Battery Explosions.. do they actually happen?

[WharfRat1976]

If the battery is shorted either through the coil or the pins or the button and you leave it in your mod, it will vent.

It does not matter what ohm your coil is. It will also vent if your mod remains in the fire position for an extended period of time.

If you are over exerting the battery with the resistance of your coil it will take less time to vent.

Be safe out there.

 

[DuckysVapeReviews]

Newer products have failsafe functions. For example, I do reviews and use a Smok xpro M80 plus, JoyeTech eGo One XL and a Vision Spinner 2 to the testing. All have short circuit protection, protection from going below safe resistance levels, etc, most of those that go BOOM are those that are mechanical (no electronics) running redicilously low resistances and cheap overrated batteries. Lot will disagree with me but when I do run my Mutation x combo set I run protected cells with high burst/peak amp load as I dont hold my button down long.

 

[WharfRat1976]

Could it go off in your mouth:

The amount of energy in the battery is indicated by the "mah" rating on it.
Yours is probably about 1000 mah.
the small cigarette sized batteries on the cigalike disposables might be around 300 to 600 mah.
The standard 18650 batteries that more advanced users use in the bigger mods are more like 2000 mah.
The more energy there is in the battery, the ......... well, louder the possible BANG!

I did have an ego-c type battery vent on me back in 2013; I was using it and noticed extra smoke coming out of it and dropped it on the floor and watched helplessly as it slowly vented out.
Ultimately I believe the cause of that venting would have been from liquid getting getting down inside the electronics - when you use the older protanks and such where the airflow comes up from the 510 connector, there's the problem of leaking of liquid down through the airhole getting to the 510 connector.

I've only seen here on ecf one incident of an ego type battery exploding and I believe that was caused by it being plugged into the wrong charger. The wrong charger appears to be the main cause of problems.

Someone should equal a LION battery venting to one stick of dynamite. There are 1 million joules of energy in one stick of dyno-mite. (1mj)

kilojoules(1,000 joules) = watts × seconds / 1000

Someone else can do the math...I'm too lazy

 

[93gc40]

Yes, and the cause is the same as those idiots that shoot themselves when they clean their guns. Ignorance, laziness and plain stupidity.

 

[bwh79]

It will also vent if your mod remains in the fire position for an extended period of time.

That's why you use a battery's "continuous discharge rating" for your Ohm's law calculations, and not the "instantaneous" or "pulse" rating. It should be able to handle the "continuous" discharge level...well...continuously.

 

[Strontium]

New, and from trusted supplier high drain 18650 will not explode, it is called thermal runaway / venting.
As bwh79 said: go with continuous max rating only (ask seller, if he doesn't know run away!, and find a seller who knows about batteries).
That means stay away from Efest, Mxjo, and any cell where 35A and more is advertized.
Check your mod, and atom. for short on regular basis.
Only short will cause serious problems.
Check for cell wrapping for damages, metal under that shrink wrap must not be exposed.
Make sure that your mod is designed with venting holes.

 

[edyle]

Someone should equal a LION battery venting to one stick of dynamite. There are 1 million joules of energy in one stick of dyno-mite. (1mj)

kilojoules(1,000 joules) = watts × seconds / 1000

Someone else can do the math...I'm too lazy

I already did the math; a 2000 mah @ 4 volts works out to be in the ballpark of a bullet. A stick of dynamite I guess would be more like the energy of 10s or hundreds of bullets.


===
The math:

2000 mah = 2 amp hours
4 volts x 2 amp hours = 8 watthours = 8 watthours x 3600 seconds/hour = 28800 wattseconds
approx. = 30 kilojoules

Bullets can be anywhere from 2 to 20 grams I suppose;
I'll use 10 grams
Bullet velocity might be anywhere from 100 m/s for a small handgun to 2000 m/s for a rifle bullet
For simplicity I will just use 100 m/s
Kinetic energy of 10 gram (0.01 kg) bullet at 100 m/s = 1/2 x 0.01 x 10,000 = 50 joules.

duuh... must be an error in there somewhere;
I'll have a cup of coffee and get back to it in a minute

 

[DuckysVapeReviews]

You can always run a fused kick in the mech. If you look at most of the exploding mods on youtube, they actually struggle to get them to explode. New batteries by established manufacturers such as sony, lg, etc have been torture tested. I, contriversially run vamped cells in my mechs most of the time as I only hit it for few seconds BUT when I cloud chase, I got a sony in them. My opinion, and sure this will start a debate, is choose a mechanical with safety measures and a protected cell WITH A COIL SETUP THAT HAS BEEN TESTED WITH A OHM METER!!!

 

[Topwater Elvis]

Protected batteries are the wrong chemistry (ICR) for any vaping use.
IMR / hybrid high drain 'safer chemistry' can & have caused explosions.
If an enclosure doesn't have adequate venting or if the battery's rapid expansion in diameter & height or debris blocks the ventilation the pressure from off gassing will build resulting in enclosure failure.

