Vented my first battery today

[BlkWolfMidnight]

And, then this happened...would be the story you'd try to sell to the fire inspector.

To the OP,
Props to you for having the gulls to post this, I'm sorry that more productive preventitve measures weren't offered as the replies as it would have helped a lot of folks try to catch the errors before they happen. Newbies don't know to look for tears in the wrapping, tears in the bottom cover and general battery safety or make up isn't highly discussed. Also I was hoping to have someone explain how to re-wrap a battery would be nice. I would say for you to have a battery bag would have been a good thing to have laying around, they are designed to contain the acid and toxic chemicals that are released (also the heat as well).
On to the ohm meter, seriously, ok...Yes I'll give you that some models are not as accurate as others, and the price you pay does reflect quality however these meters are used to test way more sensitive equipment then us as vapers will ever use. Even if it tells you nothing more then the MOD isn't dead shorted then this is what you would want to know at the minimum. Vape safe and vape happy, ensure that your equipment is up to working standards and you should be fine.

Everyone Else
Professional Vapors, really since when is this a profession and why wasn't I notified of it. At the most this is a hobby and that's stretching the truth a lot. The hard truth about all is its a device that delivers nic to help you get off the Analog Cigs, that's pretty much it. To classify something is to apply a label which then the FDA can slap more restrictions on.

No oHm Meter, seriously you think because you check twice that everything will be just fine, shorts happen and it does not have to be your coils, it can be internal parts or the insulator melted because of the sub ohming, it could a piece of wire bridged the positive and negative pin. To ignore the facts that this can happen is just insane and very unsafe, as I've mentioned in previous articles that we are the stewards of this community and we will be weighed, tried and judged by the FDA by our actions, all of our actions. Please don't let these be stories of unsafe practices and laziness as it will just compound the issues.

I can agree that OP didn't take safety in to account here, that the battery should be replaced sooner but in reality how many of you'll have tucked a battery in your pocket and ran with it, or didn't replace the wrapping on that old reliable cell that you've got. It would be a lot better for the new folks to have solutions then anything else as they will learn from our mistakes. Safety should be first and foremost before you even think about making that circuit, as mentioned before that 99% of issues can be prevented or eliminated with just a few min of work. Please invest in a battery box if you haven't already, this is some advice I've learned the hard way myself.

For those who are really not caring about safety and taking it as nothing important you've seen the damage that this can do, its not kept in secret or classified and understand that the media and various other opposing organizations are looking for this information. One incident can impact the whole community and if that is your intent then I'm sorry that it is. Be villigant in your checks and take safety as a serious matter because it is, I can't stress this enough.

Sub Ohm'ing is dangerous, there is no way to word it otherwise. Its not about venting of batteries but the lack of understanding the internal workings of MOD's in general and how resistors work (your coil is a resistor without the ceramic heat dissipater). Its not something "Cool" or "Awesome" to vent batteries and build dangerous mods, your not proving anything by risking your life building super low ohms. No one other then those who are part of the Sub Ohm clique really care that your running a .xx mod in truth. I don't know where the glamor in the sub ohm culture came from but eventually its going to get people hurt, this is something that I don't advocate at all so I personally can not support it. Now, the retract of the statement is if your doing it for a reason, a real honest reason then I can see it. I run .5 ohm, but this is due to the Sigelei box mod can achieve direct drive voltage at 100 watts using a .5 ohm coil which makes sense to want to do that. Valid reasons like that I can see being alright to build low but to do it just because you can is no reason to do it, also I check with an ohm meter, then recheck with another just to verify that the coil is not "Drifting" or "Shorting" before even firing the mod, again safety first above anything.

 

[relapse]

I'll jump your case for a different reason. Did you know that you can put a new wrapper on a battery when that is all that is wrong with it? Why didn't you do that?!?

I've no excuse for that one, just never got around to ordering any.

