3 ms·

As long as people keep playing the sub-ohm game, thus keeping the majority of heat dissipation in the battery (I've seen 5 milli-Ohm coils, imagine where the he

As long as people keep playing the sub-ohm game, thus keeping the majority of heat dissipation in the battery (I've seen 5 milli-Ohm coils, imagine where the heat's going when an 18650 has a typical resistance of 100 milli-ohms fresh) then yes, these things will be a menace. Just the other day a sub-ohmer at the mental health facility I was re-wiring had his battery explode on him. POPFIZZLE! It was just sitting on the concrete in the shade, he wasn't even using it and it hadn't been used for at least 10 minutes. Ohm's law really needs to get more exposure in the classroom.

alexdumitru 10y ago
You scared me a bit, as I'm using 0.25 ohm. Can you explain what's the problem or provide some resources to read? I was pretty scared of ecigs before, seeing so many exploding.
- KirinDave 10y ago
  Okay, so... Extremely simplified (slightly incorrect) but good rule of thumb for you at the end. What happens when you hotwire a battery (a wire between positive and negative)? Current flows, discharging the battery but also often melting or exploding the battery. Normally current flow is the whole reason for a battery, but why is hotwiring bad as opposed to tossing a LED+resistor in the circuit? In a circuit, heat accumulates where majority of resistance is. So when your element has less resistance than your battery, more of the stress is going there than on your heating element. So it's hard on your power supply. If it's a cool 5v hobbyist power supply, you're probably cool. They're durable. Don't stress too much, you're more likely to break the element. But if it's a battery, you're sinking heat into something that is ultimately full of volatile chemicals and has limited capacity to fight back. You can engineer circuits around this problem in a variety of ways, but the cavemun solution is just to give the battery time to discharge the heat by transferring the charge to an intermediate element (obviously your ecig rig hasn't popped yet).
  - SamReidHughes 10y ago
    It's really just that the current is less.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    > You can engineer circuits around this problem in a variety of ways, but the cavemun solution is just to give the battery time to discharge the heat by transferring the charge to an intermediate element Of course, most people use regulated mods which do just that. As someone who vapes, I wouldn't be opposed to banning the sale of mechanical mods (i.e. mods which are literally just a battery, a button and a resistance element in a circuit). They're dangerous. On the other hand, people would just build them themselves, they're not difficult.
    - lightedman 10y ago
      Mechanical mods are only dangerous if you're using a volatile power supply - e.g. a lithium cell. NiMH (what's used in the mechanical MFLB) doesn't do this, those tend to burst/leak rather than go up in an incendiary ball.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- a2m 10y ago
  you're good if you're using a regulated mod, which almost everyone is
teilo 10y ago
This is indeed a problem if people are using mechanical mods. But with a sufficient battery pack and proper voltage/current regulation, and batteries from reputable manufacturers (Sony, Samsung, LG, etc.), it's not even a concern. Also, the mechanical mod crowd is a rather small part of the e-cig community overall. Vocal, but small.
- lightedman 10y ago
  Wasn't a mechanical mod. It was a Kangertech, with all the bells and whistles including controllable voltage and current on the box.

alexdumitru 10y ago

You scared me a bit, as I'm using 0.25 ohm. Can you explain what's the problem or provide some resources to read? I was pretty scared of ecigs before, seeing so many exploding.

KirinDave 10y ago
Okay, so... Extremely simplified (slightly incorrect) but good rule of thumb for you at the end. What happens when you hotwire a battery (a wire between positive and negative)? Current flows, discharging the battery but also often melting or exploding the battery. Normally current flow is the whole reason for a battery, but why is hotwiring bad as opposed to tossing a LED+resistor in the circuit? In a circuit, heat accumulates where majority of resistance is. So when your element has less resistance than your battery, more of the stress is going there than on your heating element. So it's hard on your power supply. If it's a cool 5v hobbyist power supply, you're probably cool. They're durable. Don't stress too much, you're more likely to break the element. But if it's a battery, you're sinking heat into something that is ultimately full of volatile chemicals and has limited capacity to fight back. You can engineer circuits around this problem in a variety of ways, but the cavemun solution is just to give the battery time to discharge the heat by transferring the charge to an intermediate element (obviously your ecig rig hasn't popped yet).
- SamReidHughes 10y ago
  It's really just that the current is less.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  > You can engineer circuits around this problem in a variety of ways, but the cavemun solution is just to give the battery time to discharge the heat by transferring the charge to an intermediate element Of course, most people use regulated mods which do just that. As someone who vapes, I wouldn't be opposed to banning the sale of mechanical mods (i.e. mods which are literally just a battery, a button and a resistance element in a circuit). They're dangerous. On the other hand, people would just build them themselves, they're not difficult.
  - lightedman 10y ago
    Mechanical mods are only dangerous if you're using a volatile power supply - e.g. a lithium cell. NiMH (what's used in the mechanical MFLB) doesn't do this, those tend to burst/leak rather than go up in an incendiary ball.
deleted 10y ago
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a2m 10y ago
you're good if you're using a regulated mod, which almost everyone is

teilo 10y ago

This is indeed a problem if people are using mechanical mods. But with a sufficient battery pack and proper voltage/current regulation, and batteries from reputable manufacturers (Sony, Samsung, LG, etc.), it's not even a concern. Also, the mechanical mod crowd is a rather small part of the e-cig community overall. Vocal, but small.

lightedman 10y ago
Wasn't a mechanical mod. It was a Kangertech, with all the bells and whistles including controllable voltage and current on the box.