Mod explosions

[Michael kauffman]

Hey I'm new to vaping and I was wondering about the explosions I've heard about and my co workers mech just exploded in his mouth and he lost 8 teeth I was wondering why exactly this is happening and will it happen on a regulated box? Or is it only vaping on mechs and pushing the battery to far past what it is capable of

 

[Hulamoon]

Like any equipment, it depends upon the circumstances. Batteries can start a fire in your pants pocket if you have them in there clanking around with change. Batteries can explode.

Purchasing equipment from dubious sources is not recommended. Same goes with batteries. If you're paying $2 for a $10 battery, that should be shouting something loud and clear at you.

Inputting the wrong battery into equipment is asking for trouble. Modifying the equipment when you haven't got the expertise is also dangerous.

People usually don't mess about with their cell phones or the type of batteries they put in their laptop.

The same common sense applies to vaping as it does with anything. Tampering with the mod, inputting the wrong battery, and purchasing "cheap stuff" from ebay or elsewhere, using a power source OTHER than the recommended one is asking for trouble.

So which of the above did your friend engage in?

 

[MyMagicMist]

Disclaimer For New Vapers!

Read the bold and underlined text in CloudyWithChanceOfVape's original post. Read it again, and again until it burns into your memory becoming second nature.

That aside, look to the following links for more info to study.

(8) A Beginner's Guide to Your First Mechanical Mod | E-Cigarette Forum

Rechargeable Batteries

mods blowing up? Really?

Battery & Mod Explosions

Sorry to hear about your friend's misfortune. What I am understanding is a real valued need of common sense in using mech mods. Some have suggested added venting holes at the top end of a mod. There's info on battery safety to explore. You need to not push the battery via excessively low sub ohm coil builds. Not trying to place blame, yet it comes back round to user beware & be cautious.

That aside I have to express something me the Mrs.. have discussed. We both agree that, "eat right, live right, pray right, exercise right, do a job right, follow all the 'rules' right ... ... ... die anyway." That is not condoning wanton recklessness. It is suggesting folks weigh the pros and cons for themselves, do their own due diligence in figuring it out.

What I also find is that the ones who lack common sense, or fail exercising it, spoil the barrel. That is to say all other parties on the outside looking in will see "oh my gawd! Them zany ar_ed vapers they be making pipe bombs and sh_te! Run for your lives, the vapers are terrorists! Vapers are big mean nasty, scary a*holes! No more vaping!" And it will be the same as the nicotine propaganda, except it will have actual demonstrative fact as proofs. Everyone just knows that's why the vapers hold vape offs, they plot to inflict lots of collateral damage with their pipe bombs in hand.

So again. Learn what you are going to do. Learn how to do it appropriately, as safely as you can. Do not deviate from common sense. Recall common sense is often the little internal voice screaming out at you "THIS AIN'T ON THE LEVEL!" Listen to that voice. If it screams at you, stop, get away from what you're doing. Ask for help.

 

[Michael kauffman]

Like any equipment, it depends upon the circumstances. Batteries can start a fire in your pants pocket if you have them in there clanking around with change. Batteries can explode.

Purchasing equipment from dubious sources is not recommended. Same goes with batteries. If you're paying $2 for a $10 battery, that should be shouting something loud and clear at you.

Inputting the wrong battery into equipment is asking for trouble. Modifying the equipment when you haven't got the expertise is also dangerous.

People usually don't mess about with their cell phones or the type of batteries they put in their laptop.

The same common sense applies to vaping as it does with anything. Tampering with the mod, inputting the wrong battery, and purchasing "cheap stuff" from ebay or elsewhere, using a power source OTHER than the recommended one is asking for trouble.

So which of the above did your friend engage in?

I think he was his stuff was all legit but I think he just didn't know the danger of a mech before building on it I seen the coils and they looked like they were pretty low ohm I was just curious if this could happen on my regulated mod

 

[Hulamoon]

I'd recommend that before the very first coil build that an ohm meter is a must on an unregulated mod. I'm not s sub-ohmer myself so hopefully someone else whose very familiar with that will come along shortly to answer you. Welcome to the forum Michael!

