In this video I document my attempt to build a disposable vape powered e-bike as a solarpunk project.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q92GVD8gHojnIfHD8w0tbDvoCT4XUmNd/view?usp=share_link – The essay on disposable vapes
https://youtu.be/_rxh-uN9j7E?si=m0GzVKH67asdgzZk – How to control a washing machine motor
https://thepihut.com/products/sparkfun-adjustable-lipo-charger – Lipo charger
https://thepihut.com/products/jst-ph-2-pin-cable-female-connector-150mm connector wire for charging individual batteries
– variable resistor for washing machine
https://www.google.co.uk/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjZlL2R4emNAxWDklAGHfaPBpMYABA2GgJkZw&co=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2ZS9keHpjQMVg5JQBh32jwaTEAQYGCABEgKH7vD_BwE&sph=&sig=AOD64_0CQsr_UBna1PXjygtFxP3iHcUYjw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwi9zLaR4emNAxUHUkEAHXGPFakQwg8oAHoFCAoQqAE&nis=8&adurl= – Polarity switch for motor
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004252616693.html?pdp_npi=4%40dis%21GBP%2110.94%2110.39%21%21%2113.39%2112.72%21%4021411e5617399168790727668d10b7%2112000030807256004%21affd%21%21%21&dp=EAIaIQobChMIgqS8v8TkiwMVUHN_AB1Igy-nEAQYASABEgJUQPD_BwE%7C0AAAAAC5ena3VC-j58mH9Awq9cTeGjjwSZ%7CCj4KCAiAlPu9BhA6Ei4Abr79VQ4ftzQFNq4JHr7Lo59-Knadq6GyQoU0VbgKjYxRLNg8jKD6WAeKYOd0GgKDHw%7Cv1&gad_source=1&aff_fcid=7e857cea0e6147979050e3852680bead-1740682860955-06031&aff_fsk&aff_platform=api-new-product-query&sk&aff_trace_key=7e857cea0e6147979050e3852680bead-1740682860955-06031&terminal_id=6fb5f2f5dc9d43329792307039613146&afSmartRedirect=y. – Bisida 12S lifepo4 Battery management system 44.4V 38.4V lithium ion battery Common port protection board
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404502225015 – e-bike conversion kit
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/11/disposable-vapes-from-a-music-festival-can-power-a-beefy-e-bike-20-miles/ – guy builds disposable vape battery powered bike
hello my name is Idris and this is a video about
making an ebike powered by used disposable vape batteries but first before we get on to that we
have to discuss where the minerals for these vape batteries come from i wrote an essay linked
in the description about environmental and social harms embedded in the production and
disposable of disposable vapes in brief while public discourse often focuses on consumer waste
and recycling this essay shifts attention to the obscured systematic violence in the global supply
chain particularly the exploitation of labor and environment environmental degradation tied
to lithium mining disposable vapes primarily manufactured in Shenzen China contain lithium
ion batteries sourced from global supply chains these batteries rely on lithium extracted through
environmentally destructive methods such as brine evaporation and hard rock mining particularly
in regions like Argentina Chile Bolivia and Tibet the essay traces the supply chain to
Eve Energy a major battery supplier linked to Tibetan lithium mining through its shareholder
Tibet Yiwei Holdings the environmental and human costs of lithium extraction are severe in Tibet
mining operations have led to poisoned rivers and mass fish deaths sparking protests from local
communities these events exemplify Rob Nixon’s environmentalism of the poor where marginalized
groups resist ecological destruction the Chinese state’s framing of Tibet as a resource frontier
justifies extractive practices under the guise of green energy while silencing local voices
and bypassing environmental impact assessments the essay draws on Anna Singh’s concept of the
resource frontier to highlight how extractivism transforms ecologies and social structures into
zones of exploitation the Minyak Lhagang lithium mine protest is presented as a case a case study
of grassroots resistance against corporate and state violence despite legal frameworks mandating
environmental assessments and public participation these are often ignored leaving communities
vulnerable to long-term harm on the consumer end the UK’s upcoming ban on disposable vapes
reflects growing concern over their environmental impact however this concern is largely limited to
waste management and public health ignoring the upstream violence of production only a fraction of
vape producers comply with recycling regulations and discarded vapes contribute to fires pollution
and the loss of critical resources like lithium moreover disposable vapes pose direct health
risks many contain toxic metals and carcinogenic chemicals often exceeding safe exposure levels
these products are aggressively marketed to youth disguising their dangers behind colorful designs
and sweet flavors far from being a benign alternative to smoking they are harmful consumer
artifacts that perpetuate extractive capitalism in conclusion disposable vapes are not merely
wasteful gadgets but symbols of systematic harm their production and disposal involve dispersed
delayed violence that affects both producers and consumers now we move to creating the bike first a
warning you must not use lithium batteries at home and without proper supervision these are dangerous
materials and can cause serious fires if shorted or handled incorrectly and safe storage is key
here we can see the initial plan for the bike i was going to use my old BMX and I was going
to use a pulley system from the washing machine that solves the engineering problem of having to
design a way to get the motor pulling the wheel i was going to use the motor from the washing
machine as well this is a recycled washing machine thank you Aiden for donating that after
you finished your art um show and then the battery pack so here we can see that I am uh taking this
