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Thread: Scary iPhone stuff

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    Scary iPhone stuff

    Teenage girl suffers second-degree burns when her iPhone spontaneously burst into flames while she sat in class

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ire-class.html

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    I use to own a Samsung pocket it did the same thing... Just I was lucky mine was on a table when it turned into a little fireball... and no it wasn’t charging.

    ***edit***

    Here we are...

    Exploding Samsung Galaxy phone
    Last edited by tec0; 02-Feb-14 at 12:10 PM.
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    and your point is....

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrianh View Post
    and your point is....
    What’s my point? Seriously...

    I thought it would be painfully obvious that there is a serious problem with quality control when it comes to mobile phones. Two types of phones caused painful injury to their users. Now you use one, your wife use one and your children probably have phones of their own.

    Now if the risk exist that a phone can harm you or anyone else wouldn’t you want to know more?
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    Gold Member irneb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tec0 View Post
    Now if the risk exist that a phone can harm you or anyone else wouldn’t you want to know more?
    Definitely! But I might think it's not so much the phone as the battery:
    http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/a...afety_concerns

    So since the very first Lithium batteries it was known that certain conditions could cause them to start smouldering or even explode. The non-metalic versions made safety a bit better, but since starting to make usage time longer and phones smaller/thinner meant the separations between the "cells" got thinner too - again introducing the old metal Lithium dangers. E.g. a test done on the old Li-Ion with the "thick" membranes by hammering a nail through it caused no ill effect, but with a new "thin" membrane Li-Ion it actually exploded.

    It seems it's not a situation of QA as much as trying to push the limits. But QA does also play a role in that the battery might explode for no reason if there was a microscopic metal particle left between the separation layers.

    Thus basically you should be careful around anything which uses Li-Ion (especially those pre 1993 and those post 2000). Even stuff like cameras / laptops / remote controls / wireless mouses / etc.
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    What I find rather distressing about these incidents is that those are supposed to be OEM batteries in OEM devices. One would expect the quality to be really good.
    Last edited by adrianh; 03-Feb-14 at 09:30 AM.

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    Adrian, LiPo batteries have different characteristics to NiCd and NiMh. The important point with respect to LiPo is to ensure that your charger is a constant current and constant voltage, and suited for the battery you are going to charge. There is no universal charger for LiPo, batteries and it is critical to ensure that you use the respective charger supplied with the battery.

    LiPo when reaching full charge, the current drops to approximately 1% of its capacity. The charger must then switch off completely, and not allow a trickle charge as is the case with other batteries.
    Another interesting point about LiPo batteries, is that you can charge them very fast, between 3 and 4 hours, some of the newer ones can be charged in 2 hours, a very desirable characteristic, especially for potable use.

    Also LiPo can supply high inrush currents as required by some equipment, like radio control model motors and cellphones, and the terminal voltage changes very little from full capacity to low capacity, eliminating the requirement of a regulator in cellphones on the modem/radio circuit.

    LiPo is not affected by charging the battery at any time/point, just occasionally allow the battery to completely discharge, to enable the internal chemical to react to the discharge and improve the chemistry, and can give more than 1000 complete discharge cycles before wearing out.
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    Considering the amount of cellphones in the market place, the percentage of defects are so low that I am sure neither Samsung nor apple are going to recall any phones any time soon. Even if they pay out a 100 million in damages for each case they wouldn't be going bankrupt any time soon either. Maybe they will fit a notice on the back on the phone, do not carry your phone in your pocket, it could explode. Do you think that would slow the sales, I doubt it. Even if there was a notice on the phone that read you will get skin or brain cancer and could die, do you think people would stop carrying cellphones. When you use cables and chargers purchased from the china mall, there is a warning which appears on the screen indicating that they are not compatible.

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    Gold Member irneb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Justloadit View Post
    LiPo when reaching full charge, the current drops to approximately 1% of its capacity. The charger must then switch off completely, and not allow a trickle charge as is the case with other batteries.
    These are usually built-into the battery as electronic safety features, or part of the phone's charging circuit, but sometimes it might be a feature of the charging transformer itself - it might be a good idea to have all 3 with such built-in safety "feature". The same stuff also ensures overheating shouldn't occur during use.

    One thing noted in the tests: These electronic safety features (even from reputable manufacturers) are not fool proof, they're a stop-gap solution over the inherent dangers of the technology. Some circuits were fried due to static charges short-circuiting them (so don't wear nylon / other static collecting clothing), some got easily damaged due to mechanical shock (so don't drop the phone). So these safety features can easily fail even just because of normal daily use, thus make sure to treat the phone with care all the time.
    Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves. - Norm Franz
    And central banks are the slave clearing houses

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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    Yep, safety features is like everything else, THEY CAN FAIL.
    Victor - Knowledge is a blessing or a curse, your current circumstances make you decide!
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