sd card reader is smoking?

[Nick_dnepr]

Hey guys, i just tried to insert a sd card into my pinephone and it started smoking. For real. There was a smell of burning plastic and the card was hot like a hell. I imeddiaetly removed the battery, tried to power on the phone again and it booted up and worked just fine. then i tried to insert another sd card and it worked fine as well. Disks utility detected it normally and was able to read all the partitions correctly. The question is: what did just happen? This card was 100% operational, I used it a lot with my PBP with no problem. I reckon that card is dead now, but i am glad that my pinephone is undamaged. What could have sparked such a violent reaction and what should I do to prevent similar accidents in the future?

[rocket2nfinity]

Hey guys, i just tried to insert a sd card into my pinephone and it started smoking. For real. There was a smell of burning plastic and the card was hot like a hell. I imeddiaetly removed the battery, tried to power on the phone again and it booted up and worked just fine. then i tried to insert another sd card and it worked fine as well. Disks utility detected it normally and was able to read all the partitions correctly. The question is: what did just happen? This card was 100% operational, I used it a lot with my PBP with no problem. I reckon that card is dead now, but i am glad that my pinephone is undamaged. What could have sparked such a violent reaction and what should I do to prevent similar accidents in the future?

Wow. The only times I've seen this happen there was a short caused by stray metal on the card or socket. But it doesn't usually cause a fire!, just a dead card. I would check both to make sure it's a one time accident.

[barray]

Time to pull the phone apart and get the voltmeter checking for shorts. You're likely looking for something that shorts a voltage line down to ground.

Bare in mind also that just because the smoke came from the SD card slot doesn't mean that it originated from there. Check for some form of burn or plastic warp.

[Nick_dnepr]

the funniest thing is that both card reader and sd card seem to be functional. at least reader managed to read another sd card without setting it on fire, and the first sd card is readable by another card reader. i will dissassemble my pinephone and check for any defects ASAP. Not sure how could they survive such an accident without damage

[rocket2nfinity]

the funniest thing is that both card reader and sd card seem to be functional. at least reader managed to read another sd card without setting it on fire, and the first sd card is readable by another card reader. i will dissassemble my pinephone and check for any defects ASAP. Not sure how could they survive such an accident without damage

A direct short from V+ to ground could heat the metal and plastic without neccesarily damaging the card circuitry. It's a good way to kill your battery though, and a sign something is loose or otherwise not right.

[barray]

Don't wait around @Nick_dnepr - this could be quite serious. At best you were unfortunate that something shorted, at worst whatever happened could happen again whilst you're asleep and have it on fast charge or something. Take out the battery at least.

[Nick_dnepr]

@barray of course, the battery is deatached

[barray]

Glad to hear!

Hopefully you are able to get to the bottom of this. Probably worth documenting exactly what happened to release smoke so that the whole community and future devices can potentially benefit.

[LinAdmin2]

Hey guys, i just tried to insert a sd card into my pinephone and it started smoking. For real. There was a smell of burning plastic and the card was hot like a hell. I imeddiaetly removed the battery, tried to power on the phone again and it booted up and worked just fine. then i tried to insert another sd card and it worked fine as well. Disks utility detected it normally and was able to read all the partitions correctly. The question is: what did just happen? This card was 100% operational, I used it a lot with my PBP with no problem. I reckon that card is dead now, but i am glad that my pinephone is undamaged. What could have sparked such a violent reaction and what should I do to prevent similar accidents in the future?

Without analysis of all parts we can just guess.

Since another card does work in the phone I would guess that the one smoking just died when set into the phone.
Congrats - Your spontaneous reaction to take out the battery was perfect!

[Nick_dnepr]

okay, i have just disassembled my pinephone. i can't detect any shortages, there is just a metal plate above the contacts. i will assemble it back and try a couple of other cards

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Glad to hear!

Hopefully you are able to get to the bottom of this. Probably worth documenting exactly what happened to release smoke so that the whole community and future devices can potentially benefit.

I removed the back cover, inserted sd card #1, very soon found out it is smoking, removed battery. inserted sd card #2, powered it on, it worked fine. removed the battery, inserted sd card #1, powered it on, burnt my finger because it was extremely hot, removed the battery again. then i tried to plug sd card #1 into my pc through usb card reader and it worked just fine.