Did I ruin my battery?

[Lilvapie]

I left my charger somewhere so having a dead battery I grabbed another USB charger on my way to work. I used the iPhone wall converter and it charged my 650 smoke vv twist in 2 hours! O no I thought this is not good. So I called the vape shop and they said that iPhone converter puts out way too much power and could ruin the battery. So, did that one time ruin the life of my battery? The battery still works. Is it possible it could be putting out any less or more watts now than it should at a giving setting? Anyone that is familiar with batters please respond. I am using a new liquid mix that doesn't seem to vape as well as others so I can't tell if it is not putting out as much power if that's even possible. I hope this also stops others from making the same stupid mistake. Only time will tell. I hope when I charge it with the correct wall converter that it will hold a normal length of charge.

Thanks in advance.

 

[john333]

did the battery over-charge and become very hot? if not, you may be ok.

 

[FlamingoTutu]

You are lucky it didn't vent on you. I wouldn't use it, but that's me.

This is an ecig in a phone charger.

 

[DavidOck]

As long as you were using the "dongle" type charger plugged into the iPhone wall wart, you should be fine.

That dongle is what regulates the charging current to the battery and is typically rated at 420 - 450 mA output max, regardless of the input power available - as long as the wall wart is rated at that same 450 or higher. I use a 4 port 2 amp (2000mA) wall wart for my ego styles, spinners and such, and have never had a problem. But you do have to be careful to use the right dongle for your battery.

 

[Harlen]

Done it and it didn't seam to harm it any .

 

[readeuler]

You should be fine. The iphone charger puts out 1 amp, and your charger most likely needs at least half an amp (500 mA) to work properly. The ego USB charger can take more current than it needs, the battery is what can only accept at most a certain current.

 

[defdock]

As long as you were using the "dongle" type charger plugged into the iPhone wall wart, you should be fine.

That dongle is what regulates the charging current to the battery and is typically rated at 420 - 450 mA output max, regardless of the input power available - as long as the wall wart is rated at that same 450 or higher. I use a 4 port 2 amp (2000mA) wall wart for my ego styles, spinners and such, and have never had a problem. But you do have to be careful to use the right dongle for your battery.

beat me to it.


ETA: also, looking at all my "usb dongles" ------ "INPUT 5V" ---- leads me to beleive it only needs 5V regardless how many MAHs


as some one mentioned as long as the wall wort puts out more than 420mah, you should have no problems. ---- i use a series of adapters to use my ego usb charger ON a micru usb headset charger... the headset charger puts out 5v 300mah. it still charges my batteries as the same speed suprizingly.

 

[Lilvapie]

Thanks. I really like to hear ppl say they did it with no issues. That picture of the battery exploding is crazy. So some here say it's fine and some say I am lucky to have eyebrows still. The back of the iPhone converter, which is NOT a walmart one is the original that came with the iPhone (I would think an iPhone original wal converter would be the same sold at walmart) says 100-240 volts and the USB for the ecig says 5 volts for the input.

 

[supertrunker]

Eyebrows are overrated.

Use the correct charger for the correct device. Don't cut corners.

T

 

[PapaSloth]

All USB jacks put out +5V. Most computer USB ports are rated at 500ma per port. Some go higher. Wall warts may or may not put out higher amperage than that, depending on the model. There are a number of factors that can affect the longevity of a lithium ion battery. For all the gory details, see this link: Battery University: How to Prolong Lithium Based Batteries
The summary version is:

• Never overcharge batteries
• Never over-discharge batteries
• Slower (trickle) charges are better for your battery than fast charges.

In most cases, you won't destroy your battery, you'll just reduce the number of charging cycles that the battery will last for. In some cases, dramatically.

Also, the main reason to use a high-quality wall outlet charger is that cheap chargers may overheat and even catch on fire if the battery charge draws more amps than the charger is capable of handling. You want a charger with good quality wiring and amp limiting circuitry, and one that will cut off when the battery is charged up to 4.2V.

 

[DavidOck]

You need to look at the back again. Yes, the input will be higher, and AC, since that's what comes out of the walls. Standard in the US is 120 VAC. The wall wart output, for your phone (and many other devices) will be 5 VDC, and there will also be a listing for output current. It may be listed as 1 A, or 1000 mA. That needs to be higher than what the dongle needs, or problems can come up. If the wall wart that came with your setup is 5 VDC (darn well better be!!) and 500 mA ( or 0.5A), that's the bare minimum for a typical ego dongle charger.

