ecig explodes in mans face!! (slightly less sensational inside)

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

http://m.weartv.com/news/Exploding_Cigarette

A strange accident has left a Niceville man with severe injuries and burns.
He was smoking an electronic cigarette when it blew up in his face.

Laura Hussey "When firefighters here at the North Bay station got the call there'd been an explosion in someone's home, they thought it might be an oxygen tank. It turns out something much smaller had done some awful damage"

Tom Holloway is a photographer, a Vietnam Veteran, a father of three.

Wendy Jensen/Friend "Just a super nice guy, and he's had some health problems with his lungs and so he, he quit smoking"

Neighbor Wendy Jensen says Holloway had been using electronic cigarettes for about two years.

Monday evening, his wife heard a loud noise from the study.
"She said that it sounded like a firecracker, and it was just a horrible noise, and she heard him scream and she ran in there"

Holloway's cigarette had exploded.
The debris that flew around the room was so hot, it melted everything it touched.

Chief Butch Parker/North Bay Fire District "And what we believe was in the battery, and whenever the battery ignited, it was basically like him holding a bottle rocket in his mouth"

Wendy Jensen "It exploded in his face, and it knocked out all his teeth and part of his tongue and he had blood all over his face, and it set the study on fire"

Jensen says Holloway has been transferred to a burn center.
Firefighters say it was impossible to tell the brand of the electronic cigarette; this is the first time they've heard of one exploding.

Wendy "Oh it's horrible, we were just up all night thinking about it, it's horrible"

Laura Hussey "This incident has been reported to a national database, so any possible patterns can be identified."

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/media-general-news/268885-e-cig-blows-up-mans-face-3.html

apparently he was using unprotected li-ion batteries (possibly in series?) and what I've been freaking out about since I heard about the lavatube battery issue actually happened.
Obviously a one in a million thing, and avoidable if you take care when charging/discharging but still serves to drive home the point that if you're using a mod take care of your batteries.
now if you'll excuse me i'm off to order a lifetime supply of limn's

tommy2bad

now if you'll excuse me i'm off to order a lifetime supply of limn's

limn's ??

Scary but batts fail, get a mod designed to fail if something goes wrong. Damage limitation.
Or harm reduction, bit like the ecig itself.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

limn's are different chemistry than li-ion's, safer so even if they do develop a fatal fault they won't explode

alec76

limn's are different chemistry than li-ion's, safer so even if they do develop a fatal fault they won't explode

Well, that what they(AW) saying , we don't know for sure how safe are they
BTW . Does LAVATUBE got safety VENT hole(s) on the bottom cap , if not , u better drill it yourself ......

tommy2bad

They all (most) have vent holes but holes only slow the build of gas, gives you 2 seconds to drop it, you would need big vents to completely prevent an explosion and they cost to include in the manufacture. A breakaway end, away from the face is the next best thing.
Remember that anything can fail, if its designed to fail it has less chance of doing serious damage. Think crumple zones in cars.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

and if you're in a small room you're still gona get screwed if that article is anything to go by

"The debris that flew around the room was so hot, it melted everything it touched."

you better hope you have an open window, or a house big enough to throw that thing far away from you

alec76

tommy2bad wrote: »

They all (most) have vent holes but holes only slow the build of gas, gives you 2 seconds to drop it, you would need big vents to completely prevent an explosion and they cost to include in the manufacture. A breakaway end, away from the face is the next best thing.
Remember that anything can fail, if its designed to fail it has less chance of doing serious damage. Think crumple zones in cars.

There is no hole in that one

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

that was an early test build of the lavatube, afaik every version that was actually sold to the public has a vent hole

alec76

good , hopefully they got proper holes , not like Scott's one ( hole not drilled all way through )

sparkemo

As far as I know the IMR high drain (LiMn) batteries are unprotected batteries.
The safer chemistry means no oxidising agent inside which should prevent it from catching fire but will still vent hot gases and hit about 200 deg C if shorted. The high drain will do it quicker because of high current discharge rates.
I hope nobody is unlucky enough to have a lithium battery fail like this, with either type of battery I think the LT would be screwed.
If mine gets hot I'll be testing to see how it flies.

mrplop

From what I can gather, the poor guy was smoking a mod using unprotected 3 volt CR123 batteries.

The Lavatube uses unprotected batteries but it has built in circuitry to prevent this sort of thing from happening so there's no need for any kind of sensationalism. All production versions of the L/T have a proper vent, the versions without the vent were all review copies.

