Turning Disposable Vapes into a Fast Charge Power Bank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehp23hrrEHY

by gmemstr • 2 years ago

48 28 2 years ago

woleium• 2 years ago

Remember to wear gloves, nicotine vape juice is nasty stuff!

No joke. I accidentally swallowed some once from a vape that was leaking and immediately threw up. Like, it was so quick I didn’t even feel it, I just looked down and my shirt was covered in vomit. I’m not sure what kind of juice it was, it was my sisters vape. (Yes, I’ve quit since then, mostly)

kadoban• 2 years ago

Probably the best outcome. Nicotine is a pretty potent poison, not sure how much is in vape juice though.

BizarroLand• 2 years ago

I agree that you should use caution, but I make my own vape juice by the gallon and it's not that bad.

~96% of it is a mix of essentially harmless vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine is used in cosmetics, lotions, ice creams, and toothpastes, and propylene glycol is commonly found in those 0 calorie water enhancer flavor squirt bottles (like MIO).

The other 4% are the flavors and the nicotine, and the only one I would be extra cautious about is the raw nicotine fluid, as accidentally dumping that all over yourself could expose you to enough nicotine to make you sick or requiring a hospital visit if not thoroughly washed off immediately.

hscontinuity• 2 years ago

A parts package to create this would be a nice side hustle for the gentleman in the video.

Suggestion: (to video maker)

1. Leave the design open source, create a second design (more efficient/whatever you think defines the declaration of value).

2. Package second design parts together for sale and let the public purchase so they can run around and find disposable vapes and make their own.

3. Profit.

No need for steps 4 and 5. (Rinse & Repeat new models).

mschuster915• 2 years ago

EDIT: This video is full with absurdly comical levels of danger. Anyone attempting to replicate this is creating a literal time bomb. I've written it up on Mastodon as well, so if anyone wants to share some PSA on how to work with batteries without making a bomb, feel free to share [1].

Important note for fellow tinkerers, nearly lost my mind at 2:22: Do not ever solder directly on, or even adjacent to, lithium batteries. Only use spot welders and crimp connections. Once you cut a wire (NEVER cut two wires at once) that leads to a battery, place a Wago clamp on it to make sure it can not short accidentally.

What the guy did at 7:57 is even more inexcusable, one blob of solder misplaced and he'll short the pack. And the tiny main wire, that's NOT going to survive the 30 amps he's gonna pull at 100w out. JESUS. Take the time, install proper connectors, and solder them BEFORE the pack and the PCB are electrically hot.

And also, he left about zero airway for heat to escape. At full load, the inner cells will heat up!

Also, never just take random cells and place them together in a parallel connection. Always measure each individual cell's capacity, only use closely matching cells, always stay 5-10% below the cutoff voltage, and never work with charged cells, only ones with max. 10% charge - only charge cells once they are installed.

And ffs keep a bucket of fine sand nearby when you work with batteries. If a battery makes signs that it is about to go kaboom (it emits smoke, swells up, or catches fire), dump the bucket of sand onto the battery/device, leave the room, close the door and call 911(US)/112(EU).

[1] https://mas.to/@diebarschlampe/113143039423618086

jonatron• 2 years ago

Alternatively, have an explosion containment pie dish ready.

mschuster915• 2 years ago

Well, at least once actual explosive goes kaboom, it's gone. A battery in runoff is a fire hazard for much longer time.

Panzer043• 2 years ago

You can be pretty liberal about cells in parallel, it's series that bites you.

He's using a 5s arrangement, it looks like - so his 100w fast charging will only be around 5-6A, not 30A, which those wires will probably be OK with (though i would have picked something thicker myself)

Wiring up random batteries into series is definitely not OK, and is perhaps what you meant to refer to.

I personally don't think thermals are an issue in this particular instance. 35 cells are going to laugh at 100w charging (only 3w each). The real risk is a dodgy hidden bad cells, though ideally the BMS detects this regardless.

The real question is why bother with all this effort for a monstrous power bank with shit capacity. 15000mAh is nothing for that many cells.. that's the same capacity as 4-5 brand-new lithium cells, or a 50$ powebank off amazon :/. Those vape cells must be pretty shit (probably 1500mAh power-focused cells, id guess, hence the shit capacity)

mschuster915• 2 years ago

You can be pretty liberal about cells in parallel, it's series that bites you.

Yeah but at least the BMS he uses does balancing to (hopefully) keep the series packs from going into dangerous voltage territory.

A dodgy cell in a parallel pack however, there's no way a standard BMS can detect that, hence pre-install measuring and matching... of course you can go for individual cell protection as well or buy cells with built-in protection but the former is overcomplicated (and hard to get right) for a DIY project, and the latter not an option as the cells from vapes don't have a need for protection circuitry. Hence, matching is a must.

He's using a 5s arrangement, it looks like - so his 100w fast charging will only be around 5-6A, not 30A, which those wires will probably be OK with (though i would have picked something thicker myself)

Fair point, but still, that's not looking remotely near the 0.5 mm² that one should use for 5-6 amps of current.

oulipo2• 2 years ago

That's why at Gouach we created a system to build batteries without soldering! This makes them repairable and refillable :) Take a look at https://get.gouach.com if you're interested

serf• 2 years ago

first off : terrible advertising.

second : how many times do mechanical-contact 18650s need to be attempted before it's settled universally that it's a bad idea for vehicles (like e-bikes that your advertisement mentions)?