washing machine apart taking a look you can see the drum here and then we see it from the back
and that’s the pulley system I’m talking about so the initial idea was to have that mounted to
the back wheel of the BMX um and then the band there that is pulled by the motor um would turn
the wheel here I am trying to get uh trying to get the motor out it’s a fiddly job stuck quite
well onto this machine i managed to get the band off so that’s the first bit of success and now
comes the tedious task of removing the motor it’s very heavy this there’s a lot of copper in
there and uh I think a steel casing around the outside as well so it’s fairly heavy duty stuff
it can reach about 15,000 revolutions per minute which is serious business and not nearly as fast
as I would need to be going there I am cutting the cables and it is the motor beast and now I have
to get the pulley off i had a lot of trouble with this and I couldn’t actually undo um undo the
uh the the Allen screw that was keeping it on the back of the drum and so I decided to drill it
through but unfortunately it broke one of not just one I think two or three of the drill bits but
here you can see it’s broken one of the drill bits i’m sure I will show you in a second struggling
to get it out there there it is broken drill bit and so I borrowed a mate’s more heavy duty drill
because it wasn’t really doing the job and finally I managed to get the pulley off so there we go
here we can see disassembled vapes and here I am disassembling them um taking their constituent
parts away the pressure sensor the tank i’m wearing gloves obviously because the liquid in the
tank is very nasty um taking the casings away as well and the wiring and then putting them in a
plastic lined metal box so as they don’t cause any fires here is a charging circuit from the pie
hut and this is important if you are charging the batteries so they don’t charge too quickly um
and they don’t overcharge um if that happens then they can combust cause very nasty and hard
to put out fire so it’s very important i needed a proof of concept so I created this uh I got this
little RC car hooked it up to one of the charge batteries just to prove that they have enough
juice in them um and so one of these batteries is about 3.7 volts and it it really makes this car
go um faster than having double A’s in it really um so that was I was very proud of that now we
move back to the washing machine motor so I had to figure out which of these cables did what in a
washing machine motor you have brushes and coils um now I’m not going to get into too high-tech
detail but um basically when a current is pushed through the coils um it induces motion in the axle
um but also if you move the axle you can find the brushes which are the parts that connect the coils
to the um central axle of the motor and carry the current through the system um if you spin that you
can in induce um a current and so by reading the resistance on a multimeter you can find which of
the wires are brushes i will link a video in the description that explains how to do this here is a
diagram of um the motor I used and then a diagram of what wiring I need to make it go which way
around and here is a polarity switch i’ve linked the uh the Amazon link in the description uh and
this will switch the direction of the motor um it uh swaps by wiring it up correctly you can see
here um there are branches and they oppose um from each of the um coils and brushes and by swapping
that um you can get the motor to change directions i also hooked up a variable resistor linked in
the description so that I could adjust the speed now so the power consumption of the motor is
very big and I will require a lot of batteries which means acquiring vapes here you see me and my
friend Atman who helped me doing some of the basic calculations for how much power draw the motor
would take and how many batteries I would need in short hundreds he also helped me source these
um vapes um he let me into his accommodation and we managed to get some of the vapes from their
recycling bin um as in the vape recycling bin um and I created one myself um so that I could
collect from uh students discarding in the library i also got many vapes from my friends who
had better sense than to throw them away so at this point in the project I was reaching a fairly
technical stage and finding it quite difficult um to move ahead because I had have little experience
um and so I emailed the creative computing department at Goldsmiths asking for some help now
I didn’t receive a response for about three weeks and then I got an email from Nick Grimmer director
of operations at Goldsmith’s art department he asked to have a quick chat about the request I put
into the creative computing department i went up to Nick’s office but he wasn’t in he was on a walk
around so I had an hour to kill i decided to go to the creative computing department and see if they
could tell me what it was about since I hadn’t had any communication from their side they told me
that they couldn’t offer assistance because of the serious fire risk the batteries they buy come
with specialty safety circuits which the vapes do not i said “I know that but I was wondering if
they could help me build a circuit to make these batteries safe they said they won’t.” I asked if
they could point me in the direction of someone who could help they said it was beyond their
expertise and so they didn’t know who could help uh I understood and agreed with the precautions
that need to be taken but I think the ebike project is an important idea and could potentially
solve a lots of issues i had a discussion with Nick hatch Labs the creative computing department
