How to: Build the Puck
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You can measure it anywhere in the circuit. The voltage will be the same everywhere. If you can't get at the atty connector leads then the +/- terminals will work like Puck said. On some test units I run a couple wires out for easy measuring. I've had my eye out for a little jack to plug the 2 meter legs into so I can put a jack on each PV and use one meter.
I get a voltage drop of around .6-.8v
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Is that for this NiMH unit? With what atty?
Using a TF 18650 and a Joye atty I drop about 0.4V.
I have also taken to testing my mods for total resistance. This will help to determine if my wire gauge, switches and solder connections are good.
No. What I explained earlier is under load when you press the button. The two contacts on the back or bottom of the atty is where you want to put your voltmeter probes. When you have them on there, hit the vape button. Pressing the button puts the circuit under load.
Also measure at the positive and negative side of the battery (at the slide switch is the negative, touch the opposite batteries positive contact for the positive), "while you are pressing the vape button". This will measure the voltage at the battery source under load and will eliminate the wires and such out of the picture.
If your two values come up widely different, you have a wiring or other problem. It could even be as simple as your vape switch not making good contact causing the problem. I've had that happen also.
Let me know what you find.
This is all under load when you press your vape button.
To The Puck:
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I am a self proclaimed "futzer" (<-sp?) and after reading your post, had to give this a try myself. I went to my local rat shack and of course, they were out of the 4 aaa battery box. Not to be deterred and taking your post as inspiration, I picked up the following:
The results of my 1 1/2 hr build are below. While not a true puck, it is truly inspired by you! Thanks for your informative post as now I have my very first mod.
(PS... I would've taken shots with the batteries installed and LED on, but I have been vaping away on this champ and they're charging as we speak.)
Sub-par cell phone picts attached below
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I am a self proclaimed "futzer" (<-sp?) and after reading your post, had to give this a try myself. I went to my local rat shack and of course, they were out of the 4 aaa battery box. Not to be deterred and taking your post as inspiration, I picked up the following:
- The smallest project box they had that would fit 4 aaa bateries in a holder.
- The 4 aaa holder, of course!
- 5mm Yellow LED
- 5mm LED holders
- 470 ohm 1/8w resistor (More than enough per online LED resistor calculators)
- 3a 125v switch (I opted for a smaller sized switch as I wanted a top mount)
- 4 aaa NiMH rechargeables and charger
- 510 connector (salvaged from a j108 auto battery)
- JB Kwik (already had...love the stuff!)
- Small round velcro stickers to secure battery holder and pad the bottom side posts in project box
The results of my 1 1/2 hr build are below. While not a true puck, it is truly inspired by you! Thanks for your informative post as now I have my very first mod.
(PS... I would've taken shots with the batteries installed and LED on, but I have been vaping away on this champ and they're charging as we speak.)
Sub-par cell phone picts attached below
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To The Puck:
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I am a self proclaimed "futzer" (<-sp?) and after reading your post, had to give this a try myself. I went to my local rat shack and of course, they were out of the 4 aaa battery box. Not to be deterred and taking your post as inspiration, I picked up the following:
- The smallest project box they had that would fit 4 aaa bateries in a holder.
- The 4 aaa holder, of course!
- 5mm Yellow LED
- 5mm LED holders
- 470 ohm 1/8w resistor (More than enough per online LED resistor calculators)
- 3a 125v switch (I opted for a smaller sized switch as I wanted a top mount)
- 4 aaa NiMH rechargeables and charger
- 510 connector (salvaged from a j108 auto battery)
- JB Kwik (already had...love the stuff!)
- Small round velcro stickers to secure battery holder and pad the bottom side posts in project box
The results of my 1 1/2 hr build are below. While not a true puck, it is truly inspired by you! Thanks for your informative post as now I have my very first mod.
(PS... I would've taken shots with the batteries installed and LED on, but I have been vaping away on this champ and they're charging as we speak.)
Sub-par cell phone picts attached below
View attachment 27299 View attachment 27300 View attachment 27298
Wow, really looks great. You did a really neat job on it.
