Opening a capacitor-style lithium cell (don't try this)

Doing the dangerous things so you don't have to. I recommend against opening lithium cells, as they have some undesirable chemicals inside and any residual charge can be unleashed suddenly as heat, vapour and flames.

This cell was removed from a new style of disposable stimulant inhaler that has clearly been re-engineered for machine assembly. As part of that streamlining they have removed a lot of the wiring by using a PCB with a lithium cell in a solderable capacitor style can. Note that it is still a lithium ion cell and not a supercapacitor.

Despite being marked as 360mAh, the cell tested at around 280mAh input charge over a few cycles. If that is the initial factory-supplied capacity then this brand (elf) has near halved the usable life of the unit from the original 500mAh cells. That could explain why the main competitor (crystal) is so popular, since it still uses a 500mAh cell.

As mentioned in the video, the cell was made safer for disassembly by fully discharging it to near zero volts. There's a common misconception that it's the lithium in these cells that makes them explode in flames when things go wrong. In reality it's the stored energy that is the biggest hazard. The small amount of lithium in these cells is diffused into the electrode materials.


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