Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

lumafield.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 308 posts

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#181

Post by TiredOfLife »

GuB-42 wrote: post #85
Pxtl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, when shopping no-name slop I'm seeking out products that don't have batteries, or at least don't have powerful ones (non-vibrating game controllers are probably pretty safe). One less risk.

I am not sure that no-name batteries are that more dangerous. A common reason batteries catch fire is when things are too densely packed, causing shorts. A famous case is the Galaxy Note 7, which is Samsung, not Chinese tech. No-name batteries are often way lower capacity than advertised, which means less stuff, and therefore less densely packed and less stuff to burn. I am not saying that these batteries are safer,…

> A common reason batteries catch fire is when things are too densely packed, causing shorts. A famous case is the Galaxy Note 7, which is Samsung, not Chinese tech.

Note 7 thing was a faulty velding line. And no x-ray quality checks.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#183

Post by jacquesm »

nomel wrote: post #52
yegle wrote: post #21

FWIW this has caused a big storm in China. The root of the issue is known to be caused by the battery cell vendor Amprius changing the battery design w/o notifying the power bank manufacturers. AFAIKT Amprius lost the 3C certification (a certification in China) because of this incident. This is one of the Chinese reports on the issue: https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_31048287 Excerpt from the report above (tr…

I work in manufacturing in the US. Incoming quality control, for Chinese vendors, is necessarily set up with zero-trust. This isn't a "trust but verify" sort of thing, it's strictly "do not trust". Assume that, at every step of the chain, there will be a lie: change of process, material change, collected data, and that the product being given to you is even yours (delivering a knockoff at the final step, and resellin…

And if you're really clever about this you do it dockside, in China.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#184

Post by dotancohen »

moring wrote: post #177
anon7000 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale is definitely a huge part of it. China controls huge amounts of the earth’s (processed) lithium & rare earth metal supply: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-is-oversup... On top of that, the US does not have very many lithium or rare earth metal mines or processing facilities relative to our demand. But it’s hard to deny scale: the US is a populous country. But there are more than ONE BILLION mo…

> But it’s hard to deny scale: the US is a populous country. But there are more than ONE BILLION more people in China. This is true for the US alone, but US+Canada+EU is on the same order of magnitude, all of which prefer a more-than-zero-trust situation.

Which is also very spread out, with an ocean bisecting. Not exactly "skilled workers right across the street" for most of that land.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#185

Post by jacquesm »

maxglute wrote: post #80
nomel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in manufacturing in the US. Incoming quality control, for Chinese vendors, is necessarily set up with zero-trust. This isn't a "trust but verify" sort of thing, it's strictly "do not trust". Assume that, at every step of the chain, there will be a lie: change of process, material change, collected data, and that the product being given to you is even yours (delivering a knockoff at the final step, and resellin…

>Chabuduo mindset [1] is a very real thing IMO high tech cost optimization is like the opposite of chabuduo - it's not half-assing, but over value engineer under pressure. The PRC's "amazing" manufacturing system fosters adversarial competition down the supply chain because there are so many competitors, packed with technical talent incentivized to value-engineer the shit out of everything to squeeze out fractions of…

It's one thing to optimize for cost, it's another to commit fraud. Just like knocking over old ladies and running off with their handbags is a potential source of revenue, you just shouldn't do it. The bigger underlying problem is that this sort of fraud goes without penalty.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#186

Post by burnt-resistor »

RicoElectrico wrote: post #123
maxglute wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chabuduo mindset [1] is a very real thing IMO high tech cost optimization is like the opposite of chabuduo - it's not half-assing, but over value engineer under pressure. The PRC's "amazing" manufacturing system fosters adversarial competition down the supply chain because there are so many competitors, packed with technical talent incentivized to value-engineer the shit out of everything to squeeze out fractions of…

If you ever watched BigClive, the Chinese often make mistakes that can't be explained by cost optimization.

Speaking of which, I have a pile of sketchy Chinese AliExpress electrical and electronic gadgets I need to send BigClive. Adds to reminder list.

