A simple tip to prevent shorts which could be especially useful for people recovering these batteries: if you cut power wires, cut them to different lengths. This greatly reduces the chances of a short circuit. Even if you solder on new leads right away, it's possible for solder to break through heat-shrink tubing.
And not just the batteries. That pressure sensing capsule contains a capacitive touch switch. Just cut the top membrane off to expose the sensor. It can also switch quite a high current compared with those capacitive touch PCB modules sold for use in Arduino projects
Yeah, and they end up getting scattered after use, they can leak, touch with water or be eaten by an animal, then explode the shit out of it (literally). Danger on the verge.
Ever since these started getting popular, I have seen them littered all over the streets. I'm all for vapes for quitting smoking, but get something refillable; much less wasteful.
For real I’ve been collecting these for a couple years now off the road and from people. The 1st time I found they had a god damned lithium ion batt in them, I flipped my shit, man!
Collected well over 600 batteries and I've already we made it 10 amp battery for a 12 volt scooter so far it's been working good I just used a bms from Amazon 2 for $12
coincidently i thought about this a month ago and manage to get 90ish vapes from one of my sisters friends and salvaged all of the batteries from them!
You can blame current laws for the popularity of these disposable vape devices. The pod based disposables were better about waste, but anything flavored needs to be "disposable". I vape myself, and I've kept the old ones, thinking I'd start a project with them, this is the encouragement I needed.
yep. and this is such a ridiculously silly idea...that it needs to be disposable. I'm not even sure how it's supposed to change anything. the anti-vaping stuff is becoming ridiculous
When I found out about these batteries some time ago I started collecting them, and asking people I know to not throw them in the trash. That was about 2 years ago. Now I have a collection of over 50 of these batteries! They won't last forever, and you never know what quality you get, so it doesn't hurt to have them on hand. Most are 500mAh, but some are even up to 1500mAh! And in those 2 years I only had 3 batteries that had a charge too low to be safe for reuse. Thank you for helping to keep these things out of the environment! If you plan on making battery packs with multiple cells, almost all of the vapes I got mu hands on were made of aluminium tubes. They are ideal for housing the batteries! Just make sure to clean then to get the smelly (and often addictive) out ;)
With the low voltage issue, you can usually nurse them back into good health. It typically results in a lower overall milliamp hour capacity as the only adverse effect.
@@mattmuch7536If they are just too flat, yes. But a charger can't know if it's just too flat, or actually damaged. So to protect the user from fire, and the seller from major legal claims due to fire, they generally don't charge id the voltage is too low.
Really great primer on lithium batteries! Tons of good info in here for those that have also been collecting *nervously side-eyes the box of loose unprotected vape batteries in my closet*
It's only funny until your house burns down. Speaking from experience, unfortunately.... 😬 Granted, mine weren't vape batteries, but Li-ion nonetheless. I would highly suggest not leaving a bag like that in the closet of your bedroom.
I can't believe it never occurred to me to do this and I'm an electrical engineer, I'm always looking for stuff to power my microcontroller projects and this beats using alkaline batteries. Thank you.
Many vape stores have an empty disposable collection bin. The shop keep at the one nearby just let me take the whole bin off his hands and i've probably got at least 70 3.7V batteries to harvest for various projects and he says I can keep picking them up every few days. Going to balance them in 4s packs that will happily plug into my existing solar array.
I used to smoke these quite a bit but then went back to a vape mod. Later down the road, I got quite interested in arduino. Now I've been cracking these open for the 3.7v li-ion batteries, i have so many of them now! Thanks! I have found many of these on the ground too and now I've been picking them up, both to do my part and to salvage more batteries.
I was scuba diving and found 6 vapes in the same spot, probably due to ice fisherman. Anyways I ripped them apart and the lipo batteries were 0 volts, I charged them up and did a discharge test and all of them had 95% of capacity left over and have all stayed at or near 4.1v for 3 months afterwards. All these vapes were covered in 30 feet of water for probably 4-6 months and still work... who would have known. I have way better luck with longevity from 18650 lithium batteries since I have a couple of 20-year Pansonic ones that have been brought down to zero volts for many years before I salvaged them. They still have a third of their capacity and are really good for flashlights.
Be careful with that! You do not want those spiky crystals forming on the electrode of the battery, its better to toss it if its lower than like 2.5v than to have an avoidable fire hazard. Especially since those batterys do not have any safeguards like the CID on 18650s.
It literally pains me to see rechargable battries that leave behing such a massive carbon footpring in manufacturing being disposed off as one time use, this issue NEEDS to be addressed, no doubt about it.
Our whole life right now is based on „stealing“ from those that in theory should’ve come after us but might won’t because of our actions. Like the top 1% most climate friendly people in western countries still are destructive as fuck lol
here's the thing- each of these devices already has an appropriate charger built in. I just take the mr fog units apart and connect a usb directly to the red and black coming off the battery
I often see these in groups in the same spot in my neighborhood. I've been cleaning them up, but I'm also considering just putting a steel box there, with a note about safe disposal, and skipping the "let them get rained on/peed on by dogs" step
I've been doing this for about a year and a half. I just ask my buddies that vape to give them to me when they are done. Some of the shapes are pretty cool and give me ideas for project cases. It felt crazy, but this makes me feel much more sane. Lol
Same. I’m 2 to 3 years in and I’ve recently enlisted my local vape shop who collects the old ones from patrons purchasing new to now give them to me. By my estimation I’m only a year or so away from fabing my own whole ass Power Wall…🤣
My coworkers use those kind of vapes and every time they are almost gone they leave it everywhere..I found 10 inside or work vans...and when open and tested batteries was good...so i removed and keep it safe for further projects... I found only 2 with charger circuit included...so i use it to charge the other 8vone by one and works fine for small projects..
