Note 7 spontaneous combustion - Discussion of possible explanations

johnpjackson · Oct 12, 2016

With the reports out that Samsung itself has't been able to identify an explanation for this problem, and the hard evidence that supports that, ideas about less than innocent possibilities have started to cross my mind.

Chiefly, when I heard that the failure of a replacement Note 7 occurred on a jet on the tarmac, cancelling the flight, I started to wonder if such a spectacular and media attracting failure could by any chance be deliberate on someone's part, to sabotage Samsung for whatever reason.

I'm not a hardware engineer, but knowing that there's dedicated hardware and software incorporated into the battery itself, as well as into the phone, and in the OEM chargers, is it at all possible that either a bug, or deliberately introduced instructions to the hardware (by various possible means), could result in the hardware behavior that would cause a runaway failure of the battery chemistry?

Samsung says they can't reproduce the problem, don't know its cause, and seem to have proven they don't know the cause by way of the total failure of the recall and replacement action they paid dearly for. I think I am surprised that they went ahead with a recall and attempted fix when they couldn't reproduce the problem. How could they make such a foolish gamble on the fix when the stakes were so high? Just plain corporate stupidity?

The_Chief · Oct 12, 2016

According to this article, Samsung engineers are pretty much hamstrung by corporate policy:

http://phandroid.com/2016/10/12/galaxy-note-7-hazardous/

Not good. Not good at all.

toptobottom · Oct 12, 2016

johnpjackson said:
With the reports out that Samsung itself has't been able to identify an explanation for this problem, and the hard evidence that supports that, ideas about less than innocent possibilities have started to cross my mind.

Chiefly, when I heard that the failure of a replacement Note 7 occurred on a jet on the tarmac, cancelling the flight, I started to wonder if such a spectacular and media attracting failure could by any chance be deliberate on someone's part, to sabotage Samsung for whatever reason.

I'm not a hardware engineer, but knowing that there's dedicated hardware and software incorporated into the battery itself, as well as into the phone, and in the OEM chargers, is it at all possible that either a bug, or deliberately introduced instructions to the hardware (by various possible means), could result in the hardware behavior that would cause a runaway failure of the battery chemistry?

Samsung says they can't reproduce the problem, don't know its cause, and seem to have proven they don't know the cause by way of the total failure of the recall and replacement action they paid dearly for. I think I am surprised that they went ahead with a recall and attempted fix when they couldn't reproduce the problem. How could they make such a foolish gamble on the fix when the stakes were so high? Just plain corporate stupidity?

If they can't find the reason for the failure, the next best thing would be to blame it on Putin.

mikedt · Oct 13, 2016

I think Kim Jong-un is a more likely suspect, or could be the guy who was responsible for Gangnam Style, maybe he did it.

Hadron · Oct 13, 2016

I assume they had some reason to believe that Samsung SDI had produced some faulty batteries and jumped on that as a quick fix. You can certainly understand the motivation: get it fixed and get the phones back on sale quickly, and remember that the managers putting the pressure on for this and making the decisions are not technical people. If you want a more serious example of what happens when commercial or political (in the most general sense) pressures are allowed to drive technical decisions, read the report on the Challenger disaster.

As for sabotage, I'm always wary of straying into tinfoil hat territory: foul-up rather than conspiracy is usually the answer. It would also be very risky: there aren't that many people who would be in a position to do such a thing, and able to do it in a subtle way (only a small fraction ignited, and only after some period of operation), and it would be disastrous, both for the individual and for anyone hypothetically behind them, to be identified. So it would a crazy risk for a competitor to take (even a hint that they tried to recruit someone would be disastrous for them), leaving only the possibility of someone sufficiently well-placed, sufficiently knowledgeable and sufficiently disenchanted to do it despite the probable consequences (for themselves and for people buying the devices). To my mind that is too outlandish to be considered at all likely.

shalemail · Oct 13, 2016

Explanation? One word. Samsung.
o_O

Rathamar · Oct 13, 2016

I am hardly an expert on batteries but I do have an electronics engineering degree and have some knowledge on this so here is my Tinfoil hat theory -

The design of the battery and the placement in the phone does not allow the amount of cooling and venting the battery needs. So once the battery is heat past the point of failure and/or the phone is dropped/bent/or otherwise damaged, resulting in damaging the battery, it is a ticking time bomb. It will explode at that point it is just a matter of when.

