Resting Batteries

[Claudia P]

I have been vaping over 2 years but have just purchased my first dual battery mod. I've spent much of the last two days reading the threads here and learning to understand "married" batteries and think I have a pretty good handle on how to do this safely.

I do have one question that I haven't seen an answer to, how long should you let the batteries rest after you remove them from the charger?

I have had the mod, a 200 W TC , since Thursday and waited until the new sets of batteries arrived today to take it out of the box, so as you can imagine I am more than ready to give it a try.

Oh one other question, how do the suggestions for battery safety relate to temperature control?

 

[Kemosabe]

ive heard varying reports on how long to rest batteries after charging. anywhere from 45mins to overnight. i tend to opt for a longer rest time, which is easy for me because since decommissioning the majority of my mechs, ive got handfuls of extra cells. what i do now is just keep them in an even rotation. once one of my box mods gets to 50% voltage remaining (which is the recommended re-charge voltage for lithium cells), i place them at the end of the rotation, uncharged. 50% is a healthy voltage to store batteries too (40% is the long-term storage recommendation, so i feel comfortable letting my stay at 50% for the day or two they might be waiting. Plus, 50% on my Sigelei is actually more like 40% of the total battery voltage anyway. but i digress)

once a second set of batteries becomes depleted to a 50% reading, i insert a 3rd set of batteries and charge the 1st set. once set 3 is depleted, i charge set 2, and so on. i keep all three sets married and numbered, reversing bay 1 with bay 2 after removing the cells from my box. so im not only rotating my sets, im also rotating the pairs within that set, which is recommended for stacked/series battery applications. and having extra pairs of cells helps to allow a freshly charged pair to rest for a significant amount of time. but ive decided to stick with no more than 3 sets. any less and id be charging all the time. and with any more sets, id have batts resting fully charged for several days to over a week, and leaving fully charged batts around for too long is also not good. im sure a week or two is fine, but id prefer not to make a practice of it.

 

[Claudia P]

Thank you for the reply.

For now I only have 2 sets of married batteries but from your post I see that I will have to get one more set ASAP. I have quite a few good batteries that I use in my single 18650 regulated mods and my REO. Like you I have retired all of my mech mods except for the REOs, and I have with this purchase retired all of the mods that do not have replaceable batteries.

I did know about rotating sets, I do that already with the singles, and I knew about rotating the individuals in the married pairs and they are all already labeled.

ive heard varying reports on how long to rest batteries after charging. anywhere from 45mins to overnight. i tend to opt for a longer rest time, which is easy for me because since decommissioning the majority of my mechs, ive got handfuls of extra cells. what i do now is just keep them in an even rotation. once one of my box mods gets to 50% voltage remaining (which is the recommended re-charge voltage for lithium cells), i place them at the end of the rotation, uncharged. 50% is a healthy voltage to store batteries too (40% is the long-term storage recommendation, so i feel comfortable letting my stay at 50% for the day or two they might be waiting. Plus, 50% on my Sigelei is actually more like 40% of the total battery voltage anyway. but i digress)

once a second set of batteries becomes depleted to a 50% reading, i insert a 3rd set of batteries and charge the 1st set. once set 3 is depleted, i charge set 2, and so on. i keep all three sets married and numbered, reversing bay 1 with bay 2 after removing the cells from my box. so im not only rotating my sets, im also rotating the pairs within that set, which is recommended for stacked/series battery applications. and having extra pairs of cells helps to allow a freshly charged pair to rest for a significant amount of time. but ive decided to stick with no more than 3 sets. any less and id be charging all the time. and with any more sets, id have batts resting fully charged for several days to over a week, and leaving fully charged batts around for too long is also not good. im sure a week or two is fine, but id prefer not to make a practice of it.

 

[Kemosabe]

Thank you for the reply.

For now I only have 2 sets of married batteries but from your post I see that I will have to get one more set ASAP. I have quite a few good batteries that I use in my single 18650 regulated mods and my REO. Like you I have retired all of my mech mods except for the REOs, and I have with this purchase retired all of the mods that do not have replaceable batteries.

I did know about rotating sets, I do that already with the singles, and I knew about rotating the individuals in the married pairs and they are all already labeled.

glad to hear it. sounds like you are well on your way. you may not need 3 sets like i do. depends on your vape style. but if you vape like i do, 3 sets is ideal. RTD is my go-to trusted battery supplier. plus they have good prices and free shipping as a bonus.

 

[Ryedan]

I do have one question that I haven't seen an answer to, how long should you let the batteries rest after you remove them from the charger?

I have had the mod, a 200 W TC , since Thursday and waited until the new sets of batteries arrived today to take it out of the box, so as you can imagine I am more than ready to give it a try.

Oh one other question, how do the suggestions for battery safety relate to temperature control?

I also charge batteries before I'll need them, but if I forget and do a 1 amp charge I only feel the need to let them cool down before using them, say 10-15 minutes. If I let them charge all the way they will not be warm and I use them immediately. I've never had a problem doing this with either my model airplane Lipos or my vape batteries.

I try not to leave them fully charged for longer than a few hours before using them or under about 3V for too long. That's not for safety, I feel they last longer this way. OTOH, if I charge one and it does sit for a few days I don't sweat it

For your last question about TC, that has the same battery consideration as with any VW mod. Don't draw more current than the battery is rated for. Resistance is irrelevant with VW, watts set is all that matters. A good rule of thumb is you can get around 50 watts from a 20 amp battery and around 75A from a 30A batt. Lipos are different, they can tolerate much higher current if the correct ones are used.

 

[Baditude]

Our forum administrator, Rolygate, is also a battery expert. He had this to say about resting batteries:

"Rest batteries after charging
One commonly-reported factor in almost all the incidents we hear of where batteries failed violently while in use is that they were taken directly off the charger and then used immediately, at which point they failed.

Because of this, we think it may be a good idea to rest batteries after charging them. This advice will not be found in the usual 'reference bibles' on batteries, but we see more and different reports than others. Therefore we now advise:

Do not use batteries directly after charging them. Use a battery or batteries you previously charged, and that have rested for several hours. This is especially important if using a stacked pair for higher voltage, as statistically the risk is far higher."
---https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/threads/warning-rechargeable-batteries-for-apvs.129007/​

 

[Highwayman1224]

I pull them out of the charger and put em in my mods & vape them. Never heard of letting them rest & never had a problem with the longevity of my batteries.

 

[Kemosabe]

well, now you can say you've heard of it.