Why batteries have started catching fire so often

Kevin Lancaster

Kevin Lancaster

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Why batteries have started catching fire so often

All our lives we have relied on batteries in everything from mobile phones and cars to hand torches, but confidence in the technology has deteriorated of late. Many airline passengers have had to surrender their Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones in recent weeks because their batteries are considered a fire risk, while those left in baggage holds have delayed aircraft and caused angst to travellers.
 
Felt the Li-Fe batteries on my RC car after it's had a good run, thing is cooking hot. We are really pushing these little packs of volatile chemicals.
 
In the process, it looks as though insufficient consideration has been given to these heating issues, and that new products are emerging that have [highlight]not been fully time-tested[/highlight].
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or adopt my principle of being a late adopter of frontier technologies.

At least being a late adopter [highlight]only means waiting about six months these days[/highlight].
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Time is not the only factor. There is no point in waiting 18 months (arbitrary) for a technology to be fully tested if the only test being conducted is watching the thing (for an arbitrary 18 months) to see if it starts chain smoking.

A whole lot of testing needs to be done over a long period of time under different conditions (temperature, condensation, atmospheric pressure, ESD, friction, vibration / G forces, etc).

In the case of the batteries used in the Galaxy Note 7, that would be an additional 6 months on top of however (not) long Samsung had spent testing the batteries before the Galaxy Note 7 was unleashed on the world.

Waiting 6 months might not be long enough since it's clear that Samsung did not spend much time at all testing the two different types of batteries used in the Galaxy Note 7 with the explosive battery problem happening very soon after being unleashed.
 
j4ck455 said:
Time is not the only factor. There is no point in waiting 18 months (arbitrary) for a technology to be fully tested if the only test being conducted is watching the thing (for an arbitrary 18 months) to see if it starts chain smoking.

A whole lot of testing needs to be done over a long period of time under different conditions (temperature, condensation, atmospheric pressure, ESD, friction, vibration / G forces, etc).

In the case of the batteries used in the Galaxy Note 7, that would be an additional 6 months on top of however (not) long Samsung had spent testing the batteries before the Galaxy Note 7 was unleashed on the world.

Waiting 6 months might not be long enough since it's clear that Samsung did not spend much time at all testing the two different types of batteries used in the Galaxy Note 7 with the explosive battery problem happening very soon after being unleashed.
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I don't buy it. Testing the battery should be done independently to the device. There is no dependency. Therefore applying development cycle of the new devices do not apply. New devices will receive new battery when battery is fully tested. Before it happen the older batteries can be used in new devices.
 
sajunky said:
I don't buy it. Testing the battery should be done independently to the device. There is no dependency. Therefore applying development cycle of the new devices do not apply. New devices will receive new battery when battery is fully tested. Before it happen the older batteries can be used in new devices.
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New batteries are being designed all the time for use in cellphones because consumers tend to buy phones that promise batteries that will last longer on a single charge, weigh less with a smaller footprint. All of that enables the phone manufacturer to put out a cellphone that competes with other phones and is desirable (will sell).

Any new battery design that is significantly different from previous batteries should be subjected to intensive testing, and if the testing is done properly it will take a lot of time to complete and certify for consumer use.

Then there is integration testing with the cellphone(s) with which the battery is intended to be used, in particular the firmware that controls charging of the battery and when to stop charging the battery.

It seems obvious that Samsung failed to properly do the integration testing as there was a rush to get the Galaxy Note 7 to market at the same time as the iPhone 7, and if Samsung didn't do that properly it suggests the other testing might not have been done properly either.
 
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