I have been using smoking alternatives since the beginning. If the device inside has nicotine, then yes it will be absorbed thru your skin when handling and you should wear gloves. I was upset to see legislation that pushed manufacturers to produce disposable devices. And like you say they are happy to make devices for a higher profit, at the cost of our environment. Thank you so much for showing people that their is still value in these items and they should be repurposed.
some disposables come with a charging port now usb mini or usbC i cannot quite figure out how to bypass the pressure sensor leaving just the output for small led projects and the built in charging port. maybe another video showing one of these devices with the charging port and how to keep the charger and battery together as a unit.
Honestly that’s my biggest problem… I would love to reuse the charging boards on these, but most of them are tide to the onboard air pressure on/off switch, and don’t have enough skills to figure out how to implement my own switch… I have quite a few projects I want to use these for, but need to buy my own charging circuits for them
Gloves YES. I seem to recall recently reading a case report of someone who was badly sickened by vape fluid getting on his skin. Nicotine is highly toxic.
@BeckyStern, some disposable vapes even go with dual purpose pressure sensors, which can be used for charging. Here is instruction how to check, if pressure sensor is dual purpose. Heating coil coil should be unsoldered. Then we need USB cable. Black wire from USB cable should be connnected with black wire from sensor and battery (-). Red wire from USB cable should be connected with blue wire from sensor. Red wire from sensor is soldered to battery (+), let it stay there. USB connector should be inserted in charger port. If pressure sensor has charging function, LED swithes ON (when battery voltage is > 2.7 V), and blinks 3 times, when USB power is disconnected. Dual purpose pressure sensor has TC/CC/CV charging methods, maximum CC about 200 mA. If battery is almost dead ( 0.5 - 3 V ), status LED lihgts ON only after some time.
Where I live these things are dropped in the street. I now have two biscuit tins full of them. Amazon sells the charger circuits - 5Pcs TP4056 1A Lithium Battery Charging Board Module for about seven pounds sterling.
Great job highlighting this resource on our streets. I have been harvesting these single use vapes off the streets of the UK for some time, they really annoy me, waste and hazardous to animals. I have noticed that the cells have been getting smaller over time oh and I have yet to find a use for these!
After watching a few videos about these, I have started to take apart vapes that I find while of bike rides, even though I don’t have a use for them, and I now have 13 perfectly fine batteries.
Becky thank you for this! I’ve been vaping since before Leo DiCaprio made it popular in North America. I have been collecting these batteries for a while now as I hate to see them in the trash. Thanks for the safety tips, any suggestions on what to use the batteries for?
Thanks for the tip on posting on local classifieds to find others willing to offload their dead disposable vapes! I've gotten most of mine off my friends that use them, and have collected batteries of all shapes and sizes. All the local vape shops refused to let me have their recycle bins due them paying an unnamed company to handle the disposal. I'm not sure if this is universal but that was my experience at least.
Imagine paying a company for disposal of a product that hobbiests would instead PAY THEM to have... 😂 So dumb. I'd give $10 or whatever for a bucket of discarded vapes....
My vape shop gives them to me. That’s reminiscent of used motor oil. It use to be that companies would purchase used motor oil from mechanics, but now years later they actually charge for it. It’s crazy because they filter/recycle, and sell the shit @ profit already…🤷🏾♂️
Thanks for this video! I think you confirmed my suspicion... The ones I've been seeing lately, even with a USB-C recharge port attached, don't seem to have any protection circuit whatsoever. They just rely on chargers, and USB ports being protected or something, I guess? Does a standard USB port on a computer even offer lithium battery charging protection?? 😂 I don't think so... I honestly don't get it, I don't understand how these things don't get overcharged. The ONLY thing I notice is two of the tiniest resistors you've ever seen, mounted on the itty-bitty USB-C board labeled R1 and R2. Idk what they could be doing, but I doubt anything overly helpful. Only other guess is perhaps they've somehow integrated some protection bits onboard that round air-pressure switch? Maybe?? But again, it's so dang small, I really doubt it. If you've got any insight, let me know (: Thank you!
great information in this video, rember to capacity test all your cells before use, i noticed recycled vape cells to be more consistent then recycled 18650 cells but I've had a few that had lower capacity then expected, i use the same charger/ tester for 18650 and the vape cells, use a dummy cell in the charger with jump leads for the vape cells, these vapes banned here in Australia but i still find some
The lack of rechargeable units with pods is in fact because of the wording from the Juul lawsuit. It specifically says that a battery device with a pod system is now illegal. Manufacturers in the industry have been trying to find a way around the wording.
would it be possible to combine a bunch of these vape batteries to make a battery bank? I have about 20 of these, most of them use the larger battery with built in charging circuits. I would really like to make a cheap battery bank for emergencies.