Now for the rest of the questions....
I know the battery was good and holding full charge, even without a meter, because I've got a nifty lil charger that reads the voltage of the battery. Technology, pretty neat.
I don't have an ohm meter because I'm comfortable with my builds. In the beginning I would check them on my neighbors meter, now I don't bother as I use the same build consistently.
And I titled it "vented my first battery" because when I first started reading on here last year, it was made to seem like these batteries are ticking time bombs and have to be handled with extreme caution. In reality, they are actually pretty safe when used on a realistic build. There is alot of fear mongering and bashing here when someone doesn't conform to other's expectations. I understand that some people buy meters and gadgets, check and double check, wear hazmat suits when dealing with nicotine base, etc; but that is not for everyone. This is one of the safest hobbies I have, ain't nobody got time for that

Thanks for letting me share.

 

[drunkenbatman]

I agree with OP. It is not something that happens often. If 1% of the 18mm cells that are on the market failed by venting or by catastrophic failure we would hear it every day without fail. And very rarely do any cells have a catastrophic failure resulting in bodily harm or destruction of personal property.

Two quick notes:

1. Something being catastrophic by it's nature is rare, and that rareness can often lead to a sense of false confidence... which increases the chances of something avoidable happening.

2. I'm not convinced we hear about a lot of close calls, because; people with their mech mod from the B&M aren't always on forums, they don't think anyone would care, or they don't want to admit to doing something stupid or open themselves up for ridicule. That's why I sincerely give the OP props for his post.

I think it's a given that this was avoidable if he had a different mindset towards his batteries, so I don't quite get further encouraging what led to the situation in him or others.

 

[TorontoOntario]

Spencer, it seems you've become quite the expert in the last few months. It seems like only yesterday we had to read countless threads by you wondering what to upgrade your ego battery with. Now you're an expert builder who never goes above .2? So good you don't even need a meter. Hats off to you. Here's the thing, there would be a lot more venting threads if we didn't preach safe building practices. There would be many more incidents if we didn't stress the importance of using good batteries or ohm meters. Not everyone is as gifted as you to be able to see through a steel topcap to identify a stray leg. Congrats on your rapid progression to the top of the heap though.

I like this, a lot. Personally, I dont claim to be the smartest/greatest vapor out there however I am proud of myself for spending literally hours upon hours reading (and that was just on batteries) before I went the sub-ohm building route. Personally, I dont care if your device has an ohm-meter because I know for a fact my DNA40 from VS is off a tincy bit sometimes as are most of my devices. Again, it isnt fear mongering, if your playing with big boy wattage and sub-ohm builds you need to have the utmost respect for the WORSE CASE scenario. You cant go around hoping for the best case, no, you need to be prepared for the worst. I usually go as far as to say this is all my opinion due to the fact that I have only been vapeing three years and there is much more experinced people on here (I aint no newb though) but here I am not stateing this as opinion. These are facts. I mean come on man, even on my RTAs that I use 1.0-1.4 builds in I check em, and re check em EVERY MORNING. I only use VTC4 batteries (I couldnt find VTC5s but there the same just bigger mah) and I have re wrapped em before (10/16) cause of pin ..... nicks. You should really employ safer practices, go back to an Ego or Vamo or simply dont post this kind of crap cause I for one dont want someone to get the wrong idea, theres already enough people building who havent even taken the time to read stuff. Its sickening to me, come on man educate yourself. Sorry Spence, dont care about your post count or anything else, to me your being stupid and careless. flame me if you want, id rather be hated and have some newb read this and think twice then be loved and be careless.

 

[Gummy Bare]

I didn't read the whole thread, but in general we as vapers need to take battery safety seriously. If we don't, we just add full to the fire of the FDA and media coming down on us.

There's three things vapers should own, but most don't even own one of them.

1) a lipo-bag. This is a fire proof bag with a strong velcro section at the top to seal it shut. When you charge your batteries, you slide the whole charger into the bad and seal it. If any batteries vent, you'll be safe and no harm will come to anything around it. They can be found on some vape sites and also hobby stores. RC car people have been using them forever since their batteries are even more dangerous than ours (there's are chromium based, which is like a Volcano exploding compared to our magnesium ones).

