How to see if your atomizer is truly dead with a Voltmeter

[mamu]

Howdy mamu;
You should be OK. I test my 4081/401/510/801/901, and get readings between 2 and 5.8. Different atty models will give you a slightly different reading, due to the heating coils being different.

Thanks so much Jim.

I tested all my 510 attys and got readings averaging 2.5 ohms, except for one - it was 3.2 ohms.

My 801s averaged 3.3 ohms and my 901s were about the same.

I'm so glad I found this thread and thank all for the help.

I've stocked up on these attys and was worrying if they were all good. It's nice to know they are and that I don't have to return any.

BTW: We had our 2nd annual Red Skelton parade in June. They said there were over 1000 clowns - lol I believe it hahaha!!

 

[LameBMX]

A little additional note about touching the leads together with a digital MM. There is normally a little resistance due to wires and corrosion on the leads themselves. So digital scale, 200ohm range. touch the leads together and hold firmly (previously a poster mentioned the numbers jumped around) and you will notice there is something on the range of less that 0.5V. This is the inherent resistance due to the factor I mentioned above. People that know electronics should remember the 10% rule, basically the value is correct if it is within 10% of what is expected. That value will need to be subtracted from what the meter reads while testing the atomizer. In most items these meters were designed for testing that resistance is minute in comparison to what is tested and is ignored, but what we are testing is only 3ohms and should be taken into consideration.

By the way, the analog meter mentioned earlier in this thread, the needle adjustment was on the left side of the meter. 10x scale, hold the leads together and move rotary knob until the needle sits on the 0. Make sure you are reading the right scale for what you have the meter set to.

 

[LameBMX]

So I went out and grabbed my Actron DMM (CP7677) from the toolbox in the car to test things out. Joye 510 Atomizer BTW.

As expected lead orientation makes no difference, red does not have to be on the center.

resistance of AT was measured at 2.5ohms (10%=0.25ohms)
resistance of meter leads was measured at 0.3 ohms (above 10%)

the actual resistance of the atomizer is 2.2 ohms

Next atomizer:

Same figures

Last atomizer:

2.3 ohms measured

2.0 ohms actual.

At the risk of sounding like a douche, please use actual resistance instead of measured, otherwise joe schmoe with a brand new DMM has 3.0 ohms and larry blow with a nice thick grease and tar (from the old analog days) layer and gets a 4.0 ohm reading from the same atomizer that is truly only 2.8 ohms of resistance.

 

[Jim Davis]

So I went out and grabbed my Actron DMM (CP7677) from the toolbox in the car to test things out. Joye 510 Atomizer BTW.

As expected lead orientation makes no difference, red does not have to be on the center.

resistance of AT was measured at 2.5ohms (10%=0.25ohms)
resistance of meter leads was measured at 0.3 ohms (above 10%)

the actual resistance of the atomizer is 2.2 ohms

Next atomizer:

Same figures

Last atomizer:

2.3 ohms measured

2.0 ohms actual.

At the risk of sounding like a douche, please use actual resistance instead of measured, otherwise joe schmoe with a brand new DMM has 3.0 ohms and larry blow with a nice thick grease and tar (from the old analog days) layer and gets a 4.0 ohm reading from the same atomizer that is truly only 2.8 ohms of resistance.

Good advise;
I usually tell people to expect between 2.5 to 5 Ω depending on the type of atty. I know the + & - leads don't matter when testing resistance, but I try to keep the process uniform for the newcomers. If they get used to Red+ and Black-, they won't get confused when checking other things.

 

[breno]

Mine measured 5.4 but touching the probs togeather measured 3.5 as it is not zeroed properly so overall thats a 1.9 ohm.

It's a 510 atty.

 

[bikergirl1908]

So an atty (901) that reads 8.9 on the ohms scale, is this DOA? I bought the ten pack from Health Cabin and this is the only 1 that is not within 3.0-3.6 range.

Thanks.

