I was having a blast with this cheap DX cigar until a week later when it stopped working from an overdose of juice. Until then, it was filling a room like a fog machine.
The culprit seemed to be the bathtub sized cartridge-
juice ran down throughout the cigar and finally messed up the electronics. So, here goes another inspection tour. First, the cheap paper glued to the plastic tube-
Then the electronics start to emerge from the ash cap end-
But the rest of it was stuck, so I had to split the tube with my trusty Swiss army knife-
The voltage of the Li-Ion cell was still up there-
The atomizer is HUGE, and theres nothing to stop juice from running down the entire cigar-
Looks like about three wraps of NiCr, which measured a mere 1.2 ohms. The wick flares and contacts the nickel foam surround on both ends-
The charger jack is a 1mm coaxial with shunt switch-
The inside/outside of the air switch looks like this, and dont ask me how it works, because I cant figure it out. Maybe the plate with the three holes moves away from the pcb surface on the right (inside the switch) and breaks contact between the semicircle traces on the outer edge, but with no spring, how does it return?-
I tore apart the air switch because I plan on a rebuild with a manual switch. To stop the juice from flowing past the atomizer, I found a straw to act as dam. I will silicone it in when I reassemble the cigar, and goop up the hole for the wires, also-
If anyone is interested in the electronics, I aligned a picture of both side of the pcb with the air switch removed, then flipped the right side of the image, so I could reverse engineer a schematic-
It all makes sense except the A pin on the IC. When the charger plug is engaged, the shunt wire is no longer grounded, and therefore disables the coil. But how can A be a positive input pin for charging and a 1 amp output pin for the coil when vaping? The chip seems to be a microcontroller because it blinks on low battery and shuts off on long hits. But, even if it has a built in mosfet to handle the coil current output, that shouldn't allow it to also handle high current input for recharging the battery on the same pin.
I probably won't be displaying the mod, duct tape isn't the prettiest sight in the world.
The culprit seemed to be the bathtub sized cartridge-
juice ran down throughout the cigar and finally messed up the electronics. So, here goes another inspection tour. First, the cheap paper glued to the plastic tube-
Then the electronics start to emerge from the ash cap end-
But the rest of it was stuck, so I had to split the tube with my trusty Swiss army knife-
The voltage of the Li-Ion cell was still up there-
The atomizer is HUGE, and theres nothing to stop juice from running down the entire cigar-
Looks like about three wraps of NiCr, which measured a mere 1.2 ohms. The wick flares and contacts the nickel foam surround on both ends-
The charger jack is a 1mm coaxial with shunt switch-
The inside/outside of the air switch looks like this, and dont ask me how it works, because I cant figure it out. Maybe the plate with the three holes moves away from the pcb surface on the right (inside the switch) and breaks contact between the semicircle traces on the outer edge, but with no spring, how does it return?-
I tore apart the air switch because I plan on a rebuild with a manual switch. To stop the juice from flowing past the atomizer, I found a straw to act as dam. I will silicone it in when I reassemble the cigar, and goop up the hole for the wires, also-
If anyone is interested in the electronics, I aligned a picture of both side of the pcb with the air switch removed, then flipped the right side of the image, so I could reverse engineer a schematic-
It all makes sense except the A pin on the IC. When the charger plug is engaged, the shunt wire is no longer grounded, and therefore disables the coil. But how can A be a positive input pin for charging and a 1 amp output pin for the coil when vaping? The chip seems to be a microcontroller because it blinks on low battery and shuts off on long hits. But, even if it has a built in mosfet to handle the coil current output, that shouldn't allow it to also handle high current input for recharging the battery on the same pin.
I probably won't be displaying the mod, duct tape isn't the prettiest sight in the world.
