510 "Passthrough" Problems

[Elfod]

I have read where several people have noticed that the 510 "passthrough" does not produce the same vapor as a battery.
This has been my observation also.
Soooo, I decided to find out why--here is what I found.
The 510 USB device is not a true passthrough as the in line battery supplies the power for the atomizer. Without the battery, it will not function. The usb only CHARGES this device.
Here are the voltage measurements I found:
Voltage at the switch= 4.08VDC
Voltage at the inline battery=4.2 VDC
Voltage of a freshly charged battery= 4.22VDC
THESE ARE OPEN CIRCUIT MEASUREMENTS (NO LOAD)
Under load,(atomizer) these will drop a lot.
Have to start cutting wire to measure this.
I think the main problem is the tiny A** wire from the battery to the switch (almost 4 ft. at 1 amp current draw). Move the battery closer to the atomizer with bigger wire to handle the current and you will get the same results as a fresh battery.
I plan to do that this week and will post my results.

 

[Gswan]

Elfod, thanks for the testing on the 501 passthrough. I got one from TW and it did not seem to do well at all, and then it stopped working at all. They will send me a new one, but it seems pointless if they won't work any better than it did. I was thinking of just using the fitting for a mod.

 

[Cisco]

Nice job Elford

My 510 PT felt the same way. I would always go back to a fresh battery. I always thought that the power from the USB was going directly into the manual battery and the inline battery at the same time. but I guess not

I dont need to walk around the house with the PT so maybe I will remove the battery and see how that works. The cable on my passthrough is extra crappy anyway, A whole new cable is in order....

Cant wait to see your follow-up


Cisco...

 

[Elfod]

I plan to move the battery closer to the switch and increase the wire size at the same time. Hope to do that this week.
I have read that the current draw of the atomizer is around 1 amp. That is a lot of current for that small wire. I will be able to measure the current once I start cutting wires.

 

[Cisco]

I opened up the inline battery box on my 510 Passthrough to see if I can bypass it. There's a circuit board with a few resisters and stuff. Printed on the circuit board is "Janty Kissbox USB"


Thought that was kind of amusing...


Cisco...

 

[Elfod]

That board is to charge the battery. Looks like only resistors for isolation or current limit. May be a diode to drop voltage a little.

 

[Cisco]

That board is to charge the battery. Looks like only resistors for isolation or current limit. May be a diode to drop voltage a little.

I hot wired the battery box. I Soldered a lead from the positive side of the USB cable to the positive side of the output to the atty. My meter says 6.23volts (No load) to the atty now. Definetly vapes much better now. I think i will just remove the battery box completly.


Cisco...

 

[Elfod]

That will work. Only question is how long atomizer will last at that voltage.
Can you measure your current? Probably will be less than 1 amp.
Also what is voltage under load?

 

[Cisco]

Hi Elfod,

I going to try and check the under load voltage to the atty.As for how long the atomizer will last under that voltage that would depend on proper usage.

I am probably going to get hung for this but here goes.....

IMHO (Remember its only an opinion) an atty can last a long long time if used properly. When a coil is wet it cant get to the point were it is glowing orange no matter if its 3.7 or 6v. When it is glowing that means it is dry and you putting stress on the coil wire. If you put 10v to an atty it will cook liquid like a steam engine and as long as you don't let it dry out or "Glow" it would last.

For example: Take a Styrofoam cup and put some water in it, now hold a lighter under the cup. as long as there is water in that cup the styrofoam will not melt. The water keeps the foam from reaching its melting point. The second the water dries up the lighter will burn a hole right through the bottom of the cup.

The problem is that you dont know your atty is dry until you puff and it tastes like crap. That means its probably dry and glowing, but you cant see that. puff a few more times and you will most likely burn it out. When I am vaping on higher voltages I tend to go easy until I get a feel for how much liquid and how many puffs it takes before I need to re-load. Everyone vapes differently so you have to get a feel for it, you cant really tell someone @6v you need to drip every 2 puffs. Theres to many variables


Cisco...

 

[Kewtsquirrel]

I'm going to agree with Cisco on this, although I find the 6.3v from USB a bit odd.

USB 1.1/2.0 is capped at 5v/100mA unless a higher amperage is requested from the bus, in which case it increases to a maximum of 500mA. Wall-wart USB plugs and car chargers can differ from this, but a computer should never put out more than 5v on USB unless its through a special harddrive USB plug that sometimes put out 12v.

Could you elaborate a bit more on your setup please, Cisco?

 

[Cisco]

I'm going to agree with Cisco on this, although I find the 6.3v from USB a bit odd.

USB 1.1/2.0 is capped at 5v/100mA unless a higher amperage is requested from the bus, in which case it increases to a maximum of 500mA. Wall-wart USB plugs and car chargers can differ from this, but a computer should never put out more than 5v on USB unless its through a special harddrive USB plug that sometimes put out 12v.

Could you elaborate a bit more on your setup please, Cisco?

Manual passthrough plugged into a self powered usb port. Taking a reading from the atty end of the passthrough I press the maual button and it reads 6.23v.I also plugged into a USB on the front of my computer and I get the same reading. From what I understand USB is max at 5.25v maybe my meter is screwy.Try to get another meter and check. I still need to check under load voltage at the atty.

USB2.0 is 100mA per unit load but a Single 2.0 port is able to draw up to 5 100mA load units to reach 500mA. USB 3.0 will have 150mA unit loads and will reach 900mA


Cisco...

 

[Elfod]

Hi Cisco,
I agree. Let the atty dry and watch it smoke...errr burn out.
The 510 "Passthrough" I don't think, was designed to power the atomizer directly from a USB power source. It looks like some alternative charging scheme.
I still think the main problem with it's poor performance is the voltage drop from the battery to the load. The tiny wire is the problem there.
Here is another glitch--the switch does not seem to make contact when pressed at certain times.. First thought is bad switch--but, change ATOMIZER, and it works fine. I measured voltage-no load, and the switch worked every time. Put one atomizer on, and it did not fire every time, had to press several times to get vapor.
Atomizer resistance seems to be all over the place too. All 3 I have read differently--from 30 ohms to 85 ohms. Seems like they should be tighter than that. At this rate, the performance is going to be different according to load, voltage and current.
Seems like this should have spent a little more time in R&D.

 

[Kewtsquirrel]

Elfond - I've noticed different atomizers have different positive connection depths, on some of my 901's I barely need to screw them in at all, on others I have to give it an extra hard twist or I get no connection, so it very well could be a problem with the atomizer.

Cisco - You're correct on the 500mA top limit, but it will only draw that if it requests it from the bus. Open up your device manager and look at the properties of the usb port your passthru is plugged into, it will say 100mA. Since there is no data connection, there is no way for the passthru to request a higher amperage from the bus. There might be a driver hack for this, where you could rewrite the "unknown usb device" driver to crank out 500mA instead of 100mA, but I couldn't elaborate on the specifics of how to do it.