The fact that they cannot reproduce in the replacement models this means that there is some piece of evidence missing.

Or some suit F'ed up and cleared a batch of bad phones as good replacement phones. Because that person is probably covering their *ss, Samsung has no way to tell which of the replacement phones are really bad phones.

Even if this was true, my guess is the good replacement phones never left the factory floor. I would say that a month (based on when the story released and when I got my replacement phone) A month seems to me to be a real short time frame to find the problem, develop a fix, retool/change production to implement the fix, produce them, and get them out of the factory to the US.

It's possible, but difficult to do with an operation as large as Samsung.

Like I said, I am not an expert and this is just my TINFOIL HAT theory.

Bg260 · Oct 13, 2016

Moisture = Water
Battery = Lithium
Water + Lithium =

wooky69 · Oct 15, 2016

Also don't forget the compensation claim mob as well. Some of these idiots will have made this happen to try to get a load of money out of Samsung.

Reveille · Oct 15, 2016

Here is something I wrote on Sept 4th as my guess. I still have the phone and everytime I use a qualcomm 3.0 charger it gets extremely hot almost too hot to touch. However, with Samsung chargers it stays cool. I still believe it has to do with voltage regulation of the qualcomm chargers damaging the lithium batteries.

I believe it is because they used they own quick charging technology instead of the proven Qualcomm 3.0 technology.

While driving to the A&M football game I used a Qualcomm quick charger 3.0 in my car. I noticed about half there my phone was not really charging much on the car display. So I reached down to pick up the phone it wasn't charging and was so hot it was almost untouchable.

I placed in front of the air conditioner vent and it comes down quickly. I then used the Samsung quick charger and it charged rapidly with no heat at all.

My phone had never over heated or had any trouble but this was the first time in 2 weeks I charged it with another brand of charger other then the Samsung charger.

It appears the decision to attempt to use a different quick charging technology is causing the battery to over heat to me. Which also explains why they didn't notice it in trials because I am relatively sure the people using the phone prior to its release where likely using Samsung chargers so it never over heated.

AZgl1500 · Oct 15, 2016

I ONLY use the OEM Samsung 2.1 amp charger module, OR, I use the Anker 26800 battery pack charger which has smarts built into it.

Neither of them have ever overheated my S5s nor my Note 4 phones.
and in both cases, the phones flash a message briefly "Fast Charger connected"

wooky69 · Oct 15, 2016

Reveille said:
Here is something I wrote on Sept 4th as my guess. I still have the phone and everytime I use a qualcomm 3.0 charger it gets extremely hot almost too hot to touch. However, with Samsung chargers it stays cool. I still believe it has to do with voltage regulation of the qualcomm chargers damaging the lithium batteries.

I believe it is because they used they own quick charging technology instead of the proven Qualcomm 3.0 technology.

While driving to the A&M football game I used a Qualcomm quick charger 3.0 in my car. I noticed about half there my phone was not really charging much on the car display. So I reached down to pick up the phone it wasn't charging and was so hot it was almost untouchable.

I placed in front of the air conditioner vent and it comes down quickly. I then used the Samsung quick charger and it charged rapidly with no heat at all.

My phone had never over heated or had any trouble but this was the first time in 2 weeks I charged it with another brand of charger other then the Samsung charger.

It appears the decision to attempt to use a different quick charging technology is causing the battery to over heat to me. Which also explains why they didn't notice it in trials because I am relatively sure the people using the phone prior to its release where likely using Samsung chargers so it never over heated.

