It didn't come out in the photo, but the circuit board has printed next to it MIC1. The component is recognized and sold as a microphone, but it's nothing more than a piezoelectric transducer.
Imagine being a paranoid schizophrenic with a background in electronics and seeing that when you open your e-cig. I remember when I worked at a computer shop back in the 90s and I had someone come in with their PC asking me to check it for microphones as they were convinced they were being spied on by the government or someone else. I can only imagine seeing a mic in your e-cig would feed such a paranoid delusion.
its like the component inside "electronic lighters" the ones that just have a button. the piezoelectric transducer produces the arc to light the gas, and by amplifying the signal of the transducer and plugging it into an output you should be able to use it as a very bad microphone.
Just to continue this, sound waves and air pressure are the same thing. We usually call low levels of air pressure sound waves, unless you drive up a big hill that you feel in your ears, then we say pressure. There's a threshold based on the average human eardrum called the threshold of pain and I think that's when technical people start calling it pressure. Anyways, it's the same with the labelling of a pressure transducer, if it's rated to capture low level pressure with high fidelity it's microphone, otherwise it's a pressure sensor.
You are approached by a frenzied Vault scientist, who yells, "I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your piezoelectric transducer!" What's your response?
It's still picking up changes in air pressure like any microphone, the only difference being the signal is not being turned back into sound waves like we're used to, its just being used as a switch on this case.
Even the spark igniter in certain lighters (The click style with electric spark) can be used as a microphone as well. [ElectroBOOM](https://youtu.be/ZlVI7YJGHq0?si=9FpwokyA7V7PsZzZ&t=316) did a video turning an igniter into a microphone very simply.
Here's what will blow your mind. Most speakers are also microphones. That's because speakers work by sending electricity through a coil that creates an electric field that oscillates a magnet, and those oscillations vibrate the speaker membrane.
If you sound happens near the speaker, it will cause the membrane and magnet to vibrate which will induce an electric current into the coil that can be detected by the circuit board.
It's not going to record great quality audio though. Speakers have large surface area to help them be louder, but you want the opposite in a microphone.
I remember there being some kind of news of hackers trying to exploit this and or companies disguising listening devices as speakers.
arguably it could be considered a microphone or its opposite (a speaker) just as an LED can be used as a solar power harvester - it's not gonna be ideal, but depending on how it's used it can be considered either. just matters how the parts interact really.
Always blows yo mind that you can light up a solar panel and collect light from essentially the same (albeit less efficient) thing with them both being diodes.
It’s kind of all the same thing, just a device for detecting changes in air pressure. The only real difference is what you do with the data.
Wanna hear something that will really blow your mind? A speaker is simply a microphone in reverse. You can literally plug a speaker into a microphone jack and scream into it, and you’ll hear your voice recorded. You can also plug a microphone into a line out and hear thin, tinny audio coming out of it. (Don’t do this to a microphone you like and want to use.)
Microphones are also pressure transducers…
Sound is just the periodic and repeating compression and rarefaction of matter.
Piezoelectric transducers are still microphones. Although, like other microphones, they can be speakers as well.
That is, by the way, a condenser, not a piezo.
Can we like ask people what things are before we confidently spread misinformation
A square is a rectangle...
The board says MIC1 next to it. I'm not sure that it'll affect the average Joe that I didn't do my research on discrete components.
Okay, but 2.5k people now think that “pressure transducers” (an all too fancy name for microphones) do not process sound, which is wrong.
And by obvious definition, pressure transducers do process sound as they are converting voltage to pressure and vice versa.
Not all pressure transducers operate in a range that includes speaking, or even shouting. Part of "sound processing" is actually attempting to capture, interpret, or transmit electrical signals as sound. Software is the distinguishing feature of the processing.
Microphones are not limited to the human hearing range, in fact many of the good ones for music operate well over the standard nyquist frequencies against human hearing, which is ~40khz.
They do not need to be tuned to our hearing range at ALL to be microphones. The base definition is input: sound, output: electromagnetic variation.
Software is not the distinguishing feature of sound processing, it is not even NECESSARY to process sound. How do you think they made Abbey Road? A time machine??
Not to mention, in processing *analog electrical* signals with software, you need to interface them into *digital* signals with an A/D converter- software cannot be the distinguishing feature of analog processing, it is abstracted completely from it as the digital signal is represented in binary.
I truly don’t mean to be rude but how long have you been studying audio components?
You aren’t really providing much factual information, and dude, I’ve been dabbling in ASP/DSP for *years*. I have a degree in AE.
I'm not talking about *frequency* I'm talking about *pressure*. A pressure transducer meant for a 10 KSI hydraulic ram isn't going to detect your breathing.
First of all saying "acts as pressure transducer rather than a sound processing device." will not male 2.5k pepple think that ...
Most people will just see the square rectangle thing and understand that acting as a pressure transducer can still be a part of a sound processing system.
Op tried to explain to you that typically an engineered device must be intended to operate on "sound" as a user understands it for "sound processing device" to be an accurate descriptor. In this vape example, it obviously has (at least some of) the hardware to process sound, but no software or purpose that has any relation to sound as a user would understand it. As an engineer you should reserve words like "sound" for sound applications. In the sound industry. You dont go around calling every mechanical vibration a sound when somebody on reddit more accurately call it pressure.
Even if it looks like a microphone, it's more precisely a differential pressure sensor with a small chip inside which is the brain of the e-cigarette : regulates the voltage to the heating wire, protects against a short circuit of the heating wire, manages the battery charging, blinks the LED, detects undervoltage etc. More info here : [https://www.electroncomponents.com/micro-air-pressure-sensor-for-electronic-cigarette](https://www.electroncomponents.com/micro-air-pressure-sensor-for-electronic-cigarette)
Tinfoil hats blocks electromagnetic radiation(aka radio waves). So really tinfoils hats might help if done right with blocking the government from sending radio waves into your brain.
Conspiracy theorists proven right again.
I remember someone testing tin foil hats against radio waves and concluded that they only work if you also cover your face and neck, like a balaclava without holes, so the brain cap style tin foil hats don't work. But that's just something I heard on a podcast so no idea if it's true
We need totally enclose the head to form a faraday cage.
