E-Cigs Are Exploding In Vapers' Faces At An Alarming Rate (buzzfeed.com) 361
E-cigs are becoming increasingly popular, but are they safe enough? BuzzFeed News is reporting about accidents where e-cigs have exploded in vapers' faces. The report claims that these incidents are occurring at an alarming rate. From the report (condensed): Across the country, defective e-cigarettes -- the nicotine delivery machines that have taken over every strip mall and sidewalk, seemingly overnight -- are creating hundreds of victims like Cavins (a 63-year-old Orange, California-based family therapist who lost an eye after an e-cig device exploded in his face), people whose lives are suddenly and horrifyingly changed when their devices blow up. They are people like Thomas Boes, whose vape exploded while he was driving outside San Diego and struck him with such force that two of the three teeth he lost lodged in his upper palate; Kenneth Barbero, whose exploding device ripped a hole in his tongue; and Marcus Forzani, a 17-year-old whose left leg was charred from his calf to his thigh after a vape battery exploded in his pocket. An unpublished FDA analysis found 66 reports of e-cigarette overheating, fires, and explosions in 2015 and the first month of 2016, a number the agency calls "an underestimate of actual events."
darwinian pressure (Score:5, Funny)
And people say evolutionary pressure doesn't exist in modern society...
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And before the bleeding heart crowd jump down my throat, I refer to the lamentation that previously darwinian habits (like deliberately inhaling things that cause cancer etc) do not have the corresponding effect due to socially responsible advances in medicine.
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You misunderstood his comment. He was expressing disappointment that using tobacco ("previously darwinian habits ") didn't result in death as often due to modern medical advances.
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We'll be waiting a long time for that one...
I started smoking at age 10; at age 62 I tried an e-cig "just for the hell of it," fully expecting it to be unsatisfying, or "just as nasty, or whatever... I inadvertently quit "smoking" on the spot... two years later, still happily cigarette free. My wheezing when climbing stairs went away almost immediately (I noticed this 12 hours later). No more huffing and puffing. No
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Exploding cigarettes are a big improvement then, since they do have an immediate effect.
Re:darwinian pressure (Score:5, Funny)
Every piece of hardware on that device you are typing on has material that causes cancer FYI.
That material causes cancer only if you're in California.
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Re:darwinian pressure (Score:5, Funny)
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If you want to eat your computer, sure...
Re:darwinian pressure (Score:4, Informative)
Cigarettes used to slowly degrade your teeth, affect your eyesight and turn your face into something that looks like roadkill [pinterest.com]. Looks like these e-cigarettes are a huge improvement then! No more waiting 20 or 30 years for the cancer to set in, instant results in the blink of an eye.
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Did you read the summary? Lost teeth and eyes, charred faces,... Looks pretty similar to the link in my previous post. What more links do you need?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: darwinian pressure (Score:5, Insightful)
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I know what "specious" means. My turn now, you look up the word "humor". Perhaps you misunderstood my joke.
Some e-cigarettes blew up in their users' faces and made them look like some of the cigarette cancer victims. That's all I "claimed". If you want me to provide links to make you understand the joke, I'm sorry but I have better things to do.
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Always been humor. It's not like I stubbed my toe, that's tragedy. (para. Mel)
Re: darwinian pressure (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair the gear blew up...
So do frozen turkeys if a dumbass drops one in a gas-burner deep-fryer.
Funny, nobody suggests banning deep-fryers or frozen turkeys.
There is very little that is safe when the people involved are the "Hold mah beer, watch *this*!!" type.
Considering the tens of thousands or more vaping devices of the mechanical-mod type already out there and comparing vaping-gear related deaths/injuries to how many are injured or killed annually by normal, everyday things like ladders and hammers, at under 100 deaths vaping gear is very safe indeed. Particularly when you factor in the lives saved by people stopping their tobacco smoking by switching to vaping.
Many thousands saved from lung cancer/COPD/etc versus...what? Less than 100 deaths/injuries? Of stupid people because they acted stupidly?
I'd call that a bargain!
