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Dell, Sony Discussed Battery Problem 10 Months Ago
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Aug 19, 2006 04:45 AM
from the boom dept.
from the boom dept.
InfoWorldMike writes "Dell and Sony knew about and discussed manufacturing problems with Sony-made Lithium-Ion batteries as long as ten months ago, but held off on issuing a recall until those flaws were clearly linked to catastrophic failures causing those batteries to catch fire, a Sony Electronics spokesman said Friday. Spokesman Rick Clancy said the companies had conversations in October 2005 and again in February 2006. As a result of those conversations, Sony made changes to its manufacturing process to minimize the presence and size of the particles in its batteries. However, the company did not recall batteries that it thought might contain the particles because it wasn't clear that they were dangerous, Clancy said. Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden declined to comment on the conversations with Sony in October and February, but told InfoWorld that Dell was 'confident that the manufacturing process at Sony has been changed to address this issue. Now our focus is erring on the side of caution to ensure no more incidents occur.'"
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well they would have done something then (Score:5, Funny)
Of course they knew it was dangerous (Score:3, Informative)
Furthermore, I don't think they were talking about just malfunctioning of the batch of batteries, because I guess general malfunctioning was not an issue with these batteries. Otherwise the batteries that exploded would have already been returned to Dell before they could even get the chance to explode. Or where these all brand new batteries that exploded? And how many stories are there about malfunctioning batteries on Dells, except for the exploding ones?
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Either way, if it wasnt for the price and that its hard to get a dea
Sony! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hah!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I think it's because they've stopped manufacturing their things in Japan. Now it's all about Malaysia or Indonesia or Taiwan or China or something.
Check where things are manufactured, it can tell you a lot about what level quality to expect. Different countries have different cultures and different governments and different labor laws and quality assurance programs and work ethics and wages, etc.
Then again I also can't believe you're starting to think Samsung is looking good. They've improved a lot, thanks to improvements in South Korea itself, but they're still kind of crap and have a long way to go. South Korea used to be one of the WORST countries in as far as quality manufacturing goes, but they've done a lot in the past 5 years or so to try and fix things.
Parent
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Ask any TV repair professional; back about 1990 when the Sony TVs started saying "Made in Mexico", the quality dropped like a stone.
Re:Hah!! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Once the PS3 ends up being the disaster that everyone thinks it will be, they will file Chpt. 11, or whatever they call that kind of Bankruptcy in Japan.
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It made me laugh when I heard, for instance, that there were concerns about Toyotas made in the US (could they possibly be of the same quality as Toyotas made in Japan?). It seemed naive, as one of the key points about mass production is making products out of identical, interchangable, parts and taking t
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Direct Cause (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's misspellings. Or were you trying to be clever by spelling it wrong?
Simple Mathematics (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Simple Mathematics (Score:4, Funny)
Are you saying Sony execs watch porn instead of working?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know what you're paraphrasing and it does apply, but I have to ask, so what? Of course an equation like this is going to be used and research is going to be done. If a single catastrophic failure occurs, do you recall all 10,000,000 of your product? How about after 10? 100? There will always be freak occurences where horrendous events happen in unexpected ways - you have to figure out whether it's just that or part of a
Re:Simple Mathematics (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the original CNN story [cnn.com] that was broadcast/published when the story broke, Sony's Rick Clancy had told the AP that about "a half-dozen or so fires in the United States" had occurred, causing Dell and Sony to study the problem for "more than a month." That's on top of the highly-publicised fire in Japan. Of course, 10 months is more than a month, right?
But the manufacturing defect that's causing the problem would obviously cause such problems. In TFA, a Dan Doughty from Sandia National Labratories describes the condition that occured -- metal flakes causing a short between the anode and cathode -- as causing the battery to discharge ALL of it's energy at once. Now, if you have a laptop manual handy, read the part about where it says how many Watt hours (WHr) the battery holds. A Dell Inspiron 8500 has a 72 WHr battery.
We know that by definition a Watt is the amount of joules/second. So, a 1 Watt hr = 3600 Joules per energy. Now doing the math (3600 * 72) we get 259,200 joules of energy in that Inspiron battery. Keep in mind that there is other heat around the battery as well. Now discharge those 259,200 joules all at once with all that heat around it. Putting that in perspective, a firecracker only discharges about 3900 joules of energy, while a 100g stick of dynamite discharges about 400,000 joules.
<sarcasm> But no, I'm sure they had no idea. </sarcasm>
Parent
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"A new car built by my company leave somewhere traveling at 60 miles per hour. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field (A) multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B) then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of the recall, we don't do one."
-- Tyler Durden, Fight Clu
Re: (Score:2)
Narrator: A new computer built by my company leaves the factory. The the battery blows up. The computer burns up with all your data trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of batteries in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator:
Dell - The best Bang for your buck !! (Score:5, Funny)
Dell - The best Bang for your buck !!
Story? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what exactly is the story?
--
Evan
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"A times B times C equals X. If X is less that the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
Re:Story? (Score:4, Informative)
Define "defective".
Never mind, I'll read the article and do it for you.
