Thermal Runaway

[Aaron Kappesser]

Any idea why this would happen on a 1 day old T-Priv? My friends son was using and it blew up in his face. Bad wrap?

 

[classwife]

Moved this from Ask The Veterans to batteries and Chargers.
There are so many variables as to why the battery went that you will need to participate in the thread and you can't do that there.
Like - what batteries were used, then what atty and what build was used (was it within the limits of the batteries ?) Was a battery wrapper compromised ? Had one been dropped ? Had the mod been dropped ?
I hope your friend's son is ok !!

 

[Mooch]

A damaged wrap and/or damaged top insulator ring are the typical causes. We need a LOT more info though about the exact sequence of steps, including details about the timing of each step, before we can guess at the cause.

Any injuries? I'm hoping not.

 

[zoiDman]

Any idea why this would happen on a 1 day old T-Priv? My friends son was using and it blew up in his face. Bad wrap?

The Very 1st Question I would ask is what type of Batteries were being used? And where were the Batteries purchased?

And I Hope you Friend's Son is OK.

 

[DaveP]

Something caused a short or the battery wasn't up to the wattage setting. As Zoidman said, it would be nice to know the specs on the battery. Since it blew up it would be hard to determine if there was a burnt spot on a contact, but what you showed in the pic makes me think catastrophic failure due to a direct short.

Maybe it was inadvertently turned up to its full 220W power setting for some reason and the battery couldn't handle the load. My Smok Alien 220W has turned itself up to a higher wattage a couple of times in my pocket. With Samsung 30Q's inside it just gave me a bad tasting hit without burning the cotton.

 

[90VG]

My Smok Alien goes to 220 or 6 watts when in the cup holder of truck. I learned to look before I vape... @DaveP

As far as OP goes, the only time I've had issues with batteries going thermal run away is a dead short, and that's usually a bad wrap. (No pun intended.)

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

I hope the kid's ok. That had to have been scary.

A dead short in the atomizer can probably be ruled out--even if not new, the mod should have detected the short circuit and refused to fire.

My first suspects would be an improperly spec'ed battery (not enough oomph to support the demanded power) or a damaged battery.

My inclination is towards the first. The debris doesn't look like the result of the graceful venting we would expect from INR chemistry.

 

[Derek Cross]

The only time I ever had an issue with a cell was when I didnt purchase it myself from one of the trusted sites for authentic batteries (IMR, liion wholesale, rtd vapor, illumn, nKon,) and it was scary. I bought an Istick Pico used and the battery inside was said to be new. It said Imren 40 amp, lol. Well you cant buy an 18650 with an amp rating greater than 30 amp but I didnt know that at the time. I threw it on a mech and the dual 22g build caused it to get extremely hot. My other LG cells didn't even get luke warm so I knew something was wrong. I tosed the mod, battery, atomizer and all, inside a small bucket of sand I keep on hand(I know, maybe overkill - but i dont take chances) and about 30 mins later I checked everything out. The battery(which I later found out to be a rewrap of a Panasonic cell) had started venting. When I stopped pressing the button it apparently stopped the venting process, so I was lucky. At the time I had only "heard" the stories of venting batteries and "thermal runway" and never experienced it before. The fact someone would put 40 amp on a max continuous rated cell of 5 to 10 amps(cant remember for certain) should be considered a crime in my opinion.

Nowadays I only use cells that Ive purchased myself, and I cycle through my "mech only" cells and toss them every 3 months. They get pushed the hardest and they are super cheap for what they give us so I feel much safer doing this.

I do hope that no one was hurt in that explosion. It looks pretty bad. I hope that those batteries weren't rewrap cells like the one I had experience with. If so the people selling them deserve to be arrested and pay for any and all damages.