Author Topic: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette  (Read 5295 times)

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Online KjeltTopic starter

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instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« on: May 17, 2018, 02:06:01 pm »
I knew that smoking was bad for your health, that is why I don't do it, but I wonder what effects this sort of incident would have with other battery operated devices ???

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An exploding electronic cigarette caused the death of a Florida man earlier this month, an autopsy determined.
.............
died on May 5 from parts of an electronic cigarette that penetrated his head, according to the autopsy report.
.............
thermal injuries to about 80 percent of his body, including his chest, shoulder, abdomen, back, arm and hand, according to the autopsy report.
..............
the shape and construction of e-cigarettes can make them act like "flaming rockets" when the battery dies. 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-man-dies-exploding-electronic-cigarette-autopsy/story?id=55181750
 

Offline Marco

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2018, 02:07:58 pm »
It's happened with phones.
 

Offline Brumby

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2018, 02:09:54 pm »
But you don't stick phones in your mouth.

.... or is that something that you do?
 

Online KjeltTopic starter

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2018, 02:14:40 pm »
It's happened with phones.
Death? I heard legs burned so that is 10-15% but 80% of the body and instantaneous death ? Not read that.
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thermal injuries to about 80 percent of his body, including his chest, shoulder, abdomen, back, arm and hand, according to the autopsy report.
 

Online KjeltTopic starter

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2018, 02:15:48 pm »
But you don't stick phones in your mouth.
Very close to your mouth and head if you are talking to somebody, that is what makes this so scary.
 
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Offline Gyro

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« Last Edit: May 17, 2018, 03:14:35 pm by Gyro »
Best Regards, Chris
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2018, 03:14:54 pm »
But you don't stick phones in your mouth.

.... or is that something that you do?

Well not me, but some do:


 :-DD

Later edit:
Oh, wait, Google found an even better example: an exploding phone kept in mouth as a flashlight, to free the hands while searching for a sugar pack (the video does not show the explosion).



Later later edit:
Oh, wait, this one is with an explosion video caught on the surveillance cameras: a dude bite an iPhone battery in the shop, to check if it's real :o
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/iphone-battery-explodes-mans-mouth-11898158

And with that, for the next 6 month or so, Google will probably return me only stupid videos... I forgot that I was logged into Youtube while googling "phone mouth explode".
« Last Edit: May 17, 2018, 03:31:46 pm by RoGeorge »
 

Offline apis

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2018, 04:06:58 pm »
If I understood it correctly what killed him was part of the ecig ending up in his brain. I suppose some are shaped a bit like a gun/cannon and if the battery suddenly explodes inside a metal pipe, the mouthpiece area might shoot out like a bullet?

It then caused a fire, but I suppose he was dead by then and the reason for the severe burn was that he was already dead and couldn't put out the fire. This got to be really rare though, but they should have this in mind when designing the units I suppose. Phones should really be less dangerous (assuming you keep it out of your mouth) but perhaps they too should be careful not to confine the battery to much.
 

Offline Seph.b

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2018, 05:15:39 pm »
One of the reasons I only buy Samsung high current 18650s for mine.

The last mod I bought came with a free battery. The battery had no part number on it and the only thing printed on it was Danger: Do Not Use With E-Cigs, or some such.

I just changed the (Samsung) battery the other day because it was hardly holding any charge anymore. It had swollen enough to require pliers to remove it. That was a bit scary, not visually noticeable but enough to worry me. I use to do 100% to 20% charging, I am trying to keep in the 80% to 40% range now to baby the battery a little more.

I am genuinely surprised there are not more battery accidents with how dangerous lithium battery chemistry is.
 

Offline Gregg

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2018, 03:54:37 am »
He chose poorly
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2018, 04:01:15 am »
One of the reasons I only buy Samsung high current 18650s for mine.

The last mod I bought came with a free battery. The battery had no part number on it and the only thing printed on it was Danger: Do Not Use With E-Cigs, or some such.

I just changed the (Samsung) battery the other day because it was hardly holding any charge anymore. It had swollen enough to require pliers to remove it. That was a bit scary, not visually noticeable but enough to worry me. I use to do 100% to 20% charging, I am trying to keep in the 80% to 40% range now to baby the battery a little more.

I am genuinely surprised there are not more battery accidents with how dangerous lithium battery chemistry is.

Lithium chemistry isn't dangerous.

Drawing ridiculously high currents for long durations and then rapid charging them so you can get your next nicotine fix on the other hand..
 

Offline amyk

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #11 on: May 18, 2018, 04:58:35 am »
If I understood it correctly what killed him was part of the ecig ending up in his brain. I suppose some are shaped a bit like a gun/cannon and if the battery suddenly explodes inside a metal pipe, the mouthpiece area might shoot out like a bullet?
In other words, the top was too weak to contain the pressure and let go first. Definitely like a gun...
 

Offline krish2487

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #12 on: May 18, 2018, 09:20:27 am »
Real men smoke actual cigarettes and get killed by cancer!!


None of these e-cigarettes rubbish!!!  :-DD
If god made us in his image,
and we are this stupid
then....
 

