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Samsung Factory Fire Caused By Faulty Batteries (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the more-fire dept.

A fire that drew out 110 firefighters and 19 trucks to a factory operated by Samsung Galaxy Note 7 battery supplier, Samsung SDI, was caused by discarded faulty batteries, the company has said. From a report: A "minor fire" broke out Wednesday in a Samsung SDI plant in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin and had to be extinguished, according to local emergency services. The fire was contained to a part of the site used for waste processing, including faulty batteries. There were no casualties or significant impact on the operations of the plant, although the local fire department was called, said a Samsung SDI spokesperson. The Wuqing branch of the Tianjin fire department said on Sina Weibo that the "material that caught fire was lithium batteries inside the production workshops and some half-finished products."

12 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Yo dawg by subk · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard you like fires, so we put a fire factory in your factory

    --
    Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
    1. Re:Yo dawg by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2

      Somehow, this reminds me of that time that someone fed industrial spies fake capacitor formulas leading to that epidemic of bad capacitors some years back.

      Are Samsung engineers just bad at battery design, or was there something more in play here?

      I remember dealing with this issue, it got heavy around 2000 and stayed alive for as long as I worked in PC repair. You had to check everything, video card, MoBo, PSU, and any other component with caps on it. I understood it to be a good job of industrial espionage followed by a bad job of industrial espionage... a copy and paste error was the explanation I heard at the time.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague#Implications_of_industrial_espionage

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  2. Dell engineers relieved. by jpellino · · Score: 2

    Film at 11.

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  3. Discarded Headphone Jacks by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    I guess you can't start a fire from disposing of Headphone jacks incorrectly.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  4. Can there be anything more Funny? by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 5, Funny

    The jokes just write themselves, don't they?

    1. Re: Can there be anything more Funny? by mmell · · Score: 2

      Not redundant, recursive.

  5. Re:New Flash - giant hole appears in China by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interesting that it's solid, not liquid, iron because of the pressure, even though it's ~5000F.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  6. Methinks that Samsung. . . by Salgak1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    . . .may have a new product line in the offing: Note7 Incendiary Grenades. MUCH better than Aperture Science Incendiary Lemons.

    And 110 firefighters and 19 trucks is a **MINOR** fire ??

    1. Re:Methinks that Samsung. . . by lq_x_pl · · Score: 2

      Well, relative to the Tianjin fireworks a couple years back, this barely even registers as a fire.

      --
      An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
  7. Re: Obligatory xkcd quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just what we need, smoke alarms powered by Samsung batteries.

  8. Man in Tree by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, that's one of several things going on here. A fire at the Samsung factory is *interesting*, so more first responders show up. Seattle had a man climb a tree downtown and they had dozens of people involved--but it's a guy in a tree occasionally throwing pine cones. People showed up because it was a diversion, not because they needed more people.

    Second, responses to commercial properties tend to be somewhat faster and definitely more staffed than responses to individual homes. The potential for massive damage to inventory or danger to the public is usually significantly greater (especially in retail spaces). Something big like a Samsung factory might also bring substantial money into an area, and losing factories has a ripple effect in a community.

    Third, if you hear you have a potential chemical fire at a factory and you don't know how big it is yet, you WANT to err on the side of caution and have all of the capability there that you need, and then some.

    Fourth, if you had a Samsung factory in your country, mightn't you want to use it for espionage?

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++
  9. Industrial espionage/sabotage? by erapert · · Score: 2

    Hypothetical:
    You're a smartphone manufacturer who wants to unseat Samsung.
    All you gotta do is capitalize on the PR fiasco surrounding the Note 7.
    Just slip a guy into the factory who sets off a fire.
    Now you've just magnified the Note 7 fiasco into a... firestorm... and Samsung loses a huge amount of mindshare and thus markshare.
    For a very low cost you gain some room to grow.

    I expect some Chinese phone maker to suddenly start launching cool products and eating Samsung's lunch.