Understandably, the topic of battery safety is a pretty big deal in the vaping world. Misuse and abuse the batteries you plonk in your e-cig device as sources of power for your vaping and, should the worst come to the worst, it could result in dire consequences; that is, the battery might even burst, explode or set off a fire. Vape batteries aren’t manufactured to fail, which means they are manufactured to be used sensibly and responsibly by vapers – in the majority of cases when they do fail, it’s because of user error. In which case then, it’s important to be aware of the most common vape battery-related mistakes you can end up making…
Carrying spare, charged batteries in your pocket
On the surface, this may seem a rather harmless mis-step to make, if a mis-step at all; but don’t be deceived, a mis-step it is. That said, the issue isn’t so much about carrying extra charged batteries with you in your pocket; more so, it’s about the fact you’ll doubtless also have loose change and a set of keys in there with them. Why the big deal? Well, just like how your trusty e-cig fires up because inside the device a circuit’s completed between a charged battery and other metal components, so too could a circuit be essentially completed between the charged batteries in your pocket and all the other metal things you’re carrying in there. The solution to this irksome mistake then (which’ll do no good at all to your spare batteries) is to pop the spares in a plastic or silicone battery case to keep them safe and entirely usable.
Using the wrong and/ or a cheap battery charger
Always ensure you charge your e-cig device’s battery with the intended charger and, ideally, a high-quality one. Because the reality is that (dependent on its size and power capabilities), should you instead try to charge it via, say, an iPhone wall charger, you may end up overcharging the poor thing which, in turn, could lead to the danger of it possibly bursting or exploding. Not good. Indeed, even if such an over-charged battery shorts out before the worse can happen (which is more likely), it’s still obviously bad news. Additionally, lazily falling back on using any old, cheap 18650 charger may be just as bad a move; sure, you might feel you’re doing good by saving a bit of money, yet because such chargers doubtless aren’t equipped with overcharge protection they can also easily lead you to overcharge your battery.
Quite simply then, you should always seek to charge your device with an appropriate charger – and if you do so with the charger that comes with it you shouldn’t go far wrong. Remember; a charger that’s intended for a different device (especially for a non-e-cig device) is not recommended and, ultimately, could harm the battery and you yourself when vaping, while significantly cheaper chargers are cheap for a reason. Plus, an added bonus that high-quality chargers offer – like the sort of advantages that other high-quality vaper accessories UK offer – is that they ought to extend the life of the batteries they charge.
Totally draining your battery before recharging
Fully draining your battery – or, in other words, fully discharging/ over-discharging – a battery is far from advised and yet, of course, it’s easily done. After all, batteries when being used in most mechanical devices aren’t capable of informing you when they ought to be removed and recharged (unless you have something of a super-duper e-cig device that does inform you of this via an LED light or the such like).
But what’s the harm with discharging a battery until it’s entirely empty of power? Surely it can’t be as bad for the thing as overcharging it? Well, some very au fait with vaping batteries would argue it is – indeed, it’s believed that the more you over-discharge a battery the weaker it’ll become in the long term. The trick then is to make sure you try to pay attention to when there’s a large, sudden decrease in power your battery’s providing your vaping device and then, at that point, switch to a newly charged battery and recharge the near-empty, used one. Simple.
