Exploding Vape?

[Punk In Drublic]

I got it from you claiming that modern mods are effectively just as dangerous as a device that recently killed someone.

It becomes a question I think, and this starts to get outside my fairly limited understanding of tort law, of how unlikely the event is, and whether or not reasonable and effective steps were taken to prevent the occurrence. In this moment in time, after this death, If a new user taking all the steps he was told to take buys a new unventilated mod and a new battery and gets killed by it, his heirs would have a rock solid case. You seem to be claiming that this doesn’t apply just to unventilated mechs, but to any mod at all.

Yup. And cigarettes would be banned if they came out in the modern era like vapes did. You can’t compare the danger level of technologies that came out before safety concerns and are effectively grandfathered into our society with ones that are not. It’s not that it’s right or wrong, it’s simply that it doesn’t work.

I never stated that modern mods are effectively just as dangerous as a device that recently killed someone. I stated the major cause for these failures is a human element and that a chip based device mitigates against some of these human elements. They both use the same batteries, they both require the same amount of attention to said batteries – should a user neglect that attention then the results can be fatal.

The comparison to cigarettes was not made based on technology, nor does it matter if cigarettes would be banned in the 21st century or not. The comparison was made based on human neglect and the damage it could cause. Falling asleep with a lit cigarette is neglect and can be fatal. Falling asleep with device plugged into a USB charger is also neglect. How many of these devices have gone up in smoke while charging? AND….what is the possibility of said device causing a fire unknown the sleeping individual(s) that could cause death?

 

[Baditude]

The use of ANY battery carries risks. Especially lithium ion batteries. Could be in a vape device, or a cell phone. Man dies after his smartphone explodes and catches fire in his ...

As Mooch says in the below video, as vapers we need to understand that ALL batteries can be dangerous and if we choose to vape we need to reduce those risks by educating ourselves about safe battery practices. By educating ourselves we can use them with a "reasonable" amount of safety.



I've noticed that many online vendors have the following warning on their product pages. I wonder how many new vapers actually take the time to read these warnings, and how many take the time to educate themselves about safe battery practices?

WARNING:

Use caution as misusing or mishandling the battery may cause a FIRE or EXPLOSION which may result in personal injury or property damage. The user must have an appropriate understanding of the potential dangers of LITHIUM ION BATTERIES before purchase and usage. No express or implied guarantee of compatibility, suitability, or fitness for any particular purpose or device can be made. This battery is manufactured and sold for the intended use of system integrations with proper protection circuitry or battery packs with a BMS (battery management system) or PCB (circuit board/module). This battery is neither designed nor intended to be used with an E-CIGARETTE, VAPORIZER, or similar device. USAGE OF THIS BATTERY IS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

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  • DO NOT USE WITH E-CIGARETTE, VAPORIZER, OR SIMILAR DEVICE
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  • DO NOT STORE LOOSE OR IN A POCKET, PURSE, ETC. ALWAYS USE A PROTECTIVE CASE OR BOX FOR STORAGE AND TRANSPORT
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  • WHEN NOT IN USE, ALWAYS STORE LITHIUM ION BATTERIES IN THE PROTECTIVE CASE/BOX IN WHICH BATTERIES WERE DELIVERED
• 
  
  • Misusing or mishandling lithium ion batteries can pose a SERIOUS RISK of personal injury or property damage
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  • BATTERIES MAY EXPLODE, BURN, OR CAUSE A FIRE IF MISUSED OR MISHANDLED
• 
  
  • Usage of batteries is AT YOUR OWN RISK!
• 
  
  • ONLY use with proper protection circuitry
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  • DO NOT short circuit intentionally or unintentionally
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  • KEEP AWAY from metal/conductive objects to prevent short circuiting
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  • DO NOT use if PVC wrapper or terminal insulator is damaged or torn
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  • DO NOT use if battery is damaged in any way
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  • DO NOT over-charge or charge above the maximum voltage rating
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  • DO NOT over-discharge or exceed the continuous discharge rating
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  • DO NOT modify, disassemble, puncture, cut, crush, or incinerate
• 
  
