Hey Folks,
I've recently been diving in to the electronics side of ecig modding, and thought it would be nice to share some of the tips & tools I've found useful in prototyping a new mod. (note: I'm going to name names here, in terms of brands and suppliers, but I don't work for any of them, this is just what I've experienced)
Hardware:
Soldering Iron - this is a must. Get a nice bench soldering iron, the $20 ratshack one will do, but a controlled temp iron such as the ones sold by sparkfun are a world apart, and will bring joy and happiness to your soldering life. See: Hakko FX888 Soldering Station - SparkFun Electronics $100
Rotary Tool (aka dremel): another must. pick one up at a garage sale for maximum savings. You'll want cutoff discs, teeny tiny drill bits, and router bits. Goldmine electric has a lot of cheap stuff in the router bit department: Drills / Drill Bits-The Electronic Goldmine
Precision screwdrivers: Those ones that come in a little blue & clear plastic case will work but they're mostly crap. Get the ones that have nice big rubberized handles. I've got this one, and like it: http://........com/3mgrvsq
Dikes/diagonal cutters: at least two, one big, one small. You'll want to spend $10-15 on these new, to get a nice quality set. Cheaper ones will work, but probably won't cut as well.
Misc pliers: yadda yadda. some needle-nose, some blunt, for all your grabbing and twisting needs
Drill: for making holes! I like by 18v ryobi cordless. If you get a corded one, make sure it's a variable speed model, as many of them only have two speeds, "really fast" and "super fast". When you're drilling small stuff, you want to be able to go slowly. Obviously you'll want a set of bits for this as well.
Ok that's it for the boring stuff everyone already knows about, now for some stuff that's a bit more novel. When designing a vv mod, or just playing around to see what will work an how, the traditional way to do it is to use a breadboard. Get one! Sparkfun, Electronic Goldmine, and Digikey all sell acceptable versions.
BUT!
You can save yourself a lot of time and money by simulating things first. I'm not going to write a tutorial about using it, because there are a lot of them already there, but QUCS ( Qucs project: Quite Universal Circuit Simulator ) is a free, open source, and very powerful simulator for electronic circuits. You can play with resistor values, simulate different conditions, and see how much current will flow at what voltage, etc. I've even got it set to simulate changes in resistance as my atomizer heats up! tutorials for using it can be found here: Qucs project: documentation
Moving on...
So you want to make a crazy advanced mod, with lcd readouts, variable voltage, and moonrise calculator? Well, you can't do it using just resistors and capacitors! You could do it with a lot of transistors, but that would take up a lot of board space. What you really want is a microcontroller. There are two cheap options:
1) Arduino - $30+shipping, a lot of community support, a lot of tutorials, and lots of features. I wouldn't recommend using this in a final mod build due to size and complexity, but it's a good way to get started with microcontrollers. Once you've finalized your design you can scale down to a microcontroller that has only the things you need, and nothing else. Sparkfun carries many versions of it, but make *sure* you have the hardware needed to talk to whatever you buy. The standard version has a USB port, but the pro mini ($20) needs an FTDI breakout board to talk to it.
2) TI MSP430 Launchpad: MSP430 LaunchPad Value Line Development kit - MSP-EXP430G2 - TI Tool Folder
$4.30 shipped. fewer pins than an arduino (ATMega 168), but you can't beat the price. You will also be a lot closer to your "final" hardware and development environment if you start with this. Has a gui and some tutorials available, but not as comprehensive as what the arduino community has amassed. Also has a lot of low-power modes it can run in, so you can have your mod be constantly "on" and monitoring without draining your battery. Last test I saw, they estimated that in low-power mode, one of the msp430's could run for almost a decade on a *coin cell*. I haven't gotten a chance to actually play with one yet, mine's in the mail, but I expect great things. The launchpad comes with the usb hardware necessary to talk to the microcontroller, as well as plenty of prototyping space.
