E-cig explosions. Bad luck or Carelessness?

[crxess]

Knowing and following safety guidelines is the ticket.

And I am really tired of people saying not to charge on laptops. Yes early laptops were less than reliable. That pretty much ended several years ago. All 5 of my Dell Laptops put out a clean stable 5v. on the USB Ports. That little Wall Wart is just a step down to give you 5v. from a 110v wall socket.
Oh, and several have launched from wall chargers.

A car charger is another story all together. Cars electrical systems are not constant and can vary by several volts.

 

[rhelton]

Is there any video's of any mod blowing up? Ive only ever seen a couple posts about one happening, everyone talks like it happens in America every 3.5 minutes. Even the big stink at the vapefest cloud competition that PB talked about, they never found the mod, or the guy, and never found out what really happened. Ive seen so many posts about a 1.5 build with a modified switch blah blah blah.

I dont think its as dangerous as everyone say's. I dont push the limits to find out. I have seen one battery vent and it wasnt mine. Bad center post on a RSBT cause a venting in a MVZ. Got really hot but no bang. In fact the same shop had two other incidents with the same style atty they got a bad batch or something.

So whats the truth about it, the real truth

 

[Rickajho]

Knowing and following safety guidelines is the ticket.

And I am really tired of people saying not to charge on laptops. Yes early laptops were less than reliable. That pretty much ended several years ago. All 5 of my Dell Laptops put out a clean stable 5v. on the USB Ports. That little Wall Wart is just a step down to give you 5v. from a 110v wall socket.
Oh, and several have launched from wall chargers.

A car charger is another story all together. Cars electrical systems are not constant and can vary by several volts.

You can do whatever you want. I didn't buy a $799.00 battery charger with a free bonus computer thing thrown in. The only PV I have that ever needs to be connected to a computer for a computer type reason is my eVic. And it only gets connected when there is a computer based reason to do so.

For the cost of a $1.99 1 amp USB wall wart, why risk it?

If you put an in-line meter on one of those USB ports and hook an e-cig anything up to it you might be surprised at what kind of voltage and current e-cig gear can pull off a USB port. It won't be a "rock steady" anything and not necessarily 5.0 volts. Hope your computer gear has a decent level of tolerance built into it.

 

[crxess]

Is there any video's of any mod blowing up? Ive only ever seen a couple posts about one happening, everyone talks like it happens in America every 3.5 minutes. Even the big stink at the vapefest cloud competition that PB talked about, they never found the mod, or the guy, and never found out what really happened. Ive seen so many posts about a 1.5 build with a modified switch blah blah blah.

I dont think its as dangerous as everyone say's. I dont push the limits to find out. I have seen one battery vent and it wasnt mine. Bad center post on a RSBT cause a venting in a MVZ. Got really hot but no bang. In fact the same shop had two other incidents with the same style atty they got a bad batch or something.

So whats the truth about it, the real truth

Where have you been? Pics have been posted for months of some of the parts/pieces left over. Are you looking for a Whole mod? Don't think one can blow apart and remain intact.

Seriously though, most e-cig explosions ar cig-a-like and Ego style batteries on cheap or incorrect chargers or on unstable power sources and/or left unattended to over charge.

 

[smokinGAVIN]

There will always be a problem with new vapers. Newbies, more often than not, have little or no knowledge about the dangers of vaping gear. I know I was one of them. It's a good thing I found this forum and got a lot of help from other members of this forum. What about the newbies who don't use forums or don't bother with googling anything until something bad happens to them or something goes wrong. I think that vape shops should inform newbies that there is possible danger without scaring of the future vapers. A little explanation goes a long way.

 

[rhelton]

Ive never seen pics of a blown up one, ive seen battery ventings but nothing like that. It does not really interest me that much so I guess I have not paid attention.

 

[edyle]

Hey everyone, I've been vaping for about a month now, so im still relatively new. I've seen some dicussion about this and decided to do some research, the 2 correlations ive noticed with almost every story about an exploding e-cig, is either A) they used the wrong charger, or B) it was plugged into to something aside from the wall (laptop, gaming system, car etc.) Many members of this forum are very experienced and knowledgable (and not funded by the FDA or BT), so my question is: Are E-cig explosions a matter of bad luck, or being careless?

There are also all sorts of brands and hardware that might look similar but sometimes are a problem.

For example, in the cigalike world there are alot of chargers that look like this:

It's got a 510male on one end and usb male on the other end.
This particular one is a 4.2 volt output.

But I have seen little adapters like that which are 5 volt output; presumably the battery they were designed to work with have the charging circuit inside of them.
Now is two guys sit at a table vaping cigalikes at a pub and they get their little chargie thingies mixed up, and plug it into a laptop, I could see a problem.


If you look at cellphones for example, they use lithium batteries; but they don't plug into a special 4.2 volt charger; they plug straight into a 5 volt usb standard interface.
The stuff like the mvp and istick and elvt do the same.

 

[four2109]

Everyone always talks about sub ohming and batteries blowing up and I have never heard once about anyone getting hurt other than from eGo batteries being plugged in wrong\or wrong charger ect. Someone direct me to see a news article where someone was hurt by an exploding mod?