are a different department so it’s rare they help anyone on other courses it’s likely that
disposable vapes batteries aren’t supposed to be recharged in theory the only difference with
a vape battery to other liposes um should be that the vape batteries don’t have a safety circuit
which is something I was asking about designing um Nick asked if all lipo batteries are rechargeable
i said in theory but the question is safety there was also concerns about the high voltage motor
i explained I wouldn’t need the full 220 volts um and that 36 to 72 is the range for most ebikes
with this in mind the Hatch Labs’ concern probably came from the fuzziness and communication about
the fact I wanted to operate the motor at a lower safer voltage hatch Labs might have helped if
if they knew I wanted to run a lower voltage but it transpired that they couldn’t after
about a fortnight I had another discussion with Nick who had gone back to Hatch Labs with
this information to see if there was any way to move forward or if they knew any avenues I
could go down to seek some help unfortunately I could not continue working with the lithium
batteries on campus because the risk was too high the technical details of producing the
battery are beyond Rob and the Hatch Labs team on a positive note both Rob and Nick think this
is an interesting idea and well worth pursuing and so I reached out i emailed many many people at
many different electronics engineering departments um across London i reached out to the Center for
Alternative Technologies in Wales um I didn’t really get much of a response um which was a shame
until until I got an email back from Rob Thompson um a uh doctor at the University
College London electronics engineering um department and he suggested that I go to the
maker space um Um and here you can see me rewiring the motor in the maker space i reached out to
them and I told them my idea and they were very kind to give me the time um and talk me through
so here in the background sped up you can see me um rewiring the motor at the maker space the maker
space run electronics evenings on Thursdays from 6 p.m i came down to have a chat with them i arrived
a little early and met a bloke called Joe i told him about my idea he said “The batteries have a
bad reputation it’s unlikely I can work with them in the maker space.” Uh he told me to research
whether this creating a safe battery for the bike is a problem fixable with technology how many
recharge cycles will the battery cells last for i said from the projects on the internet about
300 i’ve linked one example in the description he said I should aim to build a smart system that
recognizes when a cell is about to fail and turns it off i should do a deep dive into why some
lithium batteries work and some don’t why some are expensive and some aren’t and if they can be
monitored to check if a cell is about to fail he also told me a bucket of sand is the best thing
to put out a metal fire joe told me to talk to N the resident electronics whiz if I could get
him passionate about the project then I might be able to move ahead so N came in and I talked
to him he reckoned that I’d have to have a fair few cells in parallel and have packs of these
to make up sufficient voltage to run the motor um he showed me a balancing circuit
that I would need this is also linked in the description to make sure that
these packs could charge and balance at the same stable voltage together
to avoid any um unpleasant outcomes n told me to come back with some batteries and
the motor so we can run some tests i was very happy with this and so I came back I came back to
the make space with the batteries and the motor set up to show to knee he told me to wipe the
batteries down with a bit of isopropyl alcohol to clear the nasty um oils off of them um and then
we went about testing them according to Joe I did a very bad and dangerous job of wiring the motor
so we had to wire it again i believe the words were washing machine motor of death so N showed me
how to attach the wires properly which is what you can see in the background of course upon hearing
that I couldn’t use the washing machine motor I was a little bit gutted um I’d wanted to recycle
um I wanted to reuse you know the disused washing machine so I was feeling a little bit dejected
and trying to think about a way of powering this thing and then I had an idea suddenly those line
bikes started to look quite alluring so I put a little scheme together no no not really i was only
joking um in fact what’s actually happened is that NI said that I should use this motor you see on
screen um instead this uh sort of cheap conversion kit linked in the description um so now that I
had collected the vapes and had um separated the batteries out here you can see so a few of them in
the metal box and they are all insulated in some tape i had to bring them to the maker space i had
to clean them down with isopropyl alcohol here you can see a very glamorous looking balancing circuit
linked in the description that I uh will be using later in the video and a box very generously
donated by Ollle Rocket i lined that with plastic and I used that to contain the batteries
so here 40 batteries in parallel i doubled them up soldered them together um and this would be
one of the 12 final packs needed to power the uh motor I got from online here I’m insulating
it with PET tape and then there’s a view from the other side the positive terminals they’re all
soldered together in parallel with some terminals at the end and these are all roughly.5 milliamp
capacity so they vape batteries come in a range of capacities between 360 and 550 milliamp and so
