Aggressive Design Caused Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Battery Explosions

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
It has been determined that the Note 7 fiasco was a result of too much bravado from Samsung engineers, as they tried to pack too much technology into a limited space. Basically, they were struggling to maximize capacity and put less emphasis than they should have toward component boundaries and other protective guidelines, which resulted in compressed batteries.

What’s interesting is that there is evidence in the design of an intellectual tension between safety and pushing the boundaries. Samsung engineers designed out all of the margin in the thickness of the battery, which is the direction where you get the most capacity gain for each unit of volume. But, the battery also sits within a CNC-machined pocket -- a costly choice likely made to protect it from being poked by other internal components. Looking at the design, Samsung engineers were clearly trying to balance the risk of a super-aggressive manufacturing process to maximize capacity, while attempting to protect it internally.
 
Looks like a classic internal fight between design engineers and manufacturing engineers. I design margin (when appropriate) into nearly everything I send off.... only to find out 6 months later that the manufacturing floor took it all out in the name of cost savings when the part/product comes back for a failure review board.
 
Grahamkracka said:
Looks like a classic internal fight between design engineers and manufacturing engineers. I design margin (when appropriate) into nearly everything I send off.... only to find out 6 months later that the manufacturing floor took it all out in the name of cost savings when the part/product comes back for a failure review board.
Click to expand...

Of course, it isn't ultimately the manufacturing engineers that drive dangerous cost reductions...that would be their managers, driven by a backwards corporate culture of short term profits. If only we could figure out where corporate culture comes from... ;-)
 
bugleyman said:
Of course, it isn't ultimately the manufacturing engineers that drive dangerous cost reductions...that would be their managers, driven by a backwards corporate culture of short term profits. If only we could figure out where corporate culture comes from... ;-)
Click to expand...
Valid point. My company is generally pretty good about manufacturing floor changes unless it's an actual issue where the part cannot be manufactured...which is rare in my case since we bring manufacturing into our design reviews to prevent that sort of thing.
 
I've increased the thickness of my phone by 100% for the extended battery and I couldn't be happier. 1mm more wouldn't have killed them and would probably make the phone a lot nicer to use in hands.
 
As a design and manufacture layman, after reading the article, Samsung couldn't redesign the phone chassis to be .5mm deeper and a few tenths of a mm on the xy dimensions to give the battery appropriate swell space?? Seems like that would be easy to accomplish, from a layman's perspective at least.
 
200 OK: Ad for business services.
404 Not Found: Technical analysis of failure.

I give it 2/4 click-baits.
 
USMCGrunt said:
As a design and manufacture layman, after reading the article, Samsung couldn't redesign the phone chassis to be .5mm deeper and a few tenths of a mm on the xy dimensions to give the battery appropriate swell space?? Seems like that would be easy to accomplish, from a layman's perspective at least.
Click to expand...

They would have had to start over from scratch, designing and building new chassis, and possibly redesigning the circuit board as well (the circuit board goes right to the edge of the battery pocket). It was probably cheaper to just cancel the note 7 completely than to start over and re-release it 6 months later. (which would cut into the galaxy s8 sales)
 
sir-gold said:
They would have had to start over from scratch, designing and building new chassis, and possibly redesigning the circuit board as well (the circuit board goes right to the edge of the battery pocket). It was probably cheaper to just cancel the note 7 completely than to start over and re-release it 6 months later. (which would cut into the galaxy s8 sales)
Click to expand...
I don't see why they'd have to do all that. Enlarge the overall dimensions of the case while shifting the existing circuitry towards the opposite outer edges away from the battery compartment. There's multiple PCBs connected by ribbon cables that surround the battery compartment, extend the ribbon cables that connect them to reach the new distances. It's not like we are talking large distances to begin with, less than a millimeter in any direction appears to be all that was needed.
 
I'm willing to bet it had more to do with sourcing cheap and inferior batteries from one of the lowest bidders than anything else...
 
We really need to be getting away from the whole "thin for the sake of being thin" concept that's been being pushed lately. If the device is so damn thin that you feel like it's going to slip out of your hands worse than a slippery bar of soap... it's too damn thin. The fact that many people put these phones into cases which obviously adds bulk should be telling the companies that make these things something, it should be telling them to knock it off in the "let's make it thin" department.

Another thing we need to be knock off is trying to push everything and anything including the kitchen sink into these things. There's no damn reason why these things need to have a damn 4K screen on it. What are you doing? Putting your phone so damn close to your face that your nose is touching it? Are you kissing it? If so... Stop it already! You look weird! Higher resolution screens not only need more battery power to power all of those pixels but it also needs a far more powerful GPU with enough computing power to power those pixels which (as you guessed) needs more battery power. It was already reported by many that in order to get anywhere close to acceptable frame rates in games you needed to turn down the resolution. That right there should be a signal that we've pushed the resolution too damn far for the current generation of GPU tech. Maybe in a few years we'll have better GPUs that are more battery friendly, if that happens then we can get back to the "let's push higher and higher resolutions" game again but not before then.

