On the basis that a disposable electronic cigarette only costs a pound from Poundland or Pound World it seems pretty pointless to try and reuse one. But when you consider that you are using what is generally a fully rechargeable lithium cell for just one cycle and then binning it, it seems horribly wasteful. And then there’s the pleasure of tinkering with technical stuff. So yes. It is viable to recharge a disposable cigarette, purely for the fun of it.
Every single disposable cigarette I have disassembled has had a fully rechargeable cell in it. This is because the rechargeable cells in this shape and size are mass produced for the e-cig industry and it would probably be more expensive to use a single-use cell.
This isn’t to say that every e-cig is guaranteed to actually have a rechargeable cell in it, so proceed with caution at your own risk. Especially if the cell looks different from a typical rechargeable type.
The equipment required to recharge the cell is either a dedicated current limited lithium charging module with automatic 4.2V cut-off. Or you can use a good bench PSU with programmable voltage and current so the cell charges in constant current mode, but tails off as it reaches 4.2V.
The disposable cigs are pretty much a full rechargeable e-cig but without the detachable vaporiser socket that doubles as the charging port. On the basis that the control chip can detect a low cell voltage and flash a warning, I wondered if it had any charge control too. But it doesn’t. That is in the e-cig chargers. It does however have a diode to allow charging of the lithium cell via the vaporiser connections.