"Discussions were about the problem of small metal particles that had contaminated Lithium-Ion battery cells manufactured by Sony, causing batteries to fail and, in some cases, overheat."
They were aware that some batteries could fail. "Fail" and "In some cases, overheat", do not mean "OHMYGODALLTHEBATTERIESAREGOINGTOKILLPEOPLE!" It means "There is a problem with the batteries and we should look at them."
Unless of course you think that that clearly means they were dangerous.
"[...] the company did not recall batteries that it thought might contain the particles because it wasn't clear that they were dangerous. [...] "We didn't have confirmation of incidents [involving fires] until relatively recently.""
The story here is that they knew the batteries were defective, investigated what was happening, and did something about it when they found out what was happening. Look closely at your, sorry, Chuck Palahniuk's equation. When you have no reason to believe that B or C are any greater than zero, then X equals zero. It doesn't take a genius to figure that part out.
Parent
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No, it's not the exact same thing, because the batteries are different. It may be that some battery designs - even in the same general family (e.g. 9-cell Li-Ion) - are more tolerant of this sort of contamination than others. It may also be that Sony redesigned their batteries after the last recall to make them more tolerant of metal particle contamination, or changed their manufacturing process to make any such contamination less likely to be "critical." Hell, maybe Dell even started redesigning their l
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Now, considering Dell only purchased a small portion of the faulty run of Sony batteries, you might consider the lack of action from all of the other notebook manufacturers an interesting story.
Lies, damn lies, and PR (Score:5, Interesting)
My company made the decision to dump Dell just before this latest fiasco broke. Between regular failures of wireless modules in the D600 laptops, having to replace the motherboards of every one of GX270 desktops (OK, not really Dell's fault that one, but it's their badge up front for management to see) and totally abysmal support we've had enough. From their recent earning reports, I guess we're not alone in that.
Re:Lies, damn lies, and PR (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Lies, damn lies, and PR (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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Setting up a web site isn't that hard to do or that expensive compared to the cost of a million batteries which they weren't sure had a real risk of problems.
If they thought they had a risk of fires, which would have been a MASSIVE PR blow, I think they would have just done the recall right then.
How much proof is necessary? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm really hoping there is at least some legal protocol to protect consumer's from things like this that are rushed out the door at the (potential) expense of people's lives, other than class action suits.
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You won't find that evidence. Dell didn't know that the things would catch fire because they don't test as well as they should. Their own incompetence would protect them from such a suit.
That doesn't mean it won't be tried. Dell is sued
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forgotten the TV lawsuits (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose SONY and Dell either forgot all the lawsuits in the 60s and 70s stemming from TV sets burning down houses or they just didn't think the same kind of thing could happen to them. They will pay a hefty price.
What were they thinking? (Score:2)
And on the other? Pixie dust? Maybe the numlock-indicator-led was the supposed root cause of exploding, erm, batteries rather than the batteries themselves?
I'd love to hear their theories..
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In this case, Dell will be able to point at Sony as the cause of the problem, unless Sony can produce a demand by Dell for cheap batteries that used inferior design.
Now so far as the science behind exploding batteries, it is hinted at that the battery cells were filled with an inferior product. The particles that carried the charge were too large, which allowed
I worked at Dell (Score:5, Interesting)
If there are problems with the equipment, those problems are weighed against the overall cost they contain. If Dell determined that their notebooks blew up, they'd have to weigh the odds, the cost of litigation, and the cost of bad press versus the cost of fixing the problem.
The only bad thing about this way of thinking from a business perspective is that economy overrides lesson learned. Dell has had battery recalls more than a few times in the past, and this latest may cement the idea with people that Dell = exploding batteries. But rather than proactively develop test plans and more rigorous standards for their suppliers, they simply look at the bottom line.
Ultimately this has served them well from a cash perspective, but this past year has seen a lot of their karma catch up with them; their process (which is King at Dell) has run out of wiggle room for cost cutting, and bad press like this (combined with the cost to replace those batteries) may start to chip away at their altar of the almighty dollar.
You'd be amazed, though, how myopic quarter to quarter thinking makes a corporation.
Re:I worked at Dell (Score:4, Insightful)
No news there - it's the same at pretty much any other corporation.
Again, the same as at virtually every other manufacturer, from baby food to SUV's.
Parent
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If Dell determines that their notebooks blew up they wouldn't have to weigh anything. The cost of such a defective product would be obviously prohibitive and the product would never make out of system test in the first place.
If the problem were less obvious then what you say makes sense. You credit management with being far more capable a
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the Y2K problem is another example of this. Even in 1998, many major software companies still completely ignored the implications of only using two digits for notation of years.
Backdoor? (Score:2)
VBScript to find Dell Battery Part # (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, they discussed.... (Score:2)
Another reason to trust Sony (Score:2)
Not.
Apparently the root kit was only the inflamed skin over the pustule.
Lance that boil and get rid of it.
Ah Sony (Score:2)
Seriously, anybody watching from the boardroom? It is almost like they are starting to collapse under their own weight.
Sony battery not part of the recall (Score:2)
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Oh Flight Attendant? Please? (Score:2)
A fire extinguisher would be much more fun. Neither would likely be effective.