Mods using unprotected batteries could be dodgy but I've NEVER heard of anyone being injured by one before - and there are a lot of us smoking mods too.

I see a lot of people jumping on the ''E-cigs need regulating'' band wagon, here's a post from a torch forum about a torch exploding and injuring it's user;

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?120888-ROAR-of-the-Pelican-%28CR123-Explosion-during-use-firsthand-account%29

I haven't seen any request to regulate exotic torches and from what I can ascertain, this has occurred more than a few times with these set ups.

mrplop

Here's a good run-down of the dangers of using the wrong kind of battery in a mod;

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/ecf-library/129569-rechargeable-batteries.html

tommy2bad

Yep, I'v seen posts about exploding tooth brushes eek !
As ecigs are being demonised anyway it's likely they'll get some bad press from this.
Shame cos they do what they say they do and lets face it so far no one has died. How many fires start with a forgotten real cig.

sparkemo

I wonder if the ecig bashers out there are posting from their laptops which run on stacked unprotected 18650 batteries.:eek:

Love2love

I have no clue about e-cigs. I have been using mine for about 2 weeks now and I haven't smoked a cigarette since. This thread scares me with all the talk about liquids and different types of batteries. All I know is that mine is from SmokeGreen and I change cartridges when the taste changes.
Is my battery similar to the one that this man had? I would love someone to give me more information on the one I have in basic terms?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

they both have e and cigarette in their names, those would be about the only similarities.
in terms of battery power, while we dont know exactly what he was using it'd be a safe guess to say that to compare yours to his would be like comparing a steam engine to a nuclear powered sub.
you're gonna be fine

as for more information about your ecig, i can't help you there.. never seen or used one. when we talk about liquid we are talking about what is inside your cartridges. I would imagine your cartridges are cartomizers, atomisers (the device that heats the liquid to produce the vapour) and a cartridge (just a storage device for the liquid.. most have some sort of filler inside which soaks up the liquid to feed to the atomiser) in the one device (cartomiser)
most cartomizers allow you to refill them with liquid when youve used them up, instead of just binning it and throwing another new cartridge in. I dont know if yours does, i'd guess it does as unless they've sealed the cartridge shut you should be able to safely open it up and drip some e-liquid in there when you think it's empty.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/announcements-rules/269461-exploding-mods-update-february-2012-a.html#post5327522

safety tips here from ecf if anyone's interested

one interesting bit
"All explosions reported so far involve metal tube mods with two batteries in series."

running two batteries in series seems to be the big "do not do" of battery explosions. so the lavatube or any tube mod with 1 large battery should be far less of a risk.

alec76

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the limn imr batteries

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

alec76

the limn imr batteries

I wish he did the same test with LIon VS LImn...

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

well i think the lIon would go pretty similar to your video so they didn't want to invest in the safety features , the one I linked is just a promotional video to show how much safer panasonic are than AW I guess.

alec76

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

lol
at least with the ego battery hhe got 15-20 minutes of warning
that batt must have gone through some serious punishment though, ego batts and chargers are meant to be quite a bit safter than the larger batts you'd put in mods

alec76

at least with the ego battery hhe got 15-20 minutes of warning

er, he isn't sure about this ...
One fella from ecigtalk.ru had accident with Ego year ago or so..Exploded while he was making the draw ...... Some hands burns , dirty face ,(probably sh*t himself )no big whoop, ---- bottom cap blew off away ....
Anyhow he hadn't 2 sec warning, dont mind 20 minutes....
What important is if EGO BLOWS --- bottom cap fly away under pressure from the face....... It is better than ours mods -- with tiny vent holes ....
American chop seems to had PRODIGY V3 MOD ( there are 2 tiny vents holes in it --- probably not big enough to release pressure )

sparkemo

Looks like that Panasonic battery is Li-ion.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Many people have been asking if these really are IMR batteries. This is a direct quote from a Panasonic Press Release :
"Panasonic has introduced a new high rate lithium ion cell CGR18650CH. The cell’s Nickel Manganese-based cathode material delivers higher discharge rates and better energy density and voltage than comparative cells. CGR18650CH cells are suitable for multi-cell applications."
So the short answer is Yes they are IMR

*shrug*

sparkemo

Either way if they are getting safer and cheaper, all the better for us.
Those panasonics are only $8 at smartvapes.

nesf

I think Doctor Vape summed it up a year or so back: Do you really want something that could possibly explode *that* close to your face?

alec76

alec76 wrote: »

I wish he did the same test with LIon VS LImn...

Trastfire 3.7v , regular unsafe li -on battery ... protection board (PCB) removed