Third... these are mobile devices, they're not intended to replace a proper computer. If you need that kind of raw computing power, get a damn notebook PC.
 
DejaWiz said:
I'm willing to bet it had more to do with sourcing cheap and inferior batteries from one of the lowest bidders than anything else...
Click to expand...

Yeah, they used Samsung batteries. Next time they should really go with a more reputable brand.

/FYI Samsung makes the batteries for a lot of phones in their own plants.
 
Spidey329 said:
Yeah, they used Samsung batteries. Next time they should really go with a more reputable brand.

/FYI Samsung makes the batteries for a lot of phones in their own plants.
Click to expand...

Do they physically manufacture the cells within the batteries, or simply source them from a manufacturer then assemble the batteries in-house?
 
USMCGrunt said:
I don't see why they'd have to do all that. Enlarge the overall dimensions of the case...
Click to expand...

The accessories ecosystem would loose it's mind. All the $2 cases they sell for $45 would need to be redone. Would be way too much confusion. The case manufacturers are probably ready to murder Samsung as it is. I bet they had to eat it on a ton of production, tooling, and stock.
 
Not really a surprise, after seeing the original battery design and the revamped second design from the second manufacturer it was readily apparent that how the batteries were being crammed into the spacing inside the phone was a problem, especially after it was all packed into place and sealed up for sale. Seem sad knowing that all those Note 7 devices could most likely have been saved by just having a physically smaller battery but what's done is done now.

The quest for bigger and bigger batteries honestly isn't having the effect most phone manufacturers would hope as even though devices are supposedly more efficient these days the actual battery life in regular use still basically sucks ass on all of them. Best battery life I've ever had with a device was the Galaxy S7 Active I owned recently but aside from that I had a Motorola Atrix HD a few years ago and I put a RAZR MAXX battery in it and got 3+ days of battery life so, newer doesn't necessarily mean better. ;)
 
I must be missing something here. Why didn't they just source a slightly smaller battery and swap them all out, once the problem was identified?
 
I feel that Samsung lost their way with the Note line.

They used to be the biggest and baddest phones, now, the S line is the same size and speed.

The Note should have a 6" screen, 4 to 6 GB of RAM and minimum of 64GB of storage.

And if possible, SD card AND removable battery, which ironically, might had reduced this recall fiasco.
 
DejaWiz said:
Do they physically manufacture the cells within the batteries, or simply source them from a manufacturer then assemble the batteries in-house?
Click to expand...

Strong understanding of cellphone batteries.
 
trparky said:
We really need to be getting away from the whole "thin for the sake of being thin" concept that's been being pushed lately. If the device is so damn thin that you feel like it's going to slip out of your hands worse than a slippery bar of soap... it's too damn thin. The fact that many people put these phones into cases which obviously adds bulk should be telling the companies that make these things something, it should be telling them to knock it off in the "let's make it thin" department.

Another thing we need to be knock off is trying to push everything and anything including the kitchen sink into these things. There's no damn reason why these things need to have a damn 4K screen on it. What are you doing? Putting your phone so damn close to your face that your nose is touching it? Are you kissing it? If so... Stop it already! You look weird! Higher resolution screens not only need more battery power to power all of those pixels but it also needs a far more powerful GPU with enough computing power to power those pixels which (as you guessed) needs more battery power. It was already reported by many that in order to get anywhere close to acceptable frame rates in games you needed to turn down the resolution. That right there should be a signal that we've pushed the resolution too damn far for the current generation of GPU tech. Maybe in a few years we'll have better GPUs that are more battery friendly, if that happens then we can get back to the "let's push higher and higher resolutions" game again but not before then.

Third... these are mobile devices, they're not intended to replace a proper computer. If you need that kind of raw computing power, get a damn notebook PC.
Click to expand...
Couldn't have said it any better. They have ran out of ideas on what to do with phones since like 2010 and now everything is just a rehash with slightly more RAM and a slightly better display. When people tell me such and such phone is better because its got a mega cool quad core i just say " wow so i can call people faster or text quicker!" If i need to do actual computing ill use a computer. If i just want to browse FB while listening to music ill use my phone.
 
Which resulted in injuries to innocent people, fuckwits. Hope they get sued big time for negligence.
 
I will not be happy until I can slice my wrist with my phone. Until it is as thin and sharp as a piece of paper I won't be happy and neither will phone makers.
 
