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Guy makes “dodgy e-bike” from 130 used vapes to make point about e-waste (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 month ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

101 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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.

[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.org 4 points 1 month 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.ee 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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

[–] thejoker954@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

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

[–] YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

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