This is a great video! I recharge my Breeze Pro batteries using a 4056 chip with over charge protection, and add liquid vape juice so I can reuse these otherwise expensive "disposables." These don't appear to have any sort of circuit board within them. I always the voltage while inspecting the battery prior to charging, but I'd like to prevent over discharge if I continue to use these batteries in the breeze. Do you have any suggestions?
So it is my thinking that if you grab a bunch of these that are the same size and power rating, since they have only been used once, that they would play nice together in a battery bank. Is that a terrible idea?
I’ve been collecting these for 2 or 3 years now picking them up off the side of the road, parking lots, etc. I have a couple people that give me theirs when they finish them, and just recently spoke with the guy @ local vape shop and he now collects them from people buying new and gives to me! I could probably build an entire ass Power Wall in a couple more years!🤣
Yes, I certainly do re-use the battery cells from these single use devices. If I find a device on the street that looks intact, I pick it up, disassemble it, take the cell out of it, then put the rest into general recycling.
Well, we don't have these, but i did find a slightly toasted e-bike battery. Only 5 cells were bad out of about 40. So now i have 35 samsung 18650 cells each at 2.5ah. I used a capacity tester from aliexpress. It charges, discharges and measures capacity so i know which are better and worse. I then got a couple powerbank housings meant for these so i got some phone powerbanks. I also got a 18650 powered radio that works incredibly well, and doubles as a bluetooth speaker.
I use them to make remote control boats.. but I only use the larger vape battery's.. to make a 6x1500mAh 3s2p battery .. I make the boats out of things I have around the house with the goal of spending as little as possible to make them. I also made a hovercraft out of I cordless vacuum cleaner that was broken and my friend was going to throw out.. you can also top up liquid inside them and reuse them but only once a twice before the test gets bad..
i find these all over the place on my bike rides, i find good ones that can be salvaged but most are garbage or at least recycled but question is where to take them at least in my area? its hard to see these just littered like garbage when both the lithium and nicoteen is toxic to the enviorment. i ever wonder how hard it would be to actually recycle the batterys when dammaged beyond use without catching fire of course
5 месяцев назад
I hope nowadays you are more careful when desoldering these than then, like at 4:19 when you pretty much shorted the cell with the soldering iron. 😊
If you know what you’re doing, this is a great way to use these batteries instead of using it to vape/smoke; and to not waste it in the trash. Also if you can’t use it, yes e waste recycling is best.
I can confirm that I have definitely gotten a nicotine buzz from disassembling an Elf Bar without gloves. Also yeah the smell did *not* dissipate for at least a day. 😵
Amazing! I just started collecting my friends vapes cause I hate it. So while researching and I found you! Eventually I even wanna use the plastic inside myco bricks to build homes out of. And eventually I wanna do solar battery banks with them
not sure how to message you, but I'd love to! I'm currently researching this subject for business model solutions and other potential approaches. HMU if you have any interest in discussing your experience / knowledge!
BMS can be found on the cheap, then 3-D printed case. Just make sure to do a good job wiring or spot welding batts together because if selling, you assume a ton of liability with this sort of thing. That said, good luck!
I’ve been collecting those for a while. My question is, can you join them to create a higher capacity battery pack safely? And also can you use a usb charging module with multiple joined batteries?
You technically can but the charging circuit wouldn’t be able to balance the charge so you run the risk of under or overcharging of one or more cells. I would definitely add a BMS
I can't believe they put rechargeable batteries in these just to be thrown out. I dont even smoke, but my sister leaves these everywhere. I found one on the ground and saw it had a rechargeable c-port. I looked up the brand and it has a 650mah battery. Glad to find this video! ill be collecting these from now on!
Hi, you were saying about under and over voltage. I use a bigblue solar panel to charge an ANKER power bank. There would be a range of voltages throughout the day never over 5 volts but under 5 volts at quite a lot. Do you thing this would cause a problem for the power bank. Thank you or anyone for a comment.
I'm late to the party but I'm looking for ways to convince the dozens of smoke shops in my area to collect spent vapes. There might be enough value in all those batteries to create an incentive for both the shops and the customers, like "recycle 20 get a free one" or something. I'm not going to open a lithium recycling plant, but there must be something that can be done with thousands of Li-Po batteries!
Hi! Great video! a lot of people in my city are using the Elfbars- can you make a video showing how to wire several of these batteries in series or parallel (whichever is safest) to power a guitar pedal? That would be a really neat re-use purpose! Most guitar pedals use a 9V battery.
As someone who does vape, this is infuriating to me. I love electronics and I turn these into battery banks. If the FDA actually cared about the safety of kids, they would have either left Juul alone on the flavors, or they would have banned flavored alcohol as well.
thank you so much for the video with more information than what I could find myself only just stepping into the space. it's utterly infuriating that companies are allowed to do something as ridiculous as this
There's very cheap Bluetooth speakers that have good chips inside but a very poor lipo battery. These batteries from vapes are perfect for extending the playback time many hours (because there's much empty space inside the speaker case tha can be filled with several batteries)
🤔Umm-not to get off on a tangent, but-by any chance, might there be an instructional somewhere that could explain how to turn a throwaway vape into a decent electromagnet? 🤷♂️ 😏 Just asking!..