Strat
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natural selection doesn't apply (Score:4, Insightful)
missing and eye and your front teeth doesn't really slow you down from procreating. Given that your offspring would have their eyes and teeth, as e-cig explosions don't alter your genes. So you really only need to survive until they are able to take care of themselves.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
66 whole reports?! Why, we need a law immediately! Someone call Congress!
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Hundreds of victims!
No way is this FUD from the tobacco industry trying to protect their cigarette, gum and patch sales.
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From what I've read on forums, it seems a lot of people are trying to use the 18650's from old laptop and power tool batteries or order the cheap "ULTRAFIRE" brand on eBay. And from the comments on those forums, I'd say there really is a danger with these stupid devices.
Even if you use one with the built-in battery, who's to say the manufacturer didn't cut costs by going with the same ULTRAFIRE battery?
I'd be more interested in analyzing the BOM of each exploded device.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
I was looking for those 18650 batts for an arduino project (good for quadrapeds) and I noticed all the really scary sounding chinese brand names like ultrafire.
could the chinese - oh, I don't know - HIRE someone who speaks english as a first language and consult with them before picking stupid anglo sounding names?
whoever thought that adding the word 'fire' to a BATTERY would help sales - he needs to spend some qualty time with the same batteries for extended periods.
china simply sells the lowest quality that will still allow them to continue to sell but that is so dangerous and has no q/a that a US vendor would be sued to bankruptcy in no time flat.
thing is; you can't sue china or their companies! this is the scam. you guy some dangerous shit from amazon or ebay via chia brands and it blows up on you. who do you go after? amazon has lawyers to cover themselves. good luck with that. ebay, same thing and they'll just blame the seller, who is already on his 23rd company name, soon to 'go out of business' and restart all over again.
this is the scam. they are untouchable and they know it.
china batteries are the issue. its not about anything else but the batteries and the chargers. both are fires just waiting to happen.
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Ban all non-underwriters laboratories certified batteries from sale? Deny insurance claims caused by non-compliant batteries?
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Were you looking on BangGood.com? Love that name.
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Bes' price. Bes' price!
--- Every Chinese marketing / salesperson ever.
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whoever thought that adding the word 'fire' to a BATTERY would help sales - he needs to spend some qualty time with the same batteries for extended periods.
Or they might need to have a fire sale.
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i really don't understand how lithium was ever deemed safe for pocket devices. if i had a tesla car, i'd be really scared of even the smallest collision. fortunately, my hybrid has a NiMH battery.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
That's funny because tesla cars are the least-dangerous in the most-severe collisions. Even when the battery is all fucked up, the fire is isolated away from the passenger compartment; and high-impact collisions transfer much less energy to the driver and passengers, thanks to enormous crumple zones.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
That's an absolute-fucking-lutly horrible place for a fire to happen, you know how fire travels ... Right?
In every Tesla crash which has breached the battery and caused a fire, two things have happened. First, the passenger compartment was more-than-adequately protected--to the point that passengers actually came back WHILE THE CAR WAS ON FIRE, got back in the car, retrieved personal effects and left. I recommend against this, as lithium smoke is bad. Second, firefighters tried putting out metal fires with water--never do this.
And the car actually carries FAR MORE energy in the passenger cabin during frontal impacts. In normal front engine ICE cars, the engine and all its mass is the first thing to stop, adding no stress to the cabin.
The engine carries more momentum and can act as a ram to possibly break down an object that's distinctly not a tree (if you hit a tree, it will stop you). Otherwise, the engine is a huge brick that doesn't do much to protect the passenger, and gets in the way of crumple zones--meaning the car disperses less of the energy of stopping, and SLAMS the passenger to a stop where a Tesla more gently slows the passenger to a stop ("slows" is a relative term here, as is "gently").
On the other hand, the tesla battery is directly attached, very strongly to the cabin... Effectively driving it forward with all the battery mass/energy. Are you still so silly to think that's better cause if so you need some basic physics lessons.
I think it's better because, in all tests and all real-life collisions, it has proven to be better.
