Battery ruined by diode and LED

[Pharaday]

Ok, guys I quit smoking and made my own ecig out of an old atomizer (the part with a coil surrounding cotton that soaks up the ejuice and gets vaporized by the coil) and battery from a broken ecig. It was pretty basic. I put a battery and ran 2 wires to the atomizer. I added a button on the negative wire to activate the ecig. I put the charging port before the button, in parallel with the atomizer. I added blue LED with a 1kΩ resistor on its negative leg after the button, in parallel with the atomizer which lit up when I pressed the button. That worked great for months until I wanted to add a charging indicator light. I added an LED before the button and in parallel with my charging port (and everything else) but DUH realized it would just be powered from the battery and always be on. So then I added a diode to the negative wire of the battery so that it could not power the LED. This seemed to work fine. The LED only came on when I plugged it into power (USB so about 5v). Then I realized that it had caused my battery to fail. It would only take a second to get to maximum charge, then only last for 1 puff before the battery died. What did I do to kill this battery? Or is the battery not dead and the diode is preventing it from charging correctly? How can I properly add a charg indicator light?

Here's my circuit diagram for it with a low rez picture of the device on the right. Not sure if I got it all right, but I typed it out correctly, if not in-precisely, above.

 

[Bluejets]

To add a charge indicator LED, use a zener and a resistor and transistor to detect when the charge voltage is above that of the battery.
Either that, or use a switch type DC power in socket.

Currently the diode at the negative side of your battery is stopping the battery from supplying the load.
Useless addition anyhow.

 

[bertus]

Hello,

What type of battery is used?
What is the battery voltage?
What kind of charger is used?
Are there current limiting resistors for the leds?

Bertus

 

[Pharaday]

Can you elaborate on that? How would I connect those things up to produce that result? Maybe show me a circuit diagram?

 

[Pharaday]

The battery is victagen, as is the charger. They are IMP 18650. They have 3200 mAh and are 5 volts. Yes, each led has a 1kΩ resistor.

 

[Audioguru]

A Lithium 18650 battery is charged to a maximum of 4.2V. Its charger is powered from 5V.
The charger should have an LED that lights when charging and shuts off when it detects the battery is fully charged.

 

[Pharaday]

Yea but I didn't make it.... surely you understand how I want to build one in myself. If for no other reason, so I learn how to do it correctly. Cmon, hit me with some how-to's, not some why-I-shouldn't-try's

 

[Alec_t]

Have you checked in at Battery University to see how lithium batteries should be charged?

 

[Pharaday]

I use the Victagen charger that shipped along side my Victagen batteries (Now I run the positive and negative contacts through appropriate gauge wires to my battery inside the e-cig, same thing).

 

[Audioguru]

You added a diode in series with the battery but the diode is shown connected backwards. You said the ecig and LED worked but the battery would not charge anymore.
If the diode was the not backwards then it reduced the charging and battery voltages so low that the battery was barely charged only a little.

 

[hevans1944]

I had to quit using e-cigs (vaping) three years ago, which I had taken up under "doctor's orders" to replace cigarettes after a massive heart attack in 2011 that required five more stents, a pacemaker/defibrillator, and some diet changes. I was getting too much nicotine (which constricts blood vessels) I guess, because I had another massive heart attack in 2017 that required a bypass graft around my "widow-maker" heart artery. Took the better part of a year to recover from that, and now the left side of my heart is mostly dead and my ejection fraction is less than twenty percent. I need oxygen all the time now, but at least Medicare covers most of the cost.

I congratulate you on quitting smoking. I don't think I could have done that without vaping to fall back on. But it is definitely NOT good for your health. I would suggest you stick with off-the-shelf vape equipment and avoid blowing up a 18650 battery, or starting a fire, or harming yourself. My best vaping rig was less than a hundred bux, and I went through several before I found one I really liked that was both easy to fill with e-juice and easy to keep clean. Then I moved to Florida and soon afterward was going through open-heart surgery. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, but the only alternative was death, sooner rather than later.

