Hi
I am in the UK so Lowes etc is beyond me.
I work as a self employed heating engineer and 10 weeks ago (4th of July) I was lucky enough to be knocked off my bicycle in central London by a hit and run driver. This dislocated my left shoulder which wasn't nice but to my horror it also damaged the nerves running from my shoulder all the way down to my hand, leaving me effectively one armed. This has meant that I have lost 100% of my income as I am unable to work. My consultant surgeon has recently told me that he expects me to make a full recovery but with nerve damage, recovery time is always measured in months. I will consider myself fortunate if I have a usable hand and arm back within 6 months.
In the meantime, and getting back to the subject, I need to earn a living. Employment prospects in the UK are not great at the moment. If you are 49 with an injury, they are non existent. So, I need to do something.
For those with little knowledge of the UK we are practically bankrupt, we produce nothing and need to borrow billions annually to stay afloat. We have a patently insane, unelected Scottish prime minister, in fact most of the government seem to be Scottish. They all seem hell bent on destroying England, a country that they clearly hate. As a side issue we are also the most surveilled country in the world,, we represent 1% of the population but have 20% of the worlds CCTV's cameras. Our politicians routinely steal public money through fraudulent expense claims and not only do not get sentenced to prison, but are not even required to resign.
I have been using a PV for a year now and like most people, have spent a lot of money on under-powered and ineffective e-cigs. I have drawers full of dead 901 batteries and cheap e-cigs from China that never really worked at all.
I then saw the screwdriver and bought one. It seemed obvious to me that this was the way to go and was initially very happy with it. Then the switch started to intermittently fail. I contacted the suppliers asking for a replacement switch-end be sent out and I would send the broken one back by return - I had no backup you see and am not willing to go back to real cigarettes for however long it took for the SD to be repaired. Anyway, they were not willing to do this but were willing to sell me a switch for about £10 plus £2 postage for a 40p stamp. Somewhat disgusted I searched the internet and found this forum, which got me thinking about making a temporary machine to use while the SD was being repaired.
So, with the info I've gleaned from this and other sites I started making my own crappy box mods and was surprised to find that they all worked just as well as the SD if not better. OK, they aren't pretty but who cares?
My current effort is a 4 * AA battery box with a switch. Now, as everyone here knows if you run 3 AA's in series you will get a pretty decent vaping machine. The total cost of this? about £2 for the box, an LED and a hacked about DC jack recessed into the box. With 5.5 volts at 2500mah it knocks spots off just about everything else, plus you can use it as a torch.
Flushed with this success I had a closer look at my SD. What is it exactly? it's a battery holder with a switch and an atty connector. It is not a cure for cancer yet for some reason it is lauded as if the manufacturers were personally responsible for the development of PV's. It is a bit of metal that has been turned on a lathe. I don't wish to sound arrogant, but some of the mods I've seen here are easily the equal of the SD, many are better.
I then had a look at sourcing the materials to make a, lets call it a battery compartment or BC, the metals are cheap. Use brass, aluminium, copper - whatever you like. The switches can be bought for as little as 40 pence inclusive of postage and taxes. Nice looking, chunky things rated at 16A and shouldn't break and if they did certainly would not cost £10 plus £2 P&P to replace.
The engineery involved in making a BC is not ground breaking. A lathe, a set of taps and dies, a pillar drill, a multimeter, a soldering iron and normal household tools and you're set. If you want, you can go mad and offer anodising, battery extensions, multiple volt ratings, or, as I have recently read a screw on vibrating end (good idea). So, not too difficult then ....
With one exception, the atomiser connector.
If you look at a couple of 901 atomisers it is immediately obvious that the manufacturing tolerances were quite generous. Cutting a DC jack down so it makes contact with your test atty does not mean it is guaranteed to work with any other. This however is an easy problem to solve but what is not quite so easy is solving the centre electrode issue. First I need the widget that makes contact and I can't be using nails or blobs of solder etc. It has to be something that can quickly and permanently be attached to a wire. Insulation from the outer part of the connector is quite easy, but then you have the issue of either using tube and filling the centre with resin or whatever or using solid bars and then drilling through to accommodate the electrode.
So, this is my outstanding issue.
And before anyone throws their hands up in horror, flaming yet another get-rich-quick wannabe. Let me just say again, I am injured and have lost 100% of my income. Until I have recovered I need to be doing something useful and to earn a living. If I made 2 or 3 of these a day then I could do both.
