Attn: atomizer rebuilders

[crazyhorse]

After two months of vaping, with an already substantial pile of busted atomizers along with a shipment of 25 ordered on June 8 and currently stuck in US Customs since last Friday morning, I can see the writing on the wall. To keep us in the vaping business over the long-term, I'm gonna have to learn how to rebuild atomizers.

With our initial supply dropping like flies at a rate exceeding one per week along with the difficulty I'm having with getting replacements already, I'm thinking atomizers may not be all that disposable before too long.

Will any of you sell me a "starter kit" of the wires and wicking you have sucessfully used and offer me some tech support as I go along? I have the necessary tools but lack the expertise and techniques for dealing with the metal foam and creating the coils.

I will pay you by PayPal and you can stick the goods in an envelope and mail it off to me.

 

[timh]

crazyhorse

Where is Baja Al.?I live in Summerdale just 17 miles north of Gulf Shores.

 

[crazyhorse]

Hi Neighbor,

Heheh, you live in Baja (Lower) Alabama. I'm out northeast of Robertsdale.

 

[mogur]

After two months of vaping, with an already substantial pile of busted atomizers along with a shipment of 25 ordered on June 8 and currently stuck in US Customs since last Friday morning, I can see the writing on the wall. To keep us in the vaping business over the long-term, I'm gonna have to learn how to rebuild atomizers.

With our initial supply dropping like flies at a rate exceeding one per week along with the difficulty I'm having with getting replacements already, I'm thinking atomizers may not be all that disposable before too long.

Will any of you sell me a "starter kit" of the wires and wicking you have sucessfully used and offer me some tech support as I go along? I have the necessary tools but lack the expertise and techniques for dealing with the metal foam and creating the coils.

I will pay you by PayPal and you can stick the goods in an envelope and mail it off to me.

Don't think it's gonna be that simple. We're all just bozos on this bus. In other words, I don't think anyone here has nailed down a simple atomizer rebuild. I, at least, am still just working on the science of it. It may never be economically feasible to compete with the chinese factories, anyway. If the FDA cracks down, it's going to probably be on the nicotine, not the pipe.

The Wires Store on Ebay sent me 130' of five different resistance wires that I picked out for $21 including shipping. Came from eastern Europe, but the envelope showed up in 3 or 4 days. If you want to play with them, I can't advise much on the construction, but take a look at the 36 ga to 38 ga Nichrome and 34 ga to 36 ga Kanthal wires. Just google Wires store.

 

[crazyhorse]

That looks like a good place to get the wire Mogur. Quite inexpensive.

The Nikrothal 60, (NiCrFe 60/15) 38 ga @ 43.29 ohm/ft is my best instinctive choice but I'm a dummy. An inch @ 3.6 ohm seems appropriate but how much wire can you wind into such a tiny coil? Don't we need the coil around 3 ohm?

Hard wire, soft wire, nicr 60, nicr 80, Kanthal D, Kanthal DSD Too many choices. Would FeCrAl work? Would soft drawn form better coils than hard drawn? What's easiest to braze to copper?

 

[500KV]

Hey guys.
I found this blurb on the net and, if I'm reading it right it sounds like you can solder to nichrome wire.
What do you all think?
Getting the resistance of the coil right shouldn't be a big problem (somewhere between 2.7 and 3 ohms) for my 801 coils anyway.
I guess it could be wound on some sort of ceramic dowel coulden't it?
Boy, all new to me..

"My homemade CCD camera uses thin nichrome wire to connect to the socket pins
of the very cold CCD chip. I soldered them without difficulty by
using acid flux. Afterward I cleaned up with Kester AP-20 flux
remover and a scrubbing in a solution of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
to be sure that the acid was neutralized. No trouble after 5 years.

Also be sure to clean your soldering iron tip carefully before using
it again for electronic work."

 

[Cancer]

Nice Find 500KV, with that last post.

 

[500KV]

Nice Find 500KV, with that last post.

I don't know Cancer.
Seems like every solution only raises more questions.
This atomizer "fix" would be the ultimate breakthrough though.
I'll have to leave it to those more savvy than me I'm afraid.

 

[crazyhorse]

In the run of quickly blown atomizers we've had, the soldering is definitely the weak link. I don't know what solder is used or anything about the melting point.

But how can you solder to something that gets red hot with solder that melts at much lower temperature? Typical electrical solder of 96% tin and 4% silver may melt at 430° F. Nichrome goes red hot at 1200°. F does it not? There's something wrong with this picture. Seems to me a reliable coil connection would require a braze with something that melts above 1200° F.

