First try making a mod box, and failed....help?

[c4ppucino]

Hello everyone,

New vaper here, just been vaping for about 2-3 weeks.

So I chatted with a vaping friend, and we came up with an idea of making a mod box that eliminate the use of a battery. Power would come from a DC PSU, naturally.

So I tried building a simple one. Just a simple power => potentiometer => switch => 510 connector. I'm planning on adding mosfet and V/A meter later on, as the parts I ordered haven't arrived. In the meantime, I built a very basic wiring, just to see if it will fire or not.

Well, as in the title, it failed, doesn't fire at all. This is the rough schematic that I use for the built:

The PSU I'm using is a 5V 10A DC, looks something like this:

Checked the wiring for shorts with DMM before plugging, everything was fine. Plugged to a power strip, and checked the voltage on the 510 connector, it was working properly. No push, no voltage, pushed, 4,90 something V. Screwed in a tank and an RDA, nothing... it just wouldn't fire. Tried with 0.5 something ohms, won't fire. Tried with 2 ohms, still won't fire.

Any help? I got the wiring diagram only from my imagination, so it's very likely that I missed something.

Thank you in advance.

 

[drmarble]

Just wiring a pot in series doesn't really work. Especially a 10k pot . You are stopping all current flow through the ~1 ohm resistance in the coil. All the voltage drop is in the pot. Build it without the pot and it should work. You might set fire to your atomizer but it will fire. You really need a voltage regulator in there to cut the voltage to a more reasonable 4.2 or so. Do lots more research before you injure yourself.

 

[MattyRetro]

I concur with dr marble. Check out the mast mod mini. Straight dc vaping.


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[c4ppucino]

Thank you for the replies.

Just wiring a pot in series doesn't really work. Especially a 10k pot . You are stopping all current flow through the ~1 ohm resistance in the coil. All the voltage drop is in the pot. Build it without the pot and it should work. You might set fire to your atomizer but it will fire. You really need a voltage regulator in there to cut the voltage to a more reasonable 4.2 or so. Do lots more research before you injure yourself.

So the culprit was the pot itself then. I removed the pot, and wired the polarities directly, and yeah, it fires. I'm using it whenever I'm working in my office now. The PSU itself got a +/- 10% voltage fine tuning through a small rheostat built-in, so I got between 4.5V to 5.5V to work with. 5.5V works well with my RTA tank at around 1 ohm (measured with DMM, not very accurate), and 4.5V is a tad too hot for my 0.5 ohm RBA.

I ordered a DC-DC buck circuit from ebay, but it's still on its way. There are a few stuffs on their way, but I'm just tired of waiting for them, so I thought I'd use a pot in the meantime, which turned out I can't.

I concur with dr marble. Check out the mast mod mini. Straight dc vaping.


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It's almost always out of stock, and when it's not, it's almost $100, isn't it? Mine costs a little above $20

 

[MattyRetro]

I was suggesting the mast mod so you could get some ideas on how he did it


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[LobsterGoD]

Hello everyone,

New vaper here, just been vaping for about 2-3 weeks.

Thank you in advance.

When i see that along with "i tried to build a box mod" i cringe a bit. Please please please do some more research and get a bit more vaping experience before you attempt to get your feet wet with building mods.
I'd hate to see you make an ignorant mistake and end up seriously injured and put off vaping for good.

If you really have your heart set on it, there are a couple threads in the modding forum that utilize the raptor 20a and 40a boards and also a few about the ptr08100w. Those boards can easily be modified to run as a passthrough and only run about $12-$23.

 

[yo han]

I ordered a DC-DC buck circuit from ebay, but it's still on its way. There are a few stuffs on their way, but I'm just tired of waiting for them, so I thought I'd use a pot in the meantime, which turned out I can't.

I sure hope the buck converter you've ordered can handle the load you're pulling.
Check my topic about a very cheap wired mod here. It's got all the parts listed as well.
It works great and the problem I'm describing there will be completely solved when using a metal case.