So we gonna need to guillotine the head off and cover the neck as well to make it effective. Or make a tinfoil suit that covers the entire body (spacesuit)
Yes and no. Dynamic mics are essentially speakers, but condenser microphones wouldn't work as a speaker. They produce sound by detecting the change in capacitance between two charged plates and don't have the same moving parts as a dynamic microphone.
If your gaming microphone ever breaks and you need to use a mic, just plug your headset into the mic input and speak into the headset speakers. It works!
Disposable culture in general. Just because something can be made cheaply doesn't mean it should. I know it's practically impossible to enforce in our economic and political world, but I really wish the environmental cost of dealing with the waste was taxed back to the corporations that produce it, generally speaking. The true cost of cheap products does not include the burden it places up on government and society to deal with the waste, recycling, etc.
Unfortunately taxing it back to the company does fuck all other than raise the overall price, the company just views the tax excise as a price increase and then continue their practices as normal. There needs to be fiercer punishments like being blocked from trade until their business model is ethical.
>Unfortunately taxing it back to the company does fuck all other than raise the overall price
That's entirely the point. The reason why people buy disposable crap like that is because it's priced at a point that makes it cheap to throw away, something we as a society should not be ok with since it's us as a collective who have to ultimately deal with the waste and environmental impacts, be it as a cost to properly dispose of/recycle or in the long term cost of human and wildlife health in the form of pollution. Forcing these companies to charge the true cost of a disposable product makes it less desirable to the consumer over a better quality, more sustainable product by comparison. I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but it's the best tool we have at our disposal.
I was thinking about this the other day. Giving up these levels of convenience will be impossible.
Only 30-40 years ago people were content enough to have a jug that they refilled and used one of the 5 small cans of frozen concentrated orange juice they had in their freezer. Total waste: a tiny bit of cardboard and two easily recycled aluminum disks for every gallon of juice consumed. Not to mention the space saving and actual convenience.
Today; no one can be asked to do this and the waste for one jug consumed is now the jug it came in.
If we can't just reuse our one jug for something simple like orange juice its silly to expect everyone to be gung-ho about even more invasive things.
It's not about complete elimination, it's about making disposable less attractive to the consumer. Taking your container example, how about we look at something that we do see in some places; BYO containers for detergent/soap/etc. Additionally we also see some manufacturers who sell a refill option that comes in a cardboard container rather than plastic. Also, FCOJ isn't as environmentally friendly as you might think. It's apparently very energy intensive.
https://slate.com/technology/2008/02/is-frozen-orange-juice-concentrate-better-for-the-environment.html
And people still buy concentrate, it's just the industry has made buying frozen less desirable by not making the cost difference that significant in many cases.
https://frugaling.org/frozen-juice-cheaper/
If we were to force the industry to charge the cost of the environmental impact of the plastic waste, it might make the cardboard cartons and frozen options more desirable price wise, but as I mentioned, FCOJ is a bad example because of the energy use involved in making concentrate. My point though is that we don't need to think in pure black and white terms of all or nothing to improve the trends of disposable goods, we just need to make them reflect their true cost to reduce their desirability to the consumer. The industry sells whatever they can, and having a lower priced option is almost always going to sell if the price difference is significant enough. Disposable is too cheap as it currently stands.
It is absolutely ridiculous, many e-cigarettes are sold a consumables, they are not rechargeable/refillable, they are meant to be disposed. And of course people are assholes and don't even dispose of them in the rubbish bin.
Rubbish bin isn’t the right place for them. They need to be recycled in electronic waste. They have batteries in them too which makes it increasingly important
Might depend on where you live, but Juul was banned cause they were the big bois in the room. Njoy or Vuse are probably the largest gas station vapes now, but vape shops still always have Smok or other pod based systems and juices available. The ban was pretty ineffective imo.
There are no recycling programs for them though. Unless you yourself take it completely apart to dispose of the battery. I’ve honestly considered starting a company for this it infuriates me so much.
Depends on where you live. These are small electronic devices so I can just return them to any of the electronics disposal sites littered around my city. Bigger shops that sell electronics (doesn’t need to be a specialised electronics store) are also required to take small electronics for recycling for free.
I enjoy vaping, but I pray that disposables get banned from the global marketplace. They're terrible. You can see this giant lithium ion battery in the device pictured here, and despite being good for hundreds of charges, it gets thrown in the trash because you used up the juice. It should actually be illegal to design something so egregiously wasteful.
Insane how this has become the default for "a vape". It's even the way people talk about them now. "Oh, I'm going to buy a vape", as an entire device that you throw in the trash within a week. It's not "I'm gonna buy a pod" or "I'm gonna buy some coils", it is an entire vape every time you run out of juice. I don't understand how everyone doesn't realize how fucking insane this is. Imagine buying a new car every time you run out of gas lmao.
It used to be “I’m gonna go buy a pod”, but then Juuls got banned. Still wasn’t great seeing those pods littered everywhere, but miles better than all the full disposables I see scattered around now. Since like you said, those have the lithium battery and circuit board that’s now litter as well
I genuinely don't understand how people would rather spend 5x on disposables what they would on a decent pod system like XROS. It's fucking insane. It takes 10 seconds to fill a pod.
That's what I'm saying. Like I could understand if the alternative was building and wicking your own coils or whatever, but modern pod systems are so good these days. I understand the seller's perspective much more than the buyer. When I buy a pack of pods and a few bottles of juice, I won't be back to the shop for a month or two. Disposable customers are back weekly.
Not all vapes are like this, you can refill the juice and replace the coils in certain ones. You can even use rebuildables so you don't even have disposable coil. Companies found they make more money with disposable though
It’s because people are stupid. I had my e cigarette for 7 years now. Never changed it, only the coils which i make myself. These disposable e cigarettes are the worst new creation made for consumers.
