Battery inaccurate claimed amperage and safety question..

[Mikeg68B10]

So.. I have a battery inaccurate claimed amperage and safety question..

.. with all the over-inflated amperage claims from a heap of battery brands out there these days.. how are people getting away with using them at levels drawing way over the battery's real amp limits?

I've spoken to a quite a few people who build real low and swear by batteries that tests like @Mooch's show as being well below their labelled amp levels. How are these guys not running into more issues?

Personally, I get anxious whenever I'm at about 80% of the CDR rating of any battery.. and have no idea how these guys "comfortably" exceed the ratings day in, day out.

 

[Mooch]

It's due to the difference between the continuous current ratings and the way we vape, pulsing the current. A 20A-rated battery, e.g., like the 25R, can be pulsed at 40A without problems because it has a lot of time to cool down between pulses.

It may drop down to very low voltages during these high amp pulses, but the battery is still functional. The big safety concern, if exceeding the continuous rating by a lot, is that the battery can overheat if there is a problem with the mod (autofiring or a me hanical mod's button getting stuck or pressed in a pocket). Otherwise, pulsing can be done at significantly higher current levels than the continuous current rating, without overheating.

 

[Mikeg68B10]

It's due to the difference between the continuous current ratings and the way we vape, pulsing the current. A 20A-rated battery, e.g., like the 25R, can be pulsed at 40A without problems because it has a lot of time to cool down between pulses.

It may drop down to very low voltages during these high amp pulses, but the battery is still functional. The big safety concern, if exceeding the continuous rating by a lot, is that the battery can overheat if there is a problem with the mod (autofiring or a me hanical mod's button getting stuck or pressed in a pocket). Otherwise, pulsing can be done at significantly higher current levels than the continuous current rating, without overheating.

Thanks Mooch! My assumption was leaning towards vaping battery usage being more of a pulsed application... however.. how long a pulse can these batteries handle at these higher amp levels? .. and what starts happening if (say for the 25R example you gave above) you'd be vaping at 50A?

 

[Mooch]

Thanks Mooch! My assumption was leaning towards vaping battery usage being more of a pulsed application... however.. how long a pulse can these batteries handle at these higher amp levels? .. and what starts happening if (say for the 25R example you gave above) you'd be vaping at 50A?

It all depends on how long the pulses are and how much rest time you allow between them. And the amount of current, of course.

I have a bunch of cells in testing now to try to set pulse ratings. It will be a couple of weeks before it's all sorted out though.

 

[folkphys]

PLUS: If we're talking about ultra-low ohm builds fired by mechanical devices, it is reasonable to think that in many cases the battery's PTC plate is actually throttling back its amp output. At least until the PTC fails....then all bets are off. But up until that point, these superdupersubohmers are swearing by overestimated power levels and chugging away on massive voltage sags with every toot.

And so I'd say to them: " Take that big nasty supersubohm build over to an adequately powered regulated box, set it to what you think you're getting from your mechanical and see if you can suck hard enough to keep those dragonzippers from carbonizing your fancy kungfu cotton in short order."