901 atomizer disassembly

[kinabaloo]

Well, not all the juice vaporises; what does not is the 'dry-residue'. Say you spill some tea on your desk and let it sit there till it evaporates; some will remain (mostly a resin called tanin that gives tea its bite).

Ideally then, cleaning the atty coil would be an unnecessary matter. The best advice is make sure you have spare atomizers!

My personal favorite cleaning method is described here: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...e-method-prolonging-atomisers.html#post255482

Once per day; till you see the coil glow red.

 

[mogur]

Hey, Mogur, why not use something like Pt or Au wire? I understand it is expensive, but it is relatively quite nonreactive and could potentially make a longer lasting coil. Is it because of the amount of heat required to take it to the vaporization point? Further, what is the 'vaporization point' with respect to the coil and the liquid and what will be considered the optimal surface area and temperature?

Great questions, and again, I am a student, not a teacher, but yes, 38 ga platinum wire is a hundred bucks a foot. Both Pt and Au are nonreactive, tarnish resistant, high temperature and possibly are great plating metals. Yet their resistance is way too low as a solid wire by themselves. The platinum alloys, usually from the same family- palladium, ruthenium, iridium, osmium and rhodium, maintain platinum's high melting temperature and increase its strength and resistance, but the resistance of any of these alloys are still a factor of 3 or 4 below NiCr, making them either too fine of a diameter, or too large in overall dimensions for the tiny space allowed for an atomizer. Some the alloys, however, have the interesting property of a large positive temperature coefficiency of resistance, making them possibly suitable for a self-regulating temperature control (or, at least controllable by kina's PWM feedback circuit).

Even as a wire plating, though, these elements don't seem to be much used in heater designs, and I can only guess at the reason. Either the platings cannot withstand the stress on their adhesion to the wire, or NiCr oxidation is as tough and resistant to degradation as a nonreactive plating. Kanthal, which is newer version of NiCr, is reputed to have even more corrosion resistance and therefore longer service life than standard NiCr. [Oxidation is the tough coating formed on the surface of the wire, while corrosion is the flaking off of material eventually resulting in degradation.]

Sorry about this post turning into a lecture, so I'll try to answer your other questions briefly. I don't know the vaporization temperatures or optimal surface area of the coil. Resistance wires generally have a melting temp above 1000C, and suffer that fate only after prolonged dry heating at high amps. Unfortunately, we need those high amps to get a coil covered with liquid up to vape temperatures quickly (which the literature suggests is only around 200C for a PG solution). That is why a temperature controlled circuit would help. Feed huge current to the coil until the liquid is vaped, but don't allow the dry coil to then run up to its melting point. Long life of coil, less burned residue. Waiting on that thermocouple to get a few more clues about temperature.

 

[coldgeo]

Wow, THANKS, mogur. Awesome post!
I'm highly interested in how this turns out.
Could you please post schematics for what you're going to do? How big will the form factor be? Awesome man, just awesome.

 

[kinabaloo]

Just started to work on a practical temp controller

 

[q258]

foam nickel (a.k.a. nickel foam, bubble nickel)

I wonder if there is the potential for any adverse effects of the constant heating and exposure to liquid? i.e. is it hot enough and/or is the liquid acidic enough to cause any sort of breakdown of the material?

 

[framitz]

Hmmm coil surface area get's me to wondering about the feasibility of using tungsten light bulb filament. Filaments are coils wound into coils with a huge surface area. Maybe a filament from a low wattage bulb? Not sure of oxidation issues with tungsten, but possible food for thought.

 

[mogur]

I'm lost as to which threads I've been posting coil data to. Anyway, the really slow boat showed up today with my spanking new K-type thermometer.

The very first trial-

The sucker didn't burn up on me, but the thermocouple was only rated to 200 something degrees C, so I stopped there. This is free air, thermocouple bead tensioned against one loop of the coil. I suspect the wire temp was a bit higher, but I'll get better at this as I go along.

 

[Vaporer]

Hi All,

My 1st post here and thanks for all the info, great pics and ideas.
I have an atty very close to the great pics mogur posted.
I have 2 questions.
1. Exactly where is the juice that is getting vaped? At 1st thought it was from the bridge...then I read ref's to the "juice cup" that holds the coil. The cup appears to be ceramic with a few holes or a couple of slots. The bridge wicks the juice down , but then outside the cup. Does it weep back in the holes?
2. My coil fried and I broke the cup on disassembly removing the metal sleeve.......ouch. Any good ideas or substitutes for it?

I'm sure its been mentioned here, if so..I apologize.
My mini pen style coil is 3.4ohms.
You can get 10ft ($2 + Free Shipping) of 36ga (27ohms/ft)...1 1/2" = 3.75ohms...very close. jacobs-online.biz/nichrome_wire

Thanks in advance,

Tony

 

[mogur]

Welcome aboard, mate. Hope you enjoy the ride. Sry, I don't know a substitute for the ceramic cup, maybe jam it back in and let the foam hold it together? A long shot, but it's no good without trying something.