 

[MyMagicMist]

I think he was his stuff was all legit but I think he just didn't know the danger of a mech before building on it I seen the coils and they looked like they were pretty low ohm I was just curious if this could happen on my regulated mod

The risk gets lower on regulated mods. That does not mean risk all together goes away, though. Regulated mods use circuitry to boost or buck voltage from the batteries. They also use something like a fuse to protect against shorting.

Still get to know more about batteries. No harm in the knowing, and being as safe as you can.

 

[Michael kauffman]

The risk gets lower on regulated mods. That does not mean risk all together goes away, though. Regulated mods use circuitry to boost or buck voltage from the batteries. They also use something like a fuse to protect against shorting.

Still get to know more about batteries. No harm in the knowing, and being as safe as you can.

Well I have an 80w box with two 18650s 4400mah currently I got a .25 ohm coil and I usually vape at 65 or 70 watts am I si my anything wrong?

 

[djsvapour]

Well I have an 80w box with two 18650s 4400mah currently I got a .25 ohm coil and I usually vape at 65 or 70 watts am I si my anything wrong?

Sorry to read about this @Michael kauffman

What are your batteries? 2 x 2,200mAh? Are they branded, can we check the amp drain/draw on them?

 

[Michael kauffman]

Sorry to read about this @Michael kauffman

What are your batteries? 2 x 2,200mAh? Are they branded, can we check the amp drain/draw on them?

I'm not sure I just know they came in the smok xpro m80 plus

 

[djsvapour]

I'm not sure I just know they came in the smok xpro m80 plus

Oh, they're built-in. (of course..)

You can ignore my comment about the draw. It's fair to say they will be up to the specification for the mod. I guess the 'chip' and the firmware and battery are all figured out by the manufacturers.

Other than that, I personally wouldn't worry.

 

[Thrasher]

Well without knowing real details noone can really understand what happened to your friend.

In most cases the mech failure is never as simple as "it just blew up"

Bad 510 on a hybrid top mod, shorted coils, wrong battery, bad mod design etc etc. There is an actual fault point somewhere. Either the mod, battery or users fault, they dont usually just go boom.

Tablets, phones, laptops and a 1000 other devices using rechargables have incidents as well.

 

[suprtrkr]

Hi and welcome. Regulated mods are much safer. About the only way to blow them up (removable battery) is to put the wrong batteries in them. If you put FlyByNight El Cheapo 10 amp batteries in your Snow Wolf and crank it to 200 watts, you can expect a bit of smokblowin mit spitzundsparken. Buy good batteries: Sony VTC4s, Samsung 25Rs, LG HE2s or HE4s or HG2s, and buy them from a reputable dealer. You should have no problems. Fixed battery mods use LiPo packs. I don't like them, but that may be irrational; I use them in my cell, for example. They are unstable when being charged. There are reports of venting and even runaway if you, for example, knock them off the table when plugged. Actually, all batteries are unstable when charging. The same might happen if you knocked the charger off the table when filled with 18650s. But whatever, I only use IMR round batteries.

Mech mods can be used safely. I've been doing it for years. I got an autofire on my MMV Nanos with a Kayfun 4 once. The Nanos has an ingenious button, 1/8th turn locks it. But if Stupid Vaper (me, of course) doesn't lock it, and sets it down on end, it will fire. So I did. That mod had the 18350 tube at the time, thus a short and low amp battery. I left it alone long enough to drain the battery completely flat, it was entirely discharged. When I got back to it, it was too hot to touch, the tank was boiled dry, the wick burnt in two and the center pin insulator melted into a puddle. The battery was toast, and I had to replace the tank insulator; the mod was undamaged. But the battery did not vent, much less go into thermal runaway and explode. You know why? Because I built the tank with a tall enough coil so, in case an autofire happened, it would not draw more than 60% of the battery's CDR rating. I did that on purpose. Verbum Sapiens...

 

[Kryo]

hello, I would say battery safety is about one of the most important things to know when you are using a mech mod. There are limits to what batteries can handle, all batteries aren't the same. Hope your friend has a speedy recovery.

