Free lithium cells from discarded vapour devices. (And total teardown of one.)

With the increasing use of vapour producing devices as an alternative to traditional smoke sticks, a growing number of "disposable" devices are becoming available. These are aimed at traditional users who are looking for the more "satisfying" vapour who are more used to buying pre-packaged products and are not into refilling or recharging devices themselves.
These units tend to use rechargeable lithium cells despite being disposable because the cells are mass produced and available in a wide range of sizes.
It seems odd to use a lithium battery just once when it could be recharged hundreds of times, but it's becoming increasingly common to do so when it would have taken so little to make the products rechargeable. It's all part of our throw away society.

On a plus note, this means that when you see one of these devices discarded in the street it's viable to pick it up and salvage the cell out of it. In these devices the capacity of the cells measured:-
Brown unit = 314mAh
Green unit = 280mAh
They have both taken multiple charges so far.
Note that these cells are suited to short bursts of high current, but are NOT suitable for continuous high current applications like drones. My tests for discharging them used a simple circuit of a string of LEDs and a 47 ohm series resistor. The little cells run the LED strings for several hours.

The cells have no built in charge protection, so they have to be used with a suitable charger PCB like a TP4056 based module (99 cents/pence shipped on eBay). The current control resistor is best changed from the usual 1K as supplied to a 3.9K resistor to limit the charge current to 300mA.

Keep in mind that it's possible that some devices may use non rechargeable cells or LiFePO4 type lower voltage cells. But I would expect most to use standard lithium cells due to their wider availability and higher voltage. Especially when the control circuitry they are being used with is optimised for traditional rechargeable lithium cells.

The liquid and vapourisation cartridge in this unit was very interesting. It uses the standard coil and wick as a vaporizer, but has a clever design of liquid feed that relies on capillary action to ration liquid flow without excessive leakage.

I did refill the purple unit. By applying a heat gun to the glued end I was able to remove it non destructively and slide out the cell and vial. By drilling a 1.5mm hole in the plastic vial just next to the silicone end cap I was able to use a syringe to suck out the existing liquid and replace it with new liquid. I then wiped the area around the hole dry and capped it with a bit of insulation tape.
The amount of liquid it holds is 1ml. (The rechargeable unit I showed holds 1.5ml in its cartridges.) When reassembling the sensor in it's silicone cover, it goes into the side with the biggest breather hole with the wires to the outside on the battery side. The LED on the back points to the end of the device.

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