LMFAO!

I left the car window open through the car wash, does that count?

My sister uses a variation of this closer to a traditional lighter with a long neck to light her candles. It's rechargeable, and she's been using the same one for over a decade.

Meh, aside from cigarettes and such, they can also be useful survival equipment tools, if you got a pack of toothpicks or even just some thin dry twigs available. Easy rechargeable fire starter ya know..

But yeah, I've had nothing but a pain in the ass with this thing, I've had to disassemble it to clean it every couple weeks or so, and have also had to replace 2 electrodes and resolder the lid safety switch twice and the charger port once.

I've probably serviced this thing like ~40 times since I got it. You'll know you got a problem when the lid safety switch gets too much crud in it and gets stuck in the ON position, and the damn thing starts lighting up on its own in your pocket.. 💀

I modified mine to where if that should ever happen again, I can literally snatch it apart and snatch the battery out in less than 2 seconds without tools.

I am skeptical how I might use it to start a campfire even though it’s supposed to be a camping tool.

Could probably light some tinder with it, like thin twigs or dry grass...

Lol, the idea what a battery powered device is a camping to for starting fires is just funny to me. Of all the ways we have to start fires one that requires a battery is the last thing I'm wasting weight and space on when camping.

You can use it to light kindling for a campfire

For bongs, may i recommend hemp wick

Oh, I definitely hear that sound too, I'm pretty sure many people do. It doesn't bother me though, its only like 3 to 5 seconds, not like the sound is on repeat.

Now as far as your cats... 😺

The butane ones are refillable though

That's awesome! 👍

Going by other comments here, apparently candle wax vapor/deposits aren't nearly as electrically conductive as nicotine/tar/ash buildup, so basically everyone saying they use theirs to light candles has indeed reported these sort of lighters work for many years with no problems.

Things get a lot dirtier a lot quicker and end up eventually shorting out when used to light a pack of cigarettes a day. Yeah, bad habit I know, but at least I know how to clean and maintain mine when it starts acting up.

The instructions for these things literally say to not ever clean them. Well, I'm not exactly one to follow all instructions.

I end up fully disassembling mine every couple or few weeks, to thoroughly clean the ceramic insulator and electrodes with rubbing alcohol, cotton swabs, and even a toothbrush.

Note: Remove the ceramic insulator from the device before attempting to clean it this way, as practically everyone should know already, rubbing alcohol is flammable..

Better yet, just have an experienced electronics tech do it for you if you're not 100% sure how to fully clean it yourself.

I used to use those mesh ones but now I get a little glass honeycomb. Way better and I think I got like 20 for $4 a few years ago and still using them. If you're careful theylast a while and can be cleaned

Yours is waterproof? Damn homie, what model you got?

Also, notice that on mine at least, the plastic cover over the ceramic electrode insulator is chrome plated, which looks nice and pretty when new. But after a while, smoke particles buildup around the electrodes, plus the chrome plated beauty cover, starts causing the electrodes to short out.

Also, at one point mine had an issue where the lid safety switch apparently got too contaminated with nicotine and got stuck in the ON position, requiring emergency maintenance service as the damn thing wouldn't even turn off.. 💀

Yes, actually this has been done before, modulating the frequency to play music and such.

My internet absolutely sucks when I'm on road trips, but I'll see if I can find you a link later after I get home and settled down.

I think the video clip from YouTube I saw was from TheActionLab...

EXACTLY!

Some folks have better, longer lasting luck out of these things, others don't, but yeah you totally get that these things can (and often will) eventually short out, one way or another.

I happen to have enough electronics knowledge and experience to keep mine properly cleaned and maintained, but I don't think that 99% of people would even be able to do that, at least not safely..

Yes, really. Pretty much any time you can visibly see an arc through the air it's in the thousands of volts range. If you walk around in socks and zap something and you can feel a shock from your fingertips it's probably 2-3 kV at least, can be up to 15+ kV, but very low current

And I have 3 rolls of the stuff, 1cm wide, partly used to fix it. Honestly I've used more heatshrink (ThermalFit) and solder than Kapton tape, but yeah...