Hate to break it too you, but those two things are examples of tesla getting it wrong
What's wrong is your basic theoretical understanding of the practical engineering of the Telsa car versus an ICE in the context of a high-speed collision. You can scream about how you *think* high-energy impacts are going to work in each platform all you want; and, in the real world, they'll work out HOW THEY ACTUALLY HAPPEN.
This is the same thing as when you look at a sheet of aluminate glass and say, "oh, that's a glass, it can't possibly hold up to an impact," and then somebody smashes a 25 pound sledgehammer into it and it bounces off. Aluminate glass, at 1cm, holds up to impact pressures of well-over 1,000 kg per meter even when heated to hundreds of degrees celsius. Whether you perceive it as being a frail material matters as much as whether you perceive a Tesla to be dangerous: when the hammer comes down, those perceptions won't hold up.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
i really don't understand how lithium was ever deemed safe for pocket devices. if i had a tesla car, i'd be really scared of even the smallest collision. fortunately, my hybrid has a NiMH battery.
Which tells me that you haven't examined the risks. For example, you don't worry about the gasoline tank in your hybrid, but that's a lot more likely to be involved in or cause a fire.
Tesla has had a few cars catch fire, but at a lower rate than traditional vehicles. Perhaps even more notably, they've been able to warn their occupants to get out, and even then erupt in fire slowly enough for people to safely escape.
Looking at the other comments, it seems that people are attempting to use dodgy cells in them.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Diesel is the solution
No it's the solvent.
If you aren't part of the solution, you are the precipitate.
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How many times have the rather large lithium batteries in the smartphones currently in millions of peoples' pockets right now exploded? It is not a matter of chemistry, but a matter of quality control. If e-cigs were regulated at the same level as smartphones (or at all, really), we would not be having this conversation.
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THIS!
Many newer e-cigs specify that their batteries must be rated for at least 20A discharge and they mean it. If you put old laptop cells and such it them (or flashlight batteries), there is a real risk of it failing "dramatically". Given how many people do that, I'm actually impressed and surprised that it's only 66.
Of course, I notice the FDA lumped everything from mild redness due to an overheat and something that might be describable as an explosion into the same category to fluff it up to 66.
So, use o
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Cigarettes - $10/day habit.
e-juice: $1-$2 / day
You're forgetting about taxes (Score:2)
And all but a couple bucks of that cigarette pack are taxes, so it's not money that the tobacco industry is seeing.
My answer would be that e-cigs likely use synthetic nicotine.
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Disclaimer: Not a vaper. Have never cared for (recreational) drugs so no interest beyond thinking it's an interesting use of technology.
I'm not one either.
Another thought - even if they're getting their nicotine from tobacco, they might be getting it from 'scrap' tobacco that was deemed unfit for use in cigars, cigarettes, as dip, etc...
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Just curious - do you drink alcohol? Or caffeine? If so, do you define "recreational" drugs as "any drugs other than the ones I use"?
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How is it theft if you are voluntarily purchasing a product that bears a tax? If you don't like paying taxes on certain products, don't buy those products. It's not like it's a huge tightly-held secret that tobacco products have the shit taxed out of them by each and every jurisdiction that can lay claim to the sale.
That might possibly be the dumbest argument against tobacco taxes ever.
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I'm missing this one - the tobacco industry presumably supplies the nicotine that's vaped by these things
You presume wrongly.
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Fukushima hurt -34 people?
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
66 whole reports?! Why, we need a law immediately! Someone call Congress!
I wonder..how many...new Lung Cancer incidents due to tobacco were there in the same period? house fires? car fires?
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In 2010 according to FEMA there were 350 smoking related residential fire deaths and 950 injuries. See https://www.usfa.fema.gov/down... [fema.gov] .
Great numbers. Probably any of the numbers I listed would make the 66 injuries for e-cigs look really small.
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66 whole reports?! Why, we need a law immediately! Someone call Congress!
Since you're the self-appointed arbiter, please specify the minimum number of people injured / killed before any action (or even investigation) should be taken on a possibly faulty or poorly designed consumer product? Is it okay for 66, but not 100 ... While I assume you were joking, there *are* people that think like that.
