Why Does The Note 7 Battery Explode?

[DroidModderX]

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Now that it is clear that all 2.5 million Samsung Galaxy Note 7 devices that have been sold thus far are at risk of exploding the question remains why exactly are they at risk? So far we have not officially heard from Samsung regarding the findings of their investigation. We have only heard that there have been 35 confirmed reports of Note 7 devices catching fire or exploding. Samsung has acknowledged that defective batteries are to blame. Samsung has even announced they will no longer be using batteries provided by their sister company SDI who produced 70% of the batteries used in Note 7 devices.

What is wrong with the SDI batteries? Cell phone batteries have several regulators and fail safes built in to protect the battery from overcharging, expanding, overheating, and exploding. The charger is the first step in the line of protection. Using a third party charger can damage the internal circuitry. The charge port is the next layer of protection. It should automatically detect inadequate chargers and regulate the electrical flow accordingly. If these two layers fail their is a third layer of protection built into the battery itself. In the Note 7 there is a protection circuit board attached to the top of the battery. The built in circuit board regulates voltage and temperature ensuring the battery itself does not overcharge. The board includes a fuse which should blow if the phone gets too hot stopping the flow of current and prohibiting your phone from exploding.

If you examine a photo of a Note 7 which has exploded you can see which of these fail safes has failed. In the photos you see there is no burning or scorching near the charge port, or even where that port connects to the motherboard. Their is also no scorching where the battery plugs into the main board. The main scorching and burning is found where the battery sits. Zack from Jerry Rig Everything has actually done a full battery tear down which I'll link to below. He explains that due to the burn marks we can see on the phone it looks like the battery shorts out which causes the explosion. This is likely due to a faulty battery circuit board since this is happening during charging.

The good news is that while you wait on your recall as long as you don't charge your battery you should be fine. The phone shouldn't randomly explode.

 

[DroidModderX]

 

[BamaBelle]

Are they stating that the use of a third party charger is what triggers and or causes the safety procedures put in place with original design of the phone's charging system to fail?

Or that this would have happened with the charger included with the phone?

Perhaps I am not understanding the post correctly? The charger itself may have nothing to do with the whether or not the circuit board trips a fuse or if it doesn't.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[DroidModderX]

Samsung has not given us the results of their official findings. However some of the 35 reported cases mentioned using the official samsung charger, while others reported using a 3rd party charger. So the charger itself is likely not the issue. The issue likely stems from faulty circuitry inside the phone.

 

[BamaBelle]

Ahhhhhh, gottcha. That makes sense.

The only time I remember a phone exploding was when it was left inside a car in the direct sunlight. Not just at random.

Interesting, even though I loved my note, guess I am glad was made to buy the S7 in this case.

Either way, thus is the life of an "internal battery" cell phone user.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[DroidModderX]

You are right. If there were a user replaceable battery Samsung could have just shipped out new batteries solving the problem.

 

[BamaBelle]

You are right. If there were a user replaceable battery Samsung could have just shipped out new batteries solving the problem.

But sir, that would defeat the purpose.

They want is to have to depend on them more, aka give them more money for simple fixes we could handle ourselves.

Oh, and just a side note. I would rather have 5 teeth drilled at the dentist with nonumbing meds before I would deal with Assurian again.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[cr6]

Never had a problem with Assurion....have had 4 replacements over the course of 5 years and received great service each time. That said, I have heard of some folks like yourself who weren't as fortunate.
That just goes to show that no two people will have the same experience regardless of the company or product in question.

S5 tap'n

 

[FoxKat]

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Samsung has acknowledged that defective batteries are to blame. Samsung has even announced they will no longer be using batteries provided by their sister company SDI who produced 70% of the batteries used in Note 7 devices.

What is wrong with the SDI batteries? Cell phone batteries have several regulators and fail safes built in to protect the battery from overcharging, expanding, overheating, and exploding. The charger is the first step in the line of protection. Using a third party charger can damage the internal circuitry. The charge port is the next layer of protection. It should automatically detect inadequate chargers and regulate the electrical flow accordingly. If these two layers fail their is a third layer of protection built into the battery itself. In the Note 7 there is a protection circuit board attached to the top of the battery. The built in circuit board regulates voltage and temperature ensuring the battery itself does not overcharge. The board includes a fuse which should blow if the phone gets too hot stopping the flow of current and prohibiting your phone from exploding.

If you examine a photo of a Note 7 which has exploded you can see which of these fail safes has failed. In the photos you see there is no burning or scorching near the charge port, or even where that port connects to the motherboard. Their is also no scorching where the battery plugs into the main board. The main scorching and burning is found where the battery sits. Zack from Jerry Rig Everything has actually done a full battery tear down which I'll link to below. He explains that due to the burn marks we can see on the phone it looks like the battery shorts out which causes the explosion. This is likely due to a faulty battery circuit board since this is happening during charging.

The good news is that while you wait on your recall as long as you don't charge your battery you should be fine. The phone shouldn't randomly explode.

I beg to differ. Just because there is no external evidence of failure of either the charge port board or the battery board (i.e. scorching of the phone near those boards), doesn't eliminate them as the possible culprit. In any failure of these protection circuits, the result could be excess charging rates to the battery subsequently resulting in the battery bursting into flames or exploding. In other words, think like a doctor and don't let the symptom fool you into thinking it's the cause.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[FoxKat]

You are right. If there were a user replaceable battery Samsung could have just shipped out new batteries solving the problem.

Again that's assuming that the batteries can be conclusively identified as the cause of their own failures. I'm still skeptical that the batteries are at the root of the problem and wonder if Samsung is trying to hide a circuitry problem that actually causes the batteries to overheat and enter thermal runaway.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[3dsrules]

I think it is because the battery, too.