There are many horror stories today that show various devices exploding, burning or even catching fire, and ecigarettes are not exempt from these explosions. In many cases this has resulted in injury. But what is the real reason why ecigarettes explode and how can we prevent this?
There Is Only One Reason Vapes, Scooters and Cheap Phones All Keep Exploding!
Shanna Abraham, 13, of Orland Park, Illinois, eyes the carcass of her hoverboard at home. It exploded while charging.Source: Getty Images
Everybody at some stage has read the horror stories surrounding ecigarettes exploding, and are torn between the reason why. Many think ecigarettes are dangerous, others have not had any issues whatsoever and think people having explosions are just dumb and don’t understand sub ohm vaping enough. This is not the case though on either side of the argument.
Many of these fires and explosions lead to one single conclusion = poor quality batteries bought from the cheapest supplier. Specifically we are talking about lithium-ion batteries. These lithium ion batteries run so many of the world’s electronic gadgets and the majority are completely safe and fully tested and inspected. Laptops, Phones, Gadgets, Devices and Powered Vehicles and Toys all use lithium-ion cells. They’re small, powerful, long lasting and have spent over 10 years generally not being a fireball of mayhem.
Today there is a fresh media panic surrounding lithium-ion-powered devices. Before Christmas the sales giant Amazon actually banned all hoverboard sales, causing havoc to these hoverboard re-sellers, destroying the whole business of smaller firms reliant on Amazon sales. Meanwhile, there are plenty of stories of various devices catching fire and causing unrepairable damage to people’s lives.
Lithium-ion gadgets 12 years ago, even the popular commercial devices, used to combust from time to time. In theearly 2000s factory fires were common, with these devices causing them. Sony recalled 340,000 laptop batteries in 2006 and A 2008 explosion at LG’s battery factory also halted the entire global supply of lithium-ion fuel cells for a while.
Lithium-ion fuel cells can catch fire for a number of reasons, almost all are down to faulty manufacturing and poor quality control. Cheaper batteries may overload while charging, sometimes this is down to dirt and debris working its way into the batteries during manufacture. Granted if people are sub ohm vaping using cheap generic batteries not suitable they may find problems and this is down do user error when choosing the batteries for sub ohm vaping. Ensuring you have GENUINE high capacity high drain batteries for sub ohm vaping is crucial. Ensuring no misfires on mech mods is important too if building your own vape and coils. A very, very simple fix for all manufacturers not wishing to burn there customers houses down is install A management system. This keeps a battery from overcharging in any conditions, which can be installed on the battery with a small computer chip. It’s as simple as that. All European and American built devices are all, by law, built with this management chip and are safe. Clone devices form overseas, or cheap off-brand companies are not restricted by these same laws and practices. All reputable ecigs and tanks are all safe and caution should be given buying a device from a new vendor, or choosing to buy a cheaper clone from abroad. If something is too good to be true, it usually is.
If This Is So Easy To Fix, Why Do Devices Keep Exploding
Again this is very simple. In the world of competitive prices and international buying, price is always the culprit. Manufacturing costs are higher producing batteries this safer way. Device batteries without an overcharging management chip cost less. Chinese manufacturers (and others) are buying batteries and parts at the cheapest price possible.
Faulty manufacturing is almost always the cause of fuel-cell fires.
“The separator in the cell that separates positive and negative electrodes is thin, and any small metal particle can cause a disruption or short,” Isidor Buchmann, founder and CEO of Cadex Electronics, told Mic. “So they had to improve that by making dust-proof environments that are pressurized, so the main brands are very safe.”
Since 2005, well known companies have all raised their standards enormously to prevent the economic, industrial and medical disasters that come with faulty lithium-ion batteries catching fire. A system called U.N. testing, involving stress tests that include dropping and puncturing batteries and overcharging the batteries is now used throughout the United States and Europe to ensure batteries aren’t fragile and perform well under pressure.
So How Can I Make Sure I’m Not A Fireball One Day?
1) Buy Genuine, known brands with a history of good reviews and users.
2) Take care when trying a new vendor or manufacturer of Ecigarettes.
3) When sub-ohm vaping, always use proper sub ohm genuine batteries (there are a lot of fakes around internationally, do your homework first).
4) When charging unattended, as an extra precaution, use a charge bag or flame resistant material to charge it on and keep away from flammable materials.
5) Avoid mech mods and any ecig that does not have its own controlled circuitry (to prevent misfires and electrical shorts)
6) If your sub-ohm vaping, we recommend using pre-built coils in a hybrid tank and a controlled variable voltage device.