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#187

Post by arccy »

dotancohen wrote: post #184
moring wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it’s hard to deny scale: the US is a populous country. But there are more than ONE BILLION more people in China. This is true for the US alone, but US+Canada+EU is on the same order of magnitude, all of which prefer a more-than-zero-trust situation.

Which is also very spread out, with an ocean bisecting. Not exactly "skilled workers right across the street" for most of that land.

not just an ocean, the various governments and visas make it hard to move people you need

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#188

Post by mschuster91 »

mrheosuper wrote: post #164
bityard wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anker is above average, but the bar for average when it comes to Chinese electronics is, "might not burn down your house immediately." For reasons probably bordering on OCD, I watch a LOT of teardown videos of various electronics. And one thing that always strikes me is how a company with a product will routinely and often change what's inside, while the model number and exterior appearance stays the same. For exampl…

i dont mind double-sourcing components, as long as it passes the QC/QA and certifications. Even Apple iphone(tbf, also made in China) double-source important components inside their phone(modem)

> Even Apple iphone(tbf, also made in China) double-source important components inside their phone(modem)

Samsung goes a bit further. Depending on where you buy e.g. a S23 FE, you'll get entirely different SoC architectures - the US model ships with Qualcomm Snapdragon, the international model with Samsung Exynos.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S23

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#189

Post by microtonal »

godelski wrote: post #76

First off, I love Luma Field. Always incredible to see what's going on inside things. Even just fun to scroll through their Twitter. Second, Anker is one of the few companies I actually have a very high trust for. A few years back I bought a wall charger[0] from them, it has 2 USB-C and a Type A. A month in, one of the Type-C ports wouldn't charge if the other port was being used. If you send a support ticket they an…

They just sent me a new one right away (

They are good with returns/replacements. My experience with their product quality has been less good though. I had a pair with earbuds from them, I think it had some firmware issue where on an Android phone, volume would go from far too soft to 'blow your eardrums out'. No other buds had this issue with the same phone. They sent me a replacement which was fine, but it could certainly have caused hearing loss.

I also had an USB-C adapter from them (one of those USB-C with power passthrough, HDMI, etc.) it was so badly shielded that no WiFi or Bluetooth connection near it would survive.

I think people generally rave about them because the among very cheap/affordable Chinese vendors they have support that actually writes back and are helpful. The quality of their products is not great though (also see all these power bank recalls). I avoid them now.

Does not mean that all western brands are great either. My wife bought a Satechi USB-C adapter with DP-Alt mode that Satechi claimed would support 4k@60Hz. There was no way to get it running on Mac or non-Mac at 4k@60Hz. So, I did more research based on the MAC address of the device and found that it just a 'recased' version of a $20 Chinese USB-C design (which was specced to only support 4k@30Hz). Not only were Satechi just selling a rebadged USB-C adapter, they didn't even take the effort to check whether the specs that they claim to support are supported (luckily I could return it within 30 days). Also see: https://overengineer.dev/blog/2021/04/25/usb-c-hub-madness/ (in which they find that an Anker adapter is probably a rebadged Ce-Link design)

Edit: found my original Satechi rant, including my experiences with their support: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30907221

Re: What went wrong inside recalled Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks?

#190

Post by spooky_deep »

nomel wrote: post #52
yegle wrote: post #21

FWIW this has caused a big storm in China. The root of the issue is known to be caused by the battery cell vendor Amprius changing the battery design w/o notifying the power bank manufacturers. AFAIKT Amprius lost the 3C certification (a certification in China) because of this incident. This is one of the Chinese reports on the issue: https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_31048287 Excerpt from the report above (tr…

I work in manufacturing in the US. Incoming quality control, for Chinese vendors, is necessarily set up with zero-trust. This isn't a "trust but verify" sort of thing, it's strictly "do not trust". Assume that, at every step of the chain, there will be a lie: change of process, material change, collected data, and that the product being given to you is even yours (delivering a knockoff at the final step, and resellin…

Must cost a fortune for business to operate in such a low trust environment.

Free market types take note: good regulation and “red tape” can actually help free enterprise

Post reply on HN