Let's Talk Batteries

[davelog]

Congrats! You get the keys to the executive washroom now!

 

[BlueWater]

Oh wow, I just noticed.....I turned Vet today! Someone congratulate me already!

And a decoder ring! Congrats!

 

[ltrainer]

And a decoder ring! Congrats!

I'll trade my Grand and 5 sacred HH 357s for that decoder ring.

 

[Rhapsodies Fire]

As per several requests...
And knowing that it is important to keep the discussion going about battery safety I am opening up a new thread for a continuous chat about batteries. Post your theories, experiments and questions....teach & learn. I will be bringing an ongoing battery discussion into this thread from another thread....and possibly others. This is simply an attempt to separate information so it is more easily found for those who may or may not be looking for it.

Here are links to tons and tons of battery information. If you feel there are more links that I need to add...just shoot me a pm with the link and I'll add it.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/ecf-library/129569-rechargeable-batteries.html (there are more useful links at the bottom of this page)

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/announcements-rules/77710-basic-safety-specification-mods.html

[URL="http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/announcements-rules/129007-warning-rechargeable-batteries-mods.html"]http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/announcements-rules/129007-warning-rechargeable-batteries-mods.html

[URL="http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/announcements-rules/76078-exploding-mods-current-situation.html"]http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/announcements-rules/76078-exploding-mods-current-situation.html

[URL]http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/announcements-rules/269461-exploding-mods-update-february-2012-a.html[/URL][/URL][/URL]

 

[redeyedancer]

Great idea Lisa Your awesome

 

[FeistyAlice]

Lisa, thanks so much for making this a sticky. It is too important for all of us to know about.

Hugs, Alice

 

[gorman]

Ok, I got in touch directly with Tenergy.

I was answered by Jay Wang, Application Engineer.

Here's our conversation:

http://www.tenergy.com/RCR123A-3-0V-750mAh-LiFePO4-Rechargeable-Battery

As maximum discharge current you indicate 450mA. I've heard from other people that the value is mistyped and it should be 3A.

Could you help me understand the true value?

Thank you for contacting Tenergy.
Max charge and discharge current are all 450mA for this cell.
Higher current will result in reduce of cycle life.

Am I right, then, in considering non particulary safe the use of two of these in series (going to 6V) when powering up a resistance of 1.5 ohms?

6/1.5 = 4

So the batteries ought to be able to discharge 4A to be operating within limits, right?

Yes, your calculation is right. This type of use will make the battery extremely hot in a short time.
It will reduce the life of battery rapidly.

There should be no safety issue. Even you short circuit the cell, it should be no fire no explosion.

Now, what I think is that the reply makes probably sense in the context of flashlights, where activation is not measuread in seconds but in minutes. I doubt any vaper activates their PV for more than 10-15 seconds, even when dry-burning. If you think about how a flashlight is used, what he's saying sounds probably more believable.

For us, bad news I guess.

Edit: by the way, the 1.5 ohm atom is obviously kind of extreme, I know.

 

[ufo]

As I've said in our forum, the answer given by Tenergy has a relative value, indeed I took it for granted (even before I read your email exchange), because, I think, no brand (AW, or TF, UF etc. ....) builds batteries for the use in vaping.
So I do not see why the engineer of Tenergy would respond differently when, in fact, most of the batteries that we use (regardless of their manufacturer) born for flashlights or for the hobby of model making.
The colossus of the batt not even know what is a PV!!!

Therefore, no alarmism, at least in my opinion.

 

[JGD]

I was told to rotate my batteries from a veteran Reo user.... mine are numbered 1 & 2 and I always use the lower battery in the stack on top on the next vaping session. Is this unnecessary? I know I've messed up a couple of times But I do TRY to exchange them in the manner explained above.

Which will give me longer battery life/longer vape time... one big 3.7 volt battery or two 3 volt batteries?

