Exploding phablet phears phorce Samsung Galaxy Note 7 delay Reports of the new Galaxy Note 7 exploding while being charged has caused Samsung to halt shipment of the high-end "phablet." South Korean news agency Yonhap first reported that the company has halted delivery of the device after no fewer than five people complained about "explosions." Some shared pictures of their burnt-out …
Apple would sell them anyway and blame the user for setting them on fire.
The right person to blame would be the standards droid(s) who came up with USB-C. There are quite a few places in it which read like "no boom today, boom tomorrow. There will definitely going to be a boom tomorrow".
Funnily enough, Anker has just recalled several thousand USB-C charging cables because they make devices go boom.
Details:
"Anker’s USB-C cable model A8185011 can “remember” the voltage of the device it was just plugged into. This is dangerous because if you unplug it from a laptop’s USB-C port and then plug it into your phone, it could push a 15V-20V power draw into a port that shouldn’t see more than 5V."
Coincidence?
>Details:
>
> "Anker’s USB-C cable model A8185011 can “remember” the voltage of the device it was just plugged >into.
How the hell does a cable remember? Its just a piece of wire. ITTM the voltage regulator at the wall its plugged into. Also the voltage regulator on the phone clearly isn't doing its job properly - if there's an over voltage it should cut out, not continue feeding too much to the battery.
Indeed, a cable should be just that, a cable. However in their geneous level decision ("They" being those who designed and ratified the USB-C "standard"), they chose to add a microchip into the cable end. This allows the cable to make "decisions" which should really be made by the PDB of the attached device, ie what voltage it needs to charge at. USB allows for charging at up to 20 volts, this is usually decided by the attached devices USB hardware.
Why they don't just let the USB interface make it's own decision, since that's actually part of the USB standard for charging, is beyond me, seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Should have known someone would use an article about Samsung phones catching on fire to criticize Apple. Imagine the pointing, laughing and shouting from Fandroids if the new iPhone had a problem like this!
Given 5 known cases already with only 400,000 Note 7s shipped, since Apple ships over 10 million on launch weekend there would have been over 100 fires and stories would have hit every news site in the world, instead of just a few articles on tech sites.
And people downvoted me when I wisely suggested charging the newly repaired-by-net-upgrade Microsoft tablets on a concrete slab within a sandbag emplacement to mitigate any mistakes made in the detection of over-charge department.
Harrumph.
It's all fun and games until your smartphone sets fire to your Playstation.
And wonder if Samsung included a proper charger/cord or tried to cut corners and is now repackaging.
That's just lazy. It would not take many keypresses to find out what ships with the phone. Yes it ships with fast charge charger, USB cable and USB/MicroUSB and MicroUSB/USB-C adaptors.
I suspect most people would be using a QI charger though rather than plugging it in. Especially given N7 supports fast wireless charging.
The logic has to be in both the device being charged and in the charger. The device being charged needs to detect what voltage is being applied and either accept it if the proper telemetry is passed indicating what the charger is capable of, limit the current if not sure, or cut it off entirely if the voltage is too high, polarity is wrong, etc. Or regulate a wide range of applied voltages internally. Of course this would add size to the device, and a little more cost, but would be worth the extra safety and battery longevity IMHO.
The charger needs to have current limiting circuitry such that if a device is attempting to draw beyond its capacity to provide, it limits its output to specs or shuts down if a fault is detected, such as a direct short or an overtemp condition in the charger. Similar to what a good laptop charger will do and smart battery chargers have been doing for decades.
This situation is only going to get worse as batteries get bigger and devices get thirstier, while everyone seems to think a right-sized connector is apparently gauche and smaller is better. If this was the trend in home wiring, we'd all be plugging our waffle irons into receptacles the size of a hamster's anus by now.
Of course everyone that expects to get a high quality precision piece of electronics for $5 off ebay or Amazon is delusional. Fly-by-night companies in China, etc. will crank out the ill-designed, poorly built junk as fast as idiots can buy it, as long as there's a market for it.
^^^ this.
It's so easy to design a PSU with over-current protection (in fact I would suggest that every commercial PSU has this anyway).
And it's so easy to design a charging circuit which takes a voltage, changes it to the one required and then controls the charge current to a battery.
Why anyone thought a device requesting a different voltage from a PSU was a good idea is beyond me, apart from obviously making the device slightly cheaper/thinner.
Having (say) a standard (fixed) 12V or 24V 5A-capable wall supply would be fine for most devices. The devices themselves could then convert this to whatever they need voltage-wise.
...if it's so difficult for devices to accept "high" voltages without frying, they should have just added a couple more cores to the cable and connector. 1 for 5V, 1 for 12V and one for 24V.
This is the problem where standards are made by companies who sell various "solutions" for problems which don't exist, and where these companies want to freeze out other suppliers.
That USB lead suddenly isn't just a wire with connectors at each end. Not for your benefit.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