That is the same box and battery holder I used on the Puck Cruiser. Great minds think alike
Now that you have that built and running, check out the Puck Cruiser. It has a pump bottle and you never have to drip drops into the cartridge. One pump and the cartridge is refilled completely full with removing the cartridge tip. You are already 90% there for the Puck Cruiser.Here is the link... The Puck Cruiser Post
Puck I just wanted to extend my sincere thanks to you for posting this tutorial, I have never made a mod or even attempted to solder until i found this thread.
I have made a 4 AA battery box version of your mod with a 510 connection and 3ml top feeder similar in design to the Mr puffer, everything is working great and this baby vapes like a champ using Duracell Nimh batts
Thank you for an easy to follow tutorial, Im now the proud owner of a 4.8 volt top fed box mod
Neon.
I have made a 4 AA battery box version of your mod with a 510 connection and 3ml top feeder similar in design to the Mr puffer, everything is working great and this baby vapes like a champ using Duracell Nimh batts
Thank you for an easy to follow tutorial, Im now the proud owner of a 4.8 volt top fed box mod
Neon.
I have a new design coming up soon. It will still use 4 NiMH AAA batteries. It basically is still a Puck but a totally new design with different style battery boxes. I'm working on it now in my spare time and will post a full tutorial like I did with the original Puck. There is a couple of small things I need to work out but it is coming along nicely. Be on the lookout
Excellent, Mr. Puck! Of course I just got back from Radio Shack with parts to build the original version (it will be my first mod).
They did not have any 500-ohm resistors so I got 470-ohm. Part number 271-1317 470 ohm 1/4W 5% Carbon Film Resistor pk/5 - RadioShack.com
I got green 5mm LEDs, part # 276-0022 5mm Green LED - RadioShack.com
Specs are 3.0 VDC-20mA-40mcd. I chose the lowest mAh option that was 5mm in size.
Can you please confirm if these are compatible parts? TIA!
They did not have any 500-ohm resistors so I got 470-ohm. Part number 271-1317 470 ohm 1/4W 5% Carbon Film Resistor pk/5 - RadioShack.com
I got green 5mm LEDs, part # 276-0022 5mm Green LED - RadioShack.com
Specs are 3.0 VDC-20mA-40mcd. I chose the lowest mAh option that was 5mm in size.
Can you please confirm if these are compatible parts? TIA!
Those parts will do just fine. You are well on your way to building your first mod. Enjoy
Hi Puck,
I was looking at your Puck and decided to build one yesterday. Turned out very well, and your directions were great! However, I've run into a problem, not a huge one, but one nonetheless. I'm experiencing a voltage drop of 5.1 to around 3.3 at the atomizer under load. I'm thinking this is too great of a drop. However, I'm really not sure what could be causing such a problem. The wiring seems to all be done correctly. Could it be the led using up some of the power (2.6v led with a 1/8 watt 100 ohm resistor)? Or could it be that the included battery box wiring is too small and I need to use something beefier? I'm using a modified RCA connector as my atty connector, could it be a shoddy connection to that (although, I'm not sure that it is, since I've measured the ohm load and it comes in around 2.0, so it doesn't seem there is any added resistance)? I can post some pics of the setup I have if it would help. Thanks in advance!
I was looking at your Puck and decided to build one yesterday. Turned out very well, and your directions were great! However, I've run into a problem, not a huge one, but one nonetheless. I'm experiencing a voltage drop of 5.1 to around 3.3 at the atomizer under load. I'm thinking this is too great of a drop. However, I'm really not sure what could be causing such a problem. The wiring seems to all be done correctly. Could it be the led using up some of the power (2.6v led with a 1/8 watt 100 ohm resistor)? Or could it be that the included battery box wiring is too small and I need to use something beefier? I'm using a modified RCA connector as my atty connector, could it be a shoddy connection to that (although, I'm not sure that it is, since I've measured the ohm load and it comes in around 2.0, so it doesn't seem there is any added resistance)? I can post some pics of the setup I have if it would help. Thanks in advance!