I thought the charger was in the phone, the part that you plug in to the wall is just a device for supplying power. Quick chargers just provided more amps. Is this not right.

InfernalByte · Oct 15, 2016

Conspiracies are always fun to watch unfold, my invention: An Apple fan boy who stole his dad's credit card and flew to Korea under the guise of Lord Lucan (Samsung do have a Royal Warrant), got a job in the factory as a fork lift driver and lobbed a load of Mentos into the battery making machine. Why? Why? Why? Apple fan boy, Why?

He is currently seeking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London disguised as a fruit.

wooky69 · Oct 28, 2016

I see there have been "reports" of replacement S7's doing the same now. I smell bulls*&t, not a single mention until they started replacing Notes with S7's.
Either it's people who don't like or have a grudge against Samsung or the compo claim mob at work. Well that's my opinion

PyroSporker · Oct 28, 2016

InfernalByte said:
lobbed a load of Mentos into the battery making machine. Why? Why? Why?

(Note: not created by me, shamelessly stolen image - thanks Google Image Search)

The_Chief · Oct 30, 2016

It's about time we updated battery technology! Maybe this incident was the catalyst we needed to get rid of lithium batteries once and for all!

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/news...cle_c0787d68-9ebe-11e6-9558-ebc841e3c466.html

AZgl1500 · Oct 30, 2016

I posted an article on the forum about this same guy a while back. He is using "air" as one of the catalysts for this new battery.

I am impressed with where he is going with it, and as he mentioned, being a "realist" he knows it is going to take 4-10 years to get it off the ground and into our consumer goods.

RaymondP · Oct 30, 2016

The_Chief said:
It's about time we updated battery technology! Maybe this incident was the catalyst we needed to get rid of lithium batteries once and for all!

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/news...cle_c0787d68-9ebe-11e6-9558-ebc841e3c466.html

I've read many articles about new battery technology going back to at least four years. Still, nothing new has come to market. I don't hold out much hope that something will anytime soon. It's more likely that well see some sort of material that will foam up, thus encasing a runaway battery situation as a safety measure, before somebody successfully solves this problem.

AZgl1500 said:
I posted an article on the forum about this same guy a while back. He is using "air" as one of the catalysts for this new battery.

I am impressed with where he is going with it, and as he mentioned, being a "realist" he knows it is going to take 4-10 years to get it off the ground and into our consumer goods.

johnpjackson · Nov 1, 2016

Here's one way you can get the Note 7 battery to fail. Pretty stupid. You cook it:

http://mashable.com/2016/10/11/samsung-note7-livestream/

dontpanicbobby · Nov 1, 2016

I think it was frame construction. There's a spark somewhere where the battery connects. Tolerances are strict on non-removable battery devices.

johnpjackson · Nov 1, 2016

dontpanicbobby said:
I think it was frame construction. There's a spark somewhere where the battery connects. Tolerances are strict on non-removable battery devices.

huh?

dontpanicbobby · Nov 1, 2016

A gap somewhere. between the battery and it's contacts. Nor necessarily the contacts themselves but a miniscule gap between the battery and the rest of the circuitry.

The_Chief · Nov 1, 2016

So, they proved it's possible to set a Note 7 on fire by exposing it to extreme conditions to which no reasonable person would ever subject a phone. And then they shout to the world... what? That they discovered a way to ignite a Note 7 and the phone's clearly not designed correctly?

I think somebody's been breathing in way too much lithium

johnpjackson · Nov 1, 2016

dontpanicbobby said:
A gap somewhere. between the battery and it's contacts. Nor necessarily the contacts themselves but a miniscule gap between the battery and the rest of the circuitry.

You mean, someone said sparking inside the phone, because of a gap somewhere in circuitry, was causing the problem?

dontpanicbobby · Nov 1, 2016

I didn't see those vids. Got some links The_Chief?

Note 7 spontaneous combustion - Discussion of possible explanations

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