Helpful DIY ohm meter build

[SeaNap]

I wanted to share with everyone the ohm meter that I built, I find it very handy.

I bought the Ohm Meter Kit from mad vapes. This is just like those black box ohm-meter's that a lot of you have, but this is the DIY kit that has only loose components. This kit requires you to solder everything yourself. My torch came with a soldering tip attachment which is awesome for this, highly recommended. It is a PITA to solder the wire to the 510 connector.

Normally, the ohm meter would have two screw on connections; one for 510 connection and one for 901/808 connectors. I have no need for the 901 connector so what I did was solder the two long blue leads directly onto the circuit board and I took out the center pin of the 901 connector and fed the wires through that hole instead of actually soldering to the connector itself.

This allows me to build my coils while the RM2 is attached to the REO, and still get an accurate measurement. My DMM only had a .1 accuracy and it was off by .2ohm (the meter would read 1.0 when it was really 0.8) which was not cutting it for sub ohm vaping. This is very precise.

Best of all it can still be used like normal and you can screw the RM2 into it. As you can tell from the pics above and below there is a 0.010 error using the leads vs screwing it in.

This project took me about 4hrs while I was watching TV and being distracted by my wife, so you should be able to build this in a half hour if you put your mind to it and have a nice soldering iron. This idea was inspired by Sterno's doo-hicky for measuring battery voltage.

 

[JC Okie]

Well....pretty snazzy! Did it cost way less (as a kit) than one does ($20-$24) already put together? Just curious. I'm impressed, but I think that soldering is the final frontier that I'm going to skip..... At one time (way back in my eGo days before I found REOs) I sorta thought about it.....was going to get a MadVapes box mod kit and do it myself, but.....I successfully fought the urge and won.

 

[redeyedancer]

I like the lead wires very handy I always use my voltage meter but that is handy all in one tool thanks for sharing

 

[MamaTried]

pretty cool. if i had 2 working hands, i'd either do this or try to hack one of my pre-built ones. the leads to test the atty while still on the mod is a nice feature.

 

[SeaNap]

yeah, I'm no stranger to soldering electronics. Thats why I chose to buy the diy kit. The kit cost $15, but you can buy the premade ones for about $25. It would be much easier to just buy the premade and modify it, that would only consist of desoldering two wires from the 901 connection and soldering the longer leads onto them. Soldering wires together is much much much easier than soldering tiny wires onto the metal connectors.

I have two very nice (very expensive) multimeters, and the accuracy on both is actually quite terrible when it comes to measuring a tenth or hundredth of an ohm. I love my .45ohm coils and having an accuracy of +/- 0.1 just doesn't cut it for me. I also fell in love with the doohicky, how small and simple it was so I wanted to make something like that for ohms. Eventually I would like to use a small battery mounted directly to the back of the display and make it ultra portable.

 

[MamaTried]

yeah, I'm no stranger to soldering electronics. Thats why I chose to buy the diy kit. The kit cost $15, but you can buy the premade ones for about $25. It would be much easier to just buy the premade and modify it, that would only consist of desoldering two wires from the 901 connection and soldering the longer leads onto them. Soldering wires together is much much much easier than soldering tiny wires onto the metal connectors.

I have two very nice (very expensive) multimeters, and the accuracy on both is actually quite terrible when it comes to measuring a tenth or hundredth of an ohm. I love my .45ohm coils and having an accuracy of +/- 0.1 just doesn't cut it for me. I also fell in love with the doohicky, how small and simple it was so I wanted to make something like that for ohms. Eventually I would like to use a small battery mounted directly to the back of the display and make it ultra portable.

i think malkuth posted a link for just a meter he bought somewhere to build his own carto-meter, back when they were scarce. maybe that, plus a batt plus leads would make a nice ohm-hickey.

 

[SeaNap]

yea this is what I wanted to use, I'm sure its similar to malkuth's Ohm Meter Display and Control Board

 

[super_X_drifter]

Great idea Seanap . I just went to see if I could mod mine (cartotometer) like that and the board is attached and covered with what looks like silicone.

Any ideas?

 

[SeaNap]

I believe the cartometer gets its power from the battery, so if you wanted to make it portable you would need a powersource and an on/off switch. It's do able but it wont fit in that formfactor without some modification. I could be wrong about it tho, I don't own one, I'm just going off pic's. But if you had an old tube ecig, or ego, you could just use the ecig as the powersource and attatch the cartometer to that, THEN you could probably buy one of those 510 extender connections and solder the long leads to the connector. With everything said and done the only thing you "Modified" would be a cheep extender. That way could still just unscrew everything and use the cartometer just like how your using it now! ...Wow I just got real excited thinking about that, that may be the best way to do this.

I was thinking of using the display/circuit board meter in the link above and pair it with a 3V 1000mah CR2477 and a mini toggle switch.

I would love to see if you come up with any ideas, I really want to build a small portable ohm meter.

 

[SeaNap]

A poorly paint-shopped pic of what I'm talking about.

 

[Filthy-Beast]

Super,
you could butcher an atty by taking out the coil, then solder leads to center pin and case. Then it could be screwed on when you need leads instead of testing an atty.

SeeNap,
that would work and look cool.

 

[super_X_drifter]

Killer idea filthy. I have an RBA base that I will attach leads to and use the terminal screws to tighten them down then just screw it to the 510 and see how it rolls

That'll make it easy for us that like to build on the mod

 

[super_X_drifter]

Here it is. Works great. Pretty expensive though. I recommend using a cheap clone rather than an RM2.

 

[Filthy-Beast]

I'm curious did you cross the leads to see how much resistance is being added by the RM2 and the wires? It might not be enough to matter but you'll probably need to account for this when you take measurements.

 

[Filthy-Beast]

That works! I was thinking a cheap bridgeless atty but a cheap clone RBA would work great.

 

[super_X_drifter]

I'm curious did you cross the leads to see how much resistance is being added by the RM2 and the wires? It might not be enough to matter but you'll probably need to account for this when you take measurements.

It bounces between .03 and .05.

This is stranded wire that I I'm going to upgrade to single conductor insulated copper with soldered tips.

Question: do you know which terminal on RM2 is positive - is it the one over juice hole?

Thank you. Killer idea beast

The cool thing about using RM2 is you can just unscrew the leads and you've still got an awesome RBA

 

[Filthy-Beast]

the one closest to the drain hole is negative.

 

[Vapeaddikt]

Nice job been out for a few months busy with real life looks good.

 

[super_X_drifter]

I was wondering where you were dude. Need pix of the models, I mean, restaurant

 

[super_X_drifter]

Alright. 20 ga insulated copper (it's called 20/2 at Home Depot. Bought two feet for .51 including tax.

Now this old cartotometer is a beast (a filthy one).

The wire is semi rigid so it's easy to measure an RBA on the mod.

Bounces between .01 and .02 when I cross the leads.

Dig it. It'll get a lot more use now that I can use it without taking the RBA off the mod.

Thanks y'all.