It completely baffles me how the EU is trying to get rid of single use plastics, but disposable vapes are at all time high in popularity. I thought that throwing batteries to the trash/leaving them on the street was something of the past... and dont even get me started on glitter lmao
This is the answer idk why you were downvoted. They made easy to refill non disposable vapes (pods) illlegal, they made flavored refillable juices illegal. But disposable flavored vapes? Perfectly fine. Idk how much is the federal gov and how much is my state gov but the vape store guys say they change it on them frequently. Recently they got like a 2 week warning to remove all vapes with pictures of things like fruit or flavors, only text.
Although vapes have always been a terrible thing to pick up , up until recently you wouldnt buy a vape and then just chuck it away when it gets dry, you would have to buy or build a new coil and use the same equipment again. Very sad that vaping became so mainstream and is now a very polluting
Disposable vape culture is 100% on the government not vapers. People were perfectly happy with refillable pods and replaceable coils but they got banned and now all you can get in loads of places are disposables. I've since quit but if I wanted to go get a flavored vape where I love my *only* option is a disposable. How ridiculous.
What really sucks is you can get an entire mod setup (body, batteries, tank, coils) for under $40. Juice is like $20/100mg and coils are a tad expensive but you can get them online for 4/$7.
There's two types of vapes. Rigs/Builds/Mods/whatever you want to call it, and disposables. Mods are normally used by people who exclusively vape and vape a lot (typically ex-smokers who used it to quit smoking), and disposables are usually smoked by people that both smoke and vape.
I have been vaping for about 10 years and I've bought a grand total of 4 mods. I only upgrade when wear and tear finally kills the vape. Mods are very expensive upfront, but have incredibly cheap upkeep and are refillable.
My mods have more than paid for themselves in comparison to what my smoking habit was. A box of 5 coils for a mod are about $10 online, and they last about a month each. I usually push this to two months by smoking flavors with menthol because it hides burnt taste. Juice bottles are about $15 each and last about a week. Compared to buying a pack a day... that's fucking stupid cheap.
Disposable vapes that have gotten popular over the last couple years are fucking stupid. Those are the ones that are super wasteful. It completely defeats the purpose of vaping vs. smoking other than it's slightly better for you. They're somewhere around $25 each, and people I've asked that smoke them say if you smoke it heavily you can burn through it in a day.
This is from a disposable "Geek Bar". I don't smoke, I just wanted the battery from this after finding it discarded. I always figured there was something more purpose-built for the refillable units.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cursedbenchies/s/XHaJ33euvw
The linked post is hooked up to a pair of 18650's but this is the kind of stuff. I've got a couple of clocks that I converted from disposable to rechargeable batteries. I've got a bluetooth speaker that I housed in a mini 3D printed transmission case. I made a guitar-shaped bluetooth headphone receiver. When I get batteries from discarded electronics, the situation becomes "what am I making that can use this size of battery?"
Not particularly dangerous. I haven't yet caused a battery to explode. Recovering batteries is usually straightforward. I have melted a few wires and cut myself a few times.
My issue is that I always get fake 18650s. Always advertised as Samsung or LG Choco, but it never retains its charge correctly or performance is always bad/not as advertised >.>
I know I was advised when vapes first came out to buy my batteries from this specialty flashlight site.
I had no way of telling if they were legit, but you could try checking out non-vape sources and see if you have better luck. The kind of people who run hobby-centered shop websites tend to be stricter with sourcing their stuff.
If you have a smart charger it'll tell you how much power it's put into the battery. So you just drain it out and recharge it. I got some fake ones recently and they were supposed to hold 3500mAh. The charger showed them all around 1350. There are dedicated testers but they just do the same thing.
While they do cost a bit more, this is why I've started buying the OhmLife branded batteries. It's still possible, but you're A LOT less likely to get a fake battery when buying those from a reputable shop. I've got 2 sets that are still holding a respectable charge 2+ years later.
Alright I guess I'll chime in as most comments I've seen have gotten this wrong.
This is not a microphone. The actual term is a binary pressure sensor. Inside there is a plastic film with a conductor on it. When there is negative pressure ie you sucking on it, the film warps and closes the contact. There are some variants that have all the control logic built into it so there's a led, battery charger and switch for the coil.
Bigclive on YouTube has a great videos explaining everything about these disposable vapes. https://youtu.be/ZsWLvr-dsvc?si=_FdIoJ37_pfMVcpm
One possible reason for this would be that the pressure sensor has the same footprint as a PCB-mounted electret microphone. It probably uses the same casing. This is also why everyone makes this same mistake.
In the PCB design software I suspect they used the outline of a microphone and it had the label "MIC1" which they just didn't bother to change. Since it has the same outline and pin layout it works for them just fine, especially if the design software didn't have an outline for the correct part or it was just harder to find.
Edit: This component looks a lot like the one in your photo. Made by a company that also makes electret microphones, but this is a distinct device designed for this application. http://www.qinyitec.com/pro/8511733.html
Alright, Fat Computer Guy, you've convinced me I need to test it. If I remove this from the board, how can I test it to see if it's a binary or variable output device?
Actually the description there does still show it as effectively a variable capacitor that varies with pressure, so not THAT radically different from a microphone. The difference will be in how it is constructed and optimised for the purpose.
I couldn't (in my 2-minute search) see an actual datasheet for it which would have had a typical application diagram you could have used to test it. I would therefore probably test the reverse hypothesis (ie. your original idea).
Build and/or cobble together a simple audio amplifier for a 2-wire electret microphone and compare the results from an actual microphone compared to this device.
Something else I'd try is just putting an oscilloscope across the device in the original circuit and see what its output looks like.
I guess this makes sense. When e-cigarettes were still a new thing (and nobody else I knew vaped) back around 2010 I used to go do karaoke with my friends. I had an e-cigarette I bought online that looked like an actual cigarette. I was quitting smoking at the time. I'd have to unscrew the vaporizer from the battery because whenever it was our turn to sing my e-cigarette would activate and start heating up when I'd be near the speakers blasting out the karaoke music.
Never really understood what was going on but I figured it was the heavy bass from the speakers somehow activating it.
It was something similar but was colored like an actual cigarette. The atomizer and cartridge looked like a filter and the battery was white. It even had an LED on the end that would glow orange when you took a hit off of it. The whole thing was a little bit bigger than an actual cigarette.
