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Samsung Note 7 Investigation Will Blame 'Irregularly Sized' Batteries and Manufacturing Flaws, Says WSJ (theverge.com)
Samsung's official investigation into the cause of widespread faults with the Galaxy Note 7 will blame "irregularly sized" batteries and manufacturing faults, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The company is set to announce the results of its inquiry this weekend, but the WSJ claims to have revealed its conclusions early, citing information from "people familiar with the matter." From the report: The WSJ says Samsung hired three independent "quality-control and supply-chain analysis firms" to conduct its investigation, with these firms concluding that two separate faults affected the Note 7. The first fault relates to devices that used batteries made by Samsung subsidiary Samsung SDI. These batteries didn't fit inside the phone properly, which led to overheating and, in some cases, explosions. When reports of the Note 7 fault first emerged last August, executives initially believed the problem was confined to these particular devices. In response, they increased production of the Note 7 using batteries made by Hong Kong-based firm Amperex Technology. According to the official investigation, this rush to ensure there was an adequate supply of Note 7 devices for the market led to the second fault -- with the increased pressure on production creating unknown "manufacturing issues."
Well this is definitely an argument in favor of having some modular components inside of compact electronics like phones. It's understandable that the old PC model with sockets for the electronic parts like memory and microprocessors is not practical in miniaturized devices this small, but it definitely makes sense for devices like batteries, which are not nearly so integrated into the electronics as many other devices, to be removable.
Had the batteries been removable, Samsung could have recalled these units by correcting battery manufacturing problems and then shipping batteries to the carriers to distribute via store, or directly to consumers in cases where the store might not be an option.
A couple of coworkers had these phones and basically used them until they were bricked, they loved them so much. A lot of people would have been much less unhappy if a simple battery swap had been an option.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I work in print
Certain professions (architects and some flavors of engineer) have a bad habit of giving very very specific dimensions, like to within 10um over ~1m which promptly get ignored. Not only are they unimportant and unatainable, but the substrates themselves aren't anything like that dimensionaly stable. Sometimes when I point this out to them they get a little bit upset, and give the impression that they feel I am some sort of slap-dash cowboy who couldn't give a fuck about their requirements.
Now my understanding of prismatic lithium cells is that they are made my laminating foil and plastic together, and then rolling it up into a battery, I'd guess that this is quite a repeatable process but not uber-precise when it comes to finished size. Combine this with the electrodes tendency to expand and contract with charge / discharge cycle then all you need is one over optimistic design engineer to spell disaster.
I don't want an super thin phone, why not make it bit bigger to have an better battery / one you can swap!
I actually started going out of my way to ask around among people that I run into (at meetings, conferences, etc) whether they want slimmer phones. Even the markedroids didn't give a shit.
Who the hell wants those phones thinner? Nobody I know cares. Yes, we don't want the inch-thick bricks from the 1990, no doubt about this, but phones have been "thin enough" for well over 5 years now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So you want someone to invent the Moto Z?