Amperage of atomizer coil

[chief druid]

no mr kina . it will be battery .... i'm useless with this stuff but the way i'm planning on doing it .. most of the hard work has been done for me .. i just got to put the finishing touches on it lol .... really wish some one would kick me up the bottom to make me start doing this mod .... and a heap of 510 atomisers wold be nice so i wouldnt kill mine lol ... i figure the more power the less of a draw you need ..

 

[mogur]

Seems like if the USB pumps out both 5 volts and 1+ amps, the atomizers are ripe for early failure. I think most USB passthroughs work poorly when there is only 500ma available (or less), and those that can produce a full 1 amp are hard on the atomizers. But that's just a guess on my part.

Depends on the atomizer type and a bit of luck Mostly it will depend on what the voltage actually is across the coil; this will go down considerably if the supply is batteries but might well stay high if from a desktop power-supply or usb.

edit (add): oh, not as high as i thought.

"The internal resistance of a typical lithium-ion cell is around 320 mOhm when new, compared to less than 100 mOhm for a NiCd cell, and it increases with both cycling and chronological age" (wikipedia)

So at 1A the voltage lost would only be perhaps 0.5V

 

[kinabaloo]

Grin, I'm such a noob, I don't even know the terms VG or PG. I assume PG is propyleneglycol, is VG glycerine? Aren't most juices propylene glycol, glycerine, and a little water? If so, and if my memory reaches back to college chem, the boiling point of a tertiary volatile solution approaches the boiling point of the solution with the lowest boiling point, in this case, water. But this is all conjecture, do you have a blister size to temperature conversion chart or formula?

True. Exogenesis posted a VG/water chart somewhere; that tallies wit the figure you mentioned earlier.

Can you test passing a current through a sample of juice? (see edit to one of my posts above)

 

[mogur]

Quite astute, my friend. So, add a little salt to the juice, toss that wimpy coil, and just embed two electrodes into the juice solution. Hmmm, a kite, a key, and a lightning storm. Or maybe a beer, first.

I have a possible solution - the solution

That is, extra current flows through the juice and some electrolysis takes place - eek, if true! We'd be talking circa 0.3A and that's a lot! (too high a value to be feasible almost, but the theory would explain the facts)

This might be a very interesting discovery with major implications.

Some might say that the nichrome is electrically insulated by an oxide film; perhaps. But the electrolytic current could be flowing from solder joint to solder joint, if the atty is semi/slightly-flooded; it would explain why so much tin is leeched and gets into the coil deposit(?)

 

[kinabaloo]

Seems like if the USB pumps out both 5 volts and 1+ amps, the atomizers are ripe for early failure. I think most USB passthroughs work poorly when there is only 500ma available (or less), and those that can produce a full 1 amp are hard on the atomizers. But that's just a guess on my part.

Basically, yes, true.

 

[kinabaloo]

no mr kina . it will be battery .... i'm useless with this stuff but the way i'm planning on doing it .. most of the hard work has been done for me .. i just got to put the finishing touches on it lol .... really wish some one would kick me up the bottom to make me start doing this mod .... and a heap of 510 atomisers wold be nice so i wouldnt kill mine lol ... i figure the more power the less of a draw you need ..

I mostly used 4.8V NiH batteries in my testing, which is plenty; 3.6v worked well enough.

Why you want/need to use 7.2v ? Use the space saved for a nice design perhaps (assuming you intent 2cells of 3.6v in series).

 

[mogur]

Unfortunately, I am out of the electronics business and have relatively primitive tools here at home. I can rig up a really cheesy high voltage AC supply, but would be hard pressed to rectify or even smoothly control it. But you certainly have given me some food for thought, and I will try to do some research. Cheers, my friend.

True. Exogenesis posted a VG/water chart somewhere; that tallies wit the figure you mentioned earlier.

Can you test passing a current through a sample of juice? (see edit to one of my posts above)

 

[kinabaloo]

Unfortunately, I am out of the electronics business and have relatively primitive tools here at home. I can rig up a really cheesy high voltage AC supply, but would be hard pressed to rectify or even smoothly control it. But you certainly have given me some food for thought, and I will try to do some research. Cheers, my friend.

Can you not just use the same supply you used when doing the voltage and current readings.

 

[kinabaloo]

Just realised I have my calculatons upside down before

The resistance of the coil seeming to have gone up means the current was lower than expected not higher - so we can forget about electrolysis! silly me

 

[kinabaloo]

here is what I found with proper execution-

3.09v @ .66a gave fair vapes
3.90v @ .85a gave good vapes
~4.80v @ 1.05a gave great vapes for about a sec and a half, then fried the atomizer, with the voltage instantly flipping to the 5.07 nominal volts of my breadboard supply. Acrid, burned taste at that instant. Obviously, the juice breaks down into something nasty at those temperatures. Lucky I started at the lower voltages, and grabbed a couple measurements, because I'm going to have to wait on my next order to continue.

