What just happened to my battery?!? please help

[tj99959]

yes i understand that i do need a multimeter. but BOTH batteries? within 10 minutes of each other? Quality brand name batteries? I really dont think it was the batteries. How can i tell if my mod is fine? More specifically the spring? would i be able to tell if it dropped? it looks the same... i think?

You could always try a few more batteries, and watch them go bad too. Of course the second battery did the same thing, you didn't resolve the problem that killed the first one!


If I had to guess without looking at any of your stuff I would say that the coil(s) in your iClear is/are pushed over to one side (not centered), and is intermittently shorting to the side of the metal center post. (this was a known problem with CE4's and Viva Novi's, which the iClear's are copies of)

 

[MorpheusPA]

yes i understand that i do need a multimeter. but BOTH batteries? within 10 minutes of each other? Quality brand name batteries? I really dont think it was the batteries. How can i tell if my mod is fine? More specifically the spring? would i be able to tell if it dropped? it looks the same... i think?

Easily. If there's a problem that destroyed one battery, it actually makes logical sense that it could destroy a second. Or four hundred in a row.

Until the short is fixed, it'll keep destroying batteries, even quality ones. Protective circuitry in Li-ion batteries isn't perfect and can be defeated, plus even extremely good Li-Mn batteries can be shorted out and destroyed.

All lithium batteries are capable of supplying huge amounts of energy very quickly, but that doesn't mean they're built to do so or intended to do so. A hard short can easily draw 50 amps.

The sign of a quality battery is that it fails gracefully in those conditions instead of venting flaming gas or overheating the metal to the point that it glows cherry red. Yours failed gracefully--be glad you bought good batteries that did that.

 

[bilboda]

I do not recommend the above for a couple of reasons.

Not all chargers can bring back over-discharged batteries. If the OP has one of the cheapo chargers it will not the intelligence circuitry to recognize an over-discharged battery and thereby use the special algorhythms needed to bring them back to life.

The batteries spoken about here may well be damaged beyond repair. The only way to possibly know is to measure the voltage with a digital multimeter. Even then, its still impossible to know if internal damage has rendered the batteries as useless and possibly dangerous to put into any charger.

Potentially damaged batteries should be visually monitored during the entire charging process in case there is an issue. There's a potential for a fire or an explosion.

The wiser decision may well be to dispose of the batteries and purchase new ones. Be aware though that until the short is found, the new batteries will likely suffer the same fate.

View attachment 288739

Well, that's what I did but you are right. A better way is to put it on a charger for several hour in a room you will be occupying for that time. I'm not sure if any fancy circuitry is an absolute requirement. The charger that brought the battery back to life was a cheapo that did not recognize and start charging the battery when I put it in. I forgot about it and later returned to a fully charged battery. ymmv

 

[Plumes.91]

Man, I feel bad for OP. Two batteries (pretty expensive batteries for my tastes, too) died in less than 10 minutes time... I agree with everyone telling you that you should either get a battery voltage tester, or at least a telescoping VV or VW mod that can test a wide variety of batteries. The mod will be able to test the bat voltage and OHMS!

Like I said, you can't vape a battery in a mech until it doesn't fire or barely hits. You HAVE to take the battery out when the vapor drops down or your going to get into trouble. I would not use that Iclear30 until you have knowledge of rebuilding. Right now, for all you know, you could just have a wire touching a tiny piece of metal that isn't grounded. Simple as that. You won't be able to fix it until you watch a half dozen videos on rebuilding atomizers & read up on the stickies in the rebuilders forum here on ecf.

I have brought over discharged batteries back to life by leaving them on my charger for a long time as well. I can't recommend this because I don't know how safe it is and I was apprehensive to continue using the batteries once they did charge up to 4.2 volts. I don't have a battery voltage tester, I just use my provari or my evic depending on the size. I think you'd benefit from a tester/APV & 10-20 minutes reading the battery safety sticky in the rebuilders/mech forum. My charger has saved 1 or 2 batteries that I accidentally (barely) over discharged in a mech mod... & my charger is a cheap-o $5 madvapes charger. But that doesn't mean it's safe. You can try this on a day that you will be home all day. I do recommend watching the battery on the charger just in case it decides to vent.

 

[tj99959]

It costs ~10 bucks to replace the battery, it costs 250,000 bucks to replace the house. IMO the best option is to replace the batteries and not chance life or limb.

 

[shinydiscoclub]

Well I learned my lesson. Got a decent multimeter and an ohm checker and 2 fresh sony 30amp batteries. It was firing great yesterday. I think i'm only going to use rebuildables with my mod to ensure everything myself is not shorted and working properly and maybe ill pick up a vamo or evic with circuit protection for any other atomizers I use. Thank you all a bunch

 

[shinydiscoclub]

Also, I just checked my failed batteries. one is reading 0 and the other one is reading a whopping 0.01 lol. Is there a proper way to dispose of these batteries?

 

[stylezuk]

Look for a battery recycle place local, also you could use a Kick or the likes to provide regulation, even cheaper a fuse the v2 doesn't need replacing every time.

 

[AttyPops]

Some best buys and other such stores have battery drop off boxes. They can be thrown in the trash too, of course. I've heard it's safe to dispose of them in municipal landfills. I try to remember to drop them in the recycle bin...but I secretly wonder if it does any good at all or if I'm just wasting more gas going out of my way.

 

[tj99959]

Some best buys and other such stores have battery drop off boxes. They can be thrown in the trash too, of course. I've heard it's safe to dispose of them in municipal landfills. I try to remember to drop them in the recycle bin...but I secretly wonder if it does any good at all or if I'm just wasting more gas going out of my way.

Oh take them to the recycle bin, that way some clown in China can put new wrappers on them (jk) but sometimes I wonder just how do they get "recycled".

 

[sawlight]

Any Radio Shack will take them as well.

 

[AttyPops]

Oh take them to the recycle bin, that way some clown in China can put new wrappers on them (jk) but sometimes I wonder just how do they get "recycled".

Yeah, "how" was my question too. But no matter, it's probably the safest way to dispose of the materials...although I understand it is still safe to toss em.

 

[MorpheusPA]

+Above. It's actually safe to throw out lithium and it's considered non-hazardous in landfills. Although fairly toxic in its metallic state, lithium bonds so easily to other elements that it turns to non-hazardous compounds.

However, because lithium is fairly rare and fairly expensive (and hence a fairly precious resource of limited availability), it's recommended that people recycle them for re-use.

(giggle) Supposedly, they extract the lithium and re-use it for new batteries or other purposes, but I like the image of slapping a new label on it.

 

[Firestorm]

You should let batteries rest for about 10 minutes after you take them off the charger. I don't even use my multimeter right off the charger, let alone throw it in a mod and fire up a sub-ohm coil.