Exavior said:
I will not be happy until I can slice my wrist with my phone. Until it is as thin and sharp as a piece of paper I won't be happy and neither will phone makers.
Click to expand...


Or reviewers.

People go nuts over 1mm. You saw it with the LG v20 this fall. "ZOMG IT IS SO BIG YOU CANNOT HOLD IT!"...when IRL it was only 1-2mm at most different in chassis size than iPhone 7+ and Note....didn't stop people from whining about how gigantic it was.
 
nvgrim said:
Couldn't have said it any better. They have ran out of ideas on what to do with phones since like 2010 and now everything is just a rehash with slightly more RAM and a slightly better display. When people tell me such and such phone is better because its got a mega cool quad core i just say " wow so i can call people faster or text quicker!" If i need to do actual computing ill use a computer. If i just want to browse FB while listening to music ill use my phone.
Click to expand...
The smartphone industry is all a game of "What can I come up with to clobber my competition over the head with" only to have it happen to you when your competition pulls the same crap on you six months later when they release their new device. Some people call this innovation, I call it stupidity. They want to shove new shit into these devices only to have the stuff either not work at all or its got more bugs than Windows 10. Again... this is not innovation, this is flat out stupidity.
 
Skripka said:
Or reviewers.

People go nuts over 1mm. You saw it with the LG v20 this fall. "ZOMG IT IS SO BIG YOU CANNOT HOLD IT!"...when IRL it was only 1-2mm at most different in chassis size than iPhone 7+ and Note....didn't stop people from whining about how gigantic it was.
Click to expand...
Definitely agree here, reviewers can be part of the problem. Most people have some sort of a case or at minimum a bumper anyway...
 
trparky said:
The smartphone industry is all a game of "What can I come up with to clobber my competition over the head with" only to have it happen to you when your competition pulls the same crap on you six months later when they release their new device. Some people call this innovation, I call it stupidity. They want to shove new shit into these devices only to have the stuff either not work at all or its got more bugs than Windows 10. Again... this is not innovation, this is flat out stupidity.
Click to expand...

It is a typical consumer economy....race to release new product SKUs every 6 months-1 year, to get people to buy the latest and greatest....and then act surprised that your R&D costs are so high. And then not maintain them-because who has the money for software support on the 500 phones Samsung released in the last 5 years?
 
tazeat said:
Definitely agree here, reviewers can be part of the problem.
Click to expand...
I think this has a lot to do with it. Cell phones have really come a long way software-wise, and it's really hard nowadays to find meaningful differences between flagship phones. But there are things that are easy: things you can measure with numbers. So that means dimensions, weight, screen size, battery life, camera index, screen resolution, camera MP, etc.

So phones are generally very good, reviewers have a hard time picking a winner, so phone manufacturers have to give them *something* to crow about.
 
USMCGrunt said:
I don't see why they'd have to do all that. Enlarge the overall dimensions of the case while shifting the existing circuitry towards the opposite outer edges away from the battery compartment. There's multiple PCBs connected by ribbon cables that surround the battery compartment, extend the ribbon cables that connect them to reach the new distances. It's not like we are talking large distances to begin with, less than a millimeter in any direction appears to be all that was needed.
Click to expand...
Ergonomics. Just 1 more mm, and it doesn't FEEL edgy, and productively new on the peoples butts.
 
trparky said:
We really need to be getting away from the whole "thin for the sake of being thin" concept that's been being pushed lately. If the device is so damn thin that you feel like it's going to slip out of your hands worse than a slippery bar of soap... it's too damn thin. The fact that many people put these phones into cases which obviously adds bulk should be telling the companies that make these things something, it should be telling them to knock it off in the "let's make it thin" department..
Click to expand...

Not that I am completely disagreeing with you, enough is enough sometimes.

But when it comes to cases, my current phone is a Droid Turbo with the Kevlar back and nice Guerilla Glass screen, I paid extra and put a protective Guerilla Glass sheet over the screen and there was a one time free replacement for a damage screen. I never used the protective case I bought for it and have been so happy. Almost two years running, screen is fine, never been broke, happy about the dimmensions and weight and no bulky stupid looking protective case.

The Droid Turbo wasn't perfect, I think Samsung's UI is more intuitive and the Droid's camera, though high in pixel count actually hasn't performed well for me. But it's ruggedness has impressed,
 
lcpiper said:
Not that I am completely disagreeing with you, enough is enough sometimes.

But when it comes to cases, my current phone is a Droid Turbo with the Kevlar back and nice Guerilla Glass screen....But it's ruggedness has impressed,
Click to expand...

This!!

I also hate this crap that the phone must sacrifice functionality and survivability for the sake of aesthetics.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top