iPhone 4 catches fire while charging

[Geckotek]

Nice, you guys will die of cancer faster, lol.

Been using cell phones probably longer than most ppl on this board. Still alive and kicking. So yeah...whatever. (My co-worker, on the other hand, went to the doctor with a headache Saturday....few hours later was having a tumor removed from his brain...scary).

That was my first reaction too - there seems to be far more damage on the cable than the phone itself, hence perhaps the problem was with the cable.

However, the iPhone4 is mostly glass and metal - you'd imagine it'd be less likely to burn/melt/char at the same temperature as the cable.

</CSI Macrumors>

So, does anyone else besides be notice that the phone DOES get very warm when connected to the wall charger?

I have noticed this, but I haven't paid much attention to it. I don't know if it happens all the time - the time I did notice it, I was also playing a podcast, the phone was very warm but not so that I couldn't pick it up or touch it.

And yes, the picture shows most of the damage to the connector, but it was probably the phone that got hot and conducted the heat to the cord, and that plastic would be the first thing to start melting.

Why is this so hard for people to understand?!?!?! The phone is made mostly of metal and glass, it's not going to melt! It's just going to get charred marks just like in that pic. However, the plastic USB cable has a much lower melting point and will do just that....melt. The heat came from electrical arcing inside the iPhone connector. I agree, decent possibility that it was wet.

BTW, I didn't post this because I think there will be a bunch of failed iPhone 4s catching fire everywhere. On the contrary, this will probably be a very rare occurence. Just something fun to look at and discuss.

Did anyone actually read the article? It was caused by his computer's USB port not the phone

Yes, I did and all it says is that it was connected to his computer's USB port. It does not say the USB port was the cause.

 

[Ries]

Did anyone actually read the article? It was caused by his computer's USB port not the phone

Actually the way i read it, its the phones USB port..

 

[ranReloaded]

Do Apple products really have a history of catching fire?

What else has had problems....

You mean WITH or WITHOUT the Flash Plugin?

 

[ranReloaded]

The photos come from an AT&T source after the customer brought the iPhone 4 in.

...AT&T, blame Apple back a bit?

 

[citrate]

Did anyone actually read the article? It was caused by his computer's USB port not the phone

Did you? Where does it say the Computers USB Port? Does it not just say USB Port? That could mean either end. A dodgy USB port (on a computer) shouldn't be able to set a device on fire anyway. I'm guessing that the user had used the port for other devices and there was no mention in that artical of his printer, scanner and digital camera doing the same thing.

 

[Rajani Isa]

First gen iPod Nano, some MacBooks, and some older iPhones had screens that exploded.

Wasn't there an issue or concern with the original wall USB chargers for the iPhones/ipods?

 

[jabbawok]

All eyes are on iPhone 4 and they're making them as fast as is possible so there is going to be the odd QC issue and anything that comes up is going to be jumped on by the media. At least it's not a Kamakazi Toyota or an exploding GM truck. This story will be all over the net in no time becauase there are a lot of very lazy journalists out there and it's easy to just pick up something like this and run it doing zero work.

 

[Pelorus]

Anybody like me an old enough Mac user to remember the PowerBook 5300 series fiasco with the exploding batteries and the recall (this was like 1995-1996). Anyone?

none of the 5300s with the 'flaming battery' ever reached a customer. It was a rumour site that turned it into legend and now people repeat it.

LiIon batteries are volatile, just as NiMH were. Last time someone reported an iPhone catching fire it was because they crushed the battery with car seat rails. I've seen singeing with a Magsafe but only because someone let iron filings and lint gather in the magsafe port (which is the magnetic bit)

 

[locust76]

No phone in the history of phones has ever collapsed due to fire!

 

[Pelorus]

No phone in the history of phones has ever collapsed due to fire!

Uh, no Ted. Battery recalls happen all the time. And it's because one caught fire somewhere.

 

[vito]

from the same guy who lied about the email exchanges with sj.

 

[JonB3Z]

Maybe a defective (i.e., higher than specified voltage) USB wall charger? Five volts won't cause that type of charring.

Sure it can. 5 volts times the 0.5 amps a typical USB charger supplies is 2.5 watts, and 2.5 watts of heat in a small object is plenty to melt plastic. (Doubt that? Get yourself a 10-ohm, 2-watt resistor and put 5 volts across it. Wait about 30 seconds and then grab the resistor. Have burn cream and a bandage handy.)

Years ago I was working on a mainframe computer. (Back when computers were room-size, men were men and sheep were nervous.) I had a watch with a metal wristband, and I unknowingly shorted out a pair of 5-volt, 40-amp terminals with the wristband. Within a second or so, I had a nasty burn on my wrist from the heating of the wristband. Yeah, 5 volts is plenty.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

On a somewhat related note, I had an SD card bar-b-que itself once. I heard a sound and smelt something hot and touched the card and realized that it was the card and yanked it out as quick as I could. It was extra-crispy. Thing is that the slot has worked fine ever since. However that first time post bar-b-que was a little anxiety producing...