 

[MyMagicMist]

Well I have an 80w box with two 18650s 4400mah currently I got a .25 ohm coil and I usually vape at 65 or 70 watts am I si my anything wrong?

Not ventured too far into mechs here. I see others with more experience are responding. All I could pass on was advice to be safe, coils only at .6 ohm, no lower. Not gotten into sub ohm either. Seeing the occasional incident like your friend's kind of steers me to avoid mechs, sub ohms. I'm sure it can be safe if you know what you're doing. So far, I can admit to not knowing and staying away.

 

[fitzinthewindow]

Hi and welcome. Regulated mods are much safer. About the only way to blow them up (removable battery) is to put the wrong batteries in them. If you put FlyByNight El Cheapo 10 amp batteries in your Snow Wolf and crank it to 200 watts, you can expect a bit of smokblowin mit spitzundsparken. Buy good batteries: Sony VTC4s, Samsung 25Rs, LG HE2s or HE4s or HG2s, and buy them from a reputable dealer. You should have no problems. Fixed battery mods use LiPo packs. I don't like them, but that may be irrational; I use them in my cell, for example. They are unstable when being charged. There are reports of venting and even runaway if you, for example, knock them off the table when plugged. Actually, all batteries are unstable when charging. The same might happen if you knocked the charger off the table when filled with 18650s. But whatever, I only use IMR round batteries.

Mech mods can be used safely. I've been doing it for years. I got an autofire on my MMV Nanos with a Kayfun 4 once. The Nanos has an ingenious button, 1/8th turn locks it. But if Stupid Vaper (me, of course) doesn't lock it, and sets it down on end, it will fire. So I did. That mod had the 18350 tube at the time, thus a short and low amp battery. I left it alone long enough to drain the battery completely flat, it was entirely discharged. When I got back to it, it was too hot to touch, the tank was boiled dry, the wick burnt in two and the center pin insulator melted into a puddle. The battery was toast, and I had to replace the tank insulator; the mod was undamaged. But the battery did not vent, much less go into thermal runaway and explode. You know why? Because I built the tank with a tall enough coil so, in case an autofire happened, it would not draw more than 60% of the battery's CDR rating. I did that on purpose. Verbum Sapiens...

" But the battery did not vent, much less go into thermal runaway and explode. You know why? Because I built the tank with a tall enough coil so, in case an autofire happened, it would not draw more than 60% of the battery's CDR rating. I did that on purpose. Verbum Sapiens..."

Please explain this statement. How can how tall a coil is built limit the draw on a battery?? I don't understand. ????

 

[suprtrkr]

" But the battery did not vent, much less go into thermal runaway and explode. You know why? Because I built the tank with a tall enough coil so, in case an autofire happened, it would not draw more than 60% of the battery's CDR rating. I did that on purpose. Verbum Sapiens..."

Please explain this statement. How can how tall a coil is built limit the draw on a battery?? I don't understand. ????

It's all about Ohm's Law. If you don't have a mech mod, it might not make a lot of sense to you. Ohm's law states the relationship between voltage, amperage and resistance is fixed. Specifically, it takes one volt of potential to push one amp of current across 1 ohm of resistance. In a mech mod, your voltage is semi-fixed, depending on charge state of the battery, between 4.2 volts and about 3.5ish. Watts-- how much power you're putting on the coil-- is the product of volts times amps. Thus, the only way you can vary watts in a mech mod, given (more or less) fixed voltage, is to vary the coil resistance. Any time you vary any one of the three parameters, one or both of the others must also change to keep the equation in balance (and watts also changes because volts and or amps do.) Here's an example: assume a .5 ohm coil. That won't vary until you take the coil out and rebuild it. At full charge 4.2 on the battery, according to the handy-dandy Ohm's Law Calculator, the rig draws 8.4 amps current from the battery, and makes 35.28 watts at the coil. But when the battery is discharged to 3.5 volts (and the coil stays at .5), the amps are then 7 and the power on the coil has fallen to 24.5 watts. (And you would change batteries before you got that far, probably, because as watts fall, the vape gets weaker.) Thus, to answer your question, if I have a 12 amp battery (I do, the AW 800mAh 18350, the best battery I know of in that size, and one of the kind that was destroyed in the incident) and you wish to limit it to 60% draw of its rating, then you plug full charge volts (4.2) into the calculator's voltage slot and (12x.6= 7.2) amps into the current slot, hit calculate and (drum roll, please) you see the lowest coil you can build is .58333 ohms and, as a bonus, at that resistance discover you will be making 30.24 watts on the coil, decreasing as battery voltage falls with use.

