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Safety Fuses for Mechs

RZ7

Postman
Joined
Jun 17, 2013
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Hey, a question for you all about safety fuses for mechanical mods and also a quick question about batteries in general.

Thanks to AndyC's recommendation, I now have my heart set on a Sigelei 19 as a first mechanical because I like the way it looks and of course, it's relatively cheap. I'd been eager to try a mech for a while, and there's a couple out there that are on the more expensive/out-of-stock side that I would possibly give a kidney to own, but I thought it's probably wise to try one out for myself before spending the equivalent of an organ on getting one. So I'm going to grab the 19 soon~!

However, on a number of videos I've seen people seem to pop in these little safety fuses when using mechs. Not all the time it seems, but often enough that I feel like I ought to have some. What I was wondering was if there were particular circumstances where having one is a very good idea, such as maybe when using sub-ohm coils? Or is it just another layer of protection and is worth keeping in all the time?

If someone could point me towards somewhere where I could get one I'd be very grateful! I understand there are reusable ones too, which I'd think would be better?

Also, would anyone be able to briefly explain the differences in batteries? I was looking around for some 18350s so I can carry around a small mod, and I was interested to see a fair variance in the capacity of same-sized batteries. I realise certain things are going to be more preferable in different devices, so I was wondering if there's certain things that I should stick to when buying batteries for mods?

It's a handful of questions and I'm sure I'll look into this a bit more on my own too, but any pointers would be appreciated~! :)
 
Hi. I suspect that the fuse-thing youve seen is a "kick". Its a vw module which also has a protection circuit. Its a good thing to have, but not essential.
The batteries; some are high drain/imr etc. Those are good for low ohm genesis setups. But be sure to use good quality batteries.

Protected vs unprotected; a vv/vw mod or the kick have protection circuits, so that unprotected batteries are protected this way. A mech mod doesnt
 
The safety fuse is something you can drop in to add some protection against a short. There's a little info and some for sale here
I don't use a mech mod very often so I'd wait for a more experienced user to add an opinion on those.

Good quality batteries are essential. There are quite a lot of cheap ones floating around. I've heard it said to avoid anything with 'fire' in the makers name - Ultrafire, Trustfire and Tangsfire are a few that I can think of. Someone posted a link to one of these going BOOM a while ago and nearly taking someone's hand off!! Some of the decent brand makes are Panasonic, Sanyo and Efest. There is an Ebay seller that comes highly recommended and you won't go wrong with anything that he sells. There's a link to his selling page here

I believe that it's preferable to use unprotected batteries in a VV/VW mod as the batteries own protection can sometimes conflict with the protection in the device itself. I think it's the opposite way around for mechanical mods with protected batteries being the way to go. Again, I'd wait for a more experienced user to come along and add an opinion as I'm just learning about batteries too and actually own a few of the dreaded 'trustfire' brand!!
 
I don't use protected batteries in mine although the efest that I use are safer chemistry, the coils I use on my mech are around the 1 ohm, I think as a new user to mech mods your best option is to use efest protected batteries and will give you piece of mind and you won't need a drop in module like a kick.
Get good quality batteries like efest and the efest protected have slightly better Mah ratings:
18350- 900 Mah
18500- 1500 Mah
18650- 3000 Mah
maybe buy one of each.
I know vapegear sell the segelie 19 and the protected batteries so you can buy it all from one order and its free delivery!
Hope that helps
 
I'm almost exclusively mech, just use regular high drain bats from aw and efest, with low res atties and all has been fine so far....so far....I keep an eye on how hot my devices get, and that everything is in a decent condition, I'd say it is your call as to the precautions you take.
 
Thank you all for the advice and suggestions!

It was indeed the 2cents safety fuse that I was after and I've managed to find them on Cloud9Vaping - although as the site isn't open today I can't say whether they're still in stock or not. I've also found the HolocronLabs 'Short Stop' on Safercigs, which appears to very much the same thing as well as being reusable. I think I may well get one sometime as a precaution even though I'm generally careful with my possessions anyway, but things can happen I suppose...

High quality batteries seem to definitely be the way to go. I was going to buy my mech from Vapegear anyway as they were brilliant in sending out some rebuildables and supplies I bought recently, so I think I'll likely pick up my batteries there too~
 
I'm about to venture into mech mods and have done as much reading as i can and am semi confident in what i think i need to know.

Ive read that IMR batteries are generally considered safer than standard ICR l-ion batteries, due to the chemical composition and output people use these over protected batteries and risk is lower even compared to protected bats.

I have a good stockpile of efest imrs of various sizes as well as a sigelei kick to use in my telescopes, but in standard tubes i dont want to have to rely on a kick or fuse.

I use gennys almost exclusively now, i always check my coil on a multimeter for shorts and dont plan to sub ohm anytime soon, so only unprotected imrs and no fuse i should be okay?

my only questions are how do i know when my batteries are at a point that i should change them? in my vv devices i have meters and know when i hit a certain threshold it will stop working but you dont have those facilities with a standard mech mod. and lastly whats the worst thats happened to you personally with this sort of setup, has anyone actually had a battery set on fire?

sorry for the thread hijack but i felt it was relevant and didnt want to clutter up the board with more of the same
 
I'm about to venture into mech mods and have done as much reading as i can and am semi confident in what i think i need to know.

Ive read that IMR batteries are generally considered safer than standard ICR l-ion batteries, due to the chemical composition and output people use these over protected batteries and risk is lower even compared to protected bats.

I have a good stockpile of efest imrs of various sizes as well as a sigelei kick to use in my telescopes, but in standard tubes i dont want to have to rely on a kick or fuse.

I use gennys almost exclusively now, i always check my coil on a multimeter for shorts and dont plan to sub ohm anytime soon, so only unprotected imrs and no fuse i should be okay?

my only questions are how do i know when my batteries are at a point that i should change them? in my vv devices i have meters and know when i hit a certain threshold it will stop working but you dont have those facilities with a standard mech mod. and lastly whats the worst thats happened to you personally with this sort of setup, has anyone actually had a battery set on fire?

sorry for the thread hijack but i felt it was relevant and didnt want to clutter up the board with more of the same

No problem at all - it's a good question.

With changing the batteries I would imagine that you would feel the voltage drop when they started getting low, particularly if not using them with a kick. That combined with estimating how long your batteries tend to last you should give a decent indicator of when you ought to change them...

I've put in my order for my 19 and some 18350 batteries, and I think I will go for a safety fuse at some point in the near future for my own peace of mind, but as Merino said if you're keeping on top of things like temperature and condition there shouldn't be any issues!
 
I stand to be corrected, as I am very much a VW vaper, but in my experience with mechs, you'll know when it's time to change batteries cos you'll notice the quality of your vape drop. Of course, if you feel like you are getting short changed by battery life, chuck it in a VW/VV or put it on a multimeter to see how much life is left in it. For some reason, I do seem to get a lot more juice from a battery on my Tesla or SVD than I do a mech.
 
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