24k Gold Plated Post

[BreeZe098]

Hi I Have a question about atomizer post.

What good about the 24k gold plated post?

What kind of materials are best for atomizer post?

thank you.

 

[Mooch]

Hi I Have a question about atomizer post.

What good about the 24k gold plated post?

What kind of materials are best for atomizer post?

thank you.

In my opinion, nothing is better about a 24K post versus an unplated one. And there are a couple of disadvantages.

- The plating is only a few ten-thousandths of an inch thick and does almost nothing to help conductivity.

- Since the plating is so thin it wears off very easily, especially when there's metal against metal contact.

- The gold can prevent corrosion but since it wears off at the point where the corrosion would affect things, inside the post hole, I don't think this advantage of using gold lasts very long.

- It does look good if you like the color.

Copper or silver would be the best metal in terms of conductivity for posts but those metals are too soft. And expensive. Some of the copper or silver alloys are harder but the cost is still high. Though there are some plated brass center post designs out there.

Steel has lousy conductivity versus some other metals but the current doesn't flow through a lot of it before reaching the atomizer and wiring. There's just not much of a voltage drop difference through steel posts versus the drop that would occur through the posts made from a better conducting metal. At least, not enough to make working with other metals worthwhile for most situations in my opinion. You could gold plate a brass center post but to have the other posts and shell made out of brass would be tough. The threads would get damaged easily.

 

[Mooch]

How rude of me...welcome to ECF!
Were you thinking about buying a RDA/RTA with gold-plated posts?

 

[TamiVapes]

I'm here for the shiny. It sounds shiny.

 

[suprtrkr]

@Mooch is right, as usual. Silver is the best conductor around followed by copper. But those are too soft and horribly expensive. There's a really good copper alloy-- C145, Tellurium Copper-- that holds about 90% of the conductivity of pure --C110-- copper but is much harder, having about 85% of the workability of hard brasses. many good mods and expensive atomizers use it. Still though, for most purposes, good old stainless gets the job done within reason. Now if it's shiny you want, have you seen the Aris Pro by Council of Vapor?

 

[Mooch]

@Mooch is right, as usual. Silver is the best conductor around followed by copper. But those are too soft and horribly expensive. There's a really good copper alloy-- C145, Tellurium Copper-- that holds about 90% of the conductivity of pure --C110-- copper but is much harder, having about 85% of the workability of hard brasses. many good mods and expensive atomizers use it. Still though, for most purposes, good old stainless gets the job done within reason. Now if it's shiny you want, have you seen the Aris Pro by Council of Vapor?

How durable are the threads on these? Do you have to be careful or are they tough enough to not have to baby them? I might have spoken too soon regarding this.

 

[TamiVapes]

@Mooch is right, as usual. Silver is the best conductor around followed by copper. But those are too soft and horribly expensive. There's a really good copper alloy-- C145, Tellurium Copper-- that holds about 90% of the conductivity of pure --C110-- copper but is much harder, having about 85% of the workability of hard brasses. many good mods and expensive atomizers use it. Still though, for most purposes, good old stainless gets the job done within reason. Now if it's shiny you want, have you seen the Aris Pro by Council of Vapor?

Oh, that's gorgeous.

 

[suprtrkr]

How durable are the threads on these? Do you have to be careful or are they tough enough to not have to baby them? I might have spoken too soon regarding this.

It's not 316 Mooch But yeah, it's fairly tough. Not *quite* as hard as brass, and brass does OK for low stress applications. The best brasses are as hard as some low carbon mild steels. The C145 alloy, like all coppers, is weakest in tension, but we don't want it for bolt bodies. I have one mod (no atomizers) made of it. It's 3 or 4 years old and I have taken no special care beyond routine cleaning to preserve conductivity at the threads since I like the patina. It's holding up OK. I can do the calcs if you like, but its not necessary. Yes, with reasonable care they hold up well. Just don't use a torque wrench on it. I would further suggest you'll do better with Allen-- OK, technically "socket head cap"-- screws than Phillips head, if you want it for an atty. It'd be fairly easy to round out a Phillips. Or you could use a stainless screw, the conductivity is through the post; the screw is just a clamp.

 

[suprtrkr]

Oh, that's gorgeous.

Lol, yeah, they are. I want one

 

[suprtrkr]

How durable are the threads on these? Do you have to be careful or are they tough enough to not have to baby them? I might have spoken too soon regarding this.

Let me add one thing: I have *one* C145 mod. The rest of them are stainless. You're the EE, not I, but unless you actually need that last 1/10th of a volt, you don't gain a lot by having it, and you give up maybe 50% of your structural strength for it. That's a decision, not a requirement, kinda like me using VTC4s through everything, even though I have applications where a 25R would actually be a better choice, for no better reason than I like the thicker margin and I don't like having different values of cells laying around. The alternative view, of course, is it's a mod, not a jack handle or a crowbar.

 

[BreeZe098]

Thank you for your answer!