Galaxy Note 7 fires reportedly blamed on battery size, manufacturing defects

Late last night, we found out that Samsung plans to reveal the cause of the much-reported Galaxy Note 7 fires in a press conference on Monday. The live streamed press conference will end a months-long investigation into the cause of the fires, but ahead of it a new report is telling us what we might be able to expect.

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, the cause of the fires ultimately depends on the battery within each Note 7. Samsung used two different suppliers for the Note 7's battery – Samsung SDI and the Hong Kong-based Amperex Technology Ltd. In the case of batteries from Samsung SDI, Samsung found that the batteries didn't fit inside the phone properly because they were irregularly sized, an issue which caused overheating.

Once Samsung recalled the phones with SDI batteries in them, it turned to ATL to ramp up production on the batteries for replacement devices. However, this increased demand led to manufacturing defects which once again caused the batteries to overheat. These defects were at the center of the second Note 7 recall, which is when Samsung decided to pull the plug on the phone altogether.

That's what the Wall Street Journal's sources – unnamed people familiar with the matter – say, at any rate. A previous teardown of the Note 7 showed that there wasn't enough room for the battery to swell during normal use, which put additional pressure on it. That pressure could cause the positive and negative plates within the battery to touch, which in turn would cause it to ignite.

Whatever the problem, we don't have much longer to wait until we get the official announcement. Though the claims in this new report seem to be within the realm of possibility, you should still take them with a grain of salt, as nothing is official until Samsung announces it. The live stream will begin at 10 AM Korean time on Monday (8 PM Eastern on the 22nd), and as always, we'll have everything you need to know right here at SlashGear.

SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal