A dad turned disposable e-cigarettes he collected from gutters into rechargeable flashlights that last up to two weeks and portable power banks for his electronics and musical instruments. Mark Hopgood, 55, a software engineer and musician from Sevenoaks, Kent, has managed to charge his iPhone 8 as well as power his toy keyboard and homemade music machine with lithium batteries he found from old disposable e-cigarettes littered in nearby streets. his home.
The father of two now plays gigs using homemade portable chargers to power his equipment via USB cable, and is in the process of building an e-bike that will run on around 80 vape batteries. Mark came up with the idea of making small lanterns after noticing a “bright light” in the gutter; It turned out to be a partially passed-through e-cigarette that continued to glow for five days after I brought it home.
He hopes his discovery will inspire people to find creative ways to reuse and recycle disposable e-cigarettes rather than throwing them away, but he warns it’s important to take some safety precautions to ensure batteries don’t overheat and catch fire. Mark uses the battery management system, which costs about 10p and is a small chip that switches off the circuit when the battery gets too hot.
It is estimated that around five million disposable e-cigarettes are thrown away every week in the UK, according to the Government, which plans to ban them by the end of next year at the latest. “The best part about this is that you get to use a free resource and get some use out of it before it actually goes into recycling,” he said.
“There’s no obvious way to recycle them unless you go to an e-cigarette shop. They seem to have appeared because people threw them out on the street.
“I didn’t even know they had nicotine in them; I guess that’s why they’re so addictive.”
While out for a walk in June 2023, Mark saw a huddled “stash” of discarded e-cigarettes. “It was as if the fairy godmother of vapes had waved a magic wand,” he said.
“I immediately saw one in the gutter and picked it up. Then I walked a little further and there was a stash of five e-cigarettes on the wall next to the bus stop.
When Mark returned home, he set to work dismantling each of the colorful smoking devices, piece by piece. Mark discovered that they were powered by a type of lithium-ion rechargeable battery and had a brain wave.
“If you think about a Tesla, it uses the same type of battery as big, thick e-cigarettes,” he said. “So theoretically you could power a Tesla with it, but that level of power could be dangerous because it would get hot.”
He started by ordering a battery case or power bank shell from Amazon, which he said cost between four and five pounds. He then used a soldering iron to join the batteries to the case, effectively creating a homemade, rechargeable power bank.
“I took one of these DIY battery packs and connected the vape batteries to it,” he said. “I can use this not only to charge things, but also to charge.
“Apparently you can recharge them 400 times, but I suspect it’s more than that.”
Mark wanted to see “how far he could go” with his new invention and began collecting more discarded e-cigarettes in the area around his home; the most common was the Strawberry Ice Elf Bar. “Even though they’re a little crushed, they still look like they work, so they’re pretty solid,” he said.
“I must have found at least 20.”
A power bank containing five 3.7-volt vape batteries was enough to power Mark’s Casio toy keyboard via a USB cable, as well as the music machine he used to produce a backing track. He first tested the device in August 2023 at an open mic night at The Chambers bar in Folkstone, where he plays regularly on the first Wednesday of every month.
“I took it to events and powered everything,” he said. “I played a few tunes and then people were coming up to me and saying, ‘What you’ve done is really cool’ – they were really interested.”
This got Mark thinking about what other devices he could power with old e-cigarette batteries. One evening, as he was cycling home from the station in Sevenoaks, he saw “a bright white light”.
“It was a really dark evening just before the clocks went back and there was a bright light shining in the gutter,” he said. “So I pulled over and it was an e-cigarette that was run over and damaged.
“It was as if he thought someone was constantly sucking him. I took him home thinking, ‘Oh, will this one explode because it got crushed?’
“I removed the battery and the light stayed on for about five days. I thought this was really cool, I could potentially use this as a flashlight.
Mark bought a few extra components, which he combined with LED lights to make “little lanterns” that could last several weeks. “It’s pretty fascinating in a way, because you have this little little light and you think it’s something that comes for free,” he said.
“I’ve had one for two weeks now and it’s still going on. “I don’t have an open switch, it’s just always on.”
To make power banks more environmentally friendly, Mark developed a “solar power system” and says they are powerful enough to fully charge his iPhone 8. His “ultimate goal” is to use old vape batteries to power his e-bike, but that’s a work in progress.
“My ultimate goal is to power an e-bike with vape batteries, but that’s a little more complicated,” he said. “I measured how much power you would need and there are quite a few cells.
“It can definitely be done, but you would need something like 80 vapes to make it work.”
Mark always carefully calculates how much power is needed to ensure the batteries do not overheat and catch fire. “If you try to get more power out of them too quickly, they get hot,” he said.
He now plans to fit the batteries with a power management system, a small chip that monitors the temperature and how much current flows through them. “They only cost something like 10p,” he said. “It measures how much power is coming from the battery.
“It’s a bit like a fuse, it will close the circuit and therefore make it safe. Technology is ubiquitous, almost every piece of technology that has a rechargeable battery in it will have a management circuit that will interrupt the circuit. [if it gets too hot].”
Buying a brand new battery, such as those found in disposable e-cigarettes, normally costs around £2.50 wholesale or £6.00 retail. In total, Mark has collected around 40 e-cigarettes, but his 19-year-old son Ned, an art student, has collected hundreds for one of the works of art he hopes to receive soon.
“You talk to people and they don’t know that e-cigarettes can be reused or repurposed,” he said. “It also gives me a sense of pride, because if you like building things, they’re pretty easy to put together once you get some soldering practice.”