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66 whole reports?! Why, we need a law immediately! Someone call Congress!
Since you're the self-appointed arbiter, please specify the minimum number of people injured / killed before any action (or even investigation) should be taken on a possibly faulty or poorly designed consumer product? Is it okay for 66, but not 100 ... While I assume you were joking, there *are* people that think like that.
Of course there are people that think like that. I was directly making fun of them. It's not about numbers, it's about personal choice and responsibility. These should be civil cases and remain civil cases. The press should do their job (in this case they did) and report on it. People can then make an educated decision.
If cell phones could blow up in peoples pockets, I'm not sure why people didn't think these things wouldn't blow up in their faces. But how many people were burned by regular cigarettes in th
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Can you imagine if 66 people died from smoking cigarettes? Why, they'd be banned immediately.
cf. regulatory capture
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66 whole reports?! Why, we need a law immediately! Someone call Congress!
Actually, we might. Is this really anything to do with vaping? Seems to me it's more about making electronics with rechargeable batteries not explode.
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66 whole reports?! Why, we need a law immediately! Someone call Congress!
We don't need a law - the FDA has already unilaterally passed a rule that will essentially get rid of the e-cigarette market [washingtonpost.com]. Except, of course, for the crappy disposables that Big Tobacco sells at convenience stores.
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And so this is where globalism triumphs: assemble your own from parts easily found online and screwed together. Let's see the FDA do something about that.
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This is arguably the worst part of the FDA's new regulations on e-cigs. Even if there are still manufacturers making e-cig batteries, ALL changes will be frozen. So even if the manufacturer discovers a flaw and wants to fix it, they can't without a long and expensive approval process [blogspot.com] that will delay the update, possibly for years.
And the solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Government to the rescue!
Seriously, use a protected battery, use only one battery in the device, in low wattage devices that have short-circuit protection, and don't overcharge your battery. And don't buy the cheap shit batteries - the three bucks you save won't be worth it. It's that fucking simple.
Time to mandate (Score:2)
Time to mandate that they're sold in plain black packaging with a scary picture on it.
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Nah too cool. How about #666633 or another baby poop color?
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They forgot to mention (Score:5, Interesting)
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Any lithium cell can reach an explosion point with the exception of the coin cells that don't really have the amount of electrolyte (or the architectural strength of a cylinder) to explode.
Thermal fuses are not expensive, I can't imagine they're saving that much money by omitting them. My best guess is "cut cells"* from China are not reattaching the fuses and the double whammy with the reduced capacity is what's causing them to explode.
(Cut cells are what we refer to as the degraded cells that some Chinese
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ecigs to help people quit smoking? *golf clap*
ecigs that are modified and/or used for "competitive vaping" *shrugs*
Idiots ruin everything, and lawyers soon follow. That may be redundant.
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And big government. Government makes a hell of a lot more money on cigarettes than tobacco companies do. E-cigs are a competitive threat to that revenue stream, and early death from cigarette smoking is a cost savings to government.
If "follow the money" is predictive, expect e-cigs to be heavily regulated and taxed to try to make sure the nicotine-addicted are still paying more and costing less.
Looney Toons (Score:5, Funny)
This is why you never accept a vape from Bugs Bunny.
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This is why you never accept a vape from Bugs Bunny.
Or else [pinimg.com]
Don't use a sealed device (Score:2)
To many are also using devices that are completely sealed so if the battery does "let go" the pressure exits the easiest way. This is out the atomizer connection as it is usually only pressure fitted. One final thing about they guy who put the battery in his pocket and burned his leg. Well don't put a high energy battery in a pocket with loose metal. It shorted out and dumped all of it's energy in a split second causing his pants to catch.
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Am I supposed to care? (Score:2)
Lawsuit time! (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that the first thing people will reach for is regulatory oversight, including banning them, but I remember that Underwriter's Laboratories isn't a government agency, and people are buying vaporizers from dodgy sources. Lawsuits, in this case, can only do so much I think. The companies will simply go bankrupt.
