufacturing process, I sometimes wonder if the note 7 problems could be the visible part of Samsung trying to stand up to a protection racket. I guess it would not take that big of a network of infiltrators or blackmail-handles on factory floor workers distributed over a range of suppliers to go all "nice phones you have there, would be a shame if they burnt..." on a phone brand. The weak point of this theory is that the risk/cost of going public about this kind of threat would not be terribly high, unlike e.g. in plain old hostage taking.

usrusr 10y ago