Did You Know All of These Charging Best Practices for the CARTA E-Rig?

Did You Know All of These Charging Best Practices for the CARTA E-Rig?

 We like to keep it relaxed here in the Focus V blog but when it comes to charging your CARTA, we’re all business. Proper charging of your CARTA keeps both you and your favorite e-rig safe. That's why we recently updated the Focus V CARTA User Manual with 4 pages of battery tips and further charging details included in an additional 4 pages of safety information. Properly charging your CARTA is rather simple thanks to an included USB-C cable. When you first take the portable electric dab rig out of its box, it will need a solid 2 hours to charge before you use it. The full charge is signaled by the LED lights ceasing to blink. That’s all there is to it! But since we don’t live in a perfect world, a lot of imperfect things can happen. So, hedge your bets by familiarizing yourself with these best practices for charging your CARTA smart rig!

The Hazards of Overcharging Your Battery

It can be easy to get distracted while charging your CARTA’s battery, but overcharging your battery can lead to serious problems with not just your e-rig’s performance but also your own safety. Along those same lines, if you notice your battery aggressively heating up, remove it from the charger to let it rest. It’s normal for batteries to heat up a bit during the charging process, but damaged batteries can heat up beyond the standard charging temperature. While the batteries used by the Focus V CARTA are quality tested to high standards, it’s important to take the necessary precautions for any device that contains flammable chemicals. 

Using Appropriate Charging Equipment

One of the most common charging mistakes involves exceeding your battery’s maximum continuous discharge rating. The batteries that the Focus V CARTA uses are 18350 batteries which are classified as “high-drain”. This basically means they can discharge a greater current than the average battery without doing any damage to their cells or tripping a circuit breaker. All high-drain cells, including those used with the CARTA portable dab rig, are rated for use at 20 amps or higher. When using your charger, make sure it is appropriately rated to avoid exceeding the discharge rating. 

Use the Included USB-C Charging Cable

While we currently don’t provide a charging port for your CARTA’s 18350 rechargeable batteries, each of our e-rig kits includes a USB-C cable for charging your CARTA’s batteries directly through its base. We strongly recommend using only this authorized USB-C cable for charging your electric dab rig, as we cannot guarantee safe and proper charging with other models. While people have successfully used other models to charge their CARTA portable dab rig’s batteries, it is purely at their own risk and damage incurred from using an unauthorized charging solution can void your warranty. In any case, your charging option should never exceed 4.20V. 

Select the Right Charging Environment

When charging your batteries, you need to make sure the atmosphere is optimal. This means never charging it in environments outside the 50°F (10°C) to 113°F (45°C) range. You should never leave your CARTA unattended while it’s charging and charging time should never exceed 2 hours. In the event that your battery cannot complete its charge within that allotted time, you should still discontinue the charging process and look into replacement batteries. Also, make sure that your charging environment is devoid of any flammable materials like bedding, curtains, etc.

The Risks of a Short Circuit

It can be tempting to put loose batteries in your pocket when you’re on the go, but this is a surprisingly dangerous and sadly common mistake to make. You run the risk of short-circuiting your batteries when you do this which can result in not just damage to the batteries but bodily harm to you. A reaction can occur when the polarities of the batteries come into contact with other common pocketable items such as coins and other metal objects. It’s best to keep your batteries loaded in the electric dab rig or secured in the provided carrying case. 

There are a slew of other details you should keep in mind when charging your batteries, some a bit more obvious than others. For example, you probably recognize it’s never a good idea to use a battery with visible damage, but did you know you should also keep your batteries out of direct sunlight? We’ve updated the Focus V CARTA User Manual to include a wealth of tips related to charging your portable dab rig batteries that cover everything from the intuitive to the not-so-obvious. We recommend you read this updated manual to better acquaint yourself with all of the best practices as they pertain to charging your e-rig and its batteries.