So I have to ask, as I'm a non-smoker who hasn't looked into it, are there any safety organizations that have published safety standards and are offering their guarantee mark to vaporizers that meet said safety standards?
A few stories like this making the rounds of e-cig communication lines(forums, magazines, websites), and the saying to 'get a UL listed one or you risk it blowing up!', and safety should improve.
No problem (Score:2)
Everybody knows that smoking kills you. The 'modern' method just does it quicker.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
It was lighters before that (Score:3, Informative)
Ecig Sales Are Alarming to Big Tobacco (Score:2)
Oh, come on, no-name lithium batteries have to fail sometime.
I was smoking an e-cig on my hoverboard... (Score:2)
I was smoking an e-cig while riding on my hoverboard [dailydot.com] when my Dell laptop battery exploded [pcworld.com] in my backpack.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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I gots to keep up with the leet vaperz on the intertubz.
I got me a 20kWh unregulated battery, a .1 ohm coil made from kanthal I bought direct from de China mail order place and some 3.6% nic juice I brewed from botanicals at the local hippie shop.
Best part is, if my car dies I can get so cranked on nicotine I can push it the last 10 miles or my mod can jump start it.
Mech mods, cheap batteries and user error (Score:4, Informative)
will undoubtedly account for 99% of these cases. There are no details in this story about what caused the batteries to explode, but I've read other articles which sometimes shed light on these cases. The guy with the leg burns kept loose batteries in his pocket with keys and coins. Another victim was a brand new vaper using a mech mod (it said he pushed the button on the bottom of the device, a tell-tale sign that it was a mech mod), and it was clear that someone else has prepared his gear and he had no idea what he was doing. In fact, I'd wager that most people with exploding batteries were mech mod users. Why mech mods still exist is beyond me. They have no protective circuitry, so if your build causes too high a draw on the battery, or the device gets stuck in the "on" position, you're going to have a big problem.
The one possibly unavoidable problem with any e-cigarette is counterfeit batteries. If you're trying to be safe and you buy Sony, Samsung or LG batteries, it can be tough to tell if they're genuine or not (I've gotten counterfeits myself through an Amazon third-party seller). If I have any doubts that a battery I'm using isn't genuine, it gets boxed and disposed of immediately. Of course, counterfeit batteries aren't only a problem for vapers, but the proximity of the device to your face will generally cause more damage than for, say, a flashlight user.
It's not bad batteries at all.... (Score:4, Informative)
1) A complete lack of safety circuitry. Forget a smart battery system and gas gauging, many of the units I took apart had no safety at all (relied on the charger alone) to at most a leaky over and under voltage protection that was custom implemented. No charge or discharge current sensing and no temperature sensing. No faulty cell detection and no permenant disable for a faulty battery. Just like when Lipo batteries first hit the hobby market this means fires galore, and when enclosed, sizable explosions.
2) People use the incorrect chargers. Add to that little to no safety and it's a disaster.
3) People modify thier units without knowing what they are actually doing. They may have read a forum post or read a blog or had a friend do it. They don't realize any dangers or take any precautions.
Disclaimer: I have designed smart battery systems for products in the field. I have had failures but nothing the safety systems did not shut down before catastrophe.
Good (Score:2)
Now if only there was some way to make real cigarettes do the same thing...
Hi! We've been breathing in burning compost... (Score:2)
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Sure, lets criminalize sugar, being lazy, and making bad choices while we're at it.
It's not the nicotine that's exploding, but the battery so it's not really the "bad choice" to which you're alluding. What if that battery was in a bluetooth headset and it blew someone's head off for just listening to the radio? Would you still be so condescending?
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First of all, fuck off.
Second, they have put laws on the books in many places, but those laws have made it illegal to sell e-cigs that do NOT have nicotine.
For example, in NYC, you can not sell the flavored ones, or ones without nicotine. This was supposedly to protect the children somehow.
