Posted on 12/05/2016 3:44:55 PM PST by Swordmaker
A teardown of the Galaxy Note 7 may have provided insight into why the infamous smartphone was prone to explosions, causing Samsung to recall and eventually cancel the device entirely. While it’s obvious the battery was a key reason for the device’s failure, a damning new report from a third-party shows what may be the underlying cause.
After acquiring a Galaxy Note 7 — no easy feat once the phones were recalled — engineers with manufacturing technology company Instrumental stripped the phone down to see what was going on inside (and yes, they had a fire extinguisher nearby, just in case). They discovered the battery was so tightly packed inside the Galaxy Note 7’s body that any pressure from battery expansion, or stress on the body itself, may squeeze together layers inside the battery that are never supposed to touch — with explosive results.
More: Samsung’s battery-making arm loses market value after Note 7 debacle
Batteries swell up under normal use, and we place stress on a phone’s body by putting it our pocket and sitting down, or if it’s dropped. Tolerances for battery expansion are built into a smartphone during design, and Instrumental notes Samsung used “a super-aggressive manufacturing process to maximize capacity.” In other words, the Galaxy Note 7 was designed to be as thin and sleek as possible, while containing the maximum battery capacity for long use, thereby better competing against rival devices such as the iPhone 7 Plus and improving on previous Note models.
The report speculates that any pressure placed on the battery in its confined space may have squeezed together positive and negative layers inside the cell itself, which were thinner than usual in the Note 7’s battery already, causing them to touch, heat up, and eventually in some cases, catch fire. Delving deeper into the design, the engineers say the space above a battery inside a device needs a “ceiling” that equates to approximately 10 percent of the overall thickness. The Galaxy Note 7 should have had a 0.5mm ceiling; it had none.
“It breaks such a basic rule, it must have been intentional,” says the Instrumental team, adding, “they shipped a dangerous product.”
The Galaxy Note 7 fiasco may cost Samsung more than $20 billion, and reports of this nature won’t help re-establish trust in the brand. However, it’s worth repeating this isn’t a Samsung report, so none of the findings are official, and that Instrumental itself produces software and equipment for quality testing in manufacturing. This means that although it has a strong understand of what it’s looking at, it is also promoting its own products and solutions in this market.
Samsung’s next major smartphone release is expected to be the Galaxy S8, due sometime in early 2017, according to rumors.
Match book covers have fixed more sloppy fit stuff wtf
Engineering tear down of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 discover’s the Samsung design FLAW that explains why so many of this design phone overheated and/or caught fire and exploded.
These Lithium Ion batteries require a certain amount of expansion relief around them but Samsung did not allow any at all! This forced the battery to compress itself internally, damaging the layers so they would short together. Very bad engineering.
Ping for your lists. . .
Ooops.
So much for upgrading replacement batteries for more power.
Look at all the iphones that turn into roman candles as well
but the media refuses to report the truth
“It breaks such a basic rule, it must have been intentional,” says the Instrumental team
...
Sounds to me like something a committee of managers would do, overruling (or more likely, coercing) the engineers.
So, can we get our loser fitting replaceable batteries back? The note 4 was pretty much the perfect phone in this regard.
Too many quarks packed into batteries these daze.
I am looking forward to the slightly thicker Note 8!
Can this guy explain why Samsung washing machines explode?
Amen!
because you lie, and there is no truth to your specious claim. An expected number of Lithium Ion batters of one in 10 million to 12 million per year will fail by overheating or catching fire no matter what make or design of lithium ion battery is used. That is the expected failure rate. If there are 1,100,000,000 iOS devices in the wild, as are now reported, then an expected 92 to 110 iOS devices will fail every year, or 8 to 9 per month. That is no where nearly the 3,000 times the normal expected rate for Lithium Ion batteries that the Samsung Note 7 had been evincing. You've been told this several times before and you continue to repeat your false claims with a lack of any evidence that shows anything approaching anything about rates of unusual fires with iPhones.
That's why there are no reports in the media. If there were even an inkling of truth to your claims, the media would be all over this like they are over anything about Apple that would generate any advertising clicks. Since there is no evidence for your claims, there isn't enough to do even that, except in your delusions.
'Tis a possibility.
Sounds like the article was written by a Millennial for a Millennial audience.
Not much engineering analysis behind this ‘teardown’.
I think they are selling it. I keep seeing ads for it everywhere.
It's the biggest scam in the cell phone industry. I know damn well there's gotta be a way to have a continuous charge on a phone. If we can put a man on the moon.... < /Old guy voice >
Bad lobbyists.
Footnote: When batteries are charged and discharged, chemical processes cause the lithium to migrate and the battery will mechanically swell. Any battery engineer will tell you that it’s necessary to leave some percentage of ceiling above the battery, 10% is a rough rule-of-thumb, and over time the battery will expand into that space. Our two-month old unit had no ceiling: the battery and adhesive was 5.2 mm thick, resting in a 5.2 mm deep pocket. There should have been a 0.5 mm ceiling. This is what mechanical engineers call line-to-line -- and since it breaks such a basic rule, it must have been intentional. It is even possible that our unit was under pressure when we opened it.
Swordmaker
Your claim of 1 in 10 or 12 million means 0.1 dppm to 0.083 dppm.
That is an unachievable dppm, in particular for a phone which is a large number of components.
As a chip designer specifically for Apple iphones/ipads and many other customers over 21 years, I and the companies I worked for don’t guarantee a dppm that low.
I would say a dppm of 200 is achievable at the system level, which means 1 failure out of 5000. That 1 failure can be anything, battery or otherwise, that can shut down the phone without the user doing something. Maybe Apple is better than 200. I think that if they are achieving 50, they’re world class. But I doubt it.
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