Had my first Short on a mech squonker. Scary 2 seconds.

[Dozwold]

Hi all, after 6 months of vaping and learning all about safety from Planet and from YouTube, I had my first short and scary experience last night. Actually it was my first mistake but I actually KNEW I was doing it as I did it... It was on the Furyan mod, with the Recurve RDA and a Samsung 30T (Fogstar equivalent).

Was pretty scary. Probably more scary so because of learning about ohms law and battery safety over the last few months, but I guess that’s what kept me safe when it happened, so I strongly recommend learning so if someothing happens you know it’s happening and don’t keep firing...

Yes it was stupid, and I got lazy and complacent as it was late at night, and in the back of my head I knew I should not be doing this. Basically, never had an issue before, always safe, and in order to make the Recurve sit slightly better on the mod (with the holes not pointing at my nose), I took a screwdriver and slightly twisted the gold on the squonkinh 510 thingy on the Recurve to make it longer. Instead of then putting it on a regulated after that to test, I took a that stupid risk and put it straight on the Furyan. I pressed the button for a couple of seconds to take a vape and immediately heard a small sizzling battery noise and breathed in a pretty burning plastic smell with no vape. Because I watched the videos and read up on battery safety, I immediately realised I shorted something, stopped pressing in the fire button, locked the Furyan lock button, made sure no more noise was coming out and it wasn’t still on, and considered in those few secs to either toss the mod out the window on the grass or take the battery out. I decided in those seconds to take out the battery as no heat was present. battery was ok and was not warmer than usual, I then opened the Recurve cap and saw that one of the screws holding one of the legs of one side of the coil was fried to the point it lost its shape, and a tiny part of the plastic above was black. I couldn’t even open that screw as it must have melted in somehow, Wow, that was only in a 2 second button press. I took the coil off, it didn’t seem damaged, but Recurve clearly is. Picture of RDA attached (sitting on a diff mod now). Looks like that Recurve is unfortunately going into the bin now as can’t even open one screw, but luckily I have spare RDA’s. Funnily, battery is still good and charged safely.

Anyway, not taking any more STUPID LAZY risks now after that.

Ok. So this is why I posted my story, as would like to know if I was close to real danger or are these issues more common than I think with mechs. I mean, how else did people learn before these forums.. You obviously hear of the worst cases and the odd battery blowing up in people’s faces, but you don’t hear much of shorts that maybe just caused a sizzle, or damage to the RDA or mech, or just a wee scare of probabaly many lucky and harmless escapes. Anyone else had a similar experience?

 

[vapemac]

View attachment 168962
Hi all, after 6 months of vaping and learning all about safety from Planet and from YouTube, I had my first short and scary experience last night. Actually it was my first mistake but I actually KNEW I was doing it as I did it... It was on the Furyan mod, with the Recurve RDA and a Samsung 30T (Fogstar equivalent).

Was pretty scary. Probably more scary so because of learning about ohms law and battery safety over the last few months, but I guess that’s what kept me safe when it happened, so I strongly recommend learning so if someothing happens you know it’s happening and don’t keep firing...

Yes it was stupid, and I got lazy as was late at night, and in the back of my head I knew I should not be doing this. Basically, never had an issue before, always safe, and in order to make the Recurve sit slightly better on the mod (with the holes not pointing at my nose), I took a screwdriver and slightly twisted the gold on the squonkinh 510 thingy on the Recurve to make it longer. Instead of then putting it on a regulated after that to test, I took a that stupid risk and put it straight on the Furyan. I pressed the button for a couple of seconds to take a vape and immediately heard a small sizzling battery noise and breathed in a pretty burning plastic smell with no vape. Because I watched the videos and read up on battery safety, I immediately realised I shorted something, stopped pressing in the fire button, locked the Furyan lock button, made sure no more noise was coming out and it wasn’t still on, and considered in those few secs to either toss the mod out the window on the grass or take the battery out. I decided in those seconds to take out the battery as no heat was present. battery was ok and was not warmer than usual, I then opened the Recurve cap and saw that one of the screws holding one of the legs of one side of the coil was fried to the point it lost its shape, and a tiny part of the plastic above was black. I couldn’t even open that screw as it must have melted in somehow, Wow, that was only in a 2 second button press. I took the coil off, it didn’t seem damaged, but Recurve clearly is. Picture of RDA attached (sitting on a diff mod now). Looks like that Recurve is unfortunately going into the bin now as can’t even open one screw, but luckily I have spare RDA’s. Funnily, battery is still good and charged safely.

Anyway, not taking any more STUPID LAZY risks now after that.

Ok. So this is why I posted my story, would like to see If I got lucky, or are these issues more common than I think with mechs. I mean, how else did people learn before these forums.. You obviously hear of the odd battery blowing up in people’s faces, but you don’t hear much of shorts that just caused damage to the RDA or did nothing at all with non harmful escapes. Anyone else had a similar experience?

Little learns like this can be beneficial especially when complacency kicks in. Shows you how close you came to disaster without any major consequences. You'll definately not do that again in a hurry

 

[Deleted member 54254]

There was another thread somewhere recently with someone complaining his battery was screeching hot, when he posted pics of the atty, the 510 wasb't protruding, turned out he'd bought a clone hybrid mech and clone atty somewhere. I forget the details now but I reckon he had a very close call.

