[HN Gopher] Turning Disposable Vapes into a Fast Charge Power Bank
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Turning Disposable Vapes into a Fast Charge Power Bank
Author : gmemstr
Score : 37 points
Date : 2024-09-15 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| woleium wrote:
| Remember to wear gloves, nicotine vape juice is nasty stuff!
| subjectsigma wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Probably the best outcome. Nicotine is a pretty potent
| poison, not sure how much is in vape juice though.
| nucleardog wrote:
| Most of the disposables are 20mg/ml. Average is probably
| 2ml volume for 40mg total.
|
| Unless you were tipping the thing upside down and trying to
| drink it, you're gonna get, what, a quarter ml at the high
| end?
|
| So about 5mg of nicotine. Which is about the same amount as
| in a single piece of nicorette gum.
|
| Even if you drank the whole thing, that's 40mg. The widely
| accepted estimate for LD50 is closer to 80mg. Reviews in
| the past decade have put that into question and it looks
| like it's off by an order of magnitude--probably more like
| 800mg.
|
| You're gonna puke and generally feel like shit, but unless
| you inject it straight in your blood stream you're gonna be
| fine.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| There are laws about how the nicotine % a vape can have.
| In the uk it's something like 2 to 3 percent. In other
| countries you can get up to 5 percent. Probably so that
| people don't end up poisoning themselves.
| hscontinuity wrote:
| 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).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Alternatively, have an explosion containment pie dish ready.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Well, at least once actual explosive goes kaboom, it's gone.
| A battery in runoff is a fire hazard for much longer time.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| 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)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 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.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Cells in parallel don't really need to be matched, within
| reason. So long as one isn't failing it generally doesn't
| matter. Arguably if you mixed energy cells with power cells
| that can cause problems, but only if you're in a high power
| application, which this isn't.
|
| That being said who knows how bad these cells are.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > That being said who knows how bad these cells are.
|
| I think there's a reason these things are disposable in
| the first place... only God knows where the f..k the
| original fly-by-night producer of these vapes sourced
| them from, or what kind of quality control has been done
| on them. Or who skipped on a fraction of a cent per piece
| on a million batteries...
| oulipo wrote:
| 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
| eternityforest wrote:
| 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.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| There kind of are. 14500 is the lithium AA equivalent, although
| the predominant standards are 18650 and 21700.
| eternityforest wrote:
| 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.
| BigParm wrote:
| How to accidentally electrocute yourself and start a house fire
| hagbard_c wrote:
| 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.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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'"?
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(page generated 2024-09-15 23:01 UTC)