How I learned about how awesome Smokeless Image's batteries really are

[Porkchops]

So the other night I went outside for a vape, came in the house and went straight to bed. The next morning, I couldn't find my new green battery anywhere. I was looking for it on and off all day, until my wife informs me she found it.... In the dryer. Having gone through the washing machine and dryer I had written it off as dead for sure. Just then she tested it out, and it still works. It's as though it didn't even lose any of its charge hahah!

The only thing is, I went to charge it, and the light wouldn't come on (and now the light doesn't come on for any of my batteries)... And when there is nothing plugged into the USB charger, the light is red still (IIRC isn't it supposed to be blue when there's nothing charging?) Do I need to get a new charger or something? Thought it was funny that the battery was the one to go through the wash, yet still works, and its the charger that went out on me haha

 

[Mroutlaw]

Clean the charger. You need to clean it just like the batteries. Use a paper towel for the threads and a q tip with a little alcohol for the post. Make sure it's not plugged in when you so this

 

[dwsizme]

Clean the charger. You need to clean it just like the batteries. Use a paper towel for the threads and a q tip with a little alcohol for the post. Make sure it's not plugged in when you so this

duh....never thought to clean the charger.....and I'm not real clear on cleaning the batteries either. I have used paper towel and toothpicks and I've found a stiff paint brush (brand new not used) that seems to work ok I think. Some better cleaning instructions would be nice. SI's site video isn't clear enough about the cleaning part. And how often should you be looking to clean them?
Maybe SI could offer a little cleaning kit with proper tools and instructions? Don't know if I've been vaping long enough to even worry about it yet.

 

[Porkchops]

I've found that those little disposable flossing things work great (The ones with the toothpick-esque part on the one side).. I usually clean my batteries once per charge or at the least, once everytime I put on a new cartomizer. You'd think it would make perfect sense, yet I have never even though of cleaning off my charger's threads... Is hydrogen peroxide ok (I know it's 70%) if I give it time to dry after cleaning it, or should I just get some rubbing alcohol/isopropyl instead?

 

[Porkchops]

Damn, I found some Isopropyl, and cleaned the charger out really good... Looked brand new by the time I was done. Made sure everything was nice and dry, and just went to try it out and I'm still just getting 3 flashes and then nothing when I plug it in, and then another 3 flashes when I unplug it. This is happening on all 3 of the batteries I've tried so far.. Does this mean I need a new charger ?

 

[dwsizme]

I usually charge my 78s in my PCC and I just recently got a X2. I was noticing using it as a passthru today while it was charging off my computer that the vape wasn't very strong. So I plugged the cord into the wall charger and it vaped really well (kind of creeped me out to be smoking off a cord plugged into my wall ). So I'm wondering if its faster/better to charge off the wall instead of the computer. I have a car charger too, but haven't used it yet. Still rather new at this. I'm not the brightest bulb in the package when it comes to all this electrical stuff.

 

[mudhill]

Damn, I found some Isopropyl, and cleaned the charger out really good... Looked brand new by the time I was done. Made sure everything was nice and dry, and just went to try it out and I'm still just getting 3 flashes and then nothing when I plug it in, and then another 3 flashes when I unplug it. This is happening on all 3 of the batteries I've tried so far.. Does this mean I need a new charger ?

ARE you sure that your batteries need a charge??

 

[Porkchops]

Yeah I'm positive they could use a charge as I've gone through an entire CE3 and then some on one of them without a charge....

Also the reason I believe they charge faster on an outlet than they do your computer is because USB only puts out 0.5amps while a wall charger (at least the one I use at work, which is actually a phone charger puts out 1.5amps)..

 

[dwsizme]

Yeah I'm positive they could use a charge as I've gone through an entire CE3 and then some on one of them without a charge....

Also the reason I believe they charge faster on an outlet than they do your computer is because USB only puts out 0.5amps while a wall charger (at least the one I use at work, which is actually a phone charger puts out 1.5amps)..

I didn't know that. My wall charger is part of my cell phone charger, the cord can do the wall or the computer (USB). The X2 cord fits in it, I didn't think it would be a problem to plug that in it, rather than buy another wall charger and try to find yet another place to plug something else in.....never thought about the amount of amps coming out. Thanks.

 

[fourthrok]

Here is a video (I hope) on how to clean your X2 and Volt batteries. Yes...it's for another brand. Ignore that part...they are KR808D-1 so this method will work and it's easy. I clean all my KR808 equipment once a week (at least).

 

[cindycated]

I hate to even think this, but there might've bee a drop of water still in there that might've made its way to the circuitry when you tried to charge, which might've zapped your charger. I say this because the charger light's usually blue, and a dirty connection would make it difficult for the batt to turn it red.
Also, I've corroded metals before using hydrogen peroxide. Might be safer with alcohol, or even plain water (just make sure you let it fully dry). You don't need much. Just take a Q-tip, dampen it, then swab the post. If it still doesn't work with your other batts after cleaning, then yeah, it's probably zapped.

 

[Porkchops]

So totally random... I plugged in my green battery (the one that went through the wash cycle last night) after it died from vaping on it all day, even though it wasn't lit up like it was charging and left it for a few hours. It looks as though it had in fact charged a bit (not nearly as much as I would expect from a couple hours of charging - the vapor production was as though it was almost dead). I then took it off and put another battery on that had just died. To my surprise, it lit up and is charging like normal now. If I remove it, the light goes back to blue, and turns red when I reconnect it. Not sure what happened there, but don't really care as it seems to be working like normal now. In the end, I had a battery (and a CE3 cartomizer) survive a go through the wash. While I haven't tried using the CE3 since it came out yet (and probably won't as I have another 10 of them set to arrive any day now), I'm sure that with a really thorough rinse with distilled water it would be completely useable. Consider me impressed. When my wife pulled the battery out of the dryer I thought there was no way it would work again let alone still have enough charge to give me a half day worth of vaping haha!!