My friend uses E cig with the same battery as you show, so he gives me the empty ones I have 50 now, so will have to build them into a small battery pack
I've been collecting mine for quite some time because I don't want to throw them in the landfill. I really wish there was some way to recycle these. We need to figure out something
She literally just did a video on how to recycle them. Also, through pyrolysis, you can use the plastics in them to produce fuels such as diesel, kerosene, super dirty gasolin, propane, butane, etc. and of course any made of aluminum can be recycled as they will even pay you for the aluminum.
Anyone here have any idea why I might be reading 7.4v off of one of the batteries I pulled from a ripper vape by rufpuf? It has 3.7v 550mah printed on it... It does not appear to be two cells in series. It's a cylinder with positive and negative on the ends. I think I'm just uneducated on my multimeter and used the wrong setting.
I have used it with a step up in my garrett metalldetector with the cheap charging board. Its very cheap and no protection. I think this are not the best batteries, but 300-800 reload is possible i think. Charging better with 150ma only
I have hundreds of them I always felt it was too dangerous to just throw in the trash 🤔 I wanted to make a battery bank but I didn't know if it was safe or worth the extra work and money 💯 would you want them for any reason?
Great video Becky! Had no idea and something else to get angry about. Is lithium a finite source? No kidding these are kinda dangerous. 4:20 you can see tiny sparks as you desolder. (Would desoldering negative first cause the same spark?) Super smart to add connectors. Soldering any live battery to a circuit is risky. Mahalo for sharing! : )
Would have been safer to cut the pressure sensing capsule one wire at a time. And don't do what [Atomic 14] did in his video which was to cut both wires at the same time with the same metal wire cutters.
Lithium is super abundant on earth, particularly in seawater. It’s the rendering of it that’s the issue. Oh and you know the littering and filling of land fills etc😒
Some smokes shops collect them for disposal and will most likely give you some if you ask. Also you can 100% absorb nicotine juice into your skins so definitely wear gloves.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one salvaging these batteries, very useful for various small soldering projects.
I use them in rc cars, battery amperage upgrade
@dustydee8342 that a great idea
A simple tip to prevent shorts which could be especially useful for people recovering these batteries: if you cut power wires, cut them to different lengths. This greatly reduces the chances of a short circuit. Even if you solder on new leads right away, it's possible for solder to break through heat-shrink tubing.
And also, don't use open flame near the batteries💀
Not if you know how to solder properly
@@davidd2661 it's a lighter for 2 seconds to shrink heatshrink. Calm down, Alice. It's going to be OK.
Use a heatgun for heatshrink@@JeepITguy
This is insane! Disposable consumables with rechargeable batteries 🤬. Thanks for sharing the story and the excellent instructions Becky 🙏
And not just the batteries. That pressure sensing capsule contains a capacitive touch switch. Just cut the top membrane off to expose the sensor. It can also switch quite a high current compared with those capacitive touch PCB modules sold for use in Arduino projects
Yeah, and they end up getting scattered after use, they can leak, touch with water or be eaten by an animal, then explode the shit out of it (literally).
Danger on the verge.
I figured this out while back with the adjustable bass vape unit, and turned mine into a voltage adjustable LED light ;)
Ever since these started getting popular, I have seen them littered all over the streets. I'm all for vapes for quitting smoking, but get something refillable; much less wasteful.
For real I’ve been collecting these for a couple years now off the road and from people. The 1st time I found they had a god damned lithium ion batt in them, I flipped my shit, man!
Collected well over 600 batteries and I've already we made it 10 amp battery for a 12 volt scooter so far it's been working good I just used a bms from Amazon 2 for $12
coincidently i thought about this a month ago and manage to get 90ish vapes from one of my sisters friends and salvaged all of the batteries from them!
You can blame current laws for the popularity of these disposable vape devices. The pod based disposables were better about waste, but anything flavored needs to be "disposable". I vape myself, and I've kept the old ones, thinking I'd start a project with them, this is the encouragement I needed.
Yup! Leave it to our bloated ass federal governments to regulate us into oblivion…😒🤷🏾♂️
yep. and this is such a ridiculously silly idea...that it needs to be disposable. I'm not even sure how it's supposed to change anything. the anti-vaping stuff is becoming ridiculous
Yes pods/cartridges made, filled, and compliant with US law can't be flavored but disposables from china can be...
I'm about to start projects with all the ones I have. Mostly just like rechargeable tv remotes and stuff
I'm planning on using it for esp32s @@kylesanders8276
When I found out about these batteries some time ago I started collecting them, and asking people I know to not throw them in the trash. That was about 2 years ago.
Now I have a collection of over 50 of these batteries! They won't last forever, and you never know what quality you get, so it doesn't hurt to have them on hand.
Most are 500mAh, but some are even up to 1500mAh! And in those 2 years I only had 3 batteries that had a charge too low to be safe for reuse.
Thank you for helping to keep these things out of the environment!
If you plan on making battery packs with multiple cells, almost all of the vapes I got mu hands on were made of aluminium tubes. They are ideal for housing the batteries! Just make sure to clean then to get the smelly (and often addictive) out ;)
With the low voltage issue, you can usually nurse them back into good health. It typically results in a lower overall milliamp hour capacity as the only adverse effect.
@@mattmuch7536If they are just too flat, yes. But a charger can't know if it's just too flat, or actually damaged. So to protect the user from fire, and the seller from major legal claims due to fire, they generally don't charge id the voltage is too low.