I've only owned my Reo for one day.. I've watched a bunch of videos/tutorials on Youtube about how to use my Reo and feel pretty good about using it. But batteries seem to be rarely discussed in these videos... at least not extensively.

 

[davelog]

If you use two 3v batteries stacked instead of 1 3.7v battery alone, you'll be vaping at 6v which is a very different experience and will most likely require a different atomizer than you'd use for 3.7v. The non-variable voltage REOs are unregulated, so whatever the math is on your batteries, that's what goes to the atomizer you have screwed on at the moment. If you're using a 1.5ohm LR atty and you fire it up with 6v, you'll probably kill it... or get a painfully hot hit of vapor instead.

 

[Laszlo]

As to the question of why the postive battery or "top" battery drains faster. The simple answer is because electricity is pulled from the battery from the positive end. When you have stacked batteries the positive end will drain faster becuse its supplying more of the power to the device.

As has been said, swithcing battery positions mid way thru will keep the drain more concistant between the 2 because of this.

If this has been answered already. sorry I'm still sevral pages back.

With all due respect, your answer is not correct. Electricity is not pulled from the positive end. Electricity is flow of negative charged electrons. In case of battery - if battery positive terminal (called anode) is connected to the negative terminal (cathode) via electrically conductive material (atty, piece of metal wire, bulb etc) the electrons will be released from cathode and travel towards anode, thru your circuit over and over again until there are no more free electrons in the cathode. Battery is discharged, and the extra electrons will be supplied via charger. Battery is charged now and processs can be repeated until the chemicals inside are depleted and battery is ready for thrash.

There is nothing magic about positive end. It requires the negative end for electricity to flow from the battery" i.e the same electricity is also "pushed" from negative end.

If you stack two batteries of the same voltage in series (as we do in PV's) total voltage between negative an positive end is double, but the current flowing thru the circuit is the same.

If you connect two batteries in parallel, the voltage would be the highest voltage of them two and if the voltage is different enough, the "stronger" battery will act as a charger for the "weaker" until equilibrium is reached. Each battery thereafter supplies half of the current that would be supplied by each battery in series configuration.

Hope it makes sense, this is just another take on Ohms law.

 

[FeistyAlice]

I'm going to repost this as I think it is so very important!!!!

Thanks again MXBNW, Wayne, for the suggestion to change position of batteries, several times, during one use cycle. Most EXCELLENT Tip!!!!! I started doing that right after I read your post. As I'm using the BP only when sitting down, in recliner, with a heavy drinking glass to set it in (don't need to do that with REOs), and not carrying it around, as I do things around and about, the BP is not getting used as much as it would be if I were carrying it around...... that's the job of REOs. And, I'm switching out the battery positions about every hour of use. So far the batteries are coming out of BP, when the chip shuts power off, due to low battery voltage, both batteries coming out virtually the same voltage. YEAH!!!!! This is the easiest way to maintain health of stacked batteries that I have found!!!!!!!!!!

Feisty Alice

 

[tmcase]

With all due respect, your answer is not correct. Electricity is not pulled from the positive end. Electricity is flow of negative charged electrons. In case of battery - if battery positive terminal (called anode) is connected to the negative terminal (cathode) via electrically conductive material (atty, piece of metal wire, bulb etc) the electrons will be released from cathode and travel towards anode, thru your circuit over and over again until there are no more free electrons in the cathode. Battery is discharged, and the extra electrons will be supplied via charger. Battery is charged now and processs can be repeated until the chemicals inside are depleted and battery is ready for thrash.

There is nothing magic about positive end. It requires the negative end for electricity to flow from the battery" i.e the same electricity is also "pushed" from negative end.

If you stack two batteries of the same voltage in series (as we do in PV's) total voltage between negative an positive end is double, but the current flowing thru the circuit is the same.

If you connect two batteries in parallel, the voltage would be the highest voltage of them two and if the voltage is different enough, the "stronger" battery will act as a charger for the "weaker" until equilibrium is reached. Each battery thereafter supplies half of the current that would be supplied by each battery in series configuration.

