A little help needed

[GreyHawk]

I have a question for anyone willing to help. Seeing as my knowledge of electronics is pretty limited (most of what I know I learned here), you'll have to excuse me.
Long story short I created a mod, the details of which I'll leave out. The guts of the electronics is as follows: Two Ultrafire 18350 3.7V batts wired to a SPST tact switch, and 5 volt regulator. All wired to a threaded adapter yanked out of a 510 battery for use with a 510 atty.
All worked GREAT for two days then suddenly no vapor. I disassembled and examined. All the wiring is good. Solder joints are OK (I'm not a fantastic solderer) but they are connected. Multimeter shows 4.98V coming through with the switch depressed. Tested several attys that work with battery but not in mod.
Needless to say, I'm at a loss. Is there something else I should be testing for? My electronic knowledge doesn't go past voltage so amps and resistance aren't friends of mine. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[a2dcovert]

Multimeter shows 4.98V coming through with the switch depressed.

It sounds like your voltage regulator is working as it should. Have you test to see if you are getting voltage on the atty side of the battery connector? If you get the voltage at this point I have one idea. The center connector on the battery connector may not be touching the center connection on the attys. That contact point both on the battery and on the atty kind of floats. By soldering on the batt connector you may have moved this connection point without knowing it.

Does the atty tighten up very tight right away or does in gradually get tighter the more you tighten it? You can try inserting a safety pin in the atty air holes and gently force the center connection of the atty to extend very slightly beyond the barrel threads and see if this makes the atty work.

Just one idea.

Kevin

 

[cybervex]

There could also be some debris in the atty side of the connector.

 

[Shreck]

OR it could possibly be just the opposite. The atty is pushing the center connector down and pushing it against the outer ground and shorting it out. thus no juice to the atty. To test this theory, try spinning the atty on slowly while holding your button and see if it starts to sizzle before it gets all the way tight. and if it stops when you tighten it too much. If it does nothing all the way down them a2dcovert is more than likely right in his theory..
But like he said, try pulling the centers up and out just slightly before trying this as well.

It sounds like your voltage regulator is working as it should. Have you test to see if you are getting voltage on the atty side of the battery connector? If you get the voltage at this point I have one idea. The center connector on the battery connector may not be touching the center connection on the attys. That contact point both on the battery and on the atty kind of floats. By soldering on the batt connector you may have moved this connection point without knowing it.

Does the atty tighten up very tight right away or does in gradually get tighter the more you tighten it? You can try inserting a safety pin in the atty air holes and gently force the center connection of the atty to extend very slightly beyond the barrel threads and see if this makes the atty work.

Just one idea.

Kevin

 

[GreyHawk]

First off thanks for the ideas.

I tried all above to no avail. Decided to hook the atty up to bare wire leads after the switch. Doing so produced nothing (though the multimeter still reads 4.98V). So I plugged a usb wire to my comp with bare wire leads coming out and touched those directly to the same atty and the sizzling was immediate.
Repeated this several times and each time the mod failed but the usb sizzled. So can there be something I'm missing? Amperage? Resistance? I'm at a loss.

 

[warp1900]

First off thanks for the ideas.

I tried all above to no avail. Decided to hook the atty up to bare wire leads after the switch. Doing so produced nothing (though the multimeter still reads 4.98V). So I plugged a usb wire to my comp with bare wire leads coming out and touched those directly to the same atty and the sizzling was immediate.
Repeated this several times and each time the mod failed but the usb sizzled. So can there be something I'm missing? Amperage? Resistance? I'm at a loss.

Your batteries seem to be dead unfortunately, I would still try to hook up the atty directly to one battery outside the mod. That would be the last test you can try to confirm what I suspect might be happening.

When it reads anything above 3.5 volts and it doesn't work, it means the battery is not supplying enough amperage.

That is not uncommon of Li-ions as far as I know.

Now, if connecting each individual battery to the atomizer works, it is obvious that something is wired wrong in your mod or the center post of the atomizer connector is not really making contact.

- - -

 

[a2dcovert]

I didn't see you comment if you have voltage at the battery connector. With no atomizer connected do you have voltage at the atty to batt connector?

Kevin

 

[GreyHawk]

Welp, Warp wins. Amperage it is.

Funny thing is I had tried all 6 different batteries and none worked. Until I tried Warp's suggestion and tried each individual battery and got results with 1. Apparently 5 of the 6 I have are low amp now. So thanks Warp and thanks to all who gave advice. I've learned quite a bit.

Now at least I know it's not my concept or soldering skills to blame. Not yet anyway.

Now to put the darned thing back together.

 

[Jason365]

I had the same thing happen to me with 1 week old protected cr123's....
Why the hell does this happen?

Jason