 

[Stephaniems]

I'm dumb and have no clue but could copper be used?

 

[crazyhorse]

Not sure what you're asking. Copper as a heating coil? No, copper has no resistance.

 

[500KV]

Seems to me a reliable coil connection would require a braze with something that melts above 1200° F.

Think you're right CH; unless some sort of heat sink could be used.
But I'm strictly shooting from the hip here.
What do they use on the factory atomizers? Anyone know?

 

[crazyhorse]

Exogenesis did an atomic analysis on the solder. He came up with:

83% Tin
7% Potassium
6% Silver
4% Nickel

He's not sure if the potassium is a surface contaminant or a mis-identified peak.

I don't know for sure but that looks fairly low-temp to me. I can't see it standing up to red heat.

Edit: I think this stuff would need something like 55% silver along with the nickel to get to a melt point of 1200° F.

 

[.308]

Has anyone looked into high-melting point qualities of enamelling solder? Just a quick thought.

Melting point... 730-800 C. Might be the holy grail right there.

 

[kinabaloo]

The solder does indeed seem to recede from the nichrome wire:

But this seems not to be the main reason for atomizer failure; that is deposit buildup.

 

[bzlytbeer]

After two months of vaping, with an already substantial pile of busted atomizers along with a shipment of 25 ordered on June 8 and currently stuck in US Customs since last Friday morning, I can see the writing on the wall. To keep us in the vaping business over the long-term, I'm gonna have to learn how to rebuild atomizers.

With our initial supply dropping like flies at a rate exceeding one per week along with the difficulty I'm having with getting replacements already, I'm thinking atomizers may not be all that disposable before too long.

Will any of you sell me a "starter kit" of the wires and wicking you have sucessfully used and offer me some tech support as I go along? I have the necessary tools but lack the expertise and techniques for dealing with the metal foam and creating the coils.

I will pay you by PayPal and you can stick the goods in an envelope and mail it off to me.

May I ask what you are doing that makes you go through all those attys in just 2 months?? I have about 15 901 attys, and 10 510 attys, but I am still using the first one of each I opened in early May. I have been using the 901 in my 6 volt mod, 2 different USB mods, the off the shelf batteries, etc. I have not yet burned one atty out... I expected them to go out in about 2 weeks, after reading all the posts here, which is why I have so many. I have a few different ones, but the 901 I started with was one I got from Totally Wicked, and the 510 atty is one that came with a set I got from ruyandirect / Heavenly Gifts.

 

[Bones]

I still don't get what you guys are doing to your atomizers - I have been vaping nearly non-stop for over a month now and have yet to have an atomizer stop working

 

[Bones]

What is that stuff that the coil is wrapped around?

 

[crazyhorse]

May I ask what you are doing that makes you go through all those attys in just 2 months?? I have about 15 901 attys, and 10 510 attys, but I am still using the first one of each I opened in early May. I have been using the 901 in my 6 volt mod, 2 different USB mods, the off the shelf batteries, etc. I have not yet burned one atty out... I expected them to go out in about 2 weeks, after reading all the posts here, which is why I have so many. I have a few different ones, but the 901 I started with was one I got from Totally Wicked, and the 510 atty is one that came with a set I got from ruyandirect / Heavenly Gifts.

I think you are very fortunate.

I have no idea what's going on with these things. It makes no sense. Hopefully, we just got a bunch of atomizers that were soldered by a drunk guy. The atomizers work perfectly well one minute and next puff, without even setting it down, they're stone cold dead. The common fault I find is the coil disconnected from a power lead at the soldered joint.

Between my wife and myself we go through 2-3 ml per day. We use protected 14500 3.7v 900 mAh batteries and on very rare occasion, a standard 801 battery. I did find a switch error in one of my mods that was allowing 0.02 volts to pass continuously. Maybe this was having an effect but I wouldn't think that pissant amount of leakage could do anything at all. It's less than one half of one percent of full voltage

Our 25 unit order from RD/HG was finally released last night after more than 4½ days in limbo at JFK. We'll soon have a better idea if the initial supply of atomizers were defective.

Edit: A potential problem area with another one of my mods could be recessing the atomizer within the box as is commonly done. This would create quicker and higher internal heat rise and retention which may not be good for atomizer health. This is also now corrected.

 

[500KV]

I still don't get what you guys are doing to your atomizers - I have been vaping nearly non-stop for over a month now and have yet to have an atomizer stop working

I think it's probably a combination of things that cause the failures; vaping habits,(length of draw/heating time), liquid type, cleaning/not cleaning or maybe just bad luck.