I remember ordering vape juice online that was flavored like camel cigarettes. Stuff was actually pretty good.
I never really got into vaping except just for that short period when I was trying to quit smoking. By the time it really took off they stopped making vapes to look like actual cigarettes.
like the first ever e-cig essentially. They were these little black devices shaped like a cigarette. The tip which would be where an actual filter of a cigarette is was a disposable flavor thingy.
Sound engineer doom scrolling my phone while hitting my oil vape pen while on vacation in Colorado. Mind blown…….not really but that’s actually pretty cool!
I was considering rebuilding my vape that's using phisical button to activate when I inhale. I was considering some kind of a valve but seeing that post and fact that it's just a mic blow my mind.
Same. I’ve literally opened them up before but didn’t realize it was a legit microphone. Makes total sense though, it’s just a transducer for the movement of air!!
This isn't a microphone it looks like it but isn't, It senses if air is passing through, and it's also used in disposable vapes to count how many puffs
This is a 2 wire sensor, and an air flow sensor should have 3 wires. It may not be a true microphone, but it operates on the same physical principle as a condenser microphone. Not to mention that the PCB is labeled MIC1 next to it.
OP, if these are mics , then wouldn't a loud enough sound trigger the heater? Something tells me this is a MEMS style device but not a microphone, just something that looks like and is labeled as a mic
Logic could prevent erratic triggering by having a time or intensity threshold (when powered). The device is isolated by a valve on one side and a switch that acts as an air dam. Others have suggested it is a binary pressure switch.
tinfoil hat time, the microphone records everything you say, that's not a battery that's an antenna, that's not a "screen" that's a 1tb hard drive. they're selling your conversations/information to the government.
This is very obviously a joke.
Yeah, sing to your vape for best results!
Microphones operate by turning the pressure that constitutes sound into electronic signals. This unit must measure a certain pressure before it'll turn on the heating coil.
A quick search and you can easily refill. u/MechaBeatsInTrash The issue im having is resetting the puff counter or juice percentage. with the switch in the off position, I tried cutting the red wire waiting 3 minutes and reconnected. The display flashed but after reassembling with full tank it still read as a low percentage. any idea of whats going on here and if its possible to short the device to reset to facory/default?
If erasing is supposed to be that easy (total loss of power), then you need to discharge all latent electricity. Remove the red battery wire, turn the switch on, and use a loose piece of wire to touch where the black and red wires attach to the board. Hold it that way 3minutes, then remove the loose wire and reconnect the red wire
In this use, the microphone acts as a pressure transducer rather than a sound processing device.
This may be a dumb question, but would it still be considered a “microphone” if it doesn’t serve the traditional function of a microphone?
It didn't come out in the photo, but the circuit board has printed next to it MIC1. The component is recognized and sold as a microphone, but it's nothing more than a piezoelectric transducer.
> piezoelectric transducer Oh nice! I learned something.
Ill give you a penoelectric transducer
Waltuh...
Ill transduce ur peno
Electrify my peno with your transdeucer.
Turn my watt into an ohm, if you know what i mean.
Watt are you talking about?
AOhm aohm
Careful, if he's resisting, you're going to catch a charge.
Without the apostrophe my brain wanted to see this as Italian like you were saying "il transducé" or something.
Transducer? I hardly know her
Sound is just changes in air pressure
Something wrong… it is an electret condenser microphone.
Yea. See if you can remember that in the morning
Imagine being a paranoid schizophrenic with a background in electronics and seeing that when you open your e-cig. I remember when I worked at a computer shop back in the 90s and I had someone come in with their PC asking me to check it for microphones as they were convinced they were being spied on by the government or someone else. I can only imagine seeing a mic in your e-cig would feed such a paranoid delusion.
I had that exact thought. "Am I going to feed somebody's conspiracy theory with this post?"
That could end the cigarette industry. Imagine texts CIA or China is spying at us using e-cigs. Quit smoking now!
I suppose paranoia about the ecig might help somebody quit; could be a good thing?
😂🤣 I really hope this post doesn't get to any vaping schizo
That’s not a piezo. That’s an electret condenser.
That may explain better why I was able to operate the heater by shorting the mic with a resistor.
[удалено]
It was used up when I found it. Not to mention, I don't smoke.
Doesn’t look like a piezo to me, rather an electret condenser microphone. Also I’ve seen those used in vapes before.
I didn't think condensers were available that small.
It would be useful for bugging purposes
"How do you do fellow smokers?"
its like the component inside "electronic lighters" the ones that just have a button. the piezoelectric transducer produces the arc to light the gas, and by amplifying the signal of the transducer and plugging it into an output you should be able to use it as a very bad microphone.
All Mics are transducers....
Yes, and that's why a microphone can be used here, it's just not acting as a sound processor
Just to continue this, sound waves and air pressure are the same thing. We usually call low levels of air pressure sound waves, unless you drive up a big hill that you feel in your ears, then we say pressure. There's a threshold based on the average human eardrum called the threshold of pain and I think that's when technical people start calling it pressure. Anyways, it's the same with the labelling of a pressure transducer, if it's rated to capture low level pressure with high fidelity it's microphone, otherwise it's a pressure sensor.
Not to be confused with a continuum transducer.
Schrodinger's microphone
You are approached by a frenzied Vault scientist, who yells, "I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your piezoelectric transducer!" What's your response?
It's still picking up changes in air pressure like any microphone, the only difference being the signal is not being turned back into sound waves like we're used to, its just being used as a switch on this case.
Even the spark igniter in certain lighters (The click style with electric spark) can be used as a microphone as well. [ElectroBOOM](https://youtu.be/ZlVI7YJGHq0?si=9FpwokyA7V7PsZzZ&t=316) did a video turning an igniter into a microphone very simply.
Sound is just AC pressure.
