Even the so called “safe” Galaxy Note 7 units are catching fire and exploding. No one really knows why.
On September 2, Samsung acknowledged that something was wrong with its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. The company had investigated 35 cases where the phone was overheating and the battery was catching fire. Samsung initially pinpointed the issue with a manufacturing defect in batteries produced by its subsidiary SDI. “Based on our investigation, we learned that there was an issue with the battery cell. An overheating of the battery cell occurred when the anode-to-cathode came into contact which is a very rare manufacturing process error,” Samsung had then said in its statement.
The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), however, had a different opinion of why the batteries were failing. According to it, the batteries were slightly larger than the space allocated within the phone, which were crimping the battery’s corners that led to the battery failing.
Meanwhile, on September 10, Samsung came out with another statement saying it had identified the problem and was expediting the replacement process for existing customers. “Although there have been only a small number of reported incidents, Samsung is taking great care to provide customers with necessary support. Samsung has identified the affected inventory and stopped sales and shipments of those devices. We are also collaborating with national regulatory bodies,” the company had said in its announcement.
According to a CPSC recall advisory published on September 15, Samsung had received “92 reports of the batteries overheating in the U.S., including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage.” Samsung, meanwhile, had started working on shipping the replacement units, which came with a green icon for the battery and markings on the box that identified it as a “safe” unit. These units were considered to be safe as Samsung used a different supplier, Amperex Technology, a unit of Japan’s TDK Corp. that also supplies batteries for Apple’s iPhones.
However, that was based on the assumption that there was a manufacturing flaw in the battery, which was taken care of by replacing the manufacturing partner. But had that been the case, there was no reason why the replacement units, which were supposed to be safe, would also overheat and catch fire. It seems Samsung never really found out what the problem was.
As far as things stand right now, no one really knows why the Galaxy Note 7 is catching fire. According to a NYT report, Samsung engineers have still not been able to reproduce the explosion in the Galaxy Note 7. So far Samsung has not revealed what is causing even the “safe” units to explode or whether it even knows what the problem is, which raises more concerns about Samsung’s quality testing and safety of other products, which might use similar manufacturing processes.
Already there have been reports about some Samsung washing machines exploding as well as a Galaxy Note 2 smartphone catching fire on an Indigo flight, but those could totally likely be unrelated incidents. Batteries in smartphones failing and catching fire or exploding is not a new thing and we have seen incidents happening with many other brands, including Apple, Xiaomi and others. But never have we seen a systematic battery failure like we did with the Galaxy Note 7.
Meanwhile, Samsung has halted production of the Galaxy Note 7 and for all purposes, has killed the smartphone. It has asked users to switch off their units and get them replaced. In the US, Samsung is sending fire proof boxes to users, which they can use to ship across the Galaxy Note 7. Samsung continues to investigate the problem with the device and hopefully someday we will come to know exactly why the Galaxy Note 7 units were exploding.
Source: bgr.in
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