Samsung was forced earlier this week to discontinue its
flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. For good. The Galaxy Note 7 turned
out to be a massive disappointment. The phone intended to fight the
iPhone 7 Plus this year was seen as one of the hottest Android devices
in town. Unfortunately, it also turned out to come with an unexpected
side-effect: the Galaxy Note 7 is a fire hazard. Even after Samsung
fixed it.
New manufacturing issues
Samsung has yet to explain what went wrong with its batteries in both
the original phones and the replacements. The Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC), which worked with Samsung on the US recall, said on
September 15th that batteries made by Samsung SDI were faulty.
Apparently, they were made slightly too large for the space available in
the phone. Installing them would crimp the corner, which could lead to a
short circuit, overheating and potentially a fire.
Samsung removed Samsung SDI batteries from its Galaxy Note 7 supply and turned to China’s Amperex Technology. However, Bloomberg reports
that even Amperex batteries proved to have a manufacturing
problem. Investigators of the latest Galaxy Note 7 incidents believe
that a flaw different from the one that caused the original recall is to
blame, according to Bloomberg.
The new issue hasn’t been explained, but it looks like it may have
crept into the supply chain after Samsung began replacing the faulty
phones. Samsung had no choice but to pull the plug. Neither Samsung nor
Amperex’s parent company TDK Corp. commented on the matter, Bloomberg says.
More disturbingly, Samsung is apparently leaving its carrier partners
in the dark about the problem. Samsung is asking partners to share
testing data, but Samsung isn’t reciprocating. Carriers have no idea
what to tell customers, one unnamed carrier executive said.
Fast charging
Another theory that tries to explain the numerous Galaxy Note 7
explosions has to do with the fast-charging feature of the battery.
According to the Financial Times, the problem comes from tweaks made to the processor to speed up charging.
“If you try to charge the battery too quickly it can make it more
volatile. If you push an engine too hard, it will explode. Something had
to give. These devices are miracles of technology — how much we can get
out of that tiny piece of lithium-ion,” an unnamed source said after
supposedly speaking with Samsung executives about the matter.
That beautiful design
The Galaxy Note 7’s looks might actually lead to explosions.
Specifically, it’s the symmetrical curvature of the phone, a feature
Samsung bragged about, that may have exerted pressure on battery packs
and caused the short circuits that eventually led to dangerous fires.
After the first recall, leaked documentation from the Korean consumer
protection agency said that Samsung SDI’s batteries were slightly
larger than the compartment they were supposed to be placed in.
Furthermore, the isolation plates that separate the anode and cathode
were too close to the edges.
One theory states that external pressure could have been applied to
those isolation plates during manufacturing. The plates are placed
towards the edge of the battery and when the phone is sealed, the
battery pack might be subjected to excessive pressure. The images below
show SDI battery packs with isolation plates placed too close to the
edge.