Me too, there's also 2400mAh disposable e cig batteries now.
In from berlin, i think 50 per day is possible. Most akkus are about 400mah 1200 is rar
Really great primer on lithium batteries! Tons of good info in here for those that have also been collecting *nervously side-eyes the box of loose unprotected vape batteries in my closet*
It's only funny until your house burns down. Speaking from experience, unfortunately.... 😬 Granted, mine weren't vape batteries, but Li-ion nonetheless. I would highly suggest not leaving a bag like that in the closet of your bedroom.
I can't believe it never occurred to me to do this and I'm an electrical engineer, I'm always looking for stuff to power my microcontroller projects and this beats using alkaline batteries. Thank you.
Many vape stores have an empty disposable collection bin. The shop keep at the one nearby just let me take the whole bin off his hands and i've probably got at least 70 3.7V batteries to harvest for various projects and he says I can keep picking them up every few days. Going to balance them in 4s packs that will happily plug into my existing solar array.
I used to smoke these quite a bit but then went back to a vape mod. Later down the road, I got quite interested in arduino. Now I've been cracking these open for the 3.7v li-ion batteries, i have so many of them now! Thanks!
I have found many of these on the ground too and now I've been picking them up, both to do my part and to salvage more batteries.
I was scuba diving and found 6 vapes in the same spot, probably due to ice fisherman. Anyways I ripped them apart and the lipo batteries were 0 volts, I charged them up and did a discharge test and all of them had 95% of capacity left over and have all stayed at or near 4.1v for 3 months afterwards. All these vapes were covered in 30 feet of water for probably 4-6 months and still work... who would have known. I have way better luck with longevity from 18650 lithium batteries since I have a couple of 20-year Pansonic ones that have been brought down to zero volts for many years before I salvaged them. They still have a third of their capacity and are really good for flashlights.
Be careful with that!
You do not want those spiky crystals forming on the electrode of the battery, its better to toss it if its lower than like 2.5v than to have an avoidable fire hazard.
Especially since those batterys do not have any safeguards like the CID on 18650s.
It literally pains me to see rechargable battries that leave behing such a massive carbon footpring in manufacturing being disposed off as one time use, this issue NEEDS to be addressed, no doubt about it.
Our whole life right now is based on „stealing“ from those that in theory should’ve come after us but might won’t because of our actions. Like the top 1% most climate friendly people in western countries still are destructive as fuck lol
Yes, they should take a camera-style approach, allowing us to insert and remove batteries, and sell vapes without batteries.
Yeah, sounds like a solid idea, and make them compatible with already available rechargable battery types@deluxe_1337 @@deluxe_1337
You are going to ruin our source of free batteries... just quietly use them and leave the terrible fat fingers of the government out of it.
here's the thing- each of these devices already has an appropriate charger built in. I just take the mr fog units apart and connect a usb directly to the red and black coming off the battery
I often see these in groups in the same spot in my neighborhood.
I've been cleaning them up, but I'm also considering just putting a steel box there, with a note about safe disposal, and skipping the "let them get rained on/peed on by dogs" step
as a vape smoker who is *embarrassed* by what my kind does, i thank you greatly. good person.
Just be careful it has heat protection if the batteries get too warm they can explode
@@sycksyngyrl that's why "steel box" - to contain them in the event if a catastrophic failure.
@@StripeyType those batteries can bust steel and or blow out the lid or opening... If multiple batteries it may breech the box...
I've been doing this for about a year and a half. I just ask my buddies that vape to give them to me when they are done. Some of the shapes are pretty cool and give me ideas for project cases. It felt crazy, but this makes me feel much more sane. Lol
Part of the solution 🙏
@@BeckyStern I was actually doing the same in the last few weeks. Saved at least 14 batteries.
Same. I’m 2 to 3 years in and I’ve recently enlisted my local vape shop who collects the old ones from patrons purchasing new to now give them to me. By my estimation I’m only a year or so away from fabing my own whole ass Power Wall…🤣
My coworkers use those kind of vapes and every time they are almost gone they leave it everywhere..I found 10 inside or work vans...and when open and tested batteries was good...so i removed and keep it safe for further projects... I found only 2 with charger circuit included...so i use it to charge the other 8vone by one and works fine for small projects..
Just remove the charge circuit and solder some of those magnetic leads onto it. Then you have a charger you can use for all of them as needed
I have been using smoking alternatives since the beginning. If the device inside has nicotine, then yes it will be absorbed thru your skin when handling and you should wear gloves. I was upset to see legislation that pushed manufacturers to produce disposable devices. And like you say they are happy to make devices for a higher profit, at the cost of our environment. Thank you so much for showing people that their is still value in these items and they should be repurposed.
some disposables come with a charging port now usb mini or usbC i cannot quite figure out how to bypass the pressure sensor leaving just the output for small led projects and the built in charging port. maybe another video showing one of these devices with the charging port and how to keep the charger and battery together as a unit.
Honestly that’s my biggest problem… I would love to reuse the charging boards on these, but most of them are tide to the onboard air pressure on/off switch, and don’t have enough skills to figure out how to implement my own switch… I have quite a few projects I want to use these for, but need to buy my own charging circuits for them
Gloves YES. I seem to recall recently reading a case report of someone who was badly sickened by vape fluid getting on his skin. Nicotine is highly toxic.