You can get a good idea of the 'juice cup' from my drawings on page two or three of this thread, or even better drawings from an Exo post in another thread (sry, can't remember the exact thread, but use the search engine, it's worth the trouble to find, exo's drawings are killer). The bridge wicks the liquid around the ceramic, and the airstream through the nickel foam behind the ceramic cup pulls droplets off the edges of the foam. At least that is my best guess, I haven't built a transparent cig... yet.

Wait a minute, yours is an 801 penstyle? If you've ripped the atomizer out of there, then you know more about that one than I do. At any rate, good to meet ya. Take care.

 

[Vaporer]

Mogur,

Thanks for the quick reply.
After studying the last cup pic of yours, it appears that when you take a hit the liquid enters from the 4 holes, nears the coil and gets vaped. It may get sprayed or splatters onto the coil. I don't notice any heaps of carbon crud on the bottom and the coil doesn't rest on the bottom.
That would explain why its called a 4 hole. My mini had 2 horizontal slits parallel to the coil. All that remains is 3 "large" pieces lol and about 16 small ones............grrrr. It didn't release from the knurling well at all.

I just ordered 2 spares....would be nice to be able to make our own in case the gov sticks their nose in it.

Finally, something that shows so much promise but we dare not step on the tobacco lobby toes. Somethings still amaze me.

Tony

 

[mogur]

Mogur,

Thanks for the quick reply.
After studying the last cup pic of yours, it appears that when you take a hit the liquid enters from the 4 holes, nears the coil and gets vaped. It may get sprayed or splatters onto the coil. I don't notice any heaps of carbon crud on the bottom and the coil doesn't rest on the bottom.
That would explain why its called a 4 hole. My mini had 2 horizontal slits parallel to the coil. All that remains is 3 "large" pieces lol and about 16 small ones............grrrr. It didn't release from the knurling well at all.

I just ordered 2 spares....would be nice to be able to make our own in case the gov sticks their nose in it.

Finally, something that shows so much promise but we dare not step on the tobacco lobby toes. Somethings still amaze me.

Tony

Ahh, I finally found a photo of Exogenesis's drawings. I couldn't find his original thread, just a copy that Kate posted of his drawing. Maybe exo will be generous enough to share a link to his original work. Hope he doesn't mind if I repost it, here. Thanks, exo- if I had seen your work before I posted this thread, I would have covered different ground.

Tony, the following drawings are from the original inventor of the ecig, Lik Hon. He is an amazing inventor, envisioning everything from an LCD screen to piezoelectric vaping, so I will simply let him describe the atomization process-

That backflow preventer has evolved into a more robust venturi thing-a-ma-jig, but take a look at what this guy had envisioned years ago- search for Lik Hon and Li Han:

Patent Searching and Inventing Resources

[It's a free signup for viewing the pdfs, well worth the minor hassle.]

 

[mogur]

One more, then I'll stop, this describes the atomization process a little more fully-

Edit: oops, I relabelled the figure numbers because they were illegible, and screwed them up, but it is obvious what the text is describing, just ignore my mistakes.

 

[lvlninety9]

This is something that I found while looking around. Don't know if anyone is even interested in it, but it seems this place will sell the nickle foam.

Metal Foam (Ni) - China Foam Metal,Ni in Fireproof Material

Of course it's from China. But it might help out someone who wants to try to build their own atomizer.

 

[kinabaloo]

This is something that I found while looking around. Don't know if anyone is even interested in it, but it seems this place will sell the nickle foam.

Metal Foam (Ni) - China Foam Metal,Ni in Fireproof Material

Of course it's from China. But it might help out someone who wants to try to build their own atomizer.

Quanity might be high though.

As soon as I saw the picture on that page, which I have seen before, I thought that this stuff's main use might be NiCd and NiMH batteries.

 

[lvlninety9]

It possibly could be but I'm not exactly sure. I just got intersted in the mods threads and I'm currently waiting for one of my 510 atty's to fry so I can tear it apart. There's been a wealth of information just on this thread which is greatly appreciated. It was just a thought in case someone might be looking to get some of the foam.

 

[mastiff1]

mogur, Do you happen to know if the DSE 801 disassembles in a like manner, I have about four of the things acting up for one reason or another.
Rick

 

[Vaporer]

Thanks for the links guys.
The inventor was so far ahead of his time.

I did find a ceramic fuse, gutted it and managed to cut it to length with a dremel tool. The pressed sand cutoff wheel is wonderful. Still, putting holes in it is another matter. I also stumbled on some very high temp plastic fittings used for electrical work. A soldering iron won't dent it. Be easy to turn in a drill and to put holes in. The heat of a 5 sec coil shouldn't break it down to release anything harmful I'd think. Also , teflon would make a nice juice pot.

Having tools to design and build micro rc models doesnt hurt either lol.

Just looking for materials to make attys if the gov steps in. Manual batteries,, carts and chargers don't seem to be a problem. Small rc stuff at WalMart have chargers that will to the lipo batteries......

Keep up the excellent work...and take a break to vape!

Tony

 

[supernewbie]

uh help where are the pictures that demonstrate how to disassemble 901 atomizer?

 

[Nietzsc]

I don't see any pics, where they removed?

 

[exogenesis]

Think imageshack has removed mogar's images (he last posted in June),
worth having a look at this piccy this thread in the post:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...suppliers-whats-my-atomizer-9.html#post200943

Many good pictures in there.