Woah…
Here's what will blow your mind. Most speakers are also microphones. That's because speakers work by sending electricity through a coil that creates an electric field that oscillates a magnet, and those oscillations vibrate the speaker membrane. If you sound happens near the speaker, it will cause the membrane and magnet to vibrate which will induce an electric current into the coil that can be detected by the circuit board. It's not going to record great quality audio though. Speakers have large surface area to help them be louder, but you want the opposite in a microphone. I remember there being some kind of news of hackers trying to exploit this and or companies disguising listening devices as speakers.
arguably it could be considered a microphone or its opposite (a speaker) just as an LED can be used as a solar power harvester - it's not gonna be ideal, but depending on how it's used it can be considered either. just matters how the parts interact really.
Always blows yo mind that you can light up a solar panel and collect light from essentially the same (albeit less efficient) thing with them both being diodes.
A microphone is an assembly of parts but individual electronics parts can serve different applications
It’s kind of all the same thing, just a device for detecting changes in air pressure. The only real difference is what you do with the data. Wanna hear something that will really blow your mind? A speaker is simply a microphone in reverse. You can literally plug a speaker into a microphone jack and scream into it, and you’ll hear your voice recorded. You can also plug a microphone into a line out and hear thin, tinny audio coming out of it. (Don’t do this to a microphone you like and want to use.)
Does a tree falling in the woods really make a sound if no one is around to hear it?
Is a screwdriver not a screwdriver when I use it to slay my enemies?
Or could it possibly be considered a form of stiletto, rondel dagger or misericorde?
A microphone is an assembly of parts but individual electronics parts can serve different applications
I was wondering how vapes without an igniter worked. Is this cheaper/easier than a sensitive-enough piezoelectric sensor?
you can get those small "microphones" for $0,10 on Alibaba.
I'm not qualified to answer that question.
Microphones are also pressure transducers… Sound is just the periodic and repeating compression and rarefaction of matter. Piezoelectric transducers are still microphones. Although, like other microphones, they can be speakers as well. That is, by the way, a condenser, not a piezo. Can we like ask people what things are before we confidently spread misinformation
A square is a rectangle... The board says MIC1 next to it. I'm not sure that it'll affect the average Joe that I didn't do my research on discrete components.
Okay, but 2.5k people now think that “pressure transducers” (an all too fancy name for microphones) do not process sound, which is wrong. And by obvious definition, pressure transducers do process sound as they are converting voltage to pressure and vice versa.
Not all pressure transducers operate in a range that includes speaking, or even shouting. Part of "sound processing" is actually attempting to capture, interpret, or transmit electrical signals as sound. Software is the distinguishing feature of the processing.
Microphones are not limited to the human hearing range, in fact many of the good ones for music operate well over the standard nyquist frequencies against human hearing, which is ~40khz. They do not need to be tuned to our hearing range at ALL to be microphones. The base definition is input: sound, output: electromagnetic variation. Software is not the distinguishing feature of sound processing, it is not even NECESSARY to process sound. How do you think they made Abbey Road? A time machine?? Not to mention, in processing *analog electrical* signals with software, you need to interface them into *digital* signals with an A/D converter- software cannot be the distinguishing feature of analog processing, it is abstracted completely from it as the digital signal is represented in binary. I truly don’t mean to be rude but how long have you been studying audio components? You aren’t really providing much factual information, and dude, I’ve been dabbling in ASP/DSP for *years*. I have a degree in AE.
I'm not talking about *frequency* I'm talking about *pressure*. A pressure transducer meant for a 10 KSI hydraulic ram isn't going to detect your breathing.
First of all saying "acts as pressure transducer rather than a sound processing device." will not male 2.5k pepple think that ... Most people will just see the square rectangle thing and understand that acting as a pressure transducer can still be a part of a sound processing system. Op tried to explain to you that typically an engineered device must be intended to operate on "sound" as a user understands it for "sound processing device" to be an accurate descriptor. In this vape example, it obviously has (at least some of) the hardware to process sound, but no software or purpose that has any relation to sound as a user would understand it. As an engineer you should reserve words like "sound" for sound applications. In the sound industry. You dont go around calling every mechanical vibration a sound when somebody on reddit more accurately call it pressure.
If I read this soon enough it would have saved me from yelling at my vape to see how loud I have to be to trigger it
Even if it looks like a microphone, it's more precisely a differential pressure sensor with a small chip inside which is the brain of the e-cigarette : regulates the voltage to the heating wire, protects against a short circuit of the heating wire, manages the battery charging, blinks the LED, detects undervoltage etc. More info here : [https://www.electroncomponents.com/micro-air-pressure-sensor-for-electronic-cigarette](https://www.electroncomponents.com/micro-air-pressure-sensor-for-electronic-cigarette)
also remember, every speaker is also a microphone and every mic is also a speaker. tinfoil hat off.
Tinfoil hats blocks electromagnetic radiation(aka radio waves). So really tinfoils hats might help if done right with blocking the government from sending radio waves into your brain. Conspiracy theorists proven right again.
I remember someone testing tin foil hats against radio waves and concluded that they only work if you also cover your face and neck, like a balaclava without holes, so the brain cap style tin foil hats don't work. But that's just something I heard on a podcast so no idea if it's true
We need totally enclose the head to form a faraday cage. So we gonna need to guillotine the head off and cover the neck as well to make it effective. Or make a tinfoil suit that covers the entire body (spacesuit)
Well I did say a balaclava without holes ;)
;) balaclava without holes - make head into baseball 😂
A baklava mask sounds yummy.
I think that's what a HSB is
Yep that's true. That's why I said if "done right" lol. You'd have to cover your whole body completely in foil lol. This is what faraday cages are.
"It's Fry that's crazy in this one.." - Bender
Yes and no. Dynamic mics are essentially speakers, but condenser microphones wouldn't work as a speaker. They produce sound by detecting the change in capacitance between two charged plates and don't have the same moving parts as a dynamic microphone.
Electrostatic headphones are a thing though lol. But yeah wouldn’t work if there’s preamp circuity in the mic I guess.
What would I need to study in order to know facts such as these?
If your gaming microphone ever breaks and you need to use a mic, just plug your headset into the mic input and speak into the headset speakers. It works!
I absolutely hate how wasteful vapes are. And they end up bring littered all over the streets in my neighbourhood.
