It’s not a project for most people, but watching someone ride up to 20 miles, and up to 30 mph, on tossed-out vape batteries is transfixing.

Disposable vapes are indefensible. Many, or maybe most, of them contain rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, but manufacturers prefer to sell new ones.

To make a point about how wasteful this practice is—and to also make a pretty rad project and video—Chris Doel took 130 disposable vape batteries (the bigger “3,500 puff” types with model 20400 cells) found littered at a music festival and converted them into a 48-volt, 1,500-watt e-bike battery, one that powered an e-bike with almost no pedaling more than 20 miles. You can see the whole build and watch Doel zoom along trails on his YouTube video.

  • Teknikal@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    10·
    7 days ago

    To be fair the supposedly reusable pod kits only lasted me about a month or maybe two before whatever sensor that activates it when you draw breaks (what’s wrong with buttons) .

    That said all these disposables should at the very least be rechargeable it’s truly stupid to buy something with a single charge I bet half of these are sold at about 60 percent or so battery and who will know.

    • thejoker954@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      Any disposable I’ve bought that doesnt have a recharge port the battery was dead with at least 20% ejuice remaining.

    • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 days ago

      They are almost all rechargeable where I live (US) because there’s more juice in them than one charge will handle.

    • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.eeEnglish
      11·
      7 days ago

      I much prefer buttons, except the one time a button got stuck and it continued to heat until the plastic melted in my pants. Shit needs a safety shutoff too.

      Honestly the entire idea of disposable vapes should be scrapped.

      • Teknikal@eviltoast.orgEnglish
        4·
        7 days ago

        I actually had that with the first ecig I ever bought with the draw activation (looked like a cig but blue light, itactivated in my pocket and I needed to throw it sharpish).

        Yeah agreed nothing should be disposable with a lithium battery. I’ve just the feeling a lot of vapes are just designed to die as fast as possible even when it comes to reusable stuff .

      • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        Honestly the entire idea of disposable vapes should be scrapped.

        I think I know to which european union you can write a letter to to ban them