These cells only really become dangerous when charged or discharged at incorrect rates/voltages or below their minimum voltage, they'll last quite some time if you use a quality lipo charger and don't run it with too much resistance while keeping an eye on voltages, I've always used my RC battery Lipo charger which has an adjustment for charging amps to charge them individually regardless of their capacity (at 1C charge rate), and if I need some more amps out of them I'll run multiples of these vape batteries (a couple friends give me all their dead vapes) in parallel after individually charging them. One thing of note is the rechargeable but disposable vapes have a quality Lipo charger in them which can be removed and used in conjunction with the battery for whatever you need it for, though they'll only support one battery at a time. A project I've got on my radar is taking a little over 100 of these batteries and stringing them in series to make a mobile charger for a capacitor bank I've built, it won't run for more than a few seconds at a time but I _am_ a little worried about the accumulated series resistance of the batteries, running 400+ Volts worth of vape batteries _is_ a little bit sketchy lol 😂. And the vacuum/pressure switches can be really handy if you know what you're doing, they only work in niche applications (like rigging a non-conductive remote controlled pneumatic switch using plastic tubing and a syringe to activate high voltage capacitor banks without getting zapped😉) but they're robust little units, and can switch with a surprisingly small pressure differential. These vapes are a bounty of goodies if you know what to do with them.
Thanks for your comment I have done a video on building a battery from 5 cells which seemed to work, but as you say 100+ cells would be interesting. If as you say the vape cells would only last a few seconds that implies you are putting a short circuit across them which I would have thought is very dangerous!
@@toyhacker4647 Ohh no I don't mean they'll only last a few seconds, I meant they'll only be ran for a few seconds at a time, only as long as it takes to charge the caps (a 1.5kJ 475V/950V parallel/series bank of electrolytic capacitors) up to voltage, once it's up to around 400V the battery gets disconnected. I'll have to verify the Amp draw on the caps before I try it but it may work.
I missed what you did with the protection circuit to get it to fire by touching the wire. I'm disassembling these to build refillable vapes for the friends who give them to me.
Please be aware how dangerous lithium batteries are I've recently seen the result of a lithium battery fire which started while the battery was being charged. Sensibly the battery was in a closed metal container so the nasty chemical power was contained and the building didn't burn down. The wire I touched was soldered to pin 1 (switch input) of the IC accessed by removing the outer case. Circuit diagram fig 4 at patents.google.com/patent/US20170215484A1/en As an aside .I replaced the heating element with a 1W led in series with 1 Ohm resistor to make a mouth held torch which comes on when air is sucked through, not the best idea as I soon got out of breath, maybe a capacitor could be used to hold it on for a longer time.
Best way is to use a commercial charger but I don't know of one for these cells.. As the cell is 850mAh called C) the best rate is to charge at 1/10 C i.e. 85 mA. I would use a 4056 charger board available from e-bay a 10kOhm resistor on the charge pin should give a safe current . There are lots of videos showing how to use these on RUclips. The electronics in the vape cell protect s it from over charge and discharge so if you are not using the cell with the vape sensor the cell should have added protection.
It isn't just a sensor but contains battery protection circuits and a timer. If you replace it you would need to add a battery protection circuit to prevent the cell going below 3V and 4V2 when charging.
Thanks for the video, I have quite a few of these, can’t help but pick them up! I have been discarding the little “microphone” and just keeping hold of the battery. Seems they can be used as a charger too which is interesting. Just a shame the output times out and cuts off after a set period. Are you just touching the bare switch wire which is activating it or were you grounding it? Thanks.
It's good you pick them up as they are bad for the environment. The ones I have the microphone has three wires. I remove the casing and touch bits of the chip to find which bit turns it on.
Thanks for the comment. I think the point was that the vapes three wire switch contains a charging module so the tp4056 wasn't needed. I do use the charging modules but have found them not to be reliable maybe my bad.
@@toyhacker4647 there's not enough circuitry in a vape to safely charge the battery , they are throw away unfortunately,,un less you cut all the wires off and connect to a tp 4056 or similar ,dont forget safety is pàramount ,but we are talking mass produced so a pinch of salt 👍
@@gordonemery6949 "there's not enough circuitry in a vape to safely charge the battery" there is! that's the point of the video. After finding data about the 3 wire switch (which contains the control chip) on the net, I used one to charge a cell . As for safety I wouldn't advice anyone to attempt to charge a cell without volt and amp meters unless it was a proprietary cell which would only fit one way in a proprietary charger. I think your faith in a 30p charging board from some unknown seller in China is incredible. I can well imagine the reaction of your insurance assessor, when, after a fire you tell him "Well I've used these for years"!
@@toyhacker4647 i don't know which ones you are using but the ones I am dismataling don't have a safety circuit only a vacuum switch which once you inhale sends power to the coil that' . heats up the"vape juice",I'm talking about the none rechargable ones, ?