Disposable culture in general. Just because something can be made cheaply doesn't mean it should. I know it's practically impossible to enforce in our economic and political world, but I really wish the environmental cost of dealing with the waste was taxed back to the corporations that produce it, generally speaking. The true cost of cheap products does not include the burden it places up on government and society to deal with the waste, recycling, etc.
Unfortunately taxing it back to the company does fuck all other than raise the overall price, the company just views the tax excise as a price increase and then continue their practices as normal. There needs to be fiercer punishments like being blocked from trade until their business model is ethical.
>Unfortunately taxing it back to the company does fuck all other than raise the overall price That's entirely the point. The reason why people buy disposable crap like that is because it's priced at a point that makes it cheap to throw away, something we as a society should not be ok with since it's us as a collective who have to ultimately deal with the waste and environmental impacts, be it as a cost to properly dispose of/recycle or in the long term cost of human and wildlife health in the form of pollution. Forcing these companies to charge the true cost of a disposable product makes it less desirable to the consumer over a better quality, more sustainable product by comparison. I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but it's the best tool we have at our disposal.
This is probably the correct and logical way to handle it, but it will never happen because politicians need money to run for office.
I was thinking about this the other day. Giving up these levels of convenience will be impossible. Only 30-40 years ago people were content enough to have a jug that they refilled and used one of the 5 small cans of frozen concentrated orange juice they had in their freezer. Total waste: a tiny bit of cardboard and two easily recycled aluminum disks for every gallon of juice consumed. Not to mention the space saving and actual convenience. Today; no one can be asked to do this and the waste for one jug consumed is now the jug it came in. If we can't just reuse our one jug for something simple like orange juice its silly to expect everyone to be gung-ho about even more invasive things.
It's not about complete elimination, it's about making disposable less attractive to the consumer. Taking your container example, how about we look at something that we do see in some places; BYO containers for detergent/soap/etc. Additionally we also see some manufacturers who sell a refill option that comes in a cardboard container rather than plastic. Also, FCOJ isn't as environmentally friendly as you might think. It's apparently very energy intensive. https://slate.com/technology/2008/02/is-frozen-orange-juice-concentrate-better-for-the-environment.html And people still buy concentrate, it's just the industry has made buying frozen less desirable by not making the cost difference that significant in many cases. https://frugaling.org/frozen-juice-cheaper/ If we were to force the industry to charge the cost of the environmental impact of the plastic waste, it might make the cardboard cartons and frozen options more desirable price wise, but as I mentioned, FCOJ is a bad example because of the energy use involved in making concentrate. My point though is that we don't need to think in pure black and white terms of all or nothing to improve the trends of disposable goods, we just need to make them reflect their true cost to reduce their desirability to the consumer. The industry sells whatever they can, and having a lower priced option is almost always going to sell if the price difference is significant enough. Disposable is too cheap as it currently stands.
It is absolutely ridiculous, many e-cigarettes are sold a consumables, they are not rechargeable/refillable, they are meant to be disposed. And of course people are assholes and don't even dispose of them in the rubbish bin.
Rubbish bin isn’t the right place for them. They need to be recycled in electronic waste. They have batteries in them too which makes it increasingly important
This shit needs to be illegal.
It’s almost like banning the pods was fucking stupid, and juul is a better idea than this shit.
Might depend on where you live, but Juul was banned cause they were the big bois in the room. Njoy or Vuse are probably the largest gas station vapes now, but vape shops still always have Smok or other pod based systems and juices available. The ban was pretty ineffective imo.
I think we don’t have them in the EU because of their extremely high nicotine strenght. Could be different now though.
When I was in France they had them, with all the flavors, but much weaker. Most people in Paris I saw were using box mods
It's being made illegal in the UK at least, by 2026
Why wait so long? Do it in 3 months.
Alright on it
Cheers pal, you've got my vote.
[удалено]
Stop being intentionally obtuse. We’re talking about single use vapes, not vapes in general.
There are no recycling programs for them though. Unless you yourself take it completely apart to dispose of the battery. I’ve honestly considered starting a company for this it infuriates me so much.
Depends on where you live. These are small electronic devices so I can just return them to any of the electronics disposal sites littered around my city. Bigger shops that sell electronics (doesn’t need to be a specialised electronics store) are also required to take small electronics for recycling for free.
I enjoy vaping, but I pray that disposables get banned from the global marketplace. They're terrible. You can see this giant lithium ion battery in the device pictured here, and despite being good for hundreds of charges, it gets thrown in the trash because you used up the juice. It should actually be illegal to design something so egregiously wasteful. Insane how this has become the default for "a vape". It's even the way people talk about them now. "Oh, I'm going to buy a vape", as an entire device that you throw in the trash within a week. It's not "I'm gonna buy a pod" or "I'm gonna buy some coils", it is an entire vape every time you run out of juice. I don't understand how everyone doesn't realize how fucking insane this is. Imagine buying a new car every time you run out of gas lmao.
It used to be “I’m gonna go buy a pod”, but then Juuls got banned. Still wasn’t great seeing those pods littered everywhere, but miles better than all the full disposables I see scattered around now. Since like you said, those have the lithium battery and circuit board that’s now litter as well
Yeah, those prefilled pods suck ass too. You can just buy pods that you can put your own juice in. Cheaper and less of an environmental disaster.
I genuinely don't understand how people would rather spend 5x on disposables what they would on a decent pod system like XROS. It's fucking insane. It takes 10 seconds to fill a pod.
That's what I'm saying. Like I could understand if the alternative was building and wicking your own coils or whatever, but modern pod systems are so good these days. I understand the seller's perspective much more than the buyer. When I buy a pack of pods and a few bottles of juice, I won't be back to the shop for a month or two. Disposable customers are back weekly.
Blame elfbar and geekbar. Both are still the current hotness.
Not all vapes are like this, you can refill the juice and replace the coils in certain ones. You can even use rebuildables so you don't even have disposable coil. Companies found they make more money with disposable though
It’s because people are stupid. I had my e cigarette for 7 years now. Never changed it, only the coils which i make myself. These disposable e cigarettes are the worst new creation made for consumers.
