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Note 7 spontaneous combustion - Discussion of possible explanations

No, they placed the phone directly against the lens of the light and let it cook awhile. Yeah, we all do that, right? I mean, who doesn't attach their phone to a 1000 watt lamp?

o_O
 
The_Chief said:
No, they placed the phone directly against the lens of the light and let it cook awhile. Yeah, we all do that, right? I mean, who doesn't attach their phone to a 1000 watt lamp?

o_O
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Exactly. The whole point is, despite the battery failures that have most certainly occurred, the Note 7 is not a ticking time bomb, or a bomb in any sense, at all. Shorted, melted, burst, burning batteries are a spectacular failure, yes. But that has never been the whole picture, and many people, including Samsung, have been rash in their reactions to it.
 
They will never figure out the problem because they sourced out too many batteries and assembly processes. They need to do it all themselves to track problems.
 
I wonder what the calculated 'normal' failure rate was expected to be, and what the actual rate ended up being - at least as best as they could determine, anyway.
 
El Presidente said:
http://m.androidcentral.com/report-claims-galaxy-note-7-batteries-exploded-because-they-were-too-big

They were igniting as they were too big apparently.
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I've been reading responses to this new report, in various places, and some agree with it, while others disagree, for several reasons. I'm still waiting to hear what Samsung says before anticipating possibly feeling like I have enough information to form my own conclusion about it all. I say possibly instead of definitely because I don't doubt for a second the possibility for Samsung to try and spin and/or distort, rather than go for simple and full disclosure. I think this third party analysis is a valuable piece to contribute to the total investigation, if for the very least, the basic details of the design and engineering it supplies, if not the conclusions it makes about them.
 
From the instrumental report ...

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.
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While we were doing the teardown, Sam wondered, “Samsung engineers are smart. Why would they design it like this?” The answer isn’t a mystery: innovation means pushing the boundaries.
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My theory is somewhat different.

Senior Engineer: Here are the minimum and maximum dimensions of the battery during testing. Please use the maximum dimension when designing the frame to hold it in place so we can keep the problems to a minimum.

Junior Engineer: Uh what? Use the minimum dimensions? Okay I guess you know what you're doing.

CNC programmer: Damn, these batteries are tight, but I guess these engineers know what they're doing.

;) :rolleyes:
 
If you're been following along, you'll know that at least a dozen various tech rags have taken the unsolicited report from the engineering company (Instrumental) about the Note 7 battery fault cause and fanned it into a raging dumpster fire, in terms of making it sound like the cause of the problem has been officially pronounced. It seems kind of bizarre. And Samsung still remains silent.
 
dontpanicbobby said:
So the word now is Samsung knows but they're not sharing the findings right away. I have to wonder, why not?
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I saw it mentioned somewhere that they have shared the results with some outside labs first, for vetting. I haven't dug for more details or confirmation. But, that would seem like a sensible enough thing for them to do, rather than keep repeating the same mistake of hanging onto all responsibility for their conclusions and rushing to action in response, rather than consulting around first, to try and confirm their findings and actions to take in response?
 
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