I just changed the order of some of the batteries and now I'm reading around 3.5 at the atty and 3.7-3.8 just at the batteries under load (still around 5v not under load). FYI, I'm using rayovac nimh rechargable AAA batteries, if that makes a difference. Thanks again in advance, hope I can get this sorted out.
I just tested the voltage drop with and without the atty in the connector. When the atty was in, I would get the voltage drop to around 3.4 and without it in, I would get a drop to only 4.96 or so. Does this indicate that the atty is not making the proper connection to the connector? Another thing that may help, when i tried my Magma 510 atty, the voltage only dropped to about 3.6 - 3.7. The ohm reading on this atty is 2.6 compared to the 2.0 on the other riva atty I've been using. Thus it seems like the higher the ohms on the atty, the less the voltage drop amounts to. Does this sound right? Sorry to bombard this thread with posts, but hopefully there are others out there with the same problem and this will be able to help them too.
With a 1.5 LR atty and freshly charged bats the voltage dropped to 3.6v for me with 4xAA. With a 2.3 ohm atty the voltage dropped to 4.3v. The current from these bats is pretty weak compared to li-ion so I'm not sure what the upside is.
This was all desgined around a 901 atty which is about 3.0 ohms. I never designed it for anything less like a LR atty. Current from NiMHs is not weak. That's why they are the goto battery for rechargables in the rechargable market in the stores.
First off, how old are the batteries? Are they new or have they been laying around for a long time?
2nd, how are your solder connections? Are the wires actually attached to the connectors or do you have them held in place just by solder? Solder by itself will cause voltage drops. Wires must be physically attached before soldering.
You should not be getting that large of a voltage drop. Even though I have designed this around a 901 atty at 3 ohms, there have been hundreds of people build this using a 510, most of which were about 2.3 ohms and still have had great results and they love it.
I've built one around a 510 myself and the only problem I've had is the batteries only last about 12 hours instead of 24.
The other thing I've had issues with is the switch. If you used the switch I listed you shouldn't have any problems but smaller switches can cause problems under load. I've had that happen before with a smaller switch that should have been able to handle it but it couldn't for some reason.
Also, your resistor for the LED should be around 500 or higher. 100 ohms is is too small from what I've used but it shouldn't cause the voltage drop problem. You may just blow the LED with a resistor that low.
NiMH batteries are made for high drain use and can supply just as much current in this configuration as a LI-ion. They have been a current workhorse for years. Li-ions can just hold a denser charge which means you can get more voltage at the same amount of current in a smaller package, but... you can't just run out to any store and pick one up when you needed. Since a li-ion could put out 3.7 volts at 300 Mah made them a natural choice for a small cylindrical battery in the shape of a cigarette.
The Puck was designed to be built and maintained from parts you can buy at your local Radio Shack (except for the atty of course). I didn't care what it looked like. I just wanted something I could buy local and have it last more than 4 hours and also to be able to get batteries whenever i wanted to without ordering them.
Lastly, check your wiring. I have never had anything really critical happen becuase of the wiring though. The leads from the battery case are pretty small. Just make sure you are not using any wires smaller than them. Also... double check your wiring even though there is not much to it. Sometimes it's easy to get a wire attached to the wrong place.
If you can get a clear photo of the box, I'd gladly take a look.
If it is a problem with the soldered connections, wouldn't the voltage drop be more significant when the atty is left out? Maybe not?
The batteries are brand new pre charged rayovacs.
I will do more testing at different contact points a little later and post some pics for you as soon as I can. Thanks again.
The batteries are brand new pre charged rayovacs.
I will do more testing at different contact points a little later and post some pics for you as soon as I can. Thanks again.
Alright, well I tested it again, and again, no problems anywhere in voltage drop when the atty is not in the connector. However, getting around 3.7 at the batteries, 3.3 or 3.4 at the atomizer under load when the atty is connected. Here are some pics:
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