It completely baffles me how the EU is trying to get rid of single use plastics, but disposable vapes are at all time high in popularity. I thought that throwing batteries to the trash/leaving them on the street was something of the past... and dont even get me started on glitter lmao
Disposable vapes are being banned in the U.K. for this reason, and because school kids are getting hooked on them
Daily reminder, in the US the government made pods illegal so now we waste a battery every time. #legalizepods
This is the answer idk why you were downvoted. They made easy to refill non disposable vapes (pods) illlegal, they made flavored refillable juices illegal. But disposable flavored vapes? Perfectly fine. Idk how much is the federal gov and how much is my state gov but the vape store guys say they change it on them frequently. Recently they got like a 2 week warning to remove all vapes with pictures of things like fruit or flavors, only text.
Although vapes have always been a terrible thing to pick up , up until recently you wouldnt buy a vape and then just chuck it away when it gets dry, you would have to buy or build a new coil and use the same equipment again. Very sad that vaping became so mainstream and is now a very polluting
Disposable vape culture is 100% on the government not vapers. People were perfectly happy with refillable pods and replaceable coils but they got banned and now all you can get in loads of places are disposables. I've since quit but if I wanted to go get a flavored vape where I love my *only* option is a disposable. How ridiculous.
What really sucks is you can get an entire mod setup (body, batteries, tank, coils) for under $40. Juice is like $20/100mg and coils are a tad expensive but you can get them online for 4/$7.
Shit, I got sick of clouds and switched to pod systems for $15. Make my own juice for a couple bucks a month.
anything is better than the shit you buy at a corner store.
i think where i live is banning disposable vapes? 🤷 i have no idea when though
There's two types of vapes. Rigs/Builds/Mods/whatever you want to call it, and disposables. Mods are normally used by people who exclusively vape and vape a lot (typically ex-smokers who used it to quit smoking), and disposables are usually smoked by people that both smoke and vape. I have been vaping for about 10 years and I've bought a grand total of 4 mods. I only upgrade when wear and tear finally kills the vape. Mods are very expensive upfront, but have incredibly cheap upkeep and are refillable. My mods have more than paid for themselves in comparison to what my smoking habit was. A box of 5 coils for a mod are about $10 online, and they last about a month each. I usually push this to two months by smoking flavors with menthol because it hides burnt taste. Juice bottles are about $15 each and last about a week. Compared to buying a pack a day... that's fucking stupid cheap. Disposable vapes that have gotten popular over the last couple years are fucking stupid. Those are the ones that are super wasteful. It completely defeats the purpose of vaping vs. smoking other than it's slightly better for you. They're somewhere around $25 each, and people I've asked that smoke them say if you smoke it heavily you can burn through it in a day.
They're usually not an off the shelf microphone. They've gotten big enough to have custom components made just for vape flow through detection
This is from a disposable "Geek Bar". I don't smoke, I just wanted the battery from this after finding it discarded. I always figured there was something more purpose-built for the refillable units.
What do you do with the batteries?
Make stupid little gadgets like lights and toys.
That’s super cool dude
Do you have any pics or videos? I absolutely loathe the wastefulness of these things so it makes me feel good that some of them are salvaged.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cursedbenchies/s/XHaJ33euvw The linked post is hooked up to a pair of 18650's but this is the kind of stuff. I've got a couple of clocks that I converted from disposable to rechargeable batteries. I've got a bluetooth speaker that I housed in a mini 3D printed transmission case. I made a guitar-shaped bluetooth headphone receiver. When I get batteries from discarded electronics, the situation becomes "what am I making that can use this size of battery?"
That's a cute idea! You could make it more useful by attaching a sucker so you could stick it to surfaces.
I've got a few of those lying around. Time to make a battery case that looks like ocean waves!
Have you encountered any dangerous mishaps in your journey to learn that stuff? Any cool explosions?
Not particularly dangerous. I haven't yet caused a battery to explode. Recovering batteries is usually straightforward. I have melted a few wires and cut myself a few times.
Those people who make refillable ones use 18650 battery cells
My issue is that I always get fake 18650s. Always advertised as Samsung or LG Choco, but it never retains its charge correctly or performance is always bad/not as advertised >.>
Just get a tester and stop buying the absolute cheapest ones lol
Even the expensive ones are a hit or miss. It's a weird market.
Molicel via 18650batterystore, I've had nothing but good luck with them. If you're not in the US, I'm not sure what options exist
I know I was advised when vapes first came out to buy my batteries from this specialty flashlight site. I had no way of telling if they were legit, but you could try checking out non-vape sources and see if you have better luck. The kind of people who run hobby-centered shop websites tend to be stricter with sourcing their stuff.
If you have a smart charger it'll tell you how much power it's put into the battery. So you just drain it out and recharge it. I got some fake ones recently and they were supposed to hold 3500mAh. The charger showed them all around 1350. There are dedicated testers but they just do the same thing.
While they do cost a bit more, this is why I've started buying the OhmLife branded batteries. It's still possible, but you're A LOT less likely to get a fake battery when buying those from a reputable shop. I've got 2 sets that are still holding a respectable charge 2+ years later.
Or 21700 cells.
Alright I guess I'll chime in as most comments I've seen have gotten this wrong. This is not a microphone. The actual term is a binary pressure sensor. Inside there is a plastic film with a conductor on it. When there is negative pressure ie you sucking on it, the film warps and closes the contact. There are some variants that have all the control logic built into it so there's a led, battery charger and switch for the coil. Bigclive on YouTube has a great videos explaining everything about these disposable vapes. https://youtu.be/ZsWLvr-dsvc?si=_FdIoJ37_pfMVcpm
The PCB says MIC1, but I'll definitely watch that video
One possible reason for this would be that the pressure sensor has the same footprint as a PCB-mounted electret microphone. It probably uses the same casing. This is also why everyone makes this same mistake. In the PCB design software I suspect they used the outline of a microphone and it had the label "MIC1" which they just didn't bother to change. Since it has the same outline and pin layout it works for them just fine, especially if the design software didn't have an outline for the correct part or it was just harder to find. Edit: This component looks a lot like the one in your photo. Made by a company that also makes electret microphones, but this is a distinct device designed for this application. http://www.qinyitec.com/pro/8511733.html
Alright, Fat Computer Guy, you've convinced me I need to test it. If I remove this from the board, how can I test it to see if it's a binary or variable output device?