Electric Cigarette Explodes in Fla. Man's Face - ABC News

 

[rondasherrill]

Knowing and following safety guidelines is the ticket.

And I am really tired of people saying not to charge on laptops. Yes early laptops were less than reliable. That pretty much ended several years ago. All 5 of my Dell Laptops put out a clean stable 5v. on the USB Ports. That little Wall Wart is just a step down to give you 5v. from a 110v wall socket.
Oh, and several have launched from wall chargers.

A car charger is another story all together. Cars electrical systems are not constant and can vary by several volts.

My understanding was that the voltage wasn't the issue, but rather the available current is less than most e-cig chargers will try to pull.

 

[four2109]

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...eeper-understanding-mod-batteries-part-i.html

 

[crxess]

You can do whatever you want. I didn't buy a $799.00 battery charger with a free bonus computer thing thrown in. The only PV I have that ever needs to be connected to a computer for a computer type reason is my eVic. And it only gets connected when there is a computer based reason to do so.

For the cost of a $1.99 1 amp USB wall wart, why risk it?

If you put an in-line meter on one of those USB ports and hook an e-cig anything up to it you might be surprised at what kind of voltage and current e-cig gear can pull off a USB port. It won't be a "rock steady" anything and not necessarily 5.0 volts. Hope your computer gear has a decent level of tolerance built into it.

Charge current is pulled by the charger, not the Battery....................Unless you are siting there pressing the Battery button. Another thing that will launch a cheap battery!
The charger is the rated part and should be Approx 280mah for small batteries and 420mah for standard 3.7v for charging. Any higher push or FLOW will damage the battery.
Your concern is understandable. your logic is flawed.
I have seen more USB drives jacked up by defective Flash drives all other devices used in them.
Having Built, rebuilt and repaired several hundred PC's/Laptops over the years, I have gotten to know just a bit about what they can and cannot handle.

Oh, and my custom XPS would have cost $3600 not $799 Had I not built it myself. Darn thing is still a nice laptop and more reliable than most built today, even if now out dated.

 

[rusirius]

Knowing and following safety guidelines is the ticket.

And I am really tired of people saying not to charge on laptops. Yes early laptops were less than reliable. That pretty much ended several years ago. All 5 of my Dell Laptops put out a clean stable 5v. on the USB Ports. That little Wall Wart is just a step down to give you 5v. from a 110v wall socket.
Oh, and several have launched from wall chargers.

A car charger is another story all together. Cars electrical systems are not constant and can vary by several volts.

And further it really doesn't matter anyway... If I take a 5v regulator, that's the exact purpose of it... I can feed it with 5v to probably 12v or so (depending on regulator) and it's ONLY going to output 5v... The more voltage I supply it, the hotter the regulator will run, but it will still only output 5v. Chargers for these devices are no different... It's outputting 4.2v... It doesn't matter if the supply voltage is 4.8v, 5v, 5.8v... It's still going to output 4.2v... If it's not, then it's one crappy .... charger. I've seen numerous posts about not charging from a laptop or PC, as well as not using a phone charger, etc.. It doesn't matter... They are all just outputting around 5v.. and as long as they do the rest is moot as it's going to be regulated down to 4.2v.

As for the ones that catch fire, I'd suspect either a failing crappy charger that loses regulation and outputs more than 4.2v (and in that case the supply voltage really doesn't make a lot of difference) or that the battery is allowed to self-discharge below a minimum safe level before charging. Otherwise maybe just a really crappy battery to begin with.

 

[englishmick]

I had no idea there were any dangers until I started reading on this forum. One buddy had said something about exploding ecigs, but he's stocking up on canned beans for the zombie apocalypse so I didn't take it too seriously. Luckily by the time I got a vape machine with replaceable batteries I had read up on proper battery usage. I reckon most people, like me, have been charging all sorts of gadgets for years and just assume it's OK. What % of users locate and read good quality advice on the subject I don't know, probably not many.

To answer the original question, there are a bunch of different reasons for accidents as various people have pointed out. Some folks should know better but throw the dice anyway. Some don't even know there are risks. Some just aren't smart enough to use these things. I guess you could say the same about why there are accidents with chainsaws or turkey fryers.

 

[VapinWolf]

IMO, it is just complacency. We all know what could happen, but since we are taking the most basic (and important) precautions we should be ok.
For myself, I use regulated mods, quality batteries and chargers. My battery can deliver far more current than my mod will will allow it to, so the number one cause of failure (internal damage from overheating) is not a problem there. Same with chargers, will not overcharge (again, internal heat damage).
For those reasons I choose not to place my charger on a brick, block, or other fireproof heat resistant surface outside of the primary living quarters in my home. It is on a shelf in my bedroom. I don't have a garage, and really don't want to put a fireproof block on the shelf. Who really does that?

 

[Kenneth38]

The possibility of being carelss is bigger, unless you are quite unlucky! Don't use the poorly made ego battery again. Vaping is not an easy thing, so be more careful in the future!