# How do you know when it is the end of the line... and is it still safe?



## CJB85 (29/6/20)

Is there a sure-fire way to check if a battery is officially done and does it become unsafe to use in a regulated mod at some point?
I still have my very first 18650's from March 2019 in my rotation, but we are seeing that some of the batteries (I own 14 18650's that were bought at different times, between my wife and I they service 2 Gens and 2 Swag 2's) only charge up to about 88% and some seem to deplete a bit quicker.

Is there a way to test how much zing a battery still has, or will they simply not charge up one day? I got my wife into vaping and certainly don't want to put her into an unsafe situation, can anything bad happen from using old batteries in a regulated mod?

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## M.Adhir (29/6/20)

Unlikely that anything bad will happen in a regulated mod if the batteries are just sagging in terms of power.

Mod will just show weak battery more often.

I've got batteries in use from 2017. Some still last half a day in a dual batt mod at 90 watts.

The thing I check with older batteries is for leakage.

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## Stranger (29/6/20)

I still have some 18650 25r's that are going on for five years old. Not just vape batteries but batteries in general will "wear down" but still be usable. In the Netherlands they have an electric bike that uses banks of 18650 batteries, when they get to 80% capacity, they trade them with you for new ones and re purpose the old ones.

They only real way to check is to put them on a verifiable load over time. There is plenty of specialised equipment out there to do this, but not worth the time and money. The other problem with vaping is that we do not have a lot of constants. Different mods, coils, Ohms, chargers. You get the picture. As mentioned as long as there is no breaks in the wrap, no sweating or leakage then you should still have some life out of them. If I suspect that mine are wearing down a bit, I use them on the dual mods and let them help each other out a bit.

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## Christos (29/6/20)

CJB85 said:


> Is there a sure-fire way to check if a battery is officially done and does it become unsafe to use in a regulated mod at some point?
> I still have my very first 18650's from March 2019 in my rotation, but we are seeing that some of the batteries (I own 14 18650's that were bought at different times, between my wife and I they service 2 Gens and 2 Swag 2's) only charge up to about 88% and some seem to deplete a bit quicker.
> 
> Is there a way to test how much zing a battery still has, or will they simply not charge up one day? I got my wife into vaping and certainly don't want to put her into an unsafe situation, can anything bad happen from using old batteries in a regulated mod?



There are a few things you can do.
1. An exhausted battery won’t hold charge for very long. You can charge these batteries fully and then put them aside for a week or two. After a week you can measure their voltage. Tired batteries will be much lower than the 4.2V. For example I left a battery for a week and it was at 3.4V. This is a fairly easy way to gauge. I would suggest anything below 4.0V after a week should be replaced. 

2. You can get a charger that shows you how much mAH is put into the battery. For example a 3000mAH battery should have say 70% charge added over a charge from say 3.3V. E.g once flat and you charge it, the charger will say the battery took 2100mAH to fully charge to 4.2V. Generally speaking if you are putting in more mAH than the battery is rated at then the battery is tired and the chemistry doesn’t hold charge and needs a lot more to register as 4.2V.

I recommend the xtar vc8 for step 2 as you can also do load testing on batteries but I think there are other models that do this as well as one of the nitecore models but I don’t remember which one.

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## Christos (29/6/20)

P.s a tired battery will not register a voltage over 2.8v and will also appear dead if you try charge it after it has been sitting in storage for say 3 weeks.

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## M.Adhir (29/6/20)

Christos said:


> There are a few things you can do.
> 1. An exhausted battery won’t hold charge for very long. You can charge these batteries fully and then put them aside for a week or two. After a week you can measure their voltage. Tired batteries will be much lower than the 4.2V. For example I left a battery for a week and it was at 3.4V. This is a fairly easy way to gauge. I would suggest anything below 4.0V after a week should be replaced.
> 
> 2. You can get a charger that shows you how much mAH is put into the battery. For example a 3000mAH battery should have say 70% charge added over a charge from say 3.3V. E.g once flat and you charge it, the charger will say the battery took 2100mAH to fully charge to 4.2V. Generally speaking if you are putting in more mAH than the battery is rated at then the battery is tired and the chemistry doesn’t hold charge and needs a lot more to register as 4.2V.
> ...



Thanks for this info
I didn't know the xtar did all this stuff
Just ordered one because of it fitting 21700 easily and being an 8 bay.

Looking forward to fiddling with it when it arrives.

I'm excited about a charger--it's a sign of the times lol.

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## Christos (29/6/20)

M.Adhir said:


> Thanks for this info
> I didn't know the xtar did all this stuff
> Just ordered one because of it fitting 21700 easily and being an 8 bay.
> 
> ...


Thats great! The VC8 has replaced my queen ant and my i8.
Just make sure you have a USB wall adapter that can do quick charge 3 in order to get the full potential out of the charger i.e. 8x0.5A or 4X1A etc etc.

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## M.Adhir (29/6/20)

Christos said:


> Thats great! The VC8 has replaced my queen ant and my i8.
> Just make sure you have a USB wall adapter that can do quick charge 3 in order to get the full potential out of the charger i.e. 8x0.5A or 4X1A etc etc.



Plan is to use of my Huawei chargers. Should be sufficient but will only know when I plug in. 

I donated one of my D4's to someone during month one of lockdown. And then my other D4 decided to die. So I've pretty much been using the i8 and haven't been able to use my 20700/21700 mods because well no battery charger. 
Felt bad to ask that person to return the charger so I just waited til I found the xtar and ordered one.

Looking forward to using 21700 mods again. 

Hopefully the xtar can boost some of my dead batteries a bit, will actually have to read the user manual for the charger this time and figure stuff out.

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## Puff the Magic Dragon (29/6/20)



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