anyone know a way of testing the voltage on the batteries?

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Tumbleweed4829

Senior Member
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Aug 13, 2008
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ok I should have quoted....I'm not going nuts guys lol

I was trying to measure my atomizers and batteries going by this method. That is what I was talking about. :p

OK. here's a simple guide to check the coil in your atomizer.

First you need a multimeter set to the lowest ohms(Ω) setting, as you can see in photo 1 the lowest setting on this meter is 200ohms. Any cheap meter will do, your local hardware store should have them. I would advise a digital meter like the one shown in the photo as there is an art to reading the analog ones.

Photo 1.
Multimetersetto200ohms.jpg


Now you have your meter set to ohms you are ready to start. Take your atomizer and look at the end that mates to the battery, you should notice that it seems to have a raised part in the middle and a silver rim on the outer, these are the terminals that mate up to there oposite counterparts on the baterry and make the connection. Now you have identified your terminals you can take you first probe and hold it in the centre (you can use the hole in the middle as a guide if you find it easier). While holding your centre probe in place take your second probe and hold it to the outer metal rim. You should now have something that looks like photo 2.

Photo 2.
Atomizerwithprobes.jpg


As you can see in photo 2 this atomizer has a resistance of 3.5, the two main things to look for when fault finding are open circuit and closed circuit. An open circuit is when there is a break in the wires inside the atomizer which literaly breaks the circuit and stops the heater coil from getting any power, if this happens you could try to strip it and re-solder the break but this may prove to be too difficult. A closed circuit means that the two terminals have somehow connected to each other inside the atomizer and are bypassing the heating coil completely. This can be bad if you connect it to your battery as it could cause your chip to blow rendering the battery useless. Photo 3 shows what you will see if the atomizer is open circuit.

Photo 3.
OpenCircuit.jpg


Photo 4 shows what you will see if your atomizer is short circuit, if you see this avoid connecting this to a battery as you risk damaging it if you havent already. Also it's a good thing to remember even though lithium batteries are a good source of power they don't respond well to being shorted out or being punctured as they can catch fire in those situations.

Photo 4.
Shortcircuit.jpg


Tip: after using a multi meter make sure you don't leave it set to ohms, the reason being next time you use the meter you could be testing volts and forget it is set to ohms, doing this will cause your meter to either pop its internal safty diode (commonly referred to as an "idiot diode") or if it's a good meter it will have a fuse that will need replacing.
 

BarryK

Senior Member
ECF Veteran
Oct 6, 2008
138
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Essex ENGLAND
Ah So - thanks for that, it makes sense now.......

"On a few of my atomizers I get a fluctuating number (no clue what that means)"

I'd say the fluctuations are due to either a bad connection to the coil (inside the atomiser) - in which case it's probably not repairable.
OR,
(and most likely, I think) you're not making good electrical contact between the probes of the meter and the atomiser battery terminals, Try cleaning up the probe tips & the atomiser terminals with a liittle fine emery cloth or wet&dry paper.

"I tried checking my battery and it broke it by blowing into the led end"

Unless you've got the lungs of a Sherpa, I'd doubt that you could damage the little diaphragm switch by blowing through it, the switch was probably faulty - you just finished it off.

I managed to totally destroy one of my atomisers by pushing 30 psi up it, from my air compressor - totally not recommended - but it was a kill or cure remedy, anyway - unfortunately, this time it killed - well, that's my story & I'm sticking to it...:rolleyes:
 
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