Only thing I can figure is that the card was bad somehow yet worked in the camera just fine... I can't test it in another slot now and thank Ford no important pictures were on it at the time.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Sure it can. 5 volts times the 0.5 amps a typical USB charger supplies is 2.5 watts, and 2.5 watts of heat in a small object is plenty to melt plastic. (Doubt that? Get yourself a 10-ohm, 2-watt resistor and put 5 volts across it. Wait about 30 seconds and then grab the resistor. Have burn cream and a bandage handy.)

Years ago I was working on a mainframe computer. (Back when computers were room-size, men were men and sheep were nervous.) I had a watch with a metal wristband, and I unknowingly shorted out a pair of 5-volt, 40-amp terminals with the wristband. Within a second or so, I had a nasty burn on my wrist from the heating of the wristband. Yeah, 5 volts is plenty.

Yeah, my SD card story is one. Small voltage, and it burned my fingers...

The old electrician adage is that it's not the voltage that will kill you, it's the amperage. Voltage and amperage are not related in that you can have extremely high voltage and very low amperage and survive being 'electrocuted' but high amperage and you are cooked. High amperage seems to be a relative term that is tied to the size of the circuit too. That's why Intel and AMD are trying to lower the amperage that their processors consume. Amperage makes for toasty chips, and higher power consumption...

While doing board level repair on a circuit board decades ago I inadvertently shorted out two pads with a probe and blew a whole circuit trace off the board (and the board too). It was quite a wild incident and freaked the hell out of me...

For this phone bar-b-que I'd think that the cord was plugged in crooked or potentially the leads in the phone, or the connector were bent or somehow out of position. Knowing the age of the cable might help, and how many other devices used it. I'd imagine that an older cable subjected to thousands of cycles would be capable of shorting at some point. It could also be that the regulator in the power block isn't regulated at the output very well causing this one to runaway when it was shorted somehow...

Will we see Apple advertising for power technicians after this? It was odd to hear of Apple running ads for antenna engineers after this iPhone 4 signal issue...

 

[marksman]

I have heard this is actually a software fix apple implemented for people having reception issues.

They track down those complaining and then they send a signal to their phone to blow it up.

 

[Sammio2]

No phone in the history of phones has ever collapsed due to fire!

Don't worry... I see what you did there...

 

[Wicked1]

Must have been a Dell executive trying to get the publicity off of them for their burning laptops in the past

 

[calcalmx123]

Your charging it wrong.

 

[darngooddesign]

Your charging it wrong.

Your grammar is wrong.

 

[Powerbooky]

I believe there MacBook line had a problem with it/the charger catching fire.
Just google 'MacBook fire' and I bet you will get some stories.

Oh and I think some early White iPhones used to explode.

The burning Macbooks were faulty batteries. Lithium-ion is in fact a dangerous chemical which can catch fire easily if not sealed and handled properly. Sony and HP had similar problems at the time with their notebooks.

In this case it looks more like the guy used an el-cheapo charger. I mean, to make plastic melt or even burn like this, you need quite some power which a standard USB port on a regular notebook or PC just can't deliver without some serious damage to the computer too.

 

[locust76]

Don't worry... I see what you did there...

Thank god... I was starting to lose faith in humanity

 

[spazzcat]

How is a bad cable the fault of the phone?

 

[dark1x]

It was caused by his computer's USB port not the phone

Man, I just find it hard to believe that a USB port could output the power necessary to cause this.

 

[txpotato]

Man, I just find it hard to believe that a USB port could output the power necessary to cause this.

It is possible as long as it is Apple product. Be Prepared. I asked my wife (an apple fan) to prepare more than 3 Fire Extinguishers for her apple craps ( iphone, ipod, macbook pro)

 

[Geckotek]

Actually the way i read it, its the phones USB port..

Ditto

Did you? Where does it say the Computers USB Port? Does it not just say USB Port? That could mean either end. A dodgy USB port (on a computer) shouldn't be able to set a device on fire anyway. I'm guessing that the user had used the port for other devices and there was no mention in that artical of his printer, scanner and digital camera doing the same thing.

If it were a bad USB port on the PC, something tells me we'd be looking at the other end of the cable.

The burning Macbooks were faulty batteries. Lithium-ion is in fact a dangerous chemical which can catch fire easily if not sealed and handled properly. Sony and HP had similar problems at the time with their notebooks.

In this case it looks more like the guy used an el-cheapo charger. I mean, to make plastic melt or even burn like this, you need quite some power which a standard USB port on a regular notebook or PC just can't deliver without some serious damage to the computer too.

Man, I just find it hard to believe that a USB port could output the power necessary to cause this.

Read the posts above. Yes, 5v can do this. If it's shorted out and enough amperage is flowing....it'll get hot really fast.

Edit: From USB.org

if you try this with an illegal A to A USB cable, you'll short the two PCs' power supplies together, possibly destroying one or both machines or causing a fire hazard.

So, if the wrong connectors in a USB connection are shorted, you have a fire hazard.