Picture a night light with a typical 5 watt bulb. It's made to plug into the wall outlet, so it gets provided with 120 VAC. The circuit breaker on that circuit is typically 15 amps. But the bulb, at 5 watts, will only draw about 0.04 amps. If it tried to draw all 15, it would burn out very fast. Likewise, the wall wart can be made to provide more power than what's plugged in will actually draw - in this case, it's functioning in a similar manner to the wall outlet, providing power to the dongle. The dongle is similar in this analogy to the night light.

And just like your house wiring, if something goes terribly wrong, bad things can happen. Chargers, wall warts, the circuitry inside the battery may fail. That's why it's recommended that you never charge unattended.

As mentioned, I use a 4 port wart that's capable of delivering 2 amps. I also use an inline meter between it and my dongle or battery. When I charge my ISTick, it starts out about 1 amp, then tapers down. When I use a dongle to charge, say, a Spinner, it starts around 420 mA or so, depending on charge state of the battery.

 

[DavidOck]

Eyebrows are overrated.

Use the correct charger for the correct device. Don't cut corners.

T

Absolutely! But the power source to that charger is a different animal. I much prefer to use a good wall wart than my spendy computer

 

[Lilvapie]

Hey thanks mine says 1a. And you said it needs to be .5 or higher? How much higher. The fact is my battery charged up in two hours, not good. Le you guys said it should be a slow steady charge. So how bad do you think I messed it up? How much life did I take off the battery? Hey it's only a 26 dollar smok twist vv but still.

 

[Train2]

I don't think anyone can estimate the lifespan impact of having speed-charged it.
The key point though is - use the charger and wall adapter that are made for your e-cig!!
(meant for other readers - I know you mean to, Lil!)
Every time we've seen news stories about e-cigs "exploding," it's been
a) A beat up and/or no-name device (battery or charger)
b) A USB into a laptop
c) A "generic" charger, not one made for that e-cig
d) Some combination of a, b, and c

 

[readeuler]

It's not the overall charge time that matters, it's the charging current that's an issue - too much current can overwhelm a battery.

If that dongle (hehe) goes with the battery, absolutely nothing is wrong. There's nothing "not good" about it. You could have the USB plugged into something capable of supplying 50A of current, and it should take the exact same amount of time to charge if your equipment is functioning properly. If the charge time is less than it was before, it's possible that whatever you were using before was actually incapable of providing the 420 mA or whatever the dongle specifices, which would be the dangerous situation.

The iphone outlet-to-USB charger is perfectly acceptable. Are you using the original ego-to-USB charger that came with the battery?

ETA: I just don't think there was any "speed-charging" involved here; 2 hours for a 650 mAh battery sounds very reasonable. Anything slower would make me suspicious, honestly.

 

[chargingcharlie]

I don't think anyone can estimate the lifespan impact of having speed-charged it.
The key point though is - use the charger and wall adapter that are made for your e-cig!!
(meant for other readers - I know you mean to, Lil!)
Every time we've seen news stories about e-cigs "exploding," it's been
a) A beat up and/or no-name device (battery or charger)
b) A USB into a laptop
c) A "generic" charger, not one made for that e-cig
d) Some combination of a, b, and c

Pretty much every spinner style e-cig I've seen either comes with (or is sold with) a USB dongle charger that outputs 4.2V @ 450mA. They key to being safe is looking up the specifications of your battery, taking note of not only the voltage rating, but what the recommended charge rates are. For LiOn batteries, a safe charge rate is 0.5C to 0.8C and many do just fine at 1C. So, in example, say you have a Vision Spinner II which has a 1600mAh battery that comes with a 450mA charger. That charger is going to charge the that battery at under 0.3C and it's going to take a long time...I know because that is what mine came with. You'd be just as safe, and much happier, with a charger that outputs 1.0A to 1.25A for the Vision Spinner II. It would charge the battery to about 85% in about 1 - 1.5 hours and then will go into a trickle charge for the saturation portion of the charge, and will continue until full (can be up to another 30 minutes or so). Believe it or not, charging a LiOn battery to 100% will wear it out faster than letting it go to about 98-98% and then taking it off the charger. Charging at higher rates is never bad for a Lithium battery, as long as you stay within its specifications, and trickle chArhes are completely unnecessary for most Lithium chemistry batteries today. I have large 6S 5,000mAh LiPo batteries that I've had for almost 2 years and each one gets charged 4-6 times a week at a 4C rate (22.2V @ 20A) and they are still going strong. That obviously can't be done with a 1S LiOn/LiPo, but up to 1C is safe for many of them unless they are really small.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[defdock]