As a final note, gold mine electronics, linked above, has a lot of "weird" items that can prove entertaining, but beware of things like LCD modules from them, as it's frequently a bit hard to find datasheets, since the stuff they sell is surplus. That said, their "goldpaks" GoldPaks-The Electronic Goldmine are a great way to round out your parts bins on the cheap, if you don't have a surplus store available locally. Digikey is also nice, as I'm sure many of you know....and the makershed store has a lot of cool widgets as well. Their electronic component kits are actually rather cost-effective, although it might seem otherwise ( Maker SHED )
I've recently been diving in to the electronics side of ecig modding, and thought it would be nice to share some of the tips & tools I've found useful in prototyping a new mod. (note: I'm going to name names here, in terms of brands and suppliers, but I don't work for any of them, this is just what I've experienced)
Hardware:
Soldering Iron - this is a must. Get a nice bench soldering iron, the $20 ratshack one will do, but a controlled temp iron such as the ones sold by sparkfun are a world apart, and will bring joy and happiness to your soldering life. See: Hakko FX888 Soldering Station - SparkFun Electronics $100
Rotary Tool (aka dremel): another must. pick one up at a garage sale for maximum savings. You'll want cutoff discs, teeny tiny drill bits, and router bits. Goldmine electric has a lot of cheap stuff in the router bit department: Drills / Drill Bits-The Electronic Goldmine
Precision screwdrivers: Those ones that come in a little blue & clear plastic case will work but they're mostly crap. Get the ones that have nice big rubberized handles. I've got this one, and like it: http://........com/3mgrvsq
Dikes/diagonal cutters: at least two, one big, one small. You'll want to spend $10-15 on these new, to get a nice quality set. Cheaper ones will work, but probably won't cut as well.
Misc pliers: yadda yadda. some needle-nose, some blunt, for all your grabbing and twisting needs
Drill: for making holes! I like by 18v ryobi cordless. If you get a corded one, make sure it's a variable speed model, as many of them only have two speeds, "really fast" and "super fast". When you're drilling small stuff, you want to be able to go slowly. Obviously you'll want a set of bits for this as well.
Ok that's it for the boring stuff everyone already knows about, now for some stuff that's a bit more novel. When designing a vv mod, or just playing around to see what will work an how, the traditional way to do it is to use a breadboard. Get one! Sparkfun, Electronic Goldmine, and Digikey all sell acceptable versions.
BUT!
You can save yourself a lot of time and money by simulating things first. I'm not going to write a tutorial about using it, because there are a lot of them already there, but QUCS ( Qucs project: Quite Universal Circuit Simulator ) is a free, open source, and very powerful simulator for electronic circuits. You can play with resistor values, simulate different conditions, and see how much current will flow at what voltage, etc. I've even got it set to simulate changes in resistance as my atomizer heats up! tutorials for using it can be found here: Qucs project: documentation
Moving on...
So you want to make a crazy advanced mod, with lcd readouts, variable voltage, and moonrise calculator? Well, you can't do it using just resistors and capacitors! You could do it with a lot of transistors, but that would take up a lot of board space. What you really want is a microcontroller. There are two cheap options:
1) Arduino - $30+shipping, a lot of community support, a lot of tutorials, and lots of features. I wouldn't recommend using this in a final mod build due to size and complexity, but it's a good way to get started with microcontrollers. Once you've finalized your design you can scale down to a microcontroller that has only the things you need, and nothing else. Sparkfun carries many versions of it, but make *sure* you have the hardware needed to talk to whatever you buy. The standard version has a USB port, but the pro mini ($20) needs an FTDI breakout board to talk to it.
2) TI MSP430 Launchpad: MSP430 LaunchPad Value Line Development kit - MSP-EXP430G2 - TI Tool Folder
$4.30 shipped. fewer pins than an arduino (ATMega 168), but you can't beat the price. You will also be a lot closer to your "final" hardware and development environment if you start with this. Has a gui and some tutorials available, but not as comprehensive as what the arduino community has amassed. Also has a lot of low-power modes it can run in, so you can have your mod be constantly "on" and monitoring without draining your battery. Last test I saw, they estimated that in low-power mode, one of the msp430's could run for almost a decade on a *coin cell*. I haven't gotten a chance to actually play with one yet, mine's in the mail, but I expect great things. The launchpad comes with the usb hardware necessary to talk to the microcontroller, as well as plenty of prototyping space.
As a final note, gold mine electronics, linked above, has a lot of "weird" items that can prove entertaining, but beware of things like LCD modules from them, as it's frequently a bit hard to find datasheets, since the stuff they sell is surplus. That said, their "goldpaks" GoldPaks-The Electronic Goldmine are a great way to round out your parts bins on the cheap, if you don't have a surplus store available locally. Digikey is also nice, as I'm sure many of you know....and the makershed store has a lot of cool widgets as well. Their electronic component kits are actually rather cost-effective, although it might seem otherwise ( Maker SHED )
