Disposable vape batteries can be turned into power banks

There’s an interesting phenomenon in our increasingly cyberpunk world—you’re now more likely to find a dead disposable vape on the street than a cigarette butt. Unfortunately, while relatively harmless cigarette butts will eventually break down after exposure to the elements, these futuristic bits of litter are not only potentially explosive because of their built-in lithium-ion batteries, but they also won’t disappear on their own without human intervention.

For the sake of the environment—and your parts bin—pick them up and recycle the batteries inside. As [N-Ender_3] demonstrates in this project, turning the remains of several vapes into a practical USB power bank is both cheap and easy. In this case, the enclosure is 3D-printed, which makes it an especially neat fit, but if you’re not into squeezing plastic, you could package the batteries into something else as well.

The real highlight here is an off-the-shelf USB power bank module that can safely charge the batteries wired in parallel and boost the output to 5 volts. As [N-Ender_3] explains in the project description, there is one small catch: before soldering them together, you must first fully charge all the batteries (after confirming they are intact and functioning properly). This simple charging module cannot balance the cells individually, so if their voltages differ by more than 0.1 volts, things can start to go wrong.

As always, there is some risk involved when handling lithium-ion batteries, but we think they are less likely to explode when properly reused than when left lying in the street waiting to be run over. Probably.