I'm doing the same thing just with less knowledge than you. I was absolutely astounded when i learned these batteries were in these disposable vapes.
Been scavenging the batteries out of the ones I find on the ground. I have a gallon sized bag full now haha
A gallon-sized *fireproof lipo bag*, I hope!
@@BeckyStern
Sure
Such a cool reuse project! Would never have thought to take these apart
@BeckyStern, some disposable vapes even go with dual purpose pressure sensors, which can be used for charging.
Here is instruction how to check, if pressure sensor is dual purpose. Heating coil coil should be unsoldered. Then we need USB cable. Black wire from USB cable should be connnected with black wire from sensor and battery (-). Red wire from USB cable should be connected with blue wire from sensor. Red wire from sensor is soldered to battery (+), let it stay there. USB connector should be inserted in charger port. If pressure sensor has charging function, LED swithes ON (when battery voltage is > 2.7 V), and blinks 3 times, when USB power is disconnected.
Dual purpose pressure sensor has TC/CC/CV charging methods, maximum CC about 200 mA. If battery is almost dead ( 0.5 - 3 V ), status LED lihgts ON only after some time.
Thanks Becky! I'm sharing this with my group.
Where I live these things are dropped in the street. I now have two biscuit tins full of them. Amazon sells the charger circuits - 5Pcs TP4056 1A Lithium Battery Charging Board Module for about seven pounds sterling.
there are cool micro LEDs in there too, great for model hobby projects like gundams and hotweels.
I have done this and would advise doing it somewhere well ventilated as the smell lingers for ages in the air.
i made a huge powerbank from these to take camping with me. 3d printed the case and soldered everything together. been going strong for 2 years now
PUBLISH THE DESIGN 🥰🥰🥰
that’s pretty cool. I might give that a try.
Great job highlighting this resource on our streets.
I have been harvesting these single use vapes off the streets of the UK for some time, they really annoy me, waste and hazardous to animals. I have noticed that the cells have been getting smaller over time oh and I have yet to find a use for these!
Great video, if I may make a suggestion. You should cover the "disposable" mobile battery chargers...
Ive got a few hundred of these i knew itd be bad to throw them away but never knew the plus side! Hell yeah!
Great video, and really impressive adaptive reuse!
Really great video!!! Frustrating that people don’t think to e-recycle these devices once their done with it
It's not like the device itself says anything about recycling on it, either... Spread the word!
I've been looking for them thrown away, but never find any :(
The box in which they are sold just warned not to dispose of in a bin but doesn't say how to dispose of them properly
@@shagreobe well at the very least that does mean your neighborhood is more conscious about it ^^;;
@@shagreobewhere are you looking tho? Try checking anywhere in any parking lot and you should be able to find them no problem…
After watching a few videos about these, I have started to take apart vapes that I find while of bike rides, even though I don’t have a use for them, and I now have 13 perfectly fine batteries.
Keep saving them up and pretty soon your bike can be peddling for you!😳
If you ever doubt how stupid the government is...there's this. Excellent video to repurpose these batteries.
Becky thank you for this! I’ve been vaping since before Leo DiCaprio made it popular in North America. I have been collecting these batteries for a while now as I hate to see them in the trash. Thanks for the safety tips, any suggestions on what to use the batteries for?
Thanks for the tip on posting on local classifieds to find others willing to offload their dead disposable vapes! I've gotten most of mine off my friends that use them, and have collected batteries of all shapes and sizes.
All the local vape shops refused to let me have their recycle bins due them paying an unnamed company to handle the disposal. I'm not sure if this is universal but that was my experience at least.
Imagine paying a company for disposal of a product that hobbiests would instead PAY THEM to have... 😂 So dumb. I'd give $10 or whatever for a bucket of discarded vapes....
My vape shop gives them to me.
That’s reminiscent of used motor oil. It use to be that companies would purchase used motor oil from mechanics, but now years later they actually charge for it. It’s crazy because they filter/recycle, and sell the shit @ profit already…🤷🏾♂️
Ive done these long ago and surprised on your post, Im salvaging the charging system with the battery for my needs including my Sons toys =}
I’m going to use them to power kinetic sculptures ✌🏻great information
Thanks for this video! I think you confirmed my suspicion... The ones I've been seeing lately, even with a USB-C recharge port attached, don't seem to have any protection circuit whatsoever. They just rely on chargers, and USB ports being protected or something, I guess? Does a standard USB port on a computer even offer lithium battery charging protection?? 😂 I don't think so... I honestly don't get it, I don't understand how these things don't get overcharged. The ONLY thing I notice is two of the tiniest resistors you've ever seen, mounted on the itty-bitty USB-C board labeled R1 and R2. Idk what they could be doing, but I doubt anything overly helpful. Only other guess is perhaps they've somehow integrated some protection bits onboard that round air-pressure switch? Maybe?? But again, it's so dang small, I really doubt it. If you've got any insight, let me know (: Thank you!
They have a little IC that does overvolt protection. I’m relatively sure they do not offer any sort of thermal protection tho. I could be wrong.
great information in this video, rember to capacity test all your cells before use, i noticed recycled vape cells to be more consistent then recycled 18650 cells but I've had a few that had lower capacity then expected, i use the same charger/ tester for 18650 and the vape cells, use a dummy cell in the charger with jump leads for the vape cells, these vapes banned here in Australia but i still find some
The lack of rechargeable units with pods is in fact because of the wording from the Juul lawsuit. It specifically says that a battery device with a pod system is now illegal. Manufacturers in the industry have been trying to find a way around the wording.