 

[LameBMX]

how about trying out the 8.9ohm atty and posting what you thought of it? kinda keeps tabs and let people know if it dont work for crap, died in 2 days, works like a champ, or whatever you notice about the brand new yet out of spec atty.

 

[bikergirl1908]

how about trying out the 8.9ohm atty and posting what you thought of it? kinda keeps tabs and let people know if it dont work for crap, died in 2 days, works like a champ, or whatever you notice about the brand new yet out of spec atty.

Ok, here's my report. I tried the atty on my 901 with a manual battery today and it lasted about an hour and a half with nice slow drags of medium vaping. It kicked a** for the whole time it worked, but then it just died...no slack off in throat hit or vapor, it just went kaput.

Contacted HC and their customer service is great....don't have to send the atty back and pay China postage to get a replacement. They are sending my replacement by registered airmail with no additional cost to me which is great because a lot of places won't warranty a bulk atty purchase. 19 out of 20 good ones ain't bad and they are making good on the faulty one with no hassle so I am a happy camper.

 

[bigozone]

This is incorrect for non-linear PTC heater elements.

just wondering what the ohms readings you get when testing the DSE103.... i have only 1 atty for my 103 and it no longer works w/ the stock battery, but when i throw 4.5v @ 300mh to it i get vapor after ~2 seconds. i've left my meter @ work, but i'm gonna test it asap.

i'm just glad that i finally got my 901 and supplies from china

 

[boa279]

Hello, This is my first post and although I'm new to E-cigs I'm not new to electronics so I hope I can shed some light on whats going on in your e-cig to help you better understand. So you put your meter on the atty and got a number on your meter....what does that actually say to you other than "its good" and what does the "beep" coming from your meter really mean?

With your meter set to ohms and the probes touching the center pad and the threaded area you will get a number (for simplicity lets say its 4 ohms) This number is only half of the equation you need in order to figure out whats happening. Now you set your meter to volts dc and read your battery at 4 volts dc (again theoretical) with these 2 numbers you can apply the following formula:

V2 / R = W

so 4volts squared is 12. 12 devided by 4 ohms equals 4 watts. So in this example the atomizer is dissapating 4 watts of heat to attomize the juice into vapor! Now lets say your battery is 4 volts but you have a suspected bad attomizer that reads 1000 ohms when you use your meter. Using the above formula that would be 12volts/1000 ohms =.012 watts. That means this attomizer would produce 200 times less heat to the juice which would make it useless.

So lets simplify:

If the resistance of your atty is 0 then its the same thing as putting a piece of metal from the positive part of the battery to the negative. The result is the battery overheating. (I used to make hand warmers as a kid buy taping a wire to the top and bottom of a D cell battery...got nice and toasty for a short time )

If the resistance of the atty reads open or infinity (these terms simply mean there is no connection at all) then without any resistance, no watts are produced and its exactly the same thing as disconnecting the atty from the battery....its useless.



If I read correctly the average resistance is somewhere in the 3.5 to 8 ohm area depending on model of e-cig. That means that a good atty-battery combo should produce 2-4 watts of heat. Now obviously, 4 watts of heat produces more vapor but with the sacrifice of battery life...the same battery with an 8 ohm atty would last twice as long but produce half the vapor...make sense?

So, charge your batts and read your attys...the highest voltage batt with the lowest ohm atty should produce the best vapor! Hopefully this helps a little!

Boa279

 

[breakfastchef]

Lots of good technical information above. Like one bathroom scale to another will not read the same weight, your meter is your personal measurment standard. Whatever your particular meter reads in resistance on a good atomizer is the important number you should use as your reference point.

When you have no continutity in an atomizer (check the meter user guide) with infinite resistance readings, it is officially dead. Either throw it out or tear it apart to explore the inside. Don't bother cleaning it. It is dead.