I quite the real things 1.5 years ago. I bought some nicotine-free ones online - used several brands, though I'd recommend the "blu" ones for ease of use and taste. I didn't use them all that much, but when in a situation
Re:Regulation Please (Score:4, Informative)
The new FDA regulations on e-cigs did NOT ban flavors. It will, however, effectively put every manufacturer out of business [blogspot.com] with the exception of the big tobacco conglomerates.
You won't see any more innovation or options in e-cigs either. Every component is regulated and banned without a long and expensive approval process. In fact, it will probably be the end of refillable e-cigs and the sale of e-juice. It's going to be too expensive as each and every blend will require a separate application and set of laboratory testing.
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Those 18650's are not called "ULTRAFIRE" for nothing...
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I've got one in a flashlight and it works fine. If you don't try to exceed its nominal current capacity it will probably last ages. People are making vapes without circuit protection and then getting surprised when they asplode.
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The solution to all this is to DRM the battery-interface and enforce "made-for-ecigg" labeling scheme... yeah, that's it!
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3/10 on troll quality, would not recommend. Too over the top, needs a question mark in there somewhere to try and lure a response. Disappointing.
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>> The world doesn't need one more way for humans to kill themselves
Sure we do. Humans keep removing all sources of natural selection and thats a bad thing. Its not the job of the government to turn the whole world into nanny state and put rubber bumpers on every sharp corner.
We should let these weak, stupid people that have a habitual need to suck on an electric tit carry on and kill themselves and do the rest of the world a favor.
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Tobacco is bad, sure, but who the fuck knows what solvents, preservatives, and fuck-knows-what goes into those little bottles that you breathe all... the... way... in
Polyethylene glycol, menthol, and a little nicotine. Essentially harmless stuff, unless you try chugging it. Nicotine's toxicity is rather high (it's a few thousand times the psychoactive dose, just the psychoactive dose is tiny); polyethylene glycol is pretty harmless (a soda can's worth per day would have negative health effects, mostly straining your kidneys; high doses are acutely toxic); and menthol is just mint oil.
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Polyethylene glycol or propylene glycol? The first is a very powerful laxative (it is what they give when going to get an endoscopy), the second is something used in applications like RV antifreeze and other items.
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Propylene glycol, you're right. I mixed up the wood preservative with the food-grade antifreeze preservative. Propylene glycol's toxicity is even lower, so my argument stands.
Man I've been having a bad day. That's twice now someone's had to correct me on something.
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Have you tried it without nicotine?
I'm down to 3
Re:No, Not Good (Score:5, Informative)
Propylene glycol is also known as fog juice, the stuff that goes into stage smoke machines, and it's used as a food additive. It metabolises to lactic acid and is considered safe, which is why it's used in e-cigs.
Antifreeze is usually ethylene glycol, which is toxic. However, both salt and ethanol can also be used as antifreeze, and while they can be lethal in sufficient quantities they too are considered fit for human consumption. Calling something "antifreeze" tells you no more about its toxicity than calling something "natural" (i.e. snake venom) or "organic" (i.e. benzene).
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Doesn't water contain DHMO, which has been shown to be a serious health risk?
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I vape since November 7th, 2011. Never smoked a regular cigarette since then.
My current mod is an eLeaf iStick 100W (http://www.eleafworld.com/istick-100w/) holding two 18650 Panasonic batteries (NCR18650B: http://www.batteryspace.com/pr... [batteryspace.com]). The atomizer is an Aspire Nautilus with 1.6 Ohm resistor. I use VW mode on the mod with 14W setting.
Charging the batteries is not done using the integrated mod's charger. I have a certified 18650 battery charger for two batteries, with 1A total charging capacity, that
Re:According to TFA (Score:5, Informative)
There have been 66 cases reported according to the first link. 66. Out of tens of millions of devices.
This is just a typical case of control freaks in government looking for something else to get their fingers in.
Actually, they are trying to drum up public fear so they can win the lawsuits against their crazy new regulations [blogspot.com]. Which will basically cause all e-cigs to vanish from the market. Except the ones sold by the big tobacco conglomerates.