Building a 5v passthrough, do I need voltage protectors, resistors, circuit board, etc?

[WageSlaveEscapist]

I'm building 510 passthroughs, so my question is can I just have a battery connector wired to a switch and that's it? Or do I need a voltage protection circuit, resistors, and such? How could I make/buy a voltage protector? What resistors would I need to add an led? Thanks much

 

[TomCatt]

If you are planning on powering them from a USB power supply, use a powered USB hub or a "wall wart"; the current supplied from a computer USB port isn't enough to vape with. With USB power, a battery connector wired to a switch is all you need.

 

[Gabe1291]

Pretty much yah, all you need is the switch and the connector. If you want an LED to show when it activates, you'll need a resistor for the LED, otherwise it's that straightforward. And if you use the USB section, do as TomCatt suggested, use a wall wart, just check the amp rating on the one you plan to use. A 500mA output wont provide enough power for most attys, but you can find ones with a 5 amp output pretty easily. Generally the ones that can charge an iPad will give you enough juice to work with. Trying to power it off you computer's ports can do some pretty serious damage to you motherboard since most are only rated for about 500 mA worth of current draw. The only reason you'd need protection built in is if you power it off the PSU's 5v rail like mine, I put an inline fuse to protect the PSU.

You can get complicated with them if you want, but the basic simple PT is a pretty straightforward little beast you can build for a few bucks. The most brutally simple to build PT I've seen yet was an old Ego a friend took the battery out of and soldered the wires from a dollar store USB cable to the battery inputs on, after drilling a hole in the bottom and running the cable up where the battery used to sit. He filled it full of hot glue, and pressed the switch assembly back onto the tube, lol