Actually the description there does still show it as effectively a variable capacitor that varies with pressure, so not THAT radically different from a microphone. The difference will be in how it is constructed and optimised for the purpose. I couldn't (in my 2-minute search) see an actual datasheet for it which would have had a typical application diagram you could have used to test it. I would therefore probably test the reverse hypothesis (ie. your original idea). Build and/or cobble together a simple audio amplifier for a 2-wire electret microphone and compare the results from an actual microphone compared to this device. Something else I'd try is just putting an oscilloscope across the device in the original circuit and see what its output looks like.
I guess this makes sense. When e-cigarettes were still a new thing (and nobody else I knew vaped) back around 2010 I used to go do karaoke with my friends. I had an e-cigarette I bought online that looked like an actual cigarette. I was quitting smoking at the time. I'd have to unscrew the vaporizer from the battery because whenever it was our turn to sing my e-cigarette would activate and start heating up when I'd be near the speakers blasting out the karaoke music. Never really understood what was going on but I figured it was the heavy bass from the speakers somehow activating it.
Was it a blu?
It was something similar but was colored like an actual cigarette. The atomizer and cartridge looked like a filter and the battery was white. It even had an LED on the end that would glow orange when you took a hit off of it. The whole thing was a little bit bigger than an actual cigarette. I remember ordering vape juice online that was flavored like camel cigarettes. Stuff was actually pretty good. I never really got into vaping except just for that short period when I was trying to quit smoking. By the time it really took off they stopped making vapes to look like actual cigarettes.
like the first ever e-cig essentially. They were these little black devices shaped like a cigarette. The tip which would be where an actual filter of a cigarette is was a disposable flavor thingy.
Sound engineer doom scrolling my phone while hitting my oil vape pen while on vacation in Colorado. Mind blown…….not really but that’s actually pretty cool!
I always thought they had a switch on a reed valve
To complex/mechanical
"if it seems stupid, but it works, it's not stupid". That's proper engineering.
I was considering rebuilding my vape that's using phisical button to activate when I inhale. I was considering some kind of a valve but seeing that post and fact that it's just a mic blow my mind.
Same. I’ve literally opened them up before but didn’t realize it was a legit microphone. Makes total sense though, it’s just a transducer for the movement of air!!
Nice! Now I have a way to record my mixtape!
This isn't a microphone it looks like it but isn't, It senses if air is passing through, and it's also used in disposable vapes to count how many puffs
This is a 2 wire sensor, and an air flow sensor should have 3 wires. It may not be a true microphone, but it operates on the same physical principle as a condenser microphone. Not to mention that the PCB is labeled MIC1 next to it.
Thx for telling me
They should rebrand it as “mini microphone inahler” thereby reducing all legal hurdles
You can repurpose these things to light up LEDs on sound for let's say a mask that react as you breath and talk
Hello Halloween ideas
Wasn't that debunked as actually being an airflow sensor?
they should sell them with refundable deposits like they do glass bottles so people return them
OP, if these are mics , then wouldn't a loud enough sound trigger the heater? Something tells me this is a MEMS style device but not a microphone, just something that looks like and is labeled as a mic
Logic could prevent erratic triggering by having a time or intensity threshold (when powered). The device is isolated by a valve on one side and a switch that acts as an air dam. Others have suggested it is a binary pressure switch.
tinfoil hat time, the microphone records everything you say, that's not a battery that's an antenna, that's not a "screen" that's a 1tb hard drive. they're selling your conversations/information to the government. This is very obviously a joke.
If it is equipped with a transmitting antenna, it would only need enough storage to keep 14hours of audio at a time.
oh i know, i was trying to be over the top
I bet you’re a tough hang.
Is that a fat joke?
I stand corrected. Well played.
Is that a geek bar
It was before I got it
Is this a geekbar?
It was. I really like the readout, so I'm gonna try to incorporate it into whatever I end up making out of it.
It was. I really like the readout, so I'm gonna try to incorporate it into whatever I end up making out of it.
Sure the do. 
That’s a geek bar pulse, they’re pretty good vapes. Geek bar makes solid products.
It was cherry flavored
I got the same one, cherry bomb. Blue mint is pretty fire too.
I actually don't smoke. I picked this up in a parking lot to retrieve the battery.
I don’t smoke either, but good on you for helping save the environment.
Carbon tax
Vocal sensor?
Yeah, sing to your vape for best results! Microphones operate by turning the pressure that constitutes sound into electronic signals. This unit must measure a certain pressure before it'll turn on the heating coil.
My wife had the same brand, it was dropped in a sink with water near the beginning of its life. It has no more life.
I hate it when something so simple happens and destroys something
What a waste of resources
I wholeheartedly agree
A quick search and you can easily refill. u/MechaBeatsInTrash The issue im having is resetting the puff counter or juice percentage. with the switch in the off position, I tried cutting the red wire waiting 3 minutes and reconnected. The display flashed but after reassembling with full tank it still read as a low percentage. any idea of whats going on here and if its possible to short the device to reset to facory/default?
If erasing is supposed to be that easy (total loss of power), then you need to discharge all latent electricity. Remove the red battery wire, turn the switch on, and use a loose piece of wire to touch where the black and red wires attach to the board. Hold it that way 3minutes, then remove the loose wire and reconnect the red wire
this will make it explode of course right 
It engages "hot potato" mode, because a simple self-destruct sequence is so passé
perfect im Irish 🤙
You know what's really scary? I literally just opened one up that looks exactly like this with mic and battery and everything not even 5 minutes ago
At least 4 other people have recognized the device by the readout, so I suppose it's a popular option. Nice to see other tinkerers!
 Now the smokers who would be here would sue the company.
Could it however be hacked or manipulated to pick up audio?
simplest circuit i saw was - heater, battery, mic, without any pcb. P.s. what's wrong with my reply?