Is it possible to know if a battery 18650 is about to explote (by high amps drawing)? by measuring its temperature. Or they could explode real fast even when at touch is not TOO HOT.
This is assuming you dont know the battery specs.
The best course of action would be to only use cells that you know the specifications of and stay within those parameters. I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures of what has happened to vape people who have pushed batteries too far, but the words permanent disfigurement come to mind. Even if not near your face you could still lose fingers and suffer pretty horrible burns. It’s not worth the risk when you can get nice Samsung, Sanyo, Panasonic, Sony etc. batteries that will meet your needs for $5-10 in most cases.
There are several scenarios with no warning, other than past mistreatment.
Say a battery had been overdischarged, then charged.
It could have a short, and that could ignite the battery in about 2 seconds - too fast to measure - any time after that…
Any internal short can cause an explosion…
wle
My tip: If you can’t hold a cell by being too hot, the cell goes to the recycler.
Do not remove the wrapper off of a cell if you do not have one lying around. Otherwise, just store it in a safe place and don’t touch it until you have something to wrap it.
If you get a cell under 2V, charge it as slowly as you can, at 100mA or less if you have a capable charger, or 250mA by plugging in a PC USB port. How much time it stays under 2V makes the cell lose its capacity at a certain rate, but if you charge it normally, the voltage will come back up quickly, and internal cell damage will occur very rapidly.
Just take care of your 18650s, and you will be fine.
For those chargers that have zero-volt activation (charging at a low current while voltage is below around 3.0v, maybe 0.15A or 0.10A or below) — how much risk of these igniting the battery?
I’ve never had a 18650 explode despite short circuiting them, hitting with a axe, throwing them in the fire etc. Never do the things I just said, I just wanted to know if they could do a bang. The only thing that caused something similar to a explosion was throwing them in the fire, but that was more like a rapid vent.
In all seriousness battery safety is no joke. Listen to what the other guys said and I think you’ll be safe.
A couple of months ago, I removed a Panasonic 18650PF from a Nitecore IFE2 which was lighting the room as a night light for my daughters for a few days. I placed it to the charger and left it to charge. A few hours later, the voltage wasn’t rising over 4.10V and the battery was very hot to the touch. I removed it from the charger and placed it outside the house for the night. Next day, the voltage had dropped to ~3.40V by itself and I recycled the battery. That’s a good case scenario when a - good quality - battery gives you time before anything bad happens.
Now, that battery has been used for vaping for 2+ years, over-squeezed in a mechanical tube mod, possibly (25%) was the one that once shorted inside the same mod, then used in various flashlights and then hit the floor while in a flashlight too many times in a few days, because …kids.
Thankfully, in most cases, quality cells don’t just blow up and a cautious user has time to stop it from happening. But, unfortunately, in very rare occasions, it can happen for a battery to explode without a hint.
when start countdown and beeping
Is it ticking ?
Is there one of these laying on the floor ?
I agree if a battery gets hot and won't charge up it's telling you something .
Really good batteries are too cheap these days to mess around with anything questionable .
My general rule of thumb is If I have any doubt about the condition of a cell ...It's gone .