Is one 510 ohm meter better than the rest?

[Chowderhead1972]

I have hunted for a atty ohm meter for days and come up with a few choices but alas no clear cut winner. I bought a screw it up yourself kit from USA OHM METERS and have all but given up on making it work. I can't figure out if it supposed to be hooked up with the batteries in series or parallel. I love the concept and as far as I can tell it is the only one available that will read sub-ohm to thousandths (ie: .345) and is American made (and American screwed up by me).

I have also considered making a set of leads for my Fluke with a 510 fed into a pair of leads. The other issue is I am having a hard time finding a prewired 510 with substantial wires 18g+ (prefer 16g). Would anyone consider helping a brother out? I will pay you in cash, Ken Do cotton, ekowool,..... What ever.. I have learned while I have no issue soldering wires together, soldering 26g to a solid piece of metal is detrimental to my well being as well as sanity.

I would love love to hear your thoughts.

 

[MamaTried]

you do know that your Fluke is prolly far, far, far better than any 510 meter on the market, right?

the 510 connections are mainly about convenience

 

[Funk Dracula]

You don't need to read to the thousandth. Your resistance is going to jump around more than that depending on how juicy, gunked up, or warm your coil is real time use anyways, so it's pointless.

Any of those flat box 510 readers are fine. They make great convenient build decks for installing coils.

 

[Chowderhead1972]

Agreed, but I'm looking for something that will be allow me a hands free measurement. I'm going to take another run at the USA siy kit. Still looking for a pre-wired 510 w/16g however.

 

[GreatestUnKnown]

I visited the link you provided, seems like a legit product if not slightly lacking in outright support, the box looks pre wired short of connecting the leads from the 510 and the power supply to the PCB. I do not know how your 510 connection looks to assist you if soldering seems to be unsuccessful so far.

If you have the Fluke why not just use that to measure the builds resistance? I actually have much more confidence in an actual multimeter (esp a Fluke) than any cartometer (SIY or otherwise).

 

[Chowderhead1972]

I visited the link you provided, seems like a legit product if not slightly lacking in outright support, the box looks pre wired short of connecting the leads from the 510 and the power supply to the PCB. I do not know how your 510 connection looks to assist you if soldering seems to be unsuccessful so far.

If you have the Fluke why not just use that to measure the builds resistance? I actually have much more confidence in an actual multimeter (esp a Fluke) than any cartometer (SIY or otherwise).

I have only about 40% of the use of my left hand so holding a 14mm atty and the two leads very challenging and always ends up with unreliable readings. For clarity my right hand is about 90% but my left is a thumb and pointer finger with three immovable fingers. (Stupid motorcycles) LOL... sort of...

 

[GreatestUnKnown]

Before I purchased an ohm reader I would use the spools of Kanthal as a build platform, then you only need to use one lead per hand to place them on the posts and measure the resistance of your build. I am waiting for my multimeter to come later this week otherwise I would snap a pic of what I am describing. HTH Chowder

 

[MamaTried]

I have only about 40% of the use of my left hand so holding a 14mm atty and the two leads very challenging and always ends up with unreliable readings. For clarity my right hand is about 90% but my left is a thumb and pointer finger with three immovable fingers. (Stupid motorcycles) LOL... sort of...

FWIW, i'm righthanded, but my right hand went completely numb about 4 years ago thanks to nerve damage. my left is usable, according to my insurance, who think carpal tunnel is an urban myth... you should be able to do very well with your Fluke.

That said. PM me your addy. i'll send you one of them 510 meters. in return, PIFing to other Reonauts would delight me...

 

[SeaNap]

you do know that your Fluke is prolly far, far, far better than any 510 meter on the market, right?

the 510 connections are mainly about convenience

Not necessarily... my very nice ($$$) Fluke 1587 and Fluke 190-502 O-scope both have an accuracy of + or - .1ohm. And I usually had to compensate .2ohm. (my 0.525ohm coils were reading like 0.7ohm)

Check out this thread I started a while back: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/reos-mods/514385-helpful-diy-ohm-meter-build.html I took one of those DIY kits and made a few minor modifications. I soldered 18awg long blue leads directly to the circuit board, this takes the crappy 510 connection out of the picture and it also allows me to check resistance while the atty is mounted. My accuracy is now +/- 0.005ohm with a compensation of 0.01ohm to account for the long length of wire.

Its hard to get a good idea of the wiring from just taking the back out but as you can see I placed the batteries in the same direction which is what is etched into the box. I followed the wires and the batteries are in Series.

 

[Chowderhead1972]

FWIW, i'm righthanded, but my right hand went completely numb about 4 years ago thanks to nerve damage. my left is usable, according to my insurance, who think carpal tunnel is an urban myth... you should be able to do very well with your Fluke.

