"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article
,
Tim+ wrote:
Except that he seemed to be blaming the chargers rather than the
e-cigarettes. I'm not saying that there aren't shoddy chargers out there
too but it sounds to me like the primary problem lies with the
cigarettes.

If it were the 'cigarette' which burst into flames when in use, it would
be to blame. But when charging? How is it any different from any other
device which uses re-chargeable batteries?

Well, these are lithium batteries after all, so a little different to 'any'
other devise using rechargeables, an overcharged ni-cad battery vents a bit
and dies, an overcharged lead acid gasses untill it boils dry, then buckles
the plates,

But a lithium battery overcharged goes into an exothermic reaction thingy
and goes up like rocket fuel.

i imagine most of the fag lookalike e-fags have no space inside for the
charging circuitry, so they built it into the charger supplied with the
unit, they just decided to use the USB plug and socket arangement for
connections as that's what everyone is used to, not to mention the parts are
available for fractions of a pence per hundred to the manufacturer.

These e-fags are not approved by the government or the stop smoking
charities, are made in china by slave labour to a knocked off design for a
couple of pence a unit, is it any wonder the odd one burst into flames.


And the advice to never leave such things unattended when charging just
plain ludicrous. As is any advice which you must know everyone will
ignore.

i think anything with lithium rechargeable batteries in it will have that
warning somewhere, re-charging is the most dangerous stage of use, i
remember when i first started using li-po batteries with my electric RC
plane,
i was advised to charge the pack in a fire safe or BBQ on the patio as the
likelyhood of the pack going into a thermal runaway was very high even with
normal charging... which was pretty primative at the time... whack in the
power and try to bleed the excess off with a few zeners and resistors.

The latest li-po packs are much safer, and the computerised charger i now
have makes it very unlikely something bad will happen, but the warning is
still on the literature that comes with the pack, and it's not hard to see
why...

Burn the house down from a runaway lithium pack, no use blaming the
manufacturers, they told you it was dangerous, and if you had been watching
it charge you wouldn't have burnt the house down,
not their fault you didn't read or follow the advise given in the small
print

And lithium primary cells can be even more dangerous, short one of those
buggers out and they have been known to melt metal bodied torches from the
heat produced,