Pretty much every spinner style e-cig I've seen either comes with (or is sold with) a USB dongle charger that outputs 4.2V @ 450mA. They key to being safe is looking up the specifications of your battery, taking note of not only the voltage rating, but what the recommended charge rates are. For LiOn batteries, a safe charge rate is 0.5C to 0.8C and many do just fine at 1C. So, in example, say you have a Vision Spinner II which has a 1600mAh battery that comes with a 450mA charger. That charger is going to charge the that battery at under 0.3C and it's going to take a long time...I know because that is what mine came with. You'd be just as safe, and much happier, with a charger that outputs 1.0A to 1.25A for the Vision Spinner II. It would charge the battery to about 85% in about 1 - 1.5 hours and then will go into a trickle charge for the saturation portion of the charge, and will continue until full (can be up to another 30 minutes or so). Believe it or not, charging a LiOn battery to 100% will wear it out faster than letting it go to about 98-98% and then taking it off the charger. Charging at higher rates is never bad for a Lithium battery, as long as you stay within its specifications, and trickle chArhes are completely unnecessary for most Lithium chemistry batteries today. I have large 6S 5,000mAh LiPo batteries that I've had for almost 2 years and each one gets charged 4-6 times a week at a 4C rate (22.2V @ 20A) and they are still going strong. That obviously can't be done with a 1S LiOn/LiPo, but up to 1C is safe for many of them unless they are really small.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

not bashing anyone here, but these are the types of posts "noobs" end up reading, get confused with too much contradicting info, and end up using the wrong charger THINKING its safe because of the miscombobulated info.


to those who read, the wallwort shouldnt matter much, its the 510 charging cable that came with it that is important - make sure to use the 510 cable that came with your ego.

 

[FlamingoTutu]

If that dongle (hehe),,,

So glad I'm not the only one that starts snickering at that word.

 

[chargingcharlie]

not bashing anyone here, but these are the types of posts "noobs" end up reading, get confused with too much contradicting info, and end up using the wrong charger THINKING its safe because of the miscombobulated info.


to those who read, the wallwort shouldnt matter much, its the 510 charging cable that came with it that is important - make sure to use the 510 cable that came with your ego.

Nothing in my post is contradictory and, IMHO, it's better information for n00bs than "use what came with your battery". A lot of stores just throw a generic 45A 510 charger in with the battery and it's not necessarily the one the manufacturer recommends. The key part of my post was where I said "The key to being safe is looking up the specifications of your battery, taking note of not only the voltage rating, but what the recommended charge rates are." If you want n00bd to be safe with Lithium batteries, then the first step is to teach them about how they work. Trust me went I say that these batteries are nothing compared to what we deal with in the RC world. People's houses and cars have burned to the ground from the Lithium batteries we use due to unsafe practices. I am extremely aware of the danger, I'm extemly safe when charging them, and the last thing I would do is give out incorrect information about safe practices. If I wasn't, then I wouldn't have invested close to $1,000 into my charging setup.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Lilvapie]

I want to thank you all for taking time to help.

I am starting to realize the guys at the vape shop act like they know it all but they are worthless. I have been using a evod clone charger and asked if that was fine to charge with they of course said yeah. So now I have a few questions.

-Someone a post or two back said that USB charging in a computer can be a problem?

-my battery took hours and hours to charge before, I don't have the other wall converter
On hand to look at but some said It have been taking too long which could be a problem? Now I'm confused. And they said the iPhone converter is perfectly fine to use? I'm getting mixed advice but kind of am getting this down now guys. If I look at the numbers and make sure I'm using the wall charger I'll be fine.

So I'll just get the vape shop wall converter. I have the ego USB right now that I just got today so I should go back to them and get their wall converter to be sure.

So I was ganna use my computer to charge it tonight, no go on that you guys say? The guy at the vape shop said it was fine, you know, the guy that is one of the know it alls. Lol