Let me suggest you go to the calculator and play with it some. Specify any two values and read off the other two. But the key thing you need to remember is, in a mechanical the lower the coil value, the more stress you put on the battery; and, on a regulated mod, the higher you set the watts, regardless of coil value, the more stress you put on the battery. (Regulated mods can do that because they vary the applied voltage, a thing that can not be done with a mech mod.)

 

[fitzinthewindow]

It's all about Ohm's Law. If you don't have a mech mod, it might not make a lot of sense to you. Ohm's law states the relationship between voltage, amperage and resistance is fixed. Specifically, it takes one volt of potential to push one amp of current across 1 ohm of resistance. In a mech mod, your voltage is semi-fixed, depending on charge state of the battery, between 4.2 volts and about 3.5ish. Watts-- how much power you're putting on the coil-- is the product of volts times amps. Thus, the only way you can vary watts in a mech mod, given (more or less) fixed voltage, is to vary the coil resistance. Any time you vary any one of the three parameters, one or both of the others must also change to keep the equation in balance (and watts also changes because volts and or amps do.) Here's an example: assume a .5 ohm coil. That won't vary until you take the coil out and rebuild it. At full charge 4.2 on the battery, according to the handy-dandy Ohm's Law Calculator, the rig draws 8.4 amps current from the battery, and makes 35.28 watts at the coil. But when the battery is discharged to 3.5 volts (and the coil stays at .5), the amps are then 7 and the power on the coil has fallen to 24.5 watts. (And you would change batteries before you got that far, probably, because as watts fall, the vape gets weaker.) Thus, to answer your question, if I have a 12 amp battery (I do, the AW 800mAh 18350, the best battery I know of in that size, and one of the kind that was destroyed in the incident) and you wish to limit it to 60% draw of its rating, then you plug full charge volts (4.2) into the calculator's voltage slot and (12x.6= 7.2) amps into the current slot, hit calculate and (drum roll, please) you see the lowest coil you can build is .58333 ohms and, as a bonus, at that resistance discover you will be making 30.24 watts on the coil, decreasing as battery voltage falls with use.

Let me suggest you go to the calculator and play with it some. Specify any two values and read off the other two. But the key thing you need to remember is, in a mechanical the lower the coil value, the more stress you put on the battery; and, on a regulated mod, the higher you set the watts, regardless of coil value, the more stress you put on the battery. (Regulated mods can do that because they vary the applied voltage, a thing that can not be done with a mech mod.)

I have a very good understanding of ohm's law. I guess I misunderstood your initial post. You said how TALL you build a coil, and I assumed you meant the physical height of the coil. I think of ohms in terms of HIGH AND LOW. You think of ohms in terms of TALL AND LOW. Interesting--you ain't from Louisiana, are you?

 

[suprtrkr]

I have a very good understanding of ohm's law. I guess I misunderstood your initial post. You said how TALL you build a coil, and I assumed you meant the physical height of the coil. I think of ohms in terms of HIGH AND LOW. You think of ohms in terms of TALL AND LOW. Interesting--you ain't from Louisiana, are you?

Ach! OK, yes we have a semantics issue. Never mind. I meant high an low, then And no, I'm across the Sabine.

 

[fitzinthewindow]

Ach! OK, yes we have a semantics issue. Never mind. I meant high an low, then And no, I'm across the Sabine.

LOL. I guess we're just speaking a different language--actually, I did speak French before English when I was a toddler. Cajun culture, you know? Anyway...Geaux Tigers!

 

[suprtrkr]

LOL. I guess we're just speaking a different language--actually, I did speak French before English when I was a toddler. Cajun culture, you know? Anyway...Geaux Tigers!

Hook 'em