I hated the VRUZEND design too and they at least had the insight to use 18650s with overlapped bus-bars for the sake of rigidity and continuity through deformation.

The design that you're using is, imo, most similar to the JAG35 pcb-over-terminal designs -- but as far as I know he doesn't bother trying to use PCBs over loose 18650s; only to interface with existing and pre-welded packs or packs with pre-welded stud interfaces, usually already fairly rigid prismatic packs [0]

PCBs aren't that rigid necessarily; it's easy to imagine conditions in which batteries might drop out of the network. Even with lots of bolts and thick PCBs -- uneven thermal expansion due to a poorly made cell, for example. The kind of conditions that would fry a lot of motor controllers under load should the voltage suddenly change somewhere.

No thanks. Let's stick with welding, it's now dirt-cheap to buy a battery welder and it's not nearly as irreversible as groups that sell things like this would make you believe.

[0] https://jag35.com/products/fully-assembled-12v-4s2p-1200a-le...

eternityforest2• 2 years ago

It's absolutely insane that we don't have proper standards for interchangeable and reusable batteries.

People still design new AA battery products because there's almost no other standards. It's crazy.

We need something like USB but for batteries and expansion modules.

Panzer043• 2 years ago

There kind of are. 14500 is the lithium AA equivalent, although the predominant standards are 18650 and 21700.

eternityforest2• 2 years ago

It seems to be generally agreed that those aren't consumer-ready.

Protected cells are hard to find, there are multiple chemistries, it's easy to accidentally put a 14500 in an AA device and break it, etc.

16340 is probably the friendliest cylindrical lithium, but really I think what we need is a square GoPro style battery, with builtin protection, a data channel that can tell the host exactly how to charge it, and that can be safely paralleled or put in series up to a reasonable voltage.

If you used Dallas onewire for the data channels, all you'd need to do to make a pack is put them all in parallel and let the host chip figure it out.

Just like, solve the battery issue once and for all. You could even have coin cell sized versions.

BigParm2• 2 years ago

How to accidentally electrocute yourself and start a house fire

hagbard_c• 2 years ago

Your great-grandfather may have built his own house, your grandfather probably climbed the roof to replace some tiles which got blown off in a storm, your father may have stood on a ladder to paint the walls. They all seem to have survived long enough to reproduce so you are able to warn off people from trying to be self-reliant because it may hurt them.

Safety is certainly a consideration when contemplating projects like this one but it is by no means the only one and often not even the most important one. Safetyism is what you get when you make it the most important consideration, it is not a recipe for a healthy society.

BTW, if you really want to electrocute yourself that puny little battery won't do the trick, for that you need a a bit more voltage. Never fear, that is easily achieved by taking a few of those plastic snow poles used to mark out roads in colder places and filling them with 18650 cells. A 2 metre pole is good for 30 cells which give you about 130 Volts of DC fully charged. Those cells are capable of pushing quite a bit of current so if you're really into dangerous games that'd be an example of one.

mschuster915• 2 years ago

Your great-grandfather may have built his own house, your grandfather probably climbed the roof to replace some tiles which got blown off in a storm, your father may have stood on a ladder to paint the walls. They all seem to have survived long enough to reproduce so you are able to warn off people from trying to be self-reliant because it may hurt them.

Survivor bias. Look at average life expectancy up until the 1950s... it was shockingly low. Most people had many MANY many children just to see one or two live to adulthood - accidents and pandemics claimed their lives, workplace injuries and wars took them as adults. Your great-grandfather likely had four to five siblings [1], earlier generations were at around seven in the US [2].

It's only because of vaccines, OSHA, antibiotics and medicine that human life expectancy has exploded over the last decades. House fires are among the most stubborn killers that still remain, the numbers are going down extremely slowly [3].

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/global-fertility-has-halved

[2] https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a...

[3] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/residential-fires/

BigParm2• 2 years ago

You don't understand. Even if you are a competent blue collar person and you build your own house today, you hire qualified electricians. Everyone does this. It's a rule written in blood. With electrical, the catastrophic risks start right away. Especially with batteries, what a circus.

It's not learn-as-you-go like computers. A mistake doesn't give compiler errors. It might just kill you now, or get red hot later under certain conditions you haven't tested.

If you can't see that this gongshow is obviously dangerous then you are a fool.

FridayoLeary2• 2 years ago

It would be easier to buy a laptop with a battery pack that ages badly until one day it it goes pop and ignites (ahem dell).

voidbert• 2 years ago

If these vapes are disposable, wouldn't it be cheaper for the manufacturers to use non-rechageable battery technologies like the many ones on AA(A) batteries?

chipsrafferty• 2 years ago

The juice lasts about 10x longer than the batteries, so they'd have to either make them use much less juice, or use larger batteries.

Consumers are paying upwards of $20 for vapes that last less than a week with heavy use, or about 2 weeks with low/average use, so I don't think a dollar saved on batteries is really as much of a concern as "why should I buy your vape vs one of the 5 dozen competitors'"?

Turning Disposable Vapes into a Fast Charge Power Bank

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