Hell, huh. Was running my brand new new Stingray X in hybrid mode there, happily chuffing away when... nothing. No power. Fiddled around with a few things and it turns out that the VTC5 that was in it was dead. Just dead. Not even a wheeze out of it.
What was the time period of this?
1.)
Where you literally taking one puff that was fine, and the next puff was dead? Or..
2.)
Did you set it down for 15+ minutes between the last working puff and a dead battery?
I tried it in a few of my other mods and still nothing. I even tried putting it into my charger and it doesn't recognise it's there.
She's dead.
The circuit in the battery's obviously open. Broken contacts maybe? Something that the Stingray in hybrid mode caused? My coil measures fine (0.25 ohms) and everything else seems good.
This is one of
maybe two possible things:
If you answered yes to #1 above, and it died all of the sudden instantly between puffs, I'd be crazy suspicious that it's not a real VTC5, but a battery with a protection circuit in it that was tripped. Take pics of the battery to document what it looks like, and then take off the label and examine the tube. See if there is a seam down the side of the metal tube and if there are circuit protection boards on the top or bottom of the battery.
If you answered yes to #2 above, and it died in a period of 15+ minutes between uses, it is likely there was an auto-fire or hard short, and the battery over-discharged itself dead. It would have gotten
very warm without a doubt while it was happening, but didn't vent or anything, just over-discharged itself dead, which is obviously the best case scenario for a safer chemistry battery and why we use them today over protected cells.
(I could be mistaken with the two above scenarios if there is something I am unaware of causing an IMR to suddenly stop working)
I'm not entirely bothered because I can easily get more VTC5s?
Don't be so sure about that right now. They are sold out everywhere with
no new supply coming in as of today. This could change next week for all I know, but yeah, they are sold, sold, sold. If you know a person who is getting mad new stock of VTC5 batteries right now, I'd be suspicious unless it's "new old stock" that was hidden away in a warehouse somewhere forgotten about.
The battery didn't even seem warm at time of death. Do batteries just die like that?
I don't believe unprotected IMR's just "die like that."
I could be mistaken, but pretty sure I'm not. Protected ICR batteries
can just "die like that" though when the protection circuit is tripped.
For the record, it was a confirmed authentic VTC5 and it had been in my rotation for two months. I'm also pretty sure that I hadn't over-discharged it as it was only put in two hours ago and I wasn't chain vaping.
I'm thinking you're answering yes to #2 above then, eh? I'm fairly certain an auto-fire on a .25Ω coil or a hard short will over-discharge a 2600mAh battery well below 2.2V in less than 10 minutes.
I'll take it into work tomorrow though and test it on a multimeter to be sure.
'Tis why if you're a mech user, you should have one of your own. Even a cheap azz one for $7 is good enough to get your battery voltage for stuff like this.
Ha! I figured out why. I was playing around with the hybrid adaptor on the Stingray X between puffs, and hitherto didn't know that the hybrid adaptor should be screwed firmly onto my atomiser before fitting it to my mod. The result: shorted VTC5. D'oh! Lesson learned.
So again, it didn't die suddenly between two puffs, but rather in a period of time where the battery could of gotten warm and you weren't there to notice? (15+ minutes)
Please do keep us updated. Glad your okay... the idea of a shorted or auto-fired battery in a mech is a scary one indeed. There are a couple of important things we can learn from this as more details come in. (like if it auto-fired causing the battery to over-discharge itself dead, and the coil wasn't .25Ω, but rather < .1Ω)
Cheers