  • DO NOT expose to liquids or high temperatures
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  • DO NOT solder onto battery, spot weld only
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  • DO NOT use force to install or install in reverse/backwards
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  • ONLY use within manufacturer’s specification
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  • KEEP AWAY from pets and children
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  • ALWAYS charge in or on a fire-proof surface and never leave batteries charging unattended
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  • ONLY use a smart charger designed for this specific type of battery
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  • DO NOT mix and match brands and models, old and new, used and unused batteries
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  • STOP immediately if while charging/storing/using the battery it emits an unusual smell, feels hot, changes color or shape, or appears abnormal in any way
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  • It is your responsibility to determine that your charger or device is functioning properly
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  • If exposed to battery electrolyte, flush with water immediately and/or immediately contact a physician or emergency services
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  • DO NOT throw away in trash; contact your local jurisdiction for proper recycling or disposal

 

[bombastinator]

I never stated that modern mods are effectively just as dangerous as a device that recently killed someone. I stated the major cause for these failures is a human element and that a chip based device mitigates against some of these human elements. They both use the same batteries, they both require the same amount of attention to said batteries – should a user neglect that attention then the results can be fatal.

I agree. So I think do battery manufacturers, which is why batteries have warning labels on them.

The comparison to cigarettes was not made based on technology, nor does it matter if cigarettes would be banned in the 21st century or not. The comparison was made based on human neglect and the damage it could cause. Falling asleep with a lit cigarette is neglect and can be fatal.

Yes, but it’s a question of degree. It is defined as such in the case of cigarettes because cigarettes effectively adhere to an older body of law, and attempting to ban cigarettes would be pointless and ineffective. I am not at all sure that is the case for vaping.

Falling asleep with device plugged into a USB charger is also neglect.

that might be debatable. is there case law on this one? That might change things.

How many of these devices have gone up in smoke while charging? AND….what is the possibility of said device causing a fire unknown the sleeping individual(s) that could cause death?

I don’t know. Pretty low I hope. I do it all the time. Gonna have to look at the warning labels on some new USB charger boxes.

 

[F-machine]

I've noticed that many online vendors have the following warning on their product pages. I wonder how many new vapers actually take the time to read these warnings, and how many take the time to educate themselves about safe battery practices?

I'm thinking it's the same dive bomb approach when we started smoking? I don't know, I feel awkward using the word 'we', but at least that's what I did before lighting up my very first cigarette. I knew it's deadly but I ignored everything and still smoked. I guess I'm a lot careful nowadays after having a family. It took me three years to switch. I read and read about vaping and when I thought I knew enough, I switched.

Tragically, no one can shove this information to every new comers brain. Every new guy is on his own until he gets hooked and actually search for info. As long as those sellers always put up those information up front, they should have clean hands and if worst comes to worst, it's just gonna fall down to another user error, like it's always been so far.

 

[Baditude]

Falling asleep with a lit cigarette is neglect and can be fatal. Falling asleep with device plugged into a USB charger is also neglect. How many of these devices have gone up in smoke while charging? AND….what is the possibility of said device causing a fire unknown the sleeping individual(s) that could cause death?

... that might be debatable. is there case law on this one? That might change things.

I don’t know. Pretty low I hope. I do it all the time. Gonna have to look at the warning labels on some new USB charger boxes.

Here is a perfect example. Home owner's security cam caught this footage of a SMOK Stick X8 mod exploding while charging via USB while everyone is asleep. The "remains" were sent to @Mooch for inspection, but there was so much damage he couldn't come to any conclusions on the cause. Those folks were lucky to have been home and in the same room as the charging mod when this incident occured.

 

[MMW]

Did they kill anyone? Nearly kill anyone?

No. They caught fire and vented batteries. What's your angle here?

 

[bombastinator]

Here is a perfect example. Home owner's security cam caught this footage of a SMOK Stick X8 mod charging via USB while everyone is asleep.

In that case it wasn’t the USB device that went up though. It was the vape. It being a SMOK mod I would also suspect mismanufacture. Was the exact cause determined? Have to admit, that video is prime anti-vaping fodder though. I bet it scared the heck out of a lot of people. I know I was a bit shocked when I saw it when it came out.

 

[bombastinator]

No. They caught fire and vented batteries. What's your angle here?

Death is sort of a magic breaking point in regulation. When someone does steps are normally taken. Usually though, no death, no steps.

