How to Make Your Vaping Batteries Last Longer

Introduction

Vaping batteries – the really good ones that are guaranteed to work at high amperages without giving you problems – aren’t cheap. You have a very strong incentive as a vaper, then, to make sure that your batteries continue to deliver a strong charge for as long as possible.

That’s especially true if you’ve gone to a vape shop like V2 Cigs and purchased a vaping device with a built-in battery. When the battery in a fixed-battery vaping device stops holding a charge, it’s time to buy a new device. In effect, prolonging the life of the battery prolongs the life of the entire device.

So, what can you do to make your vaping batteries last longer, thus keeping your expenses as low as they can be? As it turns out, improving the longevity of your batteries is largely a matter of managing their temperatures during operation and in storage. The harder your batteries work, the hotter they get – and what’s what shortens their life. With that in mind, the things that you need to do are mainly common sense.

Before we discuss how to make your vaping batteries last longer, though, let’s discuss one of the realities of lithium-ion battery technology.

There’s No Way to Guarantee How Long a Battery Will Last

In reading this article, one thing you should keep in mind is that batteries aren’t really electronic products so much as they are chemical products. There’s always a possibility of getting a battery that has some minute flaw – something that makes the battery slightly different from every other battery from the same assembly line – that ends up reducing its life. Therefore, there is no way to guarantee that an individual battery will last a certain length of time. In the aggregate, though, these tips will help to ensure that your vaping batteries last as long as they can.

Effective Tips to Improve Vaping Battery Life

Here are five effective ways you can easily increase the battery life of your preferred vaping device. The way you use and store your device have a huge impact on battery run times.

Let’s dive in…

Reduce Your Charging Amperage

One of the most important things to know about managing your vaping batteries is that they don’t only generate heat during operation – they also heat up during charging. Therefore, keeping your vaping batteries as cool as possible while they charge is one of the best ways of ensuring that they’ll last a long time.

Most people use their computers’ USB ports to charge their vaping devices. When you do that, the vaping device will negotiate its charging amperage with the computer and will charge at the highest safe amperage. With most vaping devices, the charging rate is around 1 amp. Some vaping devices – particularly those with USB-C ports – support 2-amp charging.

There is nothing, however, preventing you from charging a battery at lower than its supported charging rate.

If you have a USB wall adapter with a 0.5-amp charging current, for instance, you can feel free to use it to charge your vaping devices. While using a lower charging current will mean that your devices will take longer to charge, it’ll also mean that your batteries will stay cooler. They’ll likely last longer as a result.

Buy the Right Vaping Batteries for Your Needs

If you use a vaping device with removable batteries, you should always choose your battery cells carefully. Remember that a battery’s capacity and its maximum discharge rating have an inverse relationship. While there will always be a strong desire to buy the battery with the highest discharge rating, you should make sure that the discharge rating fits in with your requirements for the battery’s capacity. Consider the tank or atomizer that you’ll be using with the battery and use an Ohm’s Law calculator to determine the current the battery will be required to deliver.

Charge Your Vaping Batteries Before They’re Completely Dead

On average, lithium-ion batteries will hold their capacity for a great many more charge-discharge cycles if they’re not discharged fully each time they’re used. The less you use a battery before recharging it, in other words, the more times you’ll be able to recharge it before its capacity begins to drop significantly. Battery University reports that you can expect a lithium polymer battery pack to last for around 600 cycles if it’s fully discharged each time it’s used. If the same battery is instead drained to a 40-percent charge each time it’s used, it may last for up to 1,500 cycles.

Keep Your Vaping Batteries Away From High Temperatures

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, a major part of maximizing the life of any lithium-ion battery is simply managing the battery’s temperature. If a battery becomes too hot during use or while it’s charging, that’s a sign of stress – and when a battery is under stress, permanent chemical changes can occur inside the cell. Those chemical changes lead to permanent losses in capacity. When a battery’s temperature is extremely high, the chemical changes can even be dangerous.

Did you know that a battery’s temperature matters even when it isn’t being used? At all times, you should avoid exposing your vaping batteries to high temperatures. Leaving a vaping device in your car on a sunny day, for example, is horrible for the battery – and potentially even dangerous if the temperature inside the car is high enough. Over time, exposure to high temperatures will rapidly rob a battery of its ability to hold a charge.

Give Your Vaping Batteries Plenty of Headroom During Operation

So far, this article has discussed how to manage a battery’s temperature while charging and in storage. How do you manage a battery’s operational temperature? The answer to that question has to do with the battery’s maximum discharge limit. Let’s suppose, for instance, that at your preferred vaping wattage, your tank draws a 10-amp current from your battery.

If your battery has a maximum continuous discharge rating of 35 amps, your tank isn’t going to subject the battery to undue stress because there is plenty of headroom between what you’re asking of the battery and what that battery is capable of delivering.

Suppose, on the other hand, that your battery has a maximum discharge rating of just 15 amps. In that case, you’re operating much closer to the limit of the battery’s stated capabilities, which is highly likely to lead to an elevated operational temperature. It’s always best for the longevity of a vaping battery to operate the battery as far below its maximum discharge rating as possible.

Conclusion

Reducing your charging amperage, buying the right vaping batteries for your needs, charging your vaping batteries before they’re completely dead, keeping your vaping batteries away from high temperatures, and giving your vaping batteries plenty of headroom during operation are all effective ways to squeeze some extra juice out of your vaping battery.

Have you used any of the tips in this guide? What can you tell us about your experience? Would love to hear what worked and didn’t work for you. Let us know in the comments below…

About Theresa Duncan

Originally from Detroit, MI, Theresa has been offering health and fitness advice for the last 30 years while working as an engineer. She decided to turn her passion into a profession, and finds nothing more satisfying than helping others reach their health and fitness goals.