When the atomizer still heats on freshly charged batteries, but you seem to be working hard to draw really good vapor from the device, take a resistance reading. Generally, I will find the resistance has double or tripled from that of a new atomizer. For me, this is an early warning sign of impending illness and death. I often will pitch the atomizer at this point. If you want to experiment with cleaning, try it on an ill, not dead, atomizer. I have never successfully reduced the resistance on an atomizer using several cleaning methods.

 

[NandyDC]

Thanks for tons of info here. All my 510 attys are around 2.6 and my 910 around 3.6. One dead Super Mini atty is reading 0, that atty comes dead after a fall, my bad ;-).

 

[LameBMX]

Boa279,
That level might be better off in the modding area, I believe this original threads intention was to essentially determine if the resistance measurement approximated the life or death of the atty. And if so, then to determine a list of expected atty measurements.

breakfastchef:
You need to calibrated your bathroom scale man. Measuring instruments should be the same across the board. Imagine if the carpenters building your house had their personal measurement standard tape measures. The older analog meters were zero'd out before use by touching the leads together and adjust where the needle was. This essentially did the math I mentioned previously that use Digital Meter owners should do. One user expressed my reason for posting perfectly when he had a high resistance reading to his meter, and his atty was still good. My point was to obtain more accurate reading from people not trained in a meters use. Especially considering how low the values are we are dealing with. With that in mind, someone should not need a reference "good" atty to determine if their atty is dead. I would be fairly confident if you have a 510 it should be around 2.5V (ref prev post concerning 10% rule) a 910 should probably be around 3.5V, and people need to post up here with some more atty's for us so we can round this out more for the future people that read this.

 

[MHR7331]

Out of curiosity, how much resistance variance do you think is attributed to primer fluid on new attys? I thought about measuring one after blowing out the primer stuff, but got really lazy. lol

 

[LameBMX]

It is probably very little difference, and you would need an insanely accurate meter to determine any difference. The heating element seems to be 2.5 Ohms to 3.5 Ohms, and if that is run in parallel with oh 10K Ohms for the primer, the meter would read 2.5 Ohms. That is a quick approximation but I am too lazy to bother with a calculator this early in the morning. I am barely managing my coffee at the moment. But the lesson is with the very low resistance you will need something else with that very low resistance to make a real impact on its reading. For the record

 

[Taelon]

just wondering what the ohms readings you get when testing the DSE103

2.5-4OHMs @ 20°C, 3 probes.

 

[Sarah Wang]

i am confused too. why there are so many zeros on the dial!

 

[krapanj]

Hi, I have been vap-ing for over a year now, I have used just about all the different models - the only problem with all of them is the atomizer.
As a heavy vap-er I have found the following:
The penstyle atomizers work for on average 2-3 days - The expensive Jantys a couple of days longer....
The 901 atomizers about the same...

My favorite device is the "mini-pipe". ( But never put the battery is upside down - it will destroy it in less that one second).

If you can afford to buy about 20 attys per month e-smoking is great.

IT IS TIME SOMEONE PRODUCED A RELIABLE ATOMIZER.....

 

[LameBMX]

Hi, I have been vap-ing for over a year now, I have used just about all the different models - the only problem with all of them is the atomizer.
As a heavy vap-er I have found the following:
The penstyle atomizers work for on average 2-3 days - The expensive Jantys a couple of days longer....
The 901 atomizers about the same...

My favorite device is the "mini-pipe". ( But never put the battery is upside down - it will destroy it in less that one second).

If you can afford to buy about 20 attys per month e-smoking is great.

IT IS TIME SOMEONE PRODUCED A RELIABLE ATOMIZER.....

That is quite odd since I have a 101 day old atty, that still works (not great anymore lol) But I believe you should really get back on track. Your little rant has nothing to do with this thread. I see no facts. Please repost with the actual resistance readings from testing the working atty's and contribute (and the readings from ones that you feel are no longer working, just label appropriately). We see what the 510, and possibly 901 are supposed to be. More information will help future visitors!

 

[VapoRize]

that helped me alot