I've been thinking about what I can do with all my old disposable carts thank you
Big Clive has been harvesting these batteries for a year or so. I can never seem to find them like he does over in isle of man and Scotland
Loads of them around in this market town in south east England. Collected over 100 in the last 15 months.
I have about 300 of them. My first find was a bag with about 50-60. Batteries generally 500mAh. Lately including a charger
would it be possible to combine a bunch of these vape batteries to make a battery bank? I have about 20 of these, most of them use the larger battery with built in charging circuits. I would really like to make a cheap battery bank for emergencies.
I been using them for the last year, as I live in me Tramper van a lot, use these batts for small LED lights, have around 50 on them, :)
This is a great video! I recharge my Breeze Pro batteries using a 4056 chip with over charge protection, and add liquid vape juice so I can reuse these otherwise expensive "disposables." These don't appear to have any sort of circuit board within them. I always the voltage while inspecting the battery prior to charging, but I'd like to prevent over discharge if I continue to use these batteries in the breeze. Do you have any suggestions?
Absolutely the most informative video I've seen about these batteries! Thanks! Very helpful! 😎
So it is my thinking that if you grab a bunch of these that are the same size and power rating, since they have only been used once, that they would play nice together in a battery bank. Is that a terrible idea?
I’ve been collecting these for 2 or 3 years now picking them up off the side of the road, parking lots, etc. I have a couple people that give me theirs when they finish them, and just recently spoke with the guy @ local vape shop and he now collects them from people buying new and gives to me! I could probably build an entire ass Power Wall in a couple more years!🤣
Woah!!! This is crazy!
great video Becky, informative as always.
Yes, I certainly do re-use the battery cells from these single use devices. If I find a device on the street that looks intact, I pick it up, disassemble it, take the cell out of it, then put the rest into general recycling.
Well, we don't have these, but i did find a slightly toasted e-bike battery. Only 5 cells were bad out of about 40. So now i have 35 samsung 18650 cells each at 2.5ah. I used a capacity tester from aliexpress. It charges, discharges and measures capacity so i know which are better and worse. I then got a couple powerbank housings meant for these so i got some phone powerbanks. I also got a 18650 powered radio that works incredibly well, and doubles as a bluetooth speaker.
Becky you have so much battery knowledge, I learned a ton from this video!!! 🔋
Amazing work.
I use them to make remote control boats.. but I only use the larger vape battery's.. to make a 6x1500mAh 3s2p battery .. I make the boats out of things I have around the house with the goal of spending as little as possible to make them. I also made a hovercraft out of I cordless vacuum cleaner that was broken and my friend was going to throw out.. you can also top up liquid inside them and reuse them but only once a twice before the test gets bad..
i find these all over the place on my bike rides, i find good ones that can be salvaged but most are garbage or at least recycled but question is where to take them at least in my area? its hard to see these just littered like garbage when both the lithium and nicoteen is toxic to the enviorment. i ever wonder how hard it would be to actually recycle the batterys when dammaged beyond use without catching fire of course
I hope nowadays you are more careful when desoldering these than then, like at 4:19 when you pretty much shorted the cell with the soldering iron. 😊
got a lot of those from friends. now i got a lot of small chargeable batteries and charging boards.. just store them safely of course.
The little air sensors can be taken apart and re-used as touch switches ( there are videos ! ) ... but you need a good magnifying lamp ! .. DAVE™ 🛑
If you know what you’re doing, this is a great way to use these batteries instead of using it to vape/smoke; and to not waste it in the trash. Also if you can’t use it, yes e waste recycling is best.
I can confirm that I have definitely gotten a nicotine buzz from disassembling an Elf Bar without gloves. Also yeah the smell did *not* dissipate for at least a day. 😵
I was wondering when you were going to get to the BMS
Amazing! I just started collecting my friends vapes cause I hate it. So while researching and I found you! Eventually I even wanna use the plastic inside myco bricks to build homes out of. And eventually I wanna do solar battery banks with them
I've already applied for a small grant at my school to do the exact same thing. Going to make rechargeable battery packs with them!
not sure how to message you, but I'd love to! I'm currently researching this subject for business model solutions and other potential approaches. HMU if you have any interest in discussing your experience / knowledge!
BMS can be found on the cheap, then 3-D printed case. Just make sure to do a good job wiring or spot welding batts together because if selling, you assume a ton of liability with this sort of thing. That said, good luck!
I’ve been collecting those for a while. My question is, can you join them to create a higher capacity battery pack safely? And also can you use a usb charging module with multiple joined batteries?
I want to know this too; I’d love to be able to join a couple and turn them into a little usb-c power bank
yes, but you should add a fuse to each battery cell (if you join them in parallel).
@@OLmL1 most manufacturers of power banks don’t do that
@@thatyoutubeguy7583 not on 18650 cells maybe, because they have an internal protection (CID).
These ones don't have that.
You technically can but the charging circuit wouldn’t be able to balance the charge so you run the risk of under or overcharging of one or more cells. I would definitely add a BMS
Anyone have any ideas what to do with the metal casings? I have hundreds that i want to use for something.