Online KjeltTopic starter

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #13 on: May 18, 2018, 09:55:28 am »
Real men smoke actual cigarettes and get killed by cancer!!
None of these e-cigarettes rubbish!!!  :-DD
Nothing to laugh about if you ever knew someone that died with that disease.
 
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Offline BravoV

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #14 on: May 18, 2018, 10:04:55 am »
Die with style ... at least here, as I've seen locally here most this suckers used these "suck bomb" just to gain street cred.  :palm:

Offline Marco

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #15 on: May 18, 2018, 10:27:50 am »
It had swollen enough to require pliers to remove it.

Maybe this was what happened, the mod vents on the bottom while the battery if installed in the proscribed manner vents on top. So if the battery swells and closes the gas path to the bottom it can build enough pressure to blow through the insulator on top, through the atomizer and launch the mouthpiece, which isn't threaded on.
 

Offline krish2487

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #16 on: May 18, 2018, 10:51:56 am »
@kjelt
I apologise if I came across as a prick. It wasn't my intention.
I should have been more sensitive to the issue.

If god made us in his image,
and we are this stupid
then....
 

Online KjeltTopic starter

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #17 on: May 18, 2018, 11:01:04 am »
That's ok maybe I am too sensitive about it, it was just the icon at the end that ticked me off  ;)
 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #18 on: May 18, 2018, 01:53:25 pm »
I heard of people doing mods where they put a coil that's like 0.8 ohm.  That's practically dead shorting the cell.  :o  Wonder if stock ecigs are much safer and if it's always modded ones that have issues.

As for phones I think part of the issue is the obsession with making them so thin. Trying to pack that much power into a thin battery is asking for issues imo.  It's probably frustrating being an engineer and constantly being pushed to make these things thinner and thinner beyond what is practical.
 

Offline doobedoobedo

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #19 on: May 18, 2018, 10:19:32 pm »
I heard of people doing mods where they put a coil that's like 0.8 ohm.  That's practically dead shorting the cell.  :o  Wonder if stock ecigs are much safer and if it's always modded ones that have issues.

0.8 ohm isn't particularly low in the scheme of things, you need heat to turn a liquid into a vapour. On a single fully charged 18650 it will draw about 5A. If you're using a high power cell capable of giving 20-30A then it's well within spec of the cell. I suspect this guy was using a much lower resistance coil. As was mentioned before the problem is that the cells vent at the top and mech mods usually vent at the bottom. In this case a fatal design flaw.

There's really no sound reason to use a mech mod any more. Regulated mods just get better and can supply as much power as any sane person would want. If you want ridiculous amounts of power then rolling your own regulator really isn't too hard. I've designed and built a couple, using one right now controlled by an Atmel 328p I made a couple of years ago powered by a LiPo designed for RC.
 

Offline apis

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #20 on: May 19, 2018, 12:25:19 am »
If it is completely sealed then pressure wouldn't have to build up particularly fast even. Iirc there is only soft tissue between the mouth cavity and the brain so it probably doesn't take a lot of energy for a projectile to be lethal either.

Just adding a vent hole at the top of the battery compartment as well as the bottom might do the trick though? :-\
 

Offline Seph.b

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #21 on: May 19, 2018, 12:30:34 am »
If it is completely sealed then pressure wouldn't have to build up particularly fast even. Iirc there is only soft tissue between the mouth cavity and the brain so it probably doesn't take a lot of energy for a projectile to be lethal either.

Just adding a vent hole at the top of the battery compartment as well as the bottom might do the trick though? :-\

This thread has been making me think about doing just that. Mine has the battery compartment parallel to the mouth piece instead of under it, so it would be a simple mod. My worry then would be liquid getting in the hole and shorting out the battery. So I still have to think about it.
 

Offline CopperCone

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #22 on: May 19, 2018, 07:06:00 pm »
makes me wonder if my big 8000 lumen flashlight by Fenix can kill me like a pipe bomb with its red bull can sized battery and probobly shitty electronics  :palm:
 

Offline glarsson

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #23 on: May 19, 2018, 07:10:49 pm »
makes me wonder if my big 8000 lumen flashlight by Fenix can kill me like a pipe bomb with its red bull can sized battery and probobly shitty electronics  :palm:
Any time you have lots of energy in a container you either have a gun or a bomb. The only question is how easy it is to release the energy in a short amount of time.
 

Online Zero999

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Re: instantaneous death by (exploding) electronic cigarette
« Reply #24 on: May 19, 2018, 09:28:16 pm »
makes me wonder if my big 8000 lumen flashlight by Fenix can kill me like a pipe bomb with its red bull can sized battery and probobly shitty electronics  :palm:
Any time you have lots of energy in a container you either have a gun or a bomb. The only question is how easy it is to release the energy in a short amount of time.
The last statement about how quickly the energy can be released is the most important factor. A 100g wax candle contains about 4.2MJ of energy, much more than any battery of a similar size, yet it isn't explosive, under standard conditions, because the energy can't be released very quikcly.
 


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