Basic Battery Safety Tips to Keep You Protected
Quick summary
- Vape batteries are powerful and require careful handling, especially for beginners unfamiliar with their risks.
- Battery safety goes beyond what's in a device's manual, covering things like proper storage, charging habits, and avoiding counterfeits.
- Using the right gear and practices protects both you and your device, extending battery life and preventing accidents.
- This guide is tailored for regulated vape mod users, offering essential tips without diving into advanced mechanical mod knowledge.
Vape batteries are not like your remote-control AAs. They are much more powerful cells that need to be handled carefully. And while battery safety tips may seem like common sense to those who are in the know, new vapers are often handed a vape mod and a couple of 18650s without any advice on how to properly handle them.
Read on to find out the basics of battery safety, but bear in mind that this is not a mechanical mod safety guide; for that, you will need a solid understanding of Ohm’s law and much more info than what can be covered in this beginner’s guide. But if you own a regulated vape mod that is powered by batteries such as 18650s or 21700s, this guide is for you.
Keep wraps intact
Always make sure that the wraps of your batteries are in pristine condition. If you notice a nick on the battery wrap, the safe thing to do is to re-wrap it. Battery wraps are cheap and very easy to put on. If you don't have wraps, visit your local vape shop. Most shops will wrap your batteries for free, and it won't take more than a couple of minutes. But it's very easy to do on your own—check our video on how to easily and quickly rewrap your batteries.
Use the right batteries
Use battery cases
Watch out for counterfeits
Use a dedicated charger
My experience
I originally wrote this article back in 2019, and over the last few years, I've been pondering whether the "use a dedicated charger" advice is still relevant. Battery safety has been a hot topic in this community for over a decade, and today's mods, especially those made by the big manufacturers, are much more reliable. That said, the question is: what do you trust more, a tiny charging circuit soldered inside a device, or a device specifically designed for a single purpose?
I'm not gonna lie; I'm still using dedicated chargers for the most part, but I often use a 2A brick to charge a couple of my single-18650 mods—especially when traveling. But I make sure to never leave the device charging unattended, and I periodically check the status of the charge and the external temperature of the mod.
Still, my advice would be to use a dedicated charger, especially when charging "married" batteries for a dual-battery mod. It only takes a bad unit, or even a faulty charging circuit on an otherwise working unit, to damage a battery. If you do need to charge a single-battery mod directly, treat it as an emergency charge, ensure that your brick is rated up to 2A, and avoid using USB-C to USB-C cables.
Don’t leave your batteries charging unattended
Don’t over-drain your batteries
Avoid extreme temperatures
Use "married" batteries
If you are using a mod that takes more than one battery, always use the exact same batteries (for example, a pair of Sony VTC5s) and keep them "married," i.e. use them in pairs and always together—it’s a safe practice. This will ensure that the cells get the same number of charges/discharges and help delay imbalances in capacity and performance.
Replace old batteries
Recycle old batteries
Spyros Papamichail
Vaping for: 9 years
Favorite products:
Favorite flavors: Sweet tobaccos, fruits
Expertise in: Nicotine, beginner devices, advanced devices
Spyros Papamichail
Having quit smoking using vapes in 2016, I quickly developed somewhat of an obsession with all things vaping. I managed to turn my hobby into a full-time job, and I now work as the content manager here at Vaping360. In my free time you'll find me gaming on my PS5 or playing fetch with my dog, Buffy.
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