I already disassembled a few and thought to. Myself, what if I take it out and use it on my rc helicopters? It seems like lipo battery. Why waste it?
I can't believe they put rechargeable batteries in these just to be thrown out. I dont even smoke, but my sister leaves these everywhere. I found one on the ground and saw it had a rechargeable c-port. I looked up the brand and it has a 650mah battery. Glad to find this video! ill be collecting these from now on!
Hi, you were saying about under and over voltage. I use a bigblue solar panel to charge an ANKER power bank. There would be a range of voltages throughout the day never over 5 volts but under 5 volts at quite a lot. Do you thing this would cause a problem for the power bank. Thank you or anyone for a comment.
I started doing this a year ago. I’m about to tell my smoke shop that I’ll take any empties left around or from customers.
What about the Oro bar refilling and battery
I'm late to the party but I'm looking for ways to convince the dozens of smoke shops in my area to collect spent vapes. There might be enough value in all those batteries to create an incentive for both the shops and the customers, like "recycle 20 get a free one" or something. I'm not going to open a lithium recycling plant, but there must be something that can be done with thousands of Li-Po batteries!
Hi! Great video! a lot of people in my city are using the Elfbars- can you make a video showing how to wire several of these batteries in series or parallel (whichever is safest) to power a guitar pedal? That would be a really neat re-use purpose! Most guitar pedals use a 9V battery.
You should put the may explode warning at the beginning
I connect the batteries in parallel in an 18650 DIY battery pack. The musician Mairk uses these in his performances.
As someone who does vape, this is infuriating to me. I love electronics and I turn these into battery banks. If the FDA actually cared about the safety of kids, they would have either left Juul alone on the flavors, or they would have banned flavored alcohol as well.
thank you so much for the video with more information than what I could find myself only just stepping into the space. it's utterly infuriating that companies are allowed to do something as ridiculous as this
I have like 30 old vapes lying around to salvage for the small batteries. I have yet to use one for a project though
There's very cheap Bluetooth speakers that have good chips inside but a very poor lipo battery. These batteries from vapes are perfect for extending the playback time many hours (because there's much empty space inside the speaker case tha can be filled with several batteries)
🤔Umm-not to get off on a tangent, but-by any chance, might there be an instructional somewhere that could explain how to turn a throwaway vape into a decent electromagnet?
🤷♂️ 😏 Just asking!..
Just started doing this. Trying to find ones with high enough c rating for micro drones.
Taking apart a disposable vape is like cracking the shell off a crab. Except it's for that succulent lithium.
😆😆
Could you please give me a link to the battery charger circuit that you have in this video?
www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/sparkfun-electronics/PRT-14380/7725300 and www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/dfrobot/DFR0668/13166500
If you find 850mah battery 3.7v same type like on your video , how much current (milliamps) are the best way for charging..thanks
planning to mod out a torch with them.
My friend uses E cig with the same battery as you show, so he gives me the empty ones I have 50 now, so will have to build them into a small battery pack
I've been collecting mine for quite some time because I don't want to throw them in the landfill. I really wish there was some way to recycle these. We need to figure out something
She literally just did a video on how to recycle them. Also, through pyrolysis, you can use the plastics in them to produce fuels such as diesel, kerosene, super dirty gasolin, propane, butane, etc.
and of course any made of aluminum can be recycled as they will even pay you for the aluminum.
Anyone here have any idea why I might be reading 7.4v off of one of the batteries I pulled from a ripper vape by rufpuf? It has 3.7v 550mah printed on it... It does not appear to be two cells in series. It's a cylinder with positive and negative on the ends. I think I'm just uneducated on my multimeter and used the wrong setting.
I have used it with a step up in my garrett metalldetector with the cheap charging board. Its very cheap and no protection. I think this are not the best batteries, but 300-800 reload is possible i think. Charging better with 150ma only
Thank you i save so many of these from other people cause of these 3.7 volt batteries but didn't know what to do with them
Nice. Thanks for helping people wake up 🙂
Can i replace the battery of my elfbar? Of possible which type of battery should i use?
I have hundreds of them I always felt it was too dangerous to just throw in the trash 🤔 I wanted to make a battery bank but I didn't know if it was safe or worth the extra work and money 💯 would you want them for any reason?
so witch part is the lithium exactly ?
Great video Becky! Had no idea and something else to get angry about. Is lithium a finite source? No kidding these are kinda dangerous. 4:20 you can see tiny sparks as you desolder. (Would desoldering negative first cause the same spark?) Super smart to add connectors. Soldering any live battery to a circuit is risky. Mahalo for sharing! : )
Would have been safer to cut the pressure sensing capsule one wire at a time. And don't do what [Atomic 14] did in his video which was to cut both wires at the same time with the same metal wire cutters.
Lithium is super abundant on earth, particularly in seawater. It’s the rendering of it that’s the issue. Oh and you know the littering and filling of land fills etc😒
This video is super informative - I can't wait to reccomend it! ⚡💨🥳
What a funny way to describe puncture of battery as electrons might get way to excited lol and orgazm into firework
Some smokes shops collect them for disposal and will most likely give you some if you ask. Also you can 100% absorb nicotine juice into your skins so definitely wear gloves.