Hope it makes sense, this is just another take on Ohms law.

Clear as mud. Sorry, no offense but I'm not a battery expert and my eyes just glazed over.

 

[gorman]

http://www.esigarettaportal.it/forum/batterie/20681-confronto-prestazioni-batterie-lifepo4.html

Here's a comparative test between AW, Tenergy and no-brand LiFePO4 cells. It's in Italian but graphs are pretty understandable. In case somebody needs help understanding them, feel free to ask me questions.

 

[JGD]

Hello! I have some questions... I'm a newbie Reo user. Can I use the 2.7s on the Reo for 3.7 vaping (with the one bog 3.7 volt batt)? And with my Reo Grand, can I overcharge the big AW IMR 18650 3.7 volt battery? I just got my Reo and am vaping using the 3.7 volt long battery (charged in the Trustfire TR-001 I got with my Buzz Pro ). I know with my Powerizers for my Buzz Pro that aren't protected that I have to watch them carefully and remove them quickly once they've taken a full charge and the light turns green. This morning after charging my Reo battery it seemed over-charged.. I burned through two cartos until it started running properly. Once it had been used for a bit, it was ok again and is now vaping perfectly. But I do not want a repeat of what happened this morning.. it was NOT a case of the cartos being dry, etc...so the over-charged batt idea was all I could come up with. ANy help would be appreciated Jessica

Update: I've learned that yes, I indeed CAN over-charge my big 3.7 battery and will be more careful in the future.

 

[JGD]

ANd if I wanted to buy a back-up, is this the correct battery?
AW Orange 18650 3.7v 2000mAh LiMN rechargeable battery This is he 2000 mah, does it have to be the 1600?


Got it. Has to be 1600.

 

[nerak]

ANd if I wanted to buy a back-up, is this the correct battery?
AW Orange 18650 3.7v 2000mAh LiMN rechargeable battery

The recommended battery for them is the AW IMR 18650 3.7 @ 1600 mAh. Other batteries are longer. You do not want the spring to be compressed with a long battery. It will disable the spring from collapsing in case of a short. A safety feature that is built in the REO.

You should pick up a multimeter and check your batteries coming off the charger. They should be around 4.0- 4.2 volts.

 

[JGD]

I found the Reo new users guide and the link to the 1600 battery Thanks! So I DID over-charge mine a bit... I guess I'm lucky it's still working. In the future I'll watch as I charge more closely, like I do with my 3.7 Powerizers. Exploding batteries or fires don't sound like much fun. I had a veteran give me a run-through and I don't recall being warned about over-charging these batts. I'll order a back-up ASAP just in case I did do some permanent damage to the battery. It took about an hour for vaping to taste correct and I changed my juice after awhile too....just in case in got infected with the burned flavor.

Where do I get a multi-meter? And if they ARE over-charged a bit, how do you handle it?

 

[JGD]

If you use two 3v batteries stacked instead of 1 3.7v battery alone, you'll be vaping at 6v which is a very different experience and will most likely require a different atomizer than you'd use for 3.7v. The non-variable voltage REOs are unregulated, so whatever the math is on your batteries, that's what goes to the atomizer you have screwed on at the moment. If you're using a 1.5ohm LR atty and you fire it up with 6v, you'll probably kill it... or get a painfully hot hit of vapor instead.

No, I know with the big 3.7 batt I can use the 2.0 cartos but with the two 3 volt I use a 3ohm carto. I ordered some 3.0s and am vaping at 3.7 in the meantime. But I was curious about the battery rotation.. I think some others hit on it after your post... of to read now. Thanks!!!

 

[nerak]

These are great multimeters: Super T Manufacturing, Innovative manufacturer of electronic cigarette products.

You can look locally at Harbor Frieght, Sears and hardware stores. It really helps to be able to meter your atty's and cartos also.