Kudos Smokeless Image!

 

[dwsizme]

fourthrok - Thanks for the video....yeah, that's what I needed to see....how to do it and what exactly to use. I wasn't sure what to look for either, because I haven't been vaping all that long yet. He was real specific in the video.

Pork Chop - glad you have working batteries again....now do like I'm going to do.....buy a few more.
And I'm impressed with Smokeless Image stuff, too.

 

[fourthrok]

fourthrok - Thanks for the video....yeah, that's what I needed to see....how to do it and what exactly to use. I wasn't sure what to look for either, because I haven't been vaping all that long yet. He was real specific in the video.

Pork Chop - glad you have working batteries again....now do like I'm going to do.....buy a few more.
And I'm impressed with Smokeless Image stuff, too.

Glad it helped!

 

[Porkchops]

So something is definitely messed up... The battery I put on that started charging charged for over 12 hours and still wasn't fully charged for some reason. No big deal I thought, I'll just plug it in at work today on my other charger. Sure enough it charge without any issues. Then I thought I'd charge my green battery (the one that went through the wash cycle) as it was dead. About a half hour later I look at it, and the light is off so I assume it's charged. I unplugged it, and noticed the light stayed red. So I took another battery that wasn't entirely dead on it to see if it would charge, and it's back to the same thing (red light on the charger, but no LED on the battery - this one isn't making the LED flash like the one at home was yesterday!)... So I'm wondering if it's possible there's something messed up with my green battery that's causing my chargers to get messed up? The green one did get a charge as I was able to use it, but now my charger appears to be broken (both of them!).. Thinking I should just cut my loses and throw out the green battery and assume that if a battery goes through the wash, it's garbage lol

 

[awsum140]

duh....never thought to clean the charger.....and I'm not real clear on cleaning the batteries either. I have used paper towel and toothpicks and I've found a stiff paint brush (brand new not used) that seems to work ok I think. Some better cleaning instructions would be nice. SI's site video isn't clear enough about the cleaning part. And how often should you be looking to clean them?
Maybe SI could offer a little cleaning kit with proper tools and instructions? Don't know if I've been vaping long enough to even worry about it yet.

I use alcohol wipes, the little one like are used for taking a blood sample from a finger tip. One of the key things to watch is the air holes, make sure they're clean. I use a dental pick for that and also have a very small "bottle brush" from a spray gun cleaning kit that works well, too. You didn't mention which battery you're having a problem with, but all SI/Volt bateries have an IC inside to control the charge cycle. Given that your battery was probably "under water" it needs a long time to dry out completely, and even then could cause problems. I would suspect the USB to 808 adapter if you're using 65 or 78mm batteries. That also seems to have some elctronics inside which could have been overloaded by the battery that went through the laundry.

 

[Porkchops]

I am thinking there's something messed up with that green battery. My charger at work still isn't doing anything, and after charging that dead battery overnight at home after the charger appear to be operating normally with it not charging worth much I am wondering if I didn't maybe fry something in the charger itself that's causing it to act up like this... I ordered 2 more chargers today, but it'll be a week or more (closer to 2 weeks) before it shows up, and I only have 4 78mm batteries that might last me 3 or 4 days at best before they too die and I have a sickening feeling that I'll end up buying more analogues (as much as I would rather not, I don't know what else I'm going to do)... I'm at the point where I'm debating taking apart the one I have at work that's stopped working and trying to see if it's fixable or not (I'm guessing not, so it'll likely just be sacrificial, at most I might figure out what happened to it that caused it to stop working but even that's unlikely)... Ugh! Stupid me, I should have known better than to plug in the same battery that messed up my other charger into my only good remaining charger... Anyone know how to either fix these, or make one? haha, yes I'm that desperate!

 

[Porkchops]

So I just took them both apart. The one I had at work (oddly enough) is obviously burnt between the 2 USB pins next to R2 and and R2 on the PCB... The one I had at home doesn't really show any obvious signs of burning (it doesn't smell like burnt electronics like the one from work does) or damage, but it's not working anymore either (I tested it out before I took it apart, and the LED on the battery would faintly flicker like it was trying to be on, but wouldn't charge or anything...

It's looking like I'm out of luck, hopefully I'll only need just one pack of analogs to hold me over until the new chargers show up...

Damn! Lesson learned.

 

[awsum140]

So I just took them both apart. The one I had at work (oddly enough) is obviously burnt between the 2 USB pins next to R2 and and R2 on the PCB... The one I had at home doesn't really show any obvious signs of burning (it doesn't smell like burnt electronics like the one from work does) or damage, but it's not working anymore either (I tested it out before I took it apart, and the LED on the battery would faintly flicker like it was trying to be on, but wouldn't charge or anything...

It's looking like I'm out of luck, hopefully I'll only need just one pack of analogs to hold me over until the new chargers show up...

Damn! Lesson learned.

Basic rule of thumb.....If it has a power source and internal electronics and it gets wet, it's toast. As soon as that battery got wet in the washer, it was history. If it worked after that at all, you were very lucky. Plugging it in to different chargers just wasn't lucky.

 

[Porkchops]

Couldn't agree more. I got lucky though, that a friend is in need of a battery, and has a spare charger, and I'm in need of a charger and have a spare battery haha


Alls well that ends well I suppose. And I still learned a lesson. Although it may still work after going through the wash, don't use it haha