 

[tootingyoda]

Not all atty 510s are adjustable, and lengthening it only loosens the post it's supposed to be securing. Lucky escape there mate, and lesson learnt eh?

 

[Dozwold]

Not all atty 510s are adjustable, and lengthening it only loosens the post it's supposed to be securing. Lucky escape there mate, and lesson learnt eh?

Jesus yeah... any sizzle from a battery (let alone a super powerful 30t you just bought the day before) is enough to scare the heck out of me into no more complacency. It’s funny how everyone keeps mentioning don’t use a mech until you learn your battery safety and wrap and check them, understand and practice ohms law, but no one talks about don’t use one if you have a personality that can occasionally be complacent. All well and good learning and then practicing it all, but we all get complacent once in a while. Some more than others. That’s a real danger with mechs... Also getting so used to it all and switching between regulated and mechs, you then start taking silly risks thinking it’s all the same when it’s clearly not. On a regulated that would have simply said SHORT on the screen. In that mech, if I didn’t actually know my safety I could have kept pressing that button and then who knows...

So, Anyone else had a lucky and scary escape from a sizzling battery and what did you do to stop it?

 

[vapemac]

Jesus yeah... any sizzle from a battery (let alone a super powerful 30t you just bought the day before) is enough to scare the heck out of me into no more complacency. It’s funny how everyone keeps mentioning don’t use a mech until you learn your battery safety and wrap and check them, understand and practice ohms law, but no one talks about don’t use one if you have a personality that can occasionally be complacent. All well and good practicing it all, but we all get complacent once in a while. Some more than others. That’s a real danger with mechs... Also getting so used to it all and switching between regulated and mechs, you then start taking silly risks thinking it’s all the same when it’s clearly not. On a regulated that would have simply said SHORT on the screen. In that mech, if I didn’t actually know my safety I could have kept pressing that button and then who knows...

So, Anyone else had a lucky and scary escape from a sizzling battery and what did you do to stop it?

I had a mod start smoking on the table beside me. Regulated, not mechanical. I Wasn't using it at the time, I was playing about on my phone and looked down to see smoke pouring out of it. I picked it up, took it out to the garden and left it before plucking up enough courage to go back and remove the battery. So nothing overly dramatic but enough to give me a bit of the Willies. I'm still not entirely sure what caused it. Something in the internals must have given way but it all got dumped.

 

[tootingyoda]

I think most of us have been complacent at some point, especially when things are going well. I can't quote ohms law, but know how to use a checker. I do re check stuff, especially if making adjustments, but have had the occasional wire clipping fall into the juice well, which shows up on the ohm reader.

I don't think a cell goes into meltdown straight away, but when it does there's little can be done to stop it. Some mods may allow you to flip a lid and launch the battery, other require unscrewing the cover, but you generally won't have time so out the window the whole thing goes.

I still prefer mechs to regulated, purely down to simplicity, but these batteries do need a bit of respect.

 

[Sprite71]

Jesus yeah... any sizzle from a battery (let alone a super powerful 30t you just bought the day before) is enough to scare the heck out of me into no more complacency. It’s funny how everyone keeps mentioning don’t use a mech until you learn your battery safety and wrap and check them, understand and practice ohms law, but no one talks about don’t use one if you have a personality that can occasionally be complacent. All well and good learning and then practicing it all, but we all get complacent once in a while. Some more than others. That’s a real danger with mechs... Also getting so used to it all and switching between regulated and mechs, you then start taking silly risks thinking it’s all the same when it’s clearly not. On a regulated that would have simply said SHORT on the screen. In that mech, if I didn’t actually know my safety I could have kept pressing that button and then who knows...

So, Anyone else had a lucky and scary escape from a sizzling battery and what did you do to stop it?

Yes, I’ve had a short on a semi regulated Pico Squeeze, caused by me scraping the paint on the inside of the RDA cap when replacing. I also got a lungful of melting plastic, felt like it sizzled and smoked away forever. My first instinct was to take the battery out, but it stopped by itself before I could unscrew the cap. Definitely scary

The RDA and battery lived to see another day, the Pico Squeeze didn’t

 

[Dozwold]

I don't think a cell goes into meltdown straight away, but when it does there's little can be done to stop it. Some mods may allow you to flip a lid and launch the battery, other require unscrewing the cover, but you generally won't have time so out the window the whole thing goes.
.

I think that’s the scariest thing of all. The thoughts racing through your head of whether it’s going to blow and if you should or should not release the battery or just throw everything out the window into then garden. My instinct was stop pressing then button and turn on the battery lock switch to off which the Furyan has.

I guess it probabaly takes far longer on a short for a decent battery to go into a point of know return meltdown than a just pressing in for a couple of seconds with a short, at least thats the experience I had last night, but who’s to know...

 

[tootingyoda]

A short in the switch is the biggest pain imho. Battery removal is probably the only option, if there's time. One of the reasons I feel safer with my "plastic boxes" over everything else I own. Shake and the door pops off and out comes the battery, stand back and admire the sparks