 

[DuckysVapeReviews]

Protected batteries are the wrong chemistry (ICR) for any vaping use.
IMR / hybrid high drain 'safer chemistry' can & have caused explosions.
If an enclosure doesn't have adequate venting or if the battery's rapid expansion in diameter & height or debris blocks the ventilation the pressure from off gassing will build resulting in enclosure failure.

Thats my sentiment in saying use a mod with saftey measures built in.
I run the batteries I run to ruffle feathers. IMRs are great for what I do. Also, isnt the VTC5 A IMR??

 

[Scotticus93]

Hey there, im new to vaping and i could finally kick off the bad habbit of PAD.

So as far as these things go, im quite the hypohondriac. Ive read about explosions and such and they got me quite worried. Apologize for the topic that has been discussed much before.

My setup:
I got one of these startup gears, hopefully they are all authentic and not fake (haha, the boxing had all the Joyetech emblems which seemed to have some kind of fakeproof emblems).

The battery says: eGo-C Upgrade
Charger says: eGo Usb charger
input: dc 5v 500mA
output: dc 4.2v 420mA

All came in the original packaging. As far as i understood, the C Upgrade is supposed to be some foolproof version? I never leave unattended when charging, but to be quite honest i dont care about it going off in the room, my lungs are more important i guess..

My real question is.. could it go off in my mouth? I've read some stories of these stuff going allah akbar on occasions ahahaha.. i quite like my teeth, would not like to get rid of them just yet!!

For any ego c experienced user, does the gear look authentic to you? It does to me, but you can never be too sure.

Thanks for the answers, your hypohondriac little friend.

As far as I know most of the stuff that blows up is people running mechs with low ohms and not good enough battery. Ego c won't explode but they do break easily (stop working) if you are rough with them. Keep using that and if you choose to upgrade. Which you probably will. Read about battery safety

 

[Steamix]

Mods, cellphones, laptops etc... Billions of portable gadgets that need batteries to run.
The more of them around, the higher the statistical probability of a 'thermal runaway' every now and then.
Can't be said often enough : Don't demand more of any battery than it's been designed to deliver. Make sure it's the real thing.

 

[azb8496]

I have really only read about explosions with mechanical mods and cheap batteries. I feel quite safe with my istick that has failsafe features on its PCB board.

 

[bwh79]

I have really only read about explosions with mechanical mods and cheap batteries. I feel quite safe with my istick that has failsafe features on its PCB board.

I'll just leave this here: istick 50 watt exploded | E-Cigarette Forum

It can happen, and it does happen. It may not be very common; it may have been caused by a faulty charger, user error, or just blind misfortune, but it can happen, and it does happen.

 

[kzr22]

If you're doing everything right I doubt its much more likely to happen than a laptop or cellphone spontaneously combusting.

 

[doesitmatter]

Lose keys and change? Some breaking bad kind of stuff hahahaha.. How would it combust a battery?

 

[Baditude]

Lose keys and change? Some breaking bad kind of stuff hahahaha.. How would it combust a battery?

Metalic objects, such as loose change and keys, coming into contact with the positive end of any battery...completes the electrical circuit. This indeed causes the battery to go into thermal runaway.

The below IMR safe chemistry battery was being transported in the pocket of a book bag. It obviously came into contact with something metal and went into thermal runaway. Whether you call this "venting" or "exploding", you don't want this to happen to you in a pocket or purse. Transporting batteries in a plastic battery case would have prevented this from occurring.

Hi, from a shaken up AW 18490 battery user

Plastic battery cases

 

[azb8496]

I'll just leave this here: istick 50 watt exploded | E-Cigarette Forum

It can happen, and it does happen. It may not be very common; it may have been caused by a faulty charger, user error, or just blind misfortune, but it can happen, and it does happen.

I still feel safe. I bought two and only charge one of them (in a ceramic bowl) when I'm home. I always unplug the one being charged before it's fully charged and only use a properly amp-rated charger for both of them. I felt a little silly taking all those precautions, but thanks for letting me know I'm not as funny as I thought I was ;P

 

[vapee]

Damage to the batteries physically can also cause problems, if you drop a mod its a good idea to check that the battery is fine afterwards. Liquid leaking into the mod and onto the components seems to be another cause for the chip frying or a problem with the battery too, so its hard to tell with alot of the cases whether the mod had some bad wiring or had a short or was caused by liquid going inside, they don't always have problems with liquid though but its best to avoid it. Alot of people leave an atty on the mod these days so its best to only do that if you have tested the atty to make sure it doesn't leak. Its still a possibility of course, but slightly less risky than not testing it.

The safest is really to unscrew the atty when not in use, although this will wear down the 510 connection over time.