The led (microphone) It’s a simple plastic combustion chamber when inhaled it turns on. There’s no internal charger on most disposables, it’s the battery that’s recharged @ 3.5-5v done disposal vapes have recharge options, usually via usb-c
I got lost half-way through. You use that long rectangular board to do what? It connects to the battery( cell ) and there are 2 output pins. OK, now how do you now charge the cell? Via a 4056?
The video is about the small round device which contains an integrated circuit which l have used to safely charge the cell by removing the wires from the heating coil and connecting them to 5volts the correct way round! Many vapes now have a USB charging socket which can be used to charge cells. But please don't mess with these cells unless you are sure you know what you are doing as they can be dangerous.
@@toyhacker4647 OK I understand that. But what was the little strip you connected across the battery? Even if you can use the existing electronics in the 'microphone' I would prefer to use a cheap 4046
Afraid it goes on a bit. At what time in the video are you referring to with the little strip (rectangular board) cross the battery? The video was intended for people who don't have a 4056 board and just stick 5v across the cell.
@@toyhacker4647 Thanks for taking time to reply. I know a fair bit about Li Ion ( I thought I did ). I have chargers for 18650 and have used them to charge Li cells salvaged from rejected mobile phone batteries by using home-made connectors to connect to the commercial charger. But the cells from vapes are lipo, no? I used a them in a toy whose own battery was dead. The mains charger for the toy generated 5V and the vape cell was wrecked. twice! Im confused as to how you recharged the vape cell: did you just use a 5V charger? When I did it was a disaster The little device I referred to appears at 20 min 56 sec.
Hi I'd forgotten about the protection board in this video. I solder them onto cells they output and charge on the two wires in the middle they seem to be a 40?? Replacement. I use them on the cells I use in toys. So they should solve your problem with toys charging at 5v. See eBay for examples.
My Girlfriend told me she got herpes from a vape pen.
I told her i dont vape. 😂
Good advice. I try to pick up the ones I find in a tissue.
These cells only really become dangerous when charged or discharged at incorrect rates/voltages or below their minimum voltage, they'll last quite some time if you use a quality lipo charger and don't run it with too much resistance while keeping an eye on voltages, I've always used my RC battery Lipo charger which has an adjustment for charging amps to charge them individually regardless of their capacity (at 1C charge rate), and if I need some more amps out of them I'll run multiples of these vape batteries (a couple friends give me all their dead vapes) in parallel after individually charging them. One thing of note is the rechargeable but disposable vapes have a quality Lipo charger in them which can be removed and used in conjunction with the battery for whatever you need it for, though they'll only support one battery at a time.
A project I've got on my radar is taking a little over 100 of these batteries and stringing them in series to make a mobile charger for a capacitor bank I've built, it won't run for more than a few seconds at a time but I _am_ a little worried about the accumulated series resistance of the batteries, running 400+ Volts worth of vape batteries _is_ a little bit sketchy lol 😂.
And the vacuum/pressure switches can be really handy if you know what you're doing, they only work in niche applications (like rigging a non-conductive remote controlled pneumatic switch using plastic tubing and a syringe to activate high voltage capacitor banks without getting zapped😉) but they're robust little units, and can switch with a surprisingly small pressure differential. These vapes are a bounty of goodies if you know what to do with them.
Thanks for your comment I have done a video on building a battery from 5 cells which seemed to work, but as you say 100+ cells would be interesting. If as you say the vape cells would only last a few seconds that implies you are putting a short circuit across them which I would have thought is very dangerous!
@@toyhacker4647 Ohh no I don't mean they'll only last a few seconds, I meant they'll only be ran for a few seconds at a time, only as long as it takes to charge the caps (a 1.5kJ 475V/950V parallel/series bank of electrolytic capacitors) up to voltage, once it's up to around 400V the battery gets disconnected. I'll have to verify the Amp draw on the caps before I try it but it may work.
Very interesting thank you for your detailed tests and explanation.
Thanks 👍
I always pick these up and recycle them myself. Eventually I will release a die shot of the chip inside one of those
I missed what you did with the protection circuit to get it to fire by touching the wire. I'm disassembling these to build refillable vapes for the friends who give them to me.
Please be aware how dangerous lithium batteries are I've recently seen the result of a lithium battery fire which started while the battery was being charged. Sensibly the battery was in a closed metal container so the nasty chemical power was contained and the building didn't burn down.
The wire I touched was soldered to pin 1 (switch input) of the IC accessed by removing the outer case.
Circuit diagram fig 4 at patents.google.com/patent/US20170215484A1/en
As an aside .I replaced the heating element with a 1W led in series with 1 Ohm resistor to make a mouth held torch which comes on when air is sucked through, not the best idea as I soon got out of breath, maybe a capacitor could be used to hold it on for a longer time.