Stay healthy, @Pharaday. Live long and prosper!

Hop -- AC8NS

 

[Audioguru]

Hevans, you have been through a lot.
20 years ago I quit smoking. I never tried vaping.
11 years ago I had a heart attack and was fixed with 2 stents. My performance was good in the rehab class.
6 years ago I quit drinking alcohol.
For the past few years I feel and act 45 years old (young?) again because my heart and lungs function like an athlete. I'll be 75 in 1 month.

 

[Pharaday]

What a couple of success stories! Yall SURVIVED it and now it will take something twice as strong to make you flinch! You guys rock. Yea man, I know that vaping is not actually quitting anything. I'll say this, after I quit smoking I felt like I grew 15 new lungs. I could smell things again! But I'm sure inhaling anything besides oxygen is bad for you. I'll be the canary, the research is needed. I've had TWO ecigs blow up their battery on me and I blame the fancy circuit that I didn't build.

An e-cig becomes such a personal device just like your cell phone.For things like that, if I can build em, all the better, I can make it how I like it. I can make it charge with a 1/4" audio plug instead of USB for style points. Also if something goes wrong I know I can solve it. Plus it makes ppl go "whoa, you made that?!". I love dazzling norms.

Anyways, guys, keep on rockin ok? Down with tobacco! Thanks for the help. I'll prolly add a tiny button to my charge port or do it with a transistor. Nobody is learning this stuff anymore, guys. This type of knowledge dies with us, I think....... So stay healthy!

 

[Martaine2005]

I've had TWO ecigs blow up their battery on me and I blame the fancy circuit that I didn't build

Amen.

 

[hevans1944]

I'll be 75 in 1 month.

Congratulations, it sounds like you are doing much better than I am, health-wise.

I just turned 76 last month, and am trying to at least make it as far as my father did... age 84, but without the lung cancer or any other kind of cancer, thank you. We all gotta die, but living to a ripe old age, still in full control (mostly) of our bodily functions, with minimal or no dementia, still ambulatory without a wheelchair or crutches... those are goals worth living for. My wife does a pretty damned good job taking care of me, making sure I bathe often, change clothes often, take my daily medicines on time, kiss and hug her every day, eat properly, avoid junk food... the list goes on and on. I am sure I would be dead already were it not for her attention to keeping me alive.

It has been so many years since I quit drinking, I have almost forgotten what it was like. Alcoholics Anonymous helped a lot during the first decade of my recovery. The one thing I do remember from attending all those meetings was this: if I ever pick up another "adult beverage" I will quickly revert to where I was when I took my last drink. And I saw plenty of real-life demonstrations of that prediction, of AA members who relapsed, and several who didn't survive their "last drink". Alcoholism is insidious and patient. Total abstinence is the only "cure," and that isn't really a cure, because I am always closer to my next drink than I am from my last... which was April 28, 1989 IIRC... thirty-something years ago. My wife and I do not celebrate our AA sobriety dates, nor do we attend AA meetings or collect yearly tokens anymore. Having each other appears to be enough to keep us both sober. Living here in Paradise helps, too.

 

[Pharaday]

I donno about you guys..... Heaven sounds great but I don't plan on dying at all.

 

[hevans1944]

...I don't plan on dying at all

Good for you! It's attitudes like this that make it easy for the U.S. Marine Corp to meet recruitment quotas, month after month, year after year, even in times of war. I don't plan on dying, but statistically it appears certain that eventually I will... and so will you.

Dying is a "good thing" too. Can you imagine how crowded the planet would get if some a-hole figured out a way to prevent everyone from dying? Oh, wait, maybe only a "select few" would be allowed to live forever. Someone should write a story about the consequences of that...

 

[mr fixit]

Congratulations, it sounds like you are doing much better than I am, health-wise.