That said. PM me your addy. i'll send you one of them 510 meters. in return, PIFing to other Reonauts would delight me...

I finally got it finished. If you walked past my house this morning you would swear it was a Tourette's syndrome ward, I was yelling things at that little piece of plastic I hadn't said or even heard in years. But the %#^* +*%#er is finished! All with a crap hand and no instructions, needed a crossover jumper to series circuit the batteries. filled with 60 second epoxy (should have gotten the 5 minute) when they say 60 seconds it's more like 30 seconds. Next time I will wait for the pre-made version.


I now realize why I like my Reos/cyclone so much my atties are @.553ohm and .642ohm almost 30watts and 24watts respectively. Provari/kayfun tasted like feces above 12watts.

Thanks for the offer Mama, I really appreciate the thought but overcoming what seemed to be an insurmountable goal a reality is the sweetest reward. Again thank you.

 

[Chowderhead1972]

Not necessarily... my very nice ($$$) Fluke has an accuracy of + or - .1ohm. And I usually had to compensate .2ohm. (my 0.525ohm coils were reading like 0.73ohm)

Check out this thread I started a while back: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/reos-mods/514385-helpful-diy-ohm-meter-build.html I took one of those DIY kits and made a few minor modifications. I soldered 18awg long blue leads directly to the circuit board, this takes the crappy 510 connection out of the picture and it also allows me to check resistance while the atty is mounted. My accuracy is now +/- 0.005ohm with a compensation of 0.01ohm to account for the long length of wire.

Its hard to get a good idea of the wiring from just taking the back out but as you can see I placed the batteries in the same direction which is what is etched into the box. I followed the wires and the batteries are in Series.

I was battling the same issue, the fluke is dead accurate, it's the 6feet of leads and 6 connections that provide the usually trivial .1-.2 ohms that means nothing 99.9% of the time in the world of electricity but is huge in the high power ultra low voltage world we vape in.

 

[Chowderhead1972]

That looks similar to the lay out I used but mine has a 16g crossover connecting the two busses, also used 16g for 510 lead but mine are 1.25 inches each, so my compensating resistance is in the nano ohms. I compared readings from my kayfuns:

Polished kayfun#1
Provari 1.8ohms us ohm 1.84

Brushed Kayfun#2
Provari 2.2ohms us ohm 2.18ohms

By those numbers I am fairly confident.


In regards to your leads scenario please remember while you have added about half of the wire that would be the fluke leads but you have alieviated 4 of the 6 connections. Every connection that you cannot readily tighten or soldier is a variable. Again pointless in the world of electricity where anything below 20ohms is considered a dead short or at best an enormous load.
Example 120v at 10ohms=1440watts
480v at 10ohms=23,040 watts
480v 3phase at 10ohms=39,859.2 watts

Sorry, pontificating but you get the point. See how it ramps up exponentially with voltage?

 

[SeaNap]

I would give that a passing grade! As soon as I finished my meter build and it tested good, I got real nervous and didnt want to touch it or look at it the wrong way . I was having a heck of a tiime soldering the teeny tiny wires to the 510 connection, finally got it by using my torch w/ soldering tip. Normally I do the "pull test" after soldering, the first two times i did that i just pulled the wires right off the dam thing (I feel you with the swearing, the wife thought I kept mortally wounding my self I was screaming obscenities so loud/frequently). Finally got it after properly tinning the surface and wire, but man what a PITA. I really need to fill up that back with some hotglue or something.

Having the long leads on the box meter has saved me hours of fiddling. I screw the atty onto the REO once and I never take it off. I can even test the coil with the cap on.

Congrats on your successful build

 

[Chowderhead1972]

I fought the negative on the 510 for hours, finally drilled a 1/16 hole, tinned the wire and it was done. That was the turning point when I stopped with the colorful rage.

Btw: I highly recommend the 5 minute clear epoxy with the mixing tube, I was going to use silicone caulk but that would have taken 2 or 3 days to dry. Seriously the 60 second stuff I got worked way better than I would have hoped, best $4.49 I spent this week.

 

[e30ernest]

My 510 ohm meter jumps up 0.03ohms and back every second or so. I just take the reading in between. For example, if the base reading on mine was 0.77, and it jumps up to 0.80, then I consider it as 0.79. On my eVic, it reads a solid 0.8. It's close enough for me IMO given that juice in the system would likely cause the resistance during actual use to jump around more than that.

What's important to me is that it reads shorts when it happens. For example, when my Cyclone shorted out on me, it read 0.03-0.05 on my ohm meter. As long as it shows a short as a short, then I'm good. I only build single micros with the same gauge Kanthal so I know the ballpark resistance with just the number of coils I make.