Vape Battery Blinking When Fully Charged? Here’s What to Do

By Jason

If your vape battery blinks when you try to use it, that’s a fairly serious issue because it means that you can’t vape at all. In this situation, your first response will probably be to charge the battery. That’s the most common reason why a vape battery blinks – because the battery is dead.

If you’re here, though, it means that you’ve already tried charging your battery – and it’s still blinking. At this point, you’re completely stuck. Why isn’t your vape battery working? In this guide, we’re going to provide some tips that may help. Let’s jump right in.

It May Be Time for a New Battery

Before we begin discussing the various troubleshooting steps you can perform, it’s worth mentioning that if your vape battery is blinking even though it’s already fully charged, it may be a sign that the battery has reached the end of its life. A vape battery uses a lithium-ion cell as its source of power, and a lithium-ion battery typically lasts around 300-500 charge cycles before it no longer holds a sufficient charge for normal operation. When a vape battery reaches that point, it’s time to replace it.

Given that the average life of a vape battery is usually around 300-500 charge cycles, you should start planning to replace a battery in the near future once you’ve been using it for around a year if you charge it once a day. Even if you don’t charge your battery daily, though, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get hundreds of charge cycles out of it. Some batteries turn out to be duds, and they simply don’t end up lasting as long as expected.

Here's how you can identify a vape battery that’s reached the end of its life. When you connect the battery to the charger, the light immediately turns off to let you know that the battery is fully charged. When you try to use the battery, though, you only get one or two puffs out of it – or maybe no puffs at all – before the light starts blinking. This indicates that the battery no longer holds a useful charge.

Has your vape battery reached the end of its life? Here’s a site where you can get a wide variety of 510-thread batteries at a fair price.

Your Battery Could Be Overheating

One important thing to keep in mind with any vape battery is that many batteries have built-in temperature sensors designed to shut the batteries down in the event of overheating. Have you been using your vape pen in bright sunlight? Did you charge the battery with a quick-charge adapter for a mobile phone and then try to use it immediately afterwards? If you’ve encountered either of these situations, it’s possible that the battery has overheated and shut down. If the battery is blinking, you may be able to find the blink code in the instruction manual to confirm this.

Here's the good news. If a vape battery overheats and shuts down, it’s not damaged permanently. In fact, the protection circuit is there to ensure that the battery won’t be damaged. Many gadgets have this feature. All that you need to do in this situation is move your vape battery to a cooler location and let it return to room temperature. Once the battery has cooled down, it should work normally.

Your Cartridge May Have Leaked

Another reason why a vape battery may blink even though it’s fully charged is because it can’t detect the connected cartridge and therefore can’t complete the circuit. The most common reason why this happens is because the cartridge has leaked, and the oil has contaminated the battery’s threading. If a significant amount of oil gets between the cartridge and the battery, the battery will stop working.

Remove the cartridge from your vape battery and look for oil in the threading. Has your cartridge leaked? If so, dip a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol and use it to remove the oil. Vape oils are alcohol soluble, so you should find that the alcohol removes the oil easily. You’ll have to clean the bottom of your vape cartridge as well.

Once the battery and cartridge are both clean, dry them thoroughly and try vaping again. At this point, your vape pen should work normally. In the future, try puffing much more gently when you use your vaporizer. The most common reason why cartridges leak is because users puff on them too firmly. When you puff too aggressively on a vape cartridge, you can actually pull oil out of the cartridge’s wick. When that happens, the oil ends up flowing out of the cartridge’s airflow vents. Taking gentler puffs should help to prevent your vape carts from leaking in the future.

Your Cartridge May Be a Dud

If none of the other tips in this article have fixed your blinking vape battery, you should consider the possibility that the cartridge you’re trying to use may have a manufacturing defect. The easiest way to confirm this is by trying a different cartridge. If the second cartridge works, you know that there must be something wrong with the first cartridge. The problem could be something to do with the cartridge itself, or it could be a problem with the installation of the cartridge.

First, try connecting the first cartridge to the battery again. Make sure that it’s screwed all the way into the threading. If it works now, it’s possible the battery simply wasn’t screwed in fully the first time. If it still doesn’t work, remove the cartridge again. Look at the underside of the cartridge. Do you see a small copper pin in the center of the cartridge’s threading? Grasp the pin with tweezers and try pulling it out ever so slightly.

If your vape cartridge still doesn’t work after you’ve confirmed that it’s screwed in all the way and extended the center pin, it’s likely that you’ve purchased a cartridge with a manufacturing defect. In this case, you should return the cartridge to the retailer and request a refund or exchange.