does anyone have a guide to build an atomizer?

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j0ker

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Jason365

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steps for a home made atty

buy aluminum tubing, diameter is up to you
buy ceramic wire nut that fits in tubing
buy 36g nichrome wire
buy silica rope
pillage connector from used atty to connect to battery

Drill 2 holes in wire nut one on each side of wide opening
drill 1 hole in the bottom of the wire nut for air flow
wrap nicrome 6 or 7 times around piece of silica rope. got me 3 ohms.
bend ends of nichrome and ends of 24 g wire around each other
blob some lead free solder on these connections
stick your coil in the wire nut and run wire out the sides
solder other ends of wire to connector from pillaged atty
jam all this in the aluminum tubing and connect to battery.
juice it up and get some sweet vape.

:thumbs:
 

skywalk

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Dec 31, 2009
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Malaysia
steps for a home made atty

buy aluminum tubing, diameter is up to you
buy ceramic wire nut that fits in tubing
buy 36g nichrome wire
buy silica rope
pillage connector from used atty to connect to battery

Drill 2 holes in wire nut one on each side of wide opening
drill 1 hole in the bottom of the wire nut for air flow
wrap nicrome 6 or 7 times around piece of silica rope. got me 3 ohms.
bend ends of nichrome and ends of 24 g wire around each other
blob some lead free solder on these connections
stick your coil in the wire nut and run wire out the sides
solder other ends of wire to connector from pillaged atty
jam all this in the aluminum tubing and connect to battery.
juice it up and get some sweet vape.

:thumbs:

thanks, thats awesome! but do you happen to have any pics?
 
steps for a home made atty

buy aluminum tubing, diameter is up to you
buy ceramic wire nut that fits in tubing
buy 36g nichrome wire
buy silica rope
pillage connector from used atty to connect to battery

Drill 2 holes in wire nut one on each side of wide opening
drill 1 hole in the bottom of the wire nut for air flow
wrap nicrome 6 or 7 times around piece of silica rope. got me 3 ohms.
bend ends of nichrome and ends of 24 g wire around each other
blob some lead free solder on these connections
stick your coil in the wire nut and run wire out the sides
solder other ends of wire to connector from pillaged atty
jam all this in the aluminum tubing and connect to battery.
juice it up and get some sweet vape.

:thumbs:


i second that request, i live in Mexico and its also hard (expensive)to get attys here, it would rock to only buy batteries and juice to vape with my Chuck, something more elaborated would be VERY VERY appreciated, specially since i know nothing about electronics but i can take a guide to my friends and work something out...
 

Stephan Real

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Nov 18, 2009
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I don't have url or pic post priviliges yet so this is rather long-winded, but here's a solid guide none the less:


1. Buy some very thin (30gauge), pre-stripped wire leads in a plastic tube bottle. I got mine from Fry's Electronics for $5 for 100 and I use 1 per atty.
2. Get a 45 watt + soldering iron thats rated for high temp applications.
3. Buy high percentage silver based solder. Make sure thats its lead free and has a high melting point. (I am currently using 96% silver 4% tin).
4. Buy a bit of non spill, Rosin soldering paste flux that is mixed in a petroleum jelly base.
5. Get a hold of some sort of mini-heat sink type metal clamps to hold parts steady while soldering.g
6. Buy a bit of 36gauge NiChrome wire.
7. Get a pair of mini needle nose electrical pliers that should be no longer than 5inches or so with tweezer ends that are sturdy, yet can fit about half way down the tube of an atty. Also locate a very sharp, yet very small pair of scizzors that is good for cutting off ends of all this small gauge wiring with ease.
8. Buy a Zippo Wick from the smoke shop or liqour store.
9. Take apart a dead atty by screwing it into an old/dead battery and clamping the base of the tube, just above where the base of the atty fits into the tube, with a pair of needle nose plires, slowly turning and working the base back and forth, gently untill the tube starts to free itself from the base.
The objective here is to work the tube off slowly, without bending or warping it at all, so that you can press, or glue, the tube back onto the base later.
10. Find the best way to pull out the innards of the atty from the tube without damaging any of the inside parts. All attys are different here, and you must play this step by feel. Some times I use my pliers to remove the bridge first, then press the innards out of the bottom of the tube with a wooden dowel or screw head. Some times I just pull the base end by the wire leads and the insides just slide out.
11. Carefuly peel away all of the metal mesh surrounding the ceramic cup with the intent of reassembling it back on later. Make carefull note of how every piece forms around the cup so you can put it all back together later.
12. Use the pliers to remove the old leads from the cup and base, along with the old coil and and much of the old solder blobs as you can get.
13. Cut out around 2 inches of NiChrome wire and twist one end around the the end of the piece of new wire lead. I wrap the nichrome around the lead 4x or so then work the twist down as close to the end of the plastic wire coating as I can. You are going to have a boat load of excess slack in both the nichrome and the lead wire, but it doesn't matter cuase you will use your scizzors to cutt off all the excess when your done soldering.
14. Prime the tip of your soldering iron and "pick up" a vey small glob of soldering with the tip and "take it to" the joint and just keep working the glob untill you make a sturdy joint with as little bit of solder as possible. I find that the more dirty and oxidized your soldering tip the better (this is completely opposite from what you should do in most soldering applications), becuase you want the solder to cling to the tip moreso than the joints so that you can just 'brush' on minute amounts of solder. Trip the excess wire and solder as close as you can whilst still maintaing the integrity of the joint.
15. Cut the lead down the middle and twist the opposite end of the NiChrome to the second half of the lead. Solder and trip up that end untill you are left with a mini pair of wire Nunchauks: you want the length of NiChrome in the middle to be as close to 1.25 to 1.5inches as possible.
16. Cut about 3/4th an inch off of a Zippo Wick, and carefully remove the copper wire, and the cotton threading, which leaves behind a portion of 100% silica fiber. I fold this 3/4th inch length of fiber in half, doubling it upon itself before wrapping the nichrome coil around said fiber.
17. Strip off a tiny bit of plastic from your newly cut ends of the lead wires and feed your new leads through the holes in the cups. Eye up your coil to make sure that it is going to fit inside the ceramic cup and re-wrap the coil if needed. Try to make your coil as snug as possible without letting any of the NiChrome wrap or lap back upon itself.
18. If your atty has a plastic plug with a hole down the middle thread your leads through this first before soldering the ends of the leads onto the center and outer posts of the atty base. Clamp your base steady while you do this bit of soldering, and coat the leads and the base with the flux first, melting it off to clean them up well. You will have to preheat the atty base significantly to make a solid joint here. Again use as little solder as possible and be carefull to not make a soldered glob that connects both posts as this will ruin the atty. Working with silver here is extremely difficult, but is easy to master. Quickly glob on the solder to the joint and remove the iron while holding the pieces of the joint as steady as possible for 10 seconds or so untill the glob completely cools. Silver will not adhere untill it resolidifies completely. If the joint doesn't hold simply remelt the solder and try again. Unlike rosin core solder, you can keep remelting the same glob of silver over and over and it will always make a strong joint.
Another note: if you want to vape on an automatic battery then you must make sure you do not block off any bit of the middle hole with solder!! If you vape on manual bats only then this isn't an issue.
19. Let everything cool down for a minute and wet the coil with a bit of juice and screw the end on a working manual battery to test your pre-assembled atty.
20. If the coil makes good vapor then rewrap all the mesh back around and underneath the cup. On this step I usually take a tiny sharp object like a nail and re-bore my own hold down the middle of the mesh underneath the cup. You want all the air that you drawn to come through the middle of the atty and NOT around the sides of the cup so do whatever you can to make the cup a tight fit in the tube. (I take the excess wicking silica material and fold it down over the mesh here before reinserting the cup into the tube). I am an exclusive dripper so I do not even reassemble the atty bridge on my referbished attys. If you want to use carts you will have to place the bridge back on and coat it with mesh or silica wick before inserting the cup into the atty tube.
21. Pull on the leads gently from the base end to make sure your coil fits snugly down into the cup, then rework the tube back onto the base and press it down. Some attys will require some adhesive on this step to make a firm fit.
22. Test the atty one more time without putting your mouth on it and if it vapes then the last step is to soak and clean the atty through some warm Diet Soda, then blowing it out and leaving it to dry for a few hours before breaking it in. This cleaning step is important as flux and solder residue is extremely toxic and foul tasting. The carbonic and phosphoric acid in the soda will clean all of it out of the atty fairly quickly.
 

Stephan Real

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Nov 18, 2009
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At first, I found it very hard to rebuild an atty. But now after about 10 or so the entire process only takes me about 10 mins, prep time and clean up included.
To top it all off once you get all the materials, you can keep rebuilding the same attys over and over again for zero cost save time and effort. More often than not my home brew attys vape better, heat up faster, vape warmer, taste better and last longer than any new atty i've owned.
 

Stephan Real

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Nov 18, 2009
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I would not suggest using a 4+ ohm atty at all.. even with 6volts.
I have experiemented with 4+ ohm atomizers on my 6+ volt 'The Copper' (best bat mod ever btw), and I have found that time and time again you will always end up just wasting battery life.
You should either vape shorter or lighter with a 2.8 to 3.6 ohm atty, put in a resistor on your bat that will lower the voltage to around 5, or do what I do and throw more silica in the atty around the cup or below/above the bridge or the cup and increase the center hole size through the mesh that lies under the cup. The last option will lead to a cooler vape that doesn't give off that burned taste so quickly.
Simply increasing the percentage of VG to PG in your juice blends will also make high voltage vapes taste better and less burned.

The next time I break out the atomizer building junk I'll take pictures to accompany my instructions. It is amazing how just a $25 investment in parts and tools can give you the ability to rebuild atomizers indefinately. If a ban comes our way it won't stop me from vaping indefinately, at least untill something better comes along.

If for some reason you must absolutely have a 4+ ohm atty, then just get 38gauge wire and use about 25% less of it.
 
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