What devices/items needed to keep track of batteries/safety/life

[alicewonderland]

So I am about to start my mech journey and know ohms law, pairing batteries with resistances, learned about insulators and understand what the dangers are of doing it wrong such as shorts and battery venting etc. I have ordered a nitecore d2 charger: http://www.nitecore.com/productDetail.aspx?id=115 and plan to use my vaporshark rDNA40 as a 'resistance checker' as it has built in digital display and short circuit protection.

Right now I only have 2 18650 batteries, they are the LG18650HE2's, and I've been using them for about 3 months on a daily basis with 1-2 charge cycles per day. Seems like one of them is dying out already and won't hold a charge. My question is, how do you tell if its unprotected/protected? It seems it wont hold a charge as long as before anymore, and I've heard that if you discharge an unprotected battery too low you basically ruin it and it basically becomes unusable (maybe this is what happened?), also how does one prevent something like this from happening? Or maybe my batteries are just coming to the end of the road and I need some new ones,

I plan on ordering some new ones soon anyways, but I was just wondering about this because I never see it mentioned or talked about much anywhere. You basically can ruin an unprotected battery by discharging it too much and render it useless. Are there dangers with trying to (accidentally) use a 'ruined' battery that has been discharged too much? Also is there a difference between protected and unprotected performance-wise? I dont see many batteries listed under these categories 'protected/unprotected' battery,.

 

[edyle]

when i get a new pair of batteries by mark the date on them (year and month - like: "201505")

 

[Froth]

The LG HE2 is an unprotected IMR battery, which uses a Lithium-Manganese for the chemistry. For a mechanical device it would be highly recommended to ONLY use unprotected IMR batteries, this is because they contain a safer less volatile chemistry, this does not require a protection circuit board and thus there is not one located on the battery. Most all protected batteries are ICR chemistry, which is Lithium-Ion and can vent/explode very violently which is why the protection is put in place.

Over-discharging any battery can be bad for it, however it depends on the chemistry and the level of discharge it reached to determine just how bad it is for the battery. How I personally keep from over-discharging batteries is to take note of the vape quality diminishing, which usually happens around a resting voltage of 3.4-3.6V for me, the vape quality will seriously diminish after the voltage of the battery drops lower and it would be hard to not notice. For the first few weeks I used a mech mod I used to check battery voltage every time I removed them to get accustomed to what a certain voltage level felt like while vaping on it.

The LG HE2 is a fine choice for an entry into Mechanical mods, another highly recommended battery is the Samsung 25R, both of these have a 20A CDR(constant drain rating). Honestly with your LG HE2 that is dying it is possible that over-discharging it has helped it die early, one of the only batteries I have ever had personally stop holding a charge was also an LG HE2. That being said, 100% of my vaping is done with mechanical mods and my battery of choice is the Samsung 25R.

How I keep track of my batteries is pretty basic, I keep track of the date I get them and I've averaged out how many times per day I charge the batteries I carry with me, which is generally four per day on any given day. I've got over a dozen batteries in my total rotation and every year I buy four new batteries and replace my four oldest batteries with the new ones, regardless of performance or number of charge cycles.

Edit: To directly answer the question in the title, A simple DMM(volt meter/multi-meter), a Sharpie to write the date/year on the battery and a quality battery case to keep them in is what is needed to safely track battery use on the most simple of level. You could go so far as to number the battery and put a check mark on a piece of paper next to the charger to track actual charge cycles, some do go this far in tracking battery usage.

Double Edit: In the interest of maintaining battery safety over time, with mechanical mods it is entirely possible and fairly easy to put nicks/scratches in the outside coating of the battery wrapper. This can be dangerous if left unchecked but luckily there are replacement wrappers available cheaply that can be relatively easily installed if such a situation were to arise that required a new wrapper. Having some of these on hand is really a life saver at times! - http://www.illumn.com/batteries-cha...-battery-pvc-wrap-blue-pre-cut-10-pieces.html

 

[alicewonderland]

The LG HE2 is an unprotected IMR battery, which uses a Lithium-Manganese for the chemistry. For a mechanical device it would be highly recommended to ONLY use unprotected IMR batteries, this is because they contain a safer less volatile chemistry, this does not require a protection circuit board and thus there is not one located on the battery. Most all protected batteries are ICR chemistry, which is Lithium-Ion and can vent/explode very violently which is why the protection is put in place.

Over-discharging any battery can be bad for it, however it depends on the chemistry and the level of discharge it reached to determine just how bad it is for the battery. How I personally keep from over-discharging batteries is to take note of the vape quality diminishing, which usually happens around a resting voltage of 3.4-3.6V for me, the vape quality will seriously diminish after the voltage of the battery drops lower and it would be hard to not notice. For the first few weeks I used a mech mod I used to check battery voltage every time I removed them to get accustomed to what a certain voltage level felt like while vaping on it.

The LG HE2 is a fine choice for an entry into Mechanical mods, another highly recommended battery is the Samsung 25R, both of these have a 20A CDR(constant drain rating). Honestly with your LG HE2 that is dying it is possible that over-discharging it has helped it die early, one of the only batteries I have ever had personally stop holding a charge was also an LG HE2. That being said, 100% of my vaping is done with mechanical mods and my battery of choice is the Samsung 25R.

How I keep track of my batteries is pretty basic, I keep track of the date I get them and I've averaged out how many times per day I charge the batteries I carry with me, which is generally four per day on any given day. I've got over a dozen batteries in my total rotation and every year I buy four new batteries and replace my four oldest batteries with the new ones, regardless of performance or number of charge cycles.

Edit: To directly answer the question in the title, A simple DMM(volt meter/multi-meter), a Sharpie to write the date/year on the battery and a quality battery case to keep them in is what is needed to safely track battery use on the most simple of level. You could go so far as to number the battery and put a check mark on a piece of paper next to the charger to track actual charge cycles, some do go this far in tracking battery usage.

Double Edit: In the interest of maintaining battery safety over time, with mechanical mods it is entirely possible and fairly easy to put nicks/scratches in the outside coating of the battery wrapper. This can be dangerous if left unchecked but luckily there are replacement wrappers available cheaply that can be relatively easily installed if such a situation were to arise that required a new wrapper. Having some of these on hand is really a life saver at times! - 18650 Battery PVC Wrap Blue (Pre-cut, 10 Pieces) - Battery Carriers - Batteries, Chargers, and PowerPax Carriers

nice good information, thanks for taking the time.

coming from your experience it seems I might need to add some more 18650s to my rotation. Also I did not think of labeling my batteries I will start doing that, and order some extra battery wrappers, I was thinking about ordering some but was waiting until I put in my next order of ecig related stuff.