 

[Baditude]

In that case it wasn’t the USB device that went up though. It was the vape. It being a SMOK mod I would also suspect mismanufacture. Was the exact cause determined? Have to admit, that video is prime anti-vaping fodder though. I bet it scared the heck out of a lot of people. I know I was a bit shocked when I saw it when it came out.

That's just another reason I never recommend SMOK. However, theoretically this could happen to any mod regardless of the manufacturer. Electronics can fail in any device. As I indicated above, Mooch inspected the remains and couldn't come to any conclusions on the cause.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

I agree. So I think do battery manufacturers, which is why batteries have warning labels on them.

Yes, but it’s a question of degree. It is defined as such in the case of cigarettes because cigarettes effectively adhere to an older body of law, and attempting to ban cigarettes would be pointless and ineffective. I am not at all sure that is the case for vaping.
that might be debatable. is there case law on this one? That might change things.

I don’t know. Pretty low I hope. I do it all the time. Gonna have to look at the warning labels on some new USB charger boxes.

No disrespect but I have no idea where you are going with this older body of law. We can remove the cigarette from the conversation and replace it with anything that can cause harm if neglected. How about falling asleep while cooking or not paying attention to a lit candle. The possibilities are endless but can be fatal if neglected.

On top of the video @Baditude presented here is a collection of vape devices blowing up without an ounce of warning. We can debate the reasons why, but the point I am trying to get across with this video is with the correct sequence of events, be it the individual is sleeping or perhaps even driving a car, these violent failures could be fatal.

 

[DaveP]

It's terrible to hear that an e-cigarette of any kind caused the death of a user. It's a shame that a person can buy a mech without getting "the talk" about safety and how not to create a dangerous situation. It's also a shame that people try to vape with a battery that isn't up to the application they are using the ecig for. A 10A cell won't last long in a 25A situation.

Education is key to safety with any device. People buy electric saws and end up losing a finger. There's always the guy who will take a test drive in a muscle car and ends up crashing it over the guard rail on the expressway at 100+ MPH. E-cigs are relatively safe when used as intended, but when pushed to the limit there can be hardware failures and injuries. Most of those could be avoided with a little education about battery safety.

ETA: After watching the video above that Baditude posted, I have to wonder what happened to those mods that shot fire and exploded. Were they dropped repeatedly, causing the positive terminal of the cell to be crushed into a position that allowed the anode to eventually contact the casing through expansion when the fire button was pressed? Was the vaper using a cell that wasn't up to the amperage of the vape setting? Was it a relabeled cell that couldn't handle the current over time and finally failed? Who knows?

 

[Baditude]

@DaveP

 

[Baditude]

ETA: After watching the video above that Baditude posted, I have to wonder what happened to those mods that shot fire and exploded. Were they dropped repeatedly, causing the positive terminal of the cell to be crushed into a position that allowed the anode to eventually contact the casing through expansion when the fire button was pressed? Was the vaper using a cell that wasn't up to the amperage of the vape setting? Was it a relabeled cell that couldn't handle the current over time and finally failed? Who knows?

The SMOK Stick X8 mod uses an internal lipo battery. It's an unregulated mod allegedly having some protection circuitry.

 

[bombastinator]

That's just another reason I never recommend SMOK. However, theoretically this could happen to any mod regardless of the manufacturer. Electronics can fail in any device. As I indicated above, Mooch inspected the remains and couldn't come to any conclusions on the cause.

Gah. I’m still being misunderstood. I’m going to have to get a bit long winded here, even for me.

Absolute perfect safety in life is of course not possible. It’s one of those continuum things. There is such a thing as “reasonable safety”. people tend to draw that line for themselves. The law generally has to draw a fairly hard line on where that is though. Death is generally a big factor. Here we get back into “reasonable and effective precautions” though. Anything can randomly given enough low order probabilities.

One example is computer memory: computer memory can be affected by cosmic rays. It doesn’t happen very often, but it has happened. There is a type of memory called “ECC” that resists such things by correcting possible errors. ECC memory is generally used in servers but not personal computers. The reason for this is two fold: servers are usually working 24/7 and as a result are more likely to be hit with a cosmic ray when it matters. Personal computers on the other hand are not on all the time and when they are on they are often not handling critically important things so the additional cost of ECC memory is generally not justified because such errors are stupendously rare to begin with, and the effect of such errors on a personal computer is generally not that expensive.
It’s a reasonable risk.

