By Brady Bateman

Is your vaporizer safe?

Feb 8, 2019 | 2:47 PM

A recent story out of Texas in which a vaporizer exploded in a man’s hand, sending shrapnel into his body and later causing his death, has a local vape expert speaking out.

Jesse Huber, manager at Vita Vapes in Prince Albert, told paNOW that while the accident was tragic, he feels several news outlets, in their reporting, are perpetuating several misconceptions of the device.

“The information that I wanted to clarify is that the stories are saying he was using a vape pen, which kind of sends the wrong message because a vape pen is not anything close to a mech mod,” Huber said.

“A vape pen is a very standard item in the vape industry, there’s not really anything that can go wrong with it other than overcharging it, they have safeties for low voltage, low ohm’s and low power. A mech mod has no safeties. It’s just a mechanical switch that connects your battery to your coils — the part that heats up the juice and makes a vapour.”

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Huber noted that if the user doesn’t build coils properly for their power supply, or the batteries within the vaporizer are not properly taken care of, it increases the risk of an incident.

Most vaporizers are powered by lithium-ion batteries, the same style of battery found in everyday items such as cellphones or cordless drills. Huber added since a mech, or mechanical mod, does not contain any safety devices within the vaporizer, it is completely up to the user to understand principles such as voltage and to ensure safety when using such devices.

To work properly, a vaporizer’s coils must retain a certain amount of resistance based off of ohm’s law to ensure the correct amount of power is supplied to the coils.

Devices such as regulated mods, or vaporizer pens, contain computer chips which regulate amperage, wattage and voltage, as well as heat within the device. Mechanical mods do not feature these computer chips, which can lead to fatal incidents if the proper precautions are not taken.

“It’s kind of like putting a viper engine onto a bicycle. You can do some very wrong things if you aren’t educated on ohm’s law or battery safety,” Huber said.

“That’s kind of the misconception of vaping, when you hear a vape pen, you think everything vaping-related can just blow up, which isn’t the case, because most vapes have safeties built into them to keep people safe.”

Huber noted although Vita Vapes does sell mech mods, staff quiz customers who are interested in purchasing a vaporizer of this type to ensure they know the dangers.

“If you don’t have the proper resistance in the coil, for the battery you put in the mech mod, you have issues with the battery feeding back into itself and boiling the lithium ion cell on the inside, and it has nowhere to go so it has to boil out or vent,” Huber said.

“If that has nowhere to go or vent inside the mech, than literally a hand grenade can happen.”

Huber stressed he believes vaporizers are safe when users take proper precautions and educate themselves on using the devices properly. He added most vape shops are more than willing to provide any information on proper usage or safety precautions for vaporizers.

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brady.bateman@jpbg.ca

@thedigitalbirdy