2) battery cases. There small, cheap, and come in many colors. Get yourself some red ones and some green ones. When your on the go, they can be thrown into your backpack, car, luggage, whatever. They insure the batteries don't come into contact with anything, metal or otherwise. I've even heard of some waterproof ones. Keep the charged ones in the green case, and the drained/dead ones in the red case.

3) battery rewrapes. These are basically heat shrink tubes that are the perfect size for 18xxx batteries. The most common ones are 18650's, but I've also seen a roll of it that you can cut to whatever length you want. The wraps on batteries can get chewed up, crack, start to peel, and bow out word on the ends after heavy use. This can be very dangerous as you can see from the OP's story. If you don't have rewraps, but have a sketchy battery.... Throw the thing out, or just stop using it until you can get some wraps for it.




If you don't have any of the three things listed, you need to check yourself and drop a little cash into some safety tools. I picked these things up very early on in my vape carrier... I have a house full of pets, a lovely fiance, and I'm the bread winner of the house. I can afford anything to go wrong with them or me. Notice how most of the vape gear we purchase says "for advanced users only"? Safety is a major part of being an advanced user.

 

[TorontoOntario]

Ahh yea buddy. I couldnt belive my brother didnt have a battery bag.

 

[drunkenbatman]

1) a lipo-bag. This is a fire proof bag with a strong velcro section at the top to seal it shut. When you charge your batteries, you slide the whole charger into the bad and seal it. If any batteries vent, you'll be safe and no harm will come to anything around it. They can be found on some vape sites and also hobby stores.

I'll admit I've never picked up one of these, as I figured:

1. $10-14 for a bag? I'll just charge it on the brick.

2. If it's sealed, what happens to the heat from the charger? Batteries don't like heat.

#2 is the one that's always stuck in my head honestly, but I'm thinking I should look into it more. If someone could educate me more on it I'd appreciate it.

 

[Gummy Bare]

I'll admit I've never picked up one of these, as I figured:

1. $10-14 for a bag? I'll just charge it on the brick.

2. If it's sealed, what happens to the heat from the charger? Batteries don't like heat.

#2 is the one that's always stuck in my head honestly, but I'm thinking I should look into it more. If someone could educate me more on it I'd appreciate it.

I most likely will never have "needed" the lipo bag, just like I most likely will never need the air bags in my car.... But it's so damn cheap and easy, why not you know.

Charging on a brick is definitely better than on the carpet. But if something goes really wrong with a battery, that thing ain't gonna stay on the charger always. It's gonna take flight and end up on nearby carpet or something else. It also helps if the charger itself catches on fire or start arcing. Arcing will go beyond the safety of a brick.

The bag is sealed, but not air tight sealed. If you have a good charger, then it shouldn't heat up. The bags not making anything hotter, it actually dissipates heat I believe (could be wrong on that). But in the end, if you have a charger that running unsafely hot or making your charging batteries really hot.... Then you need a new charger. A quality charger is also a must in our game. I don't use the lipobag every single time I'm charging batteries. If I'm sitting in my vape cave, I'll usually just charge without it wile my charger is on cinder blocks and wood. But if I'm not in the room, I'll use the lipo-bag. When I walk the dog, go to bed, watch TV in the other room, etc. It's a real good peace of mind knowing your charging batteries are safe.

:: sent from android with tapatalk ::

 

[drunkenbatman]

The bag is sealed, but not air tight sealed. If you have a good charger, then it shouldn't heat up. The bags not making anything hotter, it actually dissipates heat I believe (could be wrong on that). But in the end, if you have a charger that running unsafely hot or making your charging batteries really hot.... Then you need a new charger. A quality charger is also a must in our game.

Well, it's a Nitecore i4, and the transformer is built into the unit as opposed to having it as an external brick, so it'll generate heat. I don't think it's considered to be a bad charger, just maybe not designed to be used inside a bag -- but we're past the limits of what I know, so I'm asking.

 

[LeftofCenter]

I consider myself a new "kid" to the world of vaping as it has changed so much in the time I have been away. There weren't all these mods and such my last go round.