Whether the use of an unventilated mod, or as some here seem to have argued any mod at all, is reasonable has AFAIK not yet been tested in law. It HAS been tested in the minds of the public though.

I argue that if unventilated mods come to be considered an unreasonable risk, it does not mean that regulated mods, or even ventilated mechanical mods necessarily meet that standard.
The question becomes what potential is there for a failure, and how damaging might that failure be?

Unventilated mods have a much higher risk severe damage in a failure, and their probability of failure, rather than in a regulated mod, relies almost entirely on fallible human behavior. What becomes a variable is how common people believe human fallibility is. Some here seem to believe that level of fallibility to be at or near zero, and if it happens it’s exclusively the fault of the user and they deserve the results as a form of karma. Statistically (and if you happen to be a Christian some would argue religiously as well) this is not completely true. There comes a point of reasonable fallibility. I personally consider myself to be a quite fallible person. I also very much doubt the Complete infallibility of pretty much any other person. As such I believe that the use of unventilated mechs constitutes an unreasonable risk for me personally, and I suspect it does for a lot of other people as well whether they believe it or not. That’s their decision though, and if they do blow themselves up they can take their karma and go home.

The articles we’ve been seeing about this incident seem to argue to varying degrees that the risk of vaping in general is high. My point is that if a given article causes a given person to view that risk as unreasonable, that view applies specifically to a fairly rare and antique device for which manufacturer intended safety precautions (in the form of IMR batteries) are no longer even possible.

 

[bombastinator]

No disrespect but I have no idea where you are going with this older body of law. We can remove the cigarette from the conversation and replace it with anything that can cause harm if neglected. How about falling asleep while cooking or not paying attention to a lit candle. The possibilities are endless but can be fatal if neglected.

On top of the video @Baditude presented here is a collection of vape devices blowing up without an ounce of warning. We can debate the reasons why, but the point I am trying to get across with this video is with the correct sequence of events, be it the individual is sleeping or perhaps even driving a car, these violent failures could be fatal.

In each example you made all are ancient behaviors which if spontaneously invented in modern times would not be allowed. Cooking implements for example, have grown safer over time. New stoves have to comply with a host of safety regulations, each originally the result of a death. This does not make your argument invalid though. @Baditude made a pretty good one with his example of USB chargers which are NOT ancient in origin.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

In each example you made all are ancient behaviors which if spontaneously invented in modern times would not be allowed. Cooking implements for example, have grown safer over time. New stoves have to comply with a host of safety regulations, each originally the result of a death. This does not make your argument invalid though. @Baditude made a pretty good one with his example of USB chargers which are NOT ancient in origin.

Still do not understand where you are going with this. For the sake of keeping this thread on track lets forget I brought up user neglect with anything regardless of when in history it was introduced and let me ask….is it possible that any of the failing vape devices in the above videos could cause a fire? And is it possible that fire could result in a fatality?

 

[bombastinator]

Still do not understand where you are going with this. For the sake of keeping this thread on track lets forget I brought up user neglect with anything regardless of when in history it was introduced and let me ask….is it possible that any of the failing vape devices in the above videos could cause a fire? And is it possible that fire could result in a fatality?

Of course. Without watching the video even.

I may have addressed the point you are getting to in my unfortunately lengthy and rambling reply to @Baditude just earlier in which I attempted to relate my opinion on the subject as a whole.

 

[Zazie]

That one guy is impressively calm.

 

[Baditude]

That one guy is impressively calm.

Maybe because he has used SMOK mods before and is used to them blowing up?

"We make cheap. You buy cheap. It blow up? You buy another." --SMOK

I'm kidding....sort of.

 

[ppeeble]

I've read the same comment in this thread that i've read in many previous threads in the past; 'using a battery at 30% over the CDR is not dangerous if you know what you're doing'.... and similar words of wisdom.
What does that even mean ?
So knowing it's dangerous makes it less dangerous ? It's not dangerous because i know the dangers ? Exceeding the manufacturers advice is ok because i know better than the people who actually make the product ?
Nonsensical.