Calculated resistance is still a mystery. How can a 3.5 ohm NiChrome coil jump up to almost 5 ohms when heated?

3.09v / .66a = 4.68 ohms
3.90v / .85a = 4.59 ohms
~4.80v / 1.05a = ~4.57 ohms

You measured the current one time and the voltage another time, or used 2 meters?

 

[kender]

I do agree kinabaloo, That temp reading was mostly air flow in the atomizing chamber.

 

[mogur]

Two different times, and I see your point, but I think it is still solid, because the amperage was always constant, regardless of my lame ... jumpers, and I don't really think the voltage measurement threw off the current measurement. When the bad connections were compromising the voltage measurement, the current remained absolutely identical. I think the current remained the same (since the power supply is rated at two amps), and the difference between experiments is that the second put all the voltage across the coil, instead of spreading it amongst the crappy connections. But, I will attempt a better protocol when I have fresh atts to sacrifice.

You measured the current one time and the voltage another time, or used 2 meters?

 

[kinabaloo]

Must be an error somewhere - otherwise we're in the twilight zone

 

[mogur]

I meant to say earlier, kender, that is a great observation (your temp reading), thank you. I thought of doing the exact same thing. Of course, the free air temp would be much higher, but I don't know vaporization temps, so temps don't mean much to me. Could you throw your tiny K thermocouple in a tiny sample of juice and heat it up until it vapes? It would be a sacrifice for science. And a real nerdy thing to do.

I do agree kinabaloo, That temp reading was mostly air flow in the atomizing chamber.

 

[kinabaloo]

The coil could be designed to cut-off before getting too hot/when dry. The dry residue will still have formed but it might be possible to stop it burning. Might still need a way to override the cut-off for burning-off purposes though, while depoit-free juices are not around.

What might happen in this scenario, however, because of partial fractional distillation, is that an ever-increasing amount of VG is left on the coil; then vapor production would tail-off.

 

[mogur]

You mean the VG is the sickly sweet crap I taste? I want more tobacco(sp?) flavor and less ice cream. Okay, I can't spell, but what you are talking about is a micro. Feedback from the atomizer is required. And maybe temperature. But possibly this is overkill, as RjG has eloquently said, "the further you get from the designed atomizer specs, the worse it becomes" (or some such statement).

The coil could be designed to cut-off before getting too hot/when dry. The dry residue will still have formed but it might be possible to stop it burning. Might still need a way to override the cut-off for burning-off purposes though, while depoit-free juices are not around.

What might happen in this scenario, however, because of partial fractional distillation, is that an ever-increasing amount of VG is left on the coil; then vapor production would tail-off.

 

[kinabaloo]

You mean the VG is the sickly sweet crap I taste? I want more tobacco(sp?) flavor and less ice cream. Okay, I can't spell, but what you are talking about is a micro. Feedback from the atomizer is required. And maybe temperature. But possibly this is overkill, as RjG has eloquently said, "the further you get from the designed atomizer specs, the worse it becomes" (or some such statement).

That was in relation to coil construction.

The resistance change with temperature is ver small but the change in current could be measured with no need for an extra data 'wire'.

The big choice as I see it is: solve the juice problem re dry deposits and find a good replacement for VG, or replace heater coils with piezo misters.

 

[mogur]

But piezo misters are cold. I don't want nipple clamps and kites. At least not every day. Just a tazer. And a juice electrolysing atomizer. Okay, no more rum for me, steriods are for losers. Like me. And the girl next to me.

That was in relation to coil construction.

The resistance change with temperature is ver small but the change in current could be measured with no need for an extra data 'wire'.

The big choice as I see it is: solve the juice problem re dry deposits and find a good replacement for VG, or replace heater coils with piezo misters.

 

[kinabaloo]

Needn't be. There are ways around that. Burp.

 

[mogur]

Do i need to apologize? If not, then sorry about my lame ... posts. Anyway, I am trying to recharge the camera batteries. I tried to heat the atomizer with a lighter and disassemble. Didn't work. After filing for a half-hour, it finally came apart. Just as RjG showed us, it is wrapped in the foamy metal. I'm stopping here until the camera is ready. Stupid metal hydrides. I would like to show you guys (again) what the 901 atomizer looks like. As RjG said, the idiots in China are not idiots. That atomizer is well designed. Any deviation from their design tends to degrade its performance. We need kinabaloo's electrolysis device, high freq ultrasound, or my laser fired atomizer for a breakthrough. I cant even measure volts correctly, I'm sure the real labs tried most everything out before releasing it to the pubic. I mean public. Well, tomorrow, after lawn mowing, I am all over this.

PS If you put a manual switch in there, all bets are off. It's up to you then to keep from over-discharging the battery. If you apply too many volts and/or amps, the coil will fry. You can get away with 6 volts, maybe. But not 6 volts and 1 amp. One of the two (volts or amps) needs to be limited.