Thanks for the reminder that I need to be more vigilant on the safety front. I am usually quite good about things like that, but I have been remiss in my battery safety.

<goes to check where I stashed my battery>

 

[BlkWolfMidnight]

I'll admit I've never picked up one of these, as I figured:

1. $10-14 for a bag? I'll just charge it on the brick.

2. If it's sealed, what happens to the heat from the charger? Batteries don't like heat.

#2 is the one that's always stuck in my head honestly, but I'm thinking I should look into it more. If someone could educate me more on it I'd appreciate it.

The battery bag itself is not sealed from heat build-up (unless sealed shut), and worse case is you can leave the front cracked open a bit to allow air flow. Most chargers will not heat up enough to cause any issues, if they do then you've an issue with the charger itself. I myself don't use a bag sealed but more like a wrapper for the charger, the front is open for the charger to breath if needed.

The brick may be fireproof but your house isn't, and the gasses that vent from any battery contain high amounts of PCB's which are toxic and carcinogenic by nature so still not a good thing to have in your house. I try not to charge batteries when I'm not home anyways though a pain but multiple sets take care of the inconvenience of not be able to charge them when I'm not home. I also carry a 2 banker to work that I can plug in with battery bag, this works out wonderfully well as I'm at work anyways for 8 hours a day so might as well make use of it.

Just some thoughts on this one

 

[Ryedan]

Hmm how do I know if a cap is touching... I look. Carefully. how about a leg, well, I fire a few times.

And while building, I have shorted coils...Once built on my mod.... and forgot to lock it.

Anyways... I use my ohm meter.

But I dont think that having an ohm meter is the most important thing in the world. Good to have one... but if you dont, its not the end of the world.

Good to hear that you have and use an ohm meter Spencer. I agree it's not the end of the world to not have one, but for people who use mech mods it's the best way I know of to actually check and make sure that what looks like it's a good build, is a good build.

To be honest, there is a lot of fear mongering on this site, and its a little depressing.

I agree there are people who exaggerate the risks associated with our Li-ion batteries. Having said that, every once in a while one does explode when it vents. When that happens it can be quite dangerous, so though it doesn't happen often it is a serious problem when it does. Now, if it took a lot of money and a year of study to lower that risk, then it might not be worth it for most people to take precautions.

The thing is it's really easy and cheap to take reasonable precautions. Know how many amps your build will draw. Know what batteries are needed. Buy them from known good suppliers that won't sell counterfeits. Use a $10 meter to make sure you have a clean circuit. It's more important for mech mods, but these are very good practices for regulated mods as well, specially getting good batteries.

I try not to exaggerate things, but telling people that Li-ion batteries will not blow up when they are abused is not accurate. What is left is that they don't do it often, but it can be bad when they do and here are the best practices we know of to minimize the risks.

 

[Ryedan]

The bag is sealed, but not air tight sealed. If you have a good charger, then it shouldn't heat up. The bags not making anything hotter, it actually dissipates heat I believe (could be wrong on that). But in the end, if you have a charger that running unsafely hot or making your charging batteries really hot.... Then you need a new charger. A quality charger is also a must in our game. I don't use the lipobag every single time I'm charging batteries. If I'm sitting in my vape cave, I'll usually just charge without it wile my charger is on cinder blocks and wood. But if I'm not in the room, I'll use the lipo-bag. When I walk the dog, go to bed, watch TV in the other room, etc. It's a real good peace of mind knowing your charging batteries are safe.

I fly RC planes and have a LiPo bag for those battery packs. I use it when I charge them in the garage. As you know, it's just the battery pack that goes in the bag, the charger stays outside.

I have tried using it with my Xtar XP2 charger which I have in a Pyrex container. At 0.5 amps it doesn't make much heat, but at 1A it warms up a bit which is normal for this charger. The bag does not ventilate, so it doesn't disperse heat. It's not too bad, but not ideal.