A piece of wire wrapped around it is actually called a coil
very nice video thanks you
Thanks hope it was useful.🙂
Sir , 850mah battery 3.7v same type like on your video , how much current (milliamps) are the best way for charging..thanks
Best way is to use a commercial charger but I don't know of one for these cells.. As the cell is 850mAh called C) the best rate is to charge at 1/10 C i.e. 85 mA. I would use a 4056 charger board available from e-bay a 10kOhm resistor on the charge pin should give a safe current . There are lots of videos showing how to use these on RUclips. The electronics in the vape cell protect s it from over charge and discharge so if you are not using the cell with the vape sensor the cell should have added protection.
@@toyhacker4647 thanks for your replay
How to bypass vape sensor? I want to use a switch in it's place to convert it into mini power supply which can be tun on or off via switch
It isn't just a sensor but contains battery protection circuits and a timer. If you replace it you would need to add a battery protection circuit to prevent the cell going below 3V and 4V2 when charging.
I have a different kind of circuit from a vape. Can I email it’s pictures to you? It’s bit different than the one you have in this video
@@JunaidShafique Thanks for the offer but I'm a busy at the moment.
Thanks for the video, I have quite a few of these, can’t help but pick them up!
I have been discarding the little “microphone” and just keeping hold of the battery. Seems they can be used as a charger too which is interesting.
Just a shame the output times out and cuts off after a set period.
Are you just touching the bare switch wire which is activating it or were you grounding it?
Thanks.
It's good you pick them up as they are bad for the environment. The ones I have the microphone has three wires. I remove the casing and touch bits of the chip to find which bit turns it on.
@@toyhacker4647
I think all the microphone switches have 3 wires but which one do you touch to activate it?
Or was it one of the legs on the IC?
AliExpress tp4056 charging moduals 10 module's £3,solder 2wires on with crock clips attach to battery,right way round lol 👍
Thanks for the comment. I think the point was that the vapes three wire switch contains a charging module so the tp4056 wasn't needed. I do use the charging modules but have found them not to be reliable maybe my bad.
@@toyhacker4647 there's not enough circuitry in a vape to safely charge the battery , they are throw away unfortunately,,un less you cut all the wires off and connect to a tp 4056 or similar ,dont forget safety is pàramount ,but we are talking mass produced so a pinch of salt 👍
@@gordonemery6949 "there's not enough circuitry in a vape to safely charge the battery" there is! that's the point of the video. After finding data about the 3 wire switch (which contains the control chip) on the net, I used one to charge a cell . As for safety I wouldn't advice anyone to attempt to charge a cell without volt and amp meters unless it was a proprietary cell which would only fit one way in a proprietary charger. I think your faith in a 30p charging board from some unknown seller in China is incredible. I can well imagine the reaction of your insurance assessor, when, after a fire you tell him "Well I've used these for years"!
@@toyhacker4647 i don't know which ones you are using but the ones I am dismataling don't have a safety circuit only a vacuum switch which once you inhale sends power to the coil that' . heats up the"vape juice",I'm talking about the none rechargable ones, ?
@@gordonemery6949 have you watched the video?
The led (microphone) It’s a simple plastic combustion chamber when inhaled it turns on.
There’s no internal charger on most disposables, it’s the battery that’s recharged @ 3.5-5v done disposal vapes have recharge options, usually via usb-c
you talk too fast- barely moving
I got lost half-way through. You use that long rectangular board to do what? It connects to the battery( cell ) and there are 2 output pins. OK, now how do you now charge the cell? Via a 4056?
The video is about the small round device which contains an integrated circuit which l have used to safely charge the cell by removing the wires from the heating coil and connecting them to 5volts the correct way round! Many vapes now have a USB charging socket which can be used to charge cells. But please don't mess with these cells unless you are sure you know what you are doing as they can be dangerous.
@@toyhacker4647 OK I understand that. But what was the little strip you connected across the battery? Even if you can use the existing electronics in the 'microphone' I would prefer to use a cheap 4046
Afraid it goes on a bit. At what time in the video are you referring to with the little strip (rectangular board) cross the battery? The video was intended for people who don't have a 4056 board and just stick 5v across the cell.
@@toyhacker4647 Thanks for taking time to reply. I know a fair bit about Li Ion ( I thought I did ).
I have chargers for 18650 and have used them to charge Li cells salvaged from rejected mobile phone batteries by using home-made connectors to connect to the commercial charger.
But the cells from vapes are lipo, no? I used a them in a toy whose own battery was dead. The mains charger for the toy generated 5V and the vape cell was wrecked. twice! Im confused as to how you recharged the vape cell: did you just use a 5V charger? When I did it was a disaster
The little device I referred to appears at 20 min 56 sec.
Hi I'd forgotten about the protection board in this video. I solder them onto cells they output and charge on the two wires in the middle they seem to be a 40?? Replacement. I use them on the cells I use in toys. So they should solve your problem with toys charging at 5v. See eBay for examples.
you say 'ohm' like a Hindu lol