DELL'S major recall

[camj979]

Well..it looks like DELL Computers is going to be suffering for the rest of the year with this major recall on it's laptop batteries. In case you haven't heard, they're recalling over 4 million of them because there have been numerous reports that the batteries overheat and blow up, and I mean actually blow up. There was a dude on the news who's truck got burned up completely from having his laptop, with the power on, lying on the seat while he was driving. And the more shocking thing is that the batteries are made by Sony!! Good thing I bought a Toshiba.

[RFBurns]

Yet another Sony item causing problems!!!

Well, chances are good that it isnt the battery otherwise it would be Sony doing the recall, not Dell. It is probably a design flaw in the laptop's charging regulator circuits not communicating correctly with the on-board CPU inside the battery, thus overcharging it.

Sony has been making rechargable batteries forever, non of which ever had a fault and end up exploding. Sony incorporates both thermal and short circuit fuses inside the batteries. They wont however react to an overcharge, they are intended for output protection because Sony never had a charger unit or circuit that overcharged, the unit or circuit would cut itself off first.

But there are plenty of charging units and circuits that can overcharge any type of rechargable battery...and yes, they will explode.

Poof!!!

[blutach]

Yeah, gunna cost them a packet. Glad I don't own any Dell stock.

Regards

[daman]

There was a dude on the news who's truck got burned up completely from having his laptop, with the power on, lying on the seat while he was driving.

yes i seen that,,not good,burnt it up bad

check it out;

https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx

[copyless]

Their is another thread (here somewhere) to the same problem Dell had a few months back with this. I posted then about how this has been an ongoing problem with Dell Laptops and their BIOS (at least this was the fix with mine, and would have to guess that it still has to be what fixes the real problem), as I have a Inspiron 5000e, and it had the same recall about 7 or 8 years ago. The fix at that time was replacement of the batteries and a new BIOS, to tell the circuit when to stop charging. I still use the laptop today, with no problems since the update to the BIOS. And as RF posted, I am sure their is no problem with the batteries, as they have no control on overcharging, except to explode. Actually I still use the same batteries that came with my laptop, and have the replacements they sent me put away. I only installed the BIOS, and continued to use the old batteries. Like I said then, you would think they would learn from their mistakes, but I guess not, another reason I am not that found of Dell.

[daman]

Their is another thread (here somewhere) to the same problem Dell had a few months back with this. I posted then about how this has been an ongoing problem with Dell Laptops and their BIOS (at least this was the fix with mine, and would have to guess that it still has to be what fixes the real problem), as I have a Inspiron 5000e, and it had the same recall about 7 or 8 years ago. The fix at that time was replacement of the batteries and a new BIOS, to tell the circuit when to stop charging. I still use the laptop today, with no problems since the update to the BIOS. And as RF posted, I am sure their is no problem with the batteries, as they have no control on overcharging, except to explode. Actually I still use the same batteries that came with my laptop, and have the replacements they sent me put away. I only installed the BIOS, and continued to use the old batteries. Like I said then, you would think they would learn from their mistakes, but I guess not, another reason I am not that found of Dell.

I think it's more the makers of the batts than say DELL or others,

i could be wrong....

[RFBurns]

I think it's more the makers of the batts than say DELL or others,

i could be wrong....

Its possible. At one time, during the ni-cad days, Sony actually outsourced the manufacturing for those things. The current info-lithiums Sony sports were at one time made by someone else as well, that is until Sony built their own manufacturing plant in Taiwan, which makes batteries, IC chips, assembled boards and modules etc.

But the fact is.....not one single Sony labled/made battery has ever exploded because of the battery itself. In fact, no battery can explode unless influenced by outside elements.

In this case with the laptop burning up that poor guy's pickup....it was an overcharge condition that made the battery explode. What we have here are two faults that led to the exploding battery.


1. A faulty charge circuit design that did not turn off at the appropriate time when the battery was fully charged. Since this occured in a mobile environment, the 12VDC input and charging circuits are to be suspect within the laptop.

2. Incorrect communication between the on-board charging CPU of the laptop and the on-board CPU of the battery, much like two incompatiable data sets trying to talk to one another...or for the leyman....a mac trying to work a windows software program. It wont fly without some kind of middle-man program to interpret back and forth.


So basically at some point...Dell, or whomever made that MOBO for Dell, said to Sony..."please build us some batteries for our units, here are the specs".

Sony says..."Okiedokie Dell"...they recieve the specs from Dell or whomever builds their MOBO's, and pounds away making the battery to those specs. Usually...in fact....all the time, they will test the design with prototypes given to Sony by Dell or whomever made the MOBO, and run it through its paces before the final production units are built and shipped. During production, a flaw could have developed if they substituted a component or two during production, which they do change things right in the middle of production to either improve on the product or reduce production costs to increase the bottom line on the back end...(sales).

Now before we go pointing fingers and blame, lets keep in mind, that major brand companies ALWAYS outsource for manufacturing. Even Sony does it. Heck Sony just got nailed recently over a CCD imager problem...which btw, Sony did NOT manufacture, some weird company out of Hong Kong built them, sub standard CCD pickups which gave out LONG before their warranty would expire. You can bet your databits that Sony will seek a lawsuit to that manufacturer once all this is over with on the CCD imager fix.

It is more likely that Dell outsourced for manufacturing the MOBO's to these specific laptops, and that the manufacturer either wrote up the wrong specs for the requested battery type, or somewhere during production, changes took place before those changes were sent down the pipe to the battery manufacturer to make adjustments so that the two would work together properly.

If anyone is to blame, it should be the corporate people of ALL the companies. Why? Quite simple.....they PUSH and PUSH for profit...which means cutting corners, overlooking small things, all for the sake of increasing that bottom line profit. Making a device in time for a target date to be on the shelves. Its all about SALES.

Slowly but sure, safety and reliability have been going out the window over the last decade or two, as more and more products are built in rush time, with the cheapest components that can be used, and built with the concept of "if its broke...buy a new one" mindset. Service is about to become antiquated as a horse drawn buggy is. Why?.....this one is even simpler...

...its what the CONSUMERS want, cheap, fast, and simple. Corporates listened, and that is exactly what is being provided, cheap, fast, simple stuff which in turn affects quality, reliability, and most important....safety.

Yep....lots to think about on this. Many points along the way of a product before it even hits the shelves. And anyone of them, or combination of them, could be the fault...or as we engineers say.."single point failure" and "domino-effect"...with a single or multiple point of failure....it can turn into what is called..."runaway failure", where the problem's origin can get lost in the cluster, and its difficult to catch up to that runaway failure, thus you end up with a massive recall.

Just ask NASA...they know that syndrome the best.

[daman]

LOL...my fingers hurt just reading that

but yup i agree

[RFBurns]

Hehe! Sorry for the long post, but had alot to say about whats going on...on the inside of things.

I did read that there are two or three types of Dell laptops that are affected and replacement batteries are being provided by Dell and Sony. Hopefully, the replacements will work correctly with the charging circuits of those laptops.

The problem was probably already known by both Dell and Sony way before the blown up pickup incident....the timing of it happening probably coincided with their decision to do a recall.

Its far cheaper for both Sony and Dell to provide new batteries than it is for Dell and Sony to replace 4.1 million laptop MOBO's.

Lets hope they got it right this time.

[daman]

Hehe! Sorry for the long post


Lets hope they got it right this time.

no problem

and yes lets hope