Battery plastic breakage: tab sheared off.

[jerub]

I got my laptop out of my bag today and heard it rattling. I discovered that there was a rattle coming from the battery compartment. I remove the battery and found that one of the 4 plastic tabs that hold one side of the battery in had sheared off.

The tab that sheared off was the second one along. The battery still fits snugly and doesn't fall out.

The plastic tab was inside the compartment still, and I removed it.

I think the tab may have been weakened a month ago when the laptop was dropped a short distance (about 1m), followed by being carried in my bag every day.

[mlj]

this seems to be a packaging problem and we will address

[90030501]

Battery free drop test report

[90030501]

QCI Frank - Please see attachment file. Is it like that phote?

[mlj]

free drop battery tests have been addressed with better housing. - mary lou

[kimquirk]

Milestone Production Start deleted

[MitchellNCharity]

I too have lost a battery tab. The problem does not at all resemble CAR-0239_NTA2408, so I am reopening the ticket, and bumped the Version up from B2 to B4.

On a B4 battery, a non-edge tab (the one above the power connector) somehow became loose. It was rotating on its long axis. It was noticed when, flopped, it interfered with battery insertion. I then peeled it off (I wasn't thinking - sorry about that).

The laptop is only a few weeks old. I have no idea how long the tab was loose. I've only removed the battery a couple of times, and would not have noticed its flexibility if it was not bent up during insertions.

I have been unable to upload an image attachment. I will try again once the ticket is reopened.

[MitchellNCharity]

Here is an attachment (dev.laptop.org trac attachment uploading appears to be, and is said to be, broken at the moment).

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:Ticket_1556_attachment_-_stub_of_broken_off_battery_tab.jpg

One hypothetical injury mechanism might be inserting the battery diagonally, hooking in the end tab, but getting the second tab _above_ the lip of the battery compartment. The length of the battery then serves as a lever for breaking that tab.

[MitchellNCharity]

This ticket had been misunderstood and closed. Encountering the same problem, and seeing the confusion, I reopened it. But I failed to modify Milestone, so it's not clear it was re-triaged. Now it will be.

[jg]

I know some work is still going on to improve the fit of the battery in the compartment; I don't know if that work also addresses this concern or not.

[MitchellNCharity]

Subsequent observation seems to support the hypothetical injury mechanism.

The underlying problem seems to be that the case lip can fit between the tab and the curve of the battery. Ie, on the wrong side of the tab. Which then provides a way to apply outward force to the tab. The inner tabs are most vulnerable, because the length of the battery serves as a lever.

Once an inner tab is broken, one can then also place the lip on the wrong side of the nearby outer tab. But only the narrow width of the battery here seems ready to serve as a lever, and now being cautious, I've not experimented to see how easily broken this tab might be.

[AlbertCahalan]

Replying to MitchellNCharity:

Subsequent observation seems to support the hypothetical injury mechanism. The underlying problem seems to be that the case lip can fit between the tab and the curve of the battery. Ie, on the wrong side of the tab.

This suggests some possible fixes:

a. fill that space with plastic.

b. make the edge be one big tab

c. both of the above

[mlj]

The battery tooling has been changed for MP - resulting in a snugger fit - we think it's resolved.