I’ll be making packs of um the same or very close the same capacity and here you can see we’re
testing and charging the packs with the power supply and now here are the 360 milliamp batteries
um and I’m doing a little bit of maths to see how many I would need to make an equivalent capacity
to the 40 0.5 milliamp sorry 0.5 amp hour packs um and it turns out for the packs made of the
360 milliamp batteries I would need 60 of them and so in total I think it was um
five 500 540 batteries I believe so um Here you can see that uh the parts for
the motor have arrived i’m showing off a bracket here i had to make some uh aluminum
fastenings because they didn’t come with them to hold it to the rear triangle of the
bicycle um here are all the components now I was taking the rear wheel apart um and I
realized while I was taking the cassette off I realized what I needed is a screw on freewheel hub
and not the cassette hub so I had to go out and get a new rear wheel that had a screw on single
speed freewheel um because the kit as you’ll see in a moment has a uh two freewheel system um
it’ll be easier to explain when you can you can see it so here I am fiddling around undoing
redoing trying to get the uh freewheel working so there’s the first freewheel and there’s the second
freewheel driven by the motor so they can spin independently and they can coast independently
now there’s a spacer behind the first free wheel closest to the to the hub of the wheel that holds
the first freewheel out a little bit so that the um threading that has gone through the second
free wheel can bind onto it on the inside here I’m attaching the wheel um and fixing the motor to
the rear adding the chain there’s two independent chains um and there’s the wiring all done and I
used an old piece of tire piece of knackered tire to protect the top tube um so that when I have the
battery pack on top it won’t scratch the paints um here I am modifying the um box Ollie gave me
um and uh making it small enough to fit in the top triangle of the bike so that I can have the
batteries in there obviously no batteries in there while I’m doing this work um being sort stored
safely elsewhere um but yeah I was using the tin snips to size down the box and then I um spot
welded the end back on there you can see me using the Dremel to sort of soften down the edges and
make the the holes for the top tube a bit bigger now here we’re testing the motor with a power
supply so straight from the wall it’s working all right got the accelerator going all the
wiring is correct quite happy with ourselves at this point yeah it’s got torque out so there we go
promising stuff things seem to be coming together continuously i’m done here I have glued
down the 12 packs um and I have put a balancing circuit on them to make sure that
they all remain at the same voltage um and now I am soldering on the negative terminal
um ready so it can be attached to the bike it is important when you’re soldering these
batteries um not to not to hold the soldering iron on for too long you do not want these batteries
heating up so it’s uh to have a light touch there i’ve soldered on positive terminal with a
fuse to break the circuit if anything shorts um or the current peaks this is also extremely
essential to make sure the batteries remain safe and here we are installing the battery pack it
was a bit of a squeeze got it in the end and you can see how the toolbox clasps over the top tube
there and I will lock it in place with padlock to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere and um tie it
down so it doesn’t shake around while I’m riding it’s important to hold these batteries steady and
to protect them in this uh metal and plastic box there we are that was a tough one but we got
it to fit eventually bit bit of elbow grease now hooking up the connections knees helping me
unfortunately you don’t really get a good angle here stood in the way this is where tragedy
strikes the back wheel is spinning wheel is spinning the batteries are working i’ve got it
going and then as soon as Lee puts the back wheel on the floor disaster and a mechanical issue so as
I was saying before there are two free wheels and the second one which is driven by the motor free
wheel um gear is held on by only a little bit of thread going into uh the first wheel it’s not a
very good design um not a very strong attachment and uh the torque of the motor just pulled
that completely um overtightened and then it came loose so here I am trying to replace it and
knee and I tried to epoxy it to see if it would uh help anything just sticking it down those
threads together but as I’m testing it now it uh it fails immediately i’ll let the epoxy set for a
for a good few hours but to no avail um it’s quite uh quite unfortunate um this uh this was the night
before I was I was supposed to be showing this bike um so it’s a bit of a bit of a crisis you
can see I’ve got a bit of a moody face on there and I had to do a uh a very long sort of half
bike half walk back to Goldsmiths in the very early hours of the morning which is not fun but
there we go um so there’s a proof of concept you know it works in you know almost in practice but
uh I will update you if I can get the motor moving the wheel and finally thank you for watching
thank you for sticking through it with me and a big fantastic thanks to Nina Atman Kip Jamanna
Ellie Lucas Sonia Saskia Phillip Mom Dad Tom Olly Rocket Johnny the art crew the art department
Joe big thanks to N he’s a wizard i wouldn’t have been able to do it without him belle um Nick
Leah Aiden for the washing machine Vlad um and all my other teachers friends colleagues who helped me
along the way you are amazing thank you very much