The Electronic Cigarette

In a recent news story on NBC, it was reported that an electronic cigarette battery exploded while being used.  It caused serious injury’s to the man and started a fire in the man’s home.  The question is; are electronic cigarettes safe and how often does this happen?

Consider that there are millions and millions of e-cigarette users worldwide.  That translates to billions of individual uses over the past approximately 7 years since the e-cigarette hit the market.  In that time this is the first case of personal injury reported.  Those are pretty good stats.  So what happened to cause this particular battery to explode?  The answer appears to be mods.  Mods or modifications are home made changes to the electronic cigarette.  Some users attempt to get more power, longer battery life, and more vapor production by changing the stock batteries out with bigger and stronger batteries.  Although it is not confirmed that this is what happened, the evidence so far points to that very conclusion.

E-Cigarette Mod

The other potential cause of e-cigarette battery explosions is from using batteries with chargers that are not necessarily meant to work together.  Chargers and batteries can have different voltages and outputs which can cause issues.

So to avoid having issues with your hardware, follow these tips:

1) Don’t mod anything.  Use as directed with the parts provided by your supplier

2) Don’t mix and match different parts from different suppliers.  They may seem compatible, but may cause problems.

3) Don’t leave your e-cigarette battery on the charger any longer than needed.  When it’s charged, take it off.

4) Keep your batteries away from extreme temperatures.

If you follow these simple rules, you should have anything to worry about.

And remember, smoking tobacco cigarettes has about a 40% chance of eventually killing the user.  Using a e-cigarette mod apparently carries a one in a few million chance of causing injury.