I just turned 76 last month, and am trying to at least make it as far as my father did... age 84, but without the lung cancer or any other kind of cancer, thank you. We all gotta die, but living to a ripe old age, still in full control (mostly) of our bodily functions, with minimal or no dementia, still ambulatory without a wheelchair or crutches... those are goals worth living for. My wife does a pretty damned good job taking care of me, making sure I bathe often, change clothes often, take my daily medicines on time, kiss and hug her every day, eat properly, avoid junk food... the list goes on and on. I am sure I would be dead already were it not for her attention to keeping me alive.

It has been so many years since I quit drinking, I have almost forgotten what it was like. Alcoholics Anonymous helped a lot during the first decade of my recovery. The one thing I do remember from attending all those meetings was this: if I ever pick up another "adult beverage" I will quickly revert to where I was when I took my last drink. And I saw plenty of real-life demonstrations of that prediction, of AA members who relapsed, and several who didn't survive their "last drink". Alcoholism is insidious and patient. Total abstinence is the only "cure," and that isn't really a cure, because I am always closer to my next drink than I am from my last... which was April 28, 1989 IIRC... thirty-something years ago. My wife and I do not celebrate our AA sobriety dates, nor do we attend AA meetings or collect yearly tokens anymore. Having each other appears to be enough to keep us both sober. Living here in Paradise helps, too.

I was going to say "Lucky man"... For having such a caring wife! A rarity! ( I wont go on about being worth more dead than alive, with heart condition, and a partner that likes to spend spend spend!)
Your story is one of heroics. I dont know how people in your situation can have the "guts" to carry on. More strength to you!

 

[mr fixit]

Ok, guys I quit smoking and made my own ecig out of an old atomizer (the part with a coil surrounding cotton that soaks up the ejuice and gets vaporized by the coil) and battery from a broken ecig. It was pretty basic. I put a battery and ran 2 wires to the atomizer. I added a button on the negative wire to activate the ecig. I put the charging port before the button, in parallel with the atomizer. I added blue LED with a 1kΩ resistor on its negative leg after the button, in parallel with the atomizer which lit up when I pressed the button. That worked great for months until I wanted to add a charging indicator light. I added an LED before the button and in parallel with my charging port (and everything else) but DUH realized it would just be powered from the battery and always be on. So then I added a diode to the negative wire of the battery so that it could not power the LED. This seemed to work fine. The LED only came on when I plugged it into power (USB so about 5v). Then I realized that it had caused my battery to fail. It would only take a second to get to maximum charge, then only last for 1 puff before the battery died. What did I do to kill this battery? Or is the battery not dead and the diode is preventing it from charging correctly? How can I properly add a charg indicator light?

Here's my circuit diagram for it with a low rez picture of the device on the right. Not sure if I got it all right, but I typed it out correctly, if not in-precisely, above.
View attachment 48837

Looking at your diagram and adding the missing components you had in the tex, I can see your logic. The problems are caused by that diode in the negative line of the battery. I think that the voltage drop across the diode is stopping it supplying the full voltage to the E-cig, and not allowing the charger to fully charge the battery.
There are reasons why circuits are designed the way they are, and battery chargers are no exception.. They need to "see" the full battery voltage to estimate when to stop charging etc.
Simplest "solution" would be to remove the diode and the charge indicator.
Good luck with it. Let's know ho wit goes.

 

[Pharaday]

Of course I know I'll die but that's the right attitude to have. Believing it guides my decisions like quitting smoking and becoming an engineer instead of a soldier, cause I hafta live forever. The dying of the light and all...... I have to congratulate you on your wisdom and healthy living. Please always be here to advise me. But dying won't be so bad, I didn't mind not being alive BEFORE I was born.

That said, although not as simple as removing it, my solution will be to use a 1/4" jack with a normally open switch inside it that closes when the plug is inserted. I have some in the dead amp that brought me to these forums.