Insulator Damage

[Rocketman]

Ran into a situation this week where an insulator (center conductor) was cut and allowed the center conductor to short out to the shell. Most insulators sit on a step in diameter and the washer/sleeve confirguration can get cut from too much pressure when screwing parts together. This could happen to the insulator in an atty, carto, battery, or adapter. The short usually goes away when you unscrew everything making troubleshooting difficult. If you are using protected cells then current limiting will cut in.
In my case the only indication I had was no vapor. All individual parts checked fine with a meter.

A damaged insulator would be a really bad thing with unprotected cells, or cells that have a very high (10 amps or more) discharge capability.


Rocket

 

[kemuri]

In a way it's amazing those teeny tiny silicone rings keeping the +/- away from each other do work so well at the atty and battery ends, considering the continuous stress they go through with every batt or atty change over.

The one time I managed to damage the atty silicone ring was when I initially separated the positive post from the neg body of the batt connector prior to soldering the wire when making yet another penstyle nicobox. The grooved silicone ring can be a dog (female) to get it in just right afterwards. The ring held on, but just barely and the atty wobbled.

Always wanted to try out a blue RTV silicone so I cleaned out around the positive post as best as I could and spread the blue silicone around the post with a toothpick and just let it sit. The direction on the tube says tack-free in 2 hrs and fully in cured in 24 hrs.

Been about 3 weeks and it's working fine. The blue silicone remains somewhat flexible as a gasket should be but it's not jelly soft either but remains firm. The atty doesn't wobble as I vape on it from time to time and I've experienced no shorts. Time to time since I rotate it among half a dozen nicoboxes of varying voltages.

The only caution I see on the tube is not to get it on your skin or inhale it before curing. I did cure it over a day and haven't blown a gasket nor thrown a rod. I think my horsepower increased by 20.

Redneck power, the driving force behind stacked tire tater gardening!
(said with true admiration, btw)

The tube looks like this: