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Comment by kev009 | Hacker News Reader

"I Powered My House Using 500 Disposable vapes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU

Man. I don't actually know anyone who vapes. I see it in public sometimes and just assumed people refilled them - maybe they do. Seeing him hold some up, seeing all that plastic, metal, electronics, all that Work (Joules) expended, in something that you just dump after a day is nuts. I can't think of anything else like that. Maybe plastic water bottles but they don't have even half the materials or complexity? Maybe I under-estimate how much is put into regular cigarettes or beer & cans.

The complexity of a can isn't as extreme as a disposable ARM chip, but it is still quite a sophisticated mass produced object. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUhisi2FBuw

Many daily life, single use objects have a lot of thoughts put into them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0ze8GnBKA

A little calibrating correction: A vape should last more than a day unless you're a very heavy user. Around three days with a '700 puffs' one maybe, and a week wouldn't be unheard of.

The puff number was extremely exaggerated on the disposable ones I've tried.

Refillable vapes used to be the standard around a decade ago, back when a liter of vape base (without nicotine) cost 30€ at max. Disposable vapes pretty much didn't exist. Now the same liter of vape base (still without nicotine) is a "tobacco product" and costs 400€+ due to taxes thanks to decade-long lobbying efforts by big tobacco, turning refillable vapes into a massive niche product due to single-use vapes costing the same or less, without any of the hassle of mixing your own liquids or having to refill them.

Are you referring to VG/PG? Are they really that expensive for you? That's wild.

Yes, 100ml from the same store I bought a liter from for 40€ in 2015 now cost 56€. There is currently a tax of 0.32€ per ml on liquid, no matter if you're buying the base or the finished product.

I guess it's time to not only make the vaping liquids yourself, but the bases too :P

Quick Googling suggests I'd pay less than 30 euro for a liter of VG. What about for the nicotine concentrate? I'd pay about 20 euros for 100ml of 20mg/ml concentrate.

I'm confused. Why wouldn't the same taxes apply to a disposable vape which has the same liquid inside of it?

Also, in the GP comment, you mentioned the cost was 400€ but here you're saying 56€. Are you talking about different things?

The 400 euro figure was for a liter, while the 56 euro price is for 100ml

What a brave and adventurous soul.

If you believe Lumafield, 8% of low-quality lithium ion batteries have a mechanical defect that can sometimes lead to a short circuit.

Is this person really brave, or just unaware of the risks?

https://www.lumafield.com/article/finding-hidden-risks-in-th...

He put a fuse on every individual cell and on the overall unit, so I would say he was reasonably cautious (although he deployed a bunch of high-voltage exposed wires at the end of the video, but we can assume that was just a tech demo).

fuses only help for overcurrent scenarios. if they cell overdischarges due to a mechanical fault, or internally shorts, the fuses wont do anything. any then if it internally shorts at an SOC > like 20-30%, it'll vent and cascade into other cells.

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