What I really didn't like with that experience was that I couldn't see the charger. I'm in the same room when I charge batteries and I can see the lights. If I leave for any length of time I unplug the charger on my way out and plug it back in when I get back. I take the batteries out quite soon after they're finished charging. I find this works well for me, but YMMV as always

 

[tj99959]

I take a simple approach to all of this; why take a chance when there is no need to?
Why would I use LIPO cells when I can use IMR batteries?
Why would I charge batteries when I'm not home when I can charge them when I am?
Why would I not use an ohm reader when they're so cheap to have?
AND, why would I use a battery with a torn wrapper when new wrappers only cost pennies.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/tutorials/485582-tutorial-re-wrapping-battery.html

Wonders never cease: the information that can be found on ecf.

 

[ian-field]

I don't mind that inevitable backlash, to each their own. To be honest, the battery was still holding a full charge and did not "need" to be replaced, so just out of sheer laziness and frugality. I've researched battery failures enough to feel comfortable with the blown out of proportion risks associated with them.

Indeed - in total defiance of popular exaggeration, it failed to level half the town.

 

[Spencer87]

I agree there are people who exaggerate the risks associated with our Li-ion batteries. Having said that, every once in a while one does explode when it vents. When that happens it can be quite dangerous, so though it doesn't happen often it is a serious problem when it does. Now, if it took a lot of money and a year of study to lower that risk, then it might not be worth it for most people to take precautions. .

I dont use Li-Ion. So theres that.

Spencer, it seems you've become quite the expert in the last few months. It seems like only yesterday we had to read countless threads by you wondering what to upgrade your ego battery with. Now you're an expert builder who never goes above .2? So good you don't even need a meter. Hats off to you. Here's the thing, there would be a lot more venting threads if we didn't preach safe building practices. There would be many more incidents if we didn't stress the importance of using good batteries or ohm meters. Not everyone is as gifted as you to be able to see through a steel topcap to identify a stray leg. Congrats on your rapid progression to the top of the heap though.

Thanks, Yes, I have become quite the expert. Mind, I have never had an Ego battery, So there is that, But yea, I did read alot. I did study alot. Personally, I use all safety measures that I can. But thats just me. I usually even check all my batteries with a multimeter.... before and after every charge.... but again, its not a big deal... its good to have one... but i wouldnt keep striking the fear of God in to these people.

 

[tj99959]

I dont use Li-Ion. So theres that.



Thanks, Yes, I have become quite the expert. Mind, I have never had an Ego battery, So there is that, But yea, I did read alot. I did study alot. Personally, I use all safety measures that I can. But thats just me. I usually even check all my batteries with a multimeter.... before and after every charge.... but again, its not a big deal... its good to have one... but i wouldnt keep striking the fear of God in to these people.

It's not about the fear of God, it's just using ones head for more than a hat rack.

 

[TheJakeBailey]

So here's the thing, as I see it. All of the battery hoopla is probably a BIT overblown, and I myself don't practice the BEST battery safety. I admit that I could, and should, be more careful in a few areas. But there is a difference between being at the very safest end of the scale, and just being willfully and arrogantly stupid about it. It doesn't take a lot to hit the middle ground between those, and that's probably where the vast majority of us sit. It's just that the ultra safe and the ultra stupid have louder mouths about both. If you have the knowledge, and you willfully disregard even the most basic safety practices, you are playing roulette. Maybe today isn't your day, maybe tomorrow isn't either, but...

 

[WillyZee]

I would like to comment on the OP opinion about battery safety being overkill and fear mongering.

If the battery had vented in your hand and you were rushed to the ER with severe battery burns.

Nobody would hear about it ... they would patch you up and send you home ... no different than if you chopped your foot off cutting your lawn.

You venting your first battery because you were careless, and even if you hurt yourself ... it's not news that people care about or would even report about.


Sent via iPhone

 

[JulesXsmokr]

Here is a charger I believe every vaper should own.. Read the specs on this device. This charger could have probably kept this battery from venting..
http://www.xtarlight.com/05-chanpin/p-001-1.asp?styleid=233
A good charger goes hand in hand with good IMR batteries..