New avid user and his tales...!

[ZeroDisorder]

Hello! I've been vaping for a year now without serious involvement with the community excluding local shop interaction. I'm in Oklahoma, El Reno in specific, and I've got a rather technical background. I'll keep my comments to vaping.

I'm very electrically and mechanically inclined, and got introduced to vaping through making custom flashlights. Most serious flashlights use the 18650 and I stumbled onto vaping through the common battery usage. Odd, right? Well, I'd been smoking about half a pack a day at that point and I figured I'd give it a try. After doing a bit of research I decided I would give making one a shot. I decided to make a simple dripping rba. I hopped on my lathe and made a one piece dripper that connected straight to the battery, threaded to one of the flashlight housings I made. Using the momentary switch it had, I essentially made a mechanical mod. I went to the not-so-near vape shop and picked up some nichrome and silica, and set up a pretty darn good dripper from what they told me. Not bad for my first try. Come December '12 I gave the setup to a fellow wanting-to-quit smoker and as far as I'm aware they're a happy vaper. I gave it away because I went and pre-ordered the Tesla. During the preorder time, a different friend of mine let me borrow their eGo 1100 and a good ol' CE4. It kept me going, you know? The Telsa was/is great, and I have (nearly) no complaints. I just wish I had the jet black version. I typically use a AGA T2 or Nautilus now, the latter giving me problems and making me want to stay away from silica forever(suggestions welcome). Well, here it is now the end of July, and the itch for something new is strong. I'm drawing up a mechanical mod with the design criteria of having an extremely low voltage drop, as I find it rather dumb to have a great Li-Ion battery not being used to its full potential. Think 1/4" solid copper contacts, possibly gold plated for the primary switch contacts, multipoint switch contact, and a springless holding system. (quarter turn tensioning, etc) The design will probably slightly resemble the good ol' GG side firing mech mod. Potential materials would be Titanium, 316L, Copper, Brass...

I don't really have much to ask at the moment, but I have a rather extensive electrical and mechanical background. I am almost done with my electrical engineering degree. This summer I've been doing a lot of heavy weight mechanical designs as well as control system design for them. Busy busy busy. Though, school is about to start up again and I'll have access to the machine shop again to create this beauty.

Vape on.

 

[State O' Flux]

Think 1/4" solid copper contacts, possibly gold plated for the primary switch contacts, multipoint switch contact, and a springless holding system. (quarter turn tensioning, etc) The design will probably slightly resemble the good ol' GG side firing mech mod. Potential materials would be Titanium, 316L, Copper, Brass...

Welcome to the asylum Zero...

You might as well build 2... or 20. If the price is right (and even if it's kinda pricy, if it looks cool and/or has the quality of a Vacheron Constantin, you'll still sell them), you can sell them here, fast. Hell, I, a known cheapskate, might even buy one. ;-)

 

[Boiler]

Would love to see a pic of your first mod if you got one.

 

[ZeroDisorder]

On things I design and make for myself, I like to go through a couple revisions if there are any potential faults or if it isn't acting how I want it to. It did come to mind to sell a few, but before I even got to that point I would have tried the final version for at least a month or so. The main thing I'm trying to decide is if I want to do side firing (easier to use in my opinion, but harder to get the best contact possible) or bottom firing(a little bit harder to use, depending on the style, but best to make a great connection). I'll probably make a 316L bodied prototype and go from there, eventually making a titanium one. I've machined a good bit of titanium, and I don't think it'll be too much of a problem with conductivity or having fine threads. As far as cosmetics go, titanium can be anodized, and I can do that too...! I don't have access to a CNC machining center(recent tornadoes took them out), so complex exterior designs would be challenging to do correctly if it's anything above ribbing. One thing I planned on doing is either setting up a poll or just making a thread to read responses about what people would want in the cosmetics and functions of a mod. IE Telescoping, solid top, solid bottom, removable connector, ability to put in a high power(subohm capable) regulator, etc.

 

[ZeroDisorder]

I'll see if I can scrounge one up. I don't think I took any pictures of it in vape mode... I'm known to have poor documentation on personal projects. It was a tactical flashlight with a tactical looking dripper RBA on it. If that makes any sense. Haha. (Think ribbed hex faced walls, painted black)

What I can do though, is post a drawing of the new design soon.

 

[durianeliquidflavorplease]

All I can say is that what you're doing is awesome! Wish I had the background for that.

 

[Kellycat]

Dang, looks like you beat me to it Zero, nice to see someone else with a serious electrical/electronics background joining up Was just sketching out plans for a DIY mech last night myself, not getting the kind of power I want from a box mod and trying to get into RBA/sub-ohm for the fun of it.. You should consider doing a project log for your build, I'm sure many others besides myself would love to see things come together!

 

[ZeroDisorder]

I just contacted my metal supplier, and it looks like I could get enough for a handful of them with $100 of titanium. That leaves the cost of the copper and insulator pieces, and the 510 connector if I decide I didn't want to machine that for the sake of replaceability.

I decided to go with a 18350->18650 telescoping setup, as it allows for an easier/better snug battery connection. I'm trying to design it around the size of the titanium I can easily get my hands on. I'm thinking about doing some serious grooving on this one. Should look slick...

Edit: @Kelly:
Yeah, next we'll have a crazy hivemind project. It's never a bad idea. I'm almost done drawing mine up in CAD, just have a few things to sort out at this point. I've only really done RBAs, with a few subohms early on for kicks and battery abuse. My project log would mostly consist of: Worked on it. Haha. Yeah, I probably should... It is mostly entirely digital though, until I start machining in a few weeks. I've never really been in blogging, but I do like reading build logs so I'll give it a go. I just have a problem posting stuff that isn't completely finished yet. *shrug* I'll think about it.

 

[ZeroDisorder]

Just a teaser.

I don't think I like it. I think the walls are too thick and it looks too wide. *shrug* Itt'd be hella top heavy. I might swap the top/bottom components around to make it bottom heavy.

 

[Kellycat]

I wouldn't necessarily say it's too wide at all, I've seen some pretty massive mods that people still use day-to-day. I do agree with you on swapping top and bottom though if it's feasible, my personal preference has always been for a bottom-heavy device that I can stand vertically without having to do a balancing act, plus I feel like since your hand will be on the bottom supporting it anyways, it'll be less likely to feel uncomfortable during use.

 

[ZeroDisorder]

I'll swap the top and the bottom here in a bit. The upper part in the previous picture is 1" OD. I guess it isn't really too wide... Hmmm...

 

[Kellycat]

Naw, 1" is definitely not too big if you ask me, but I have long fingers so maybe that has something to do with it. That and I like my devices to have some weight to them..others may feel differently on the matter, I know some who've called the ProVari Mini 'too heavy/large' and that's one of the smaller devices to my knowledge. Not a mechanical, but still, similar form-factor is why I bring it up.

 

[ZeroDisorder]

With the assigned materials(SS body) for what I have there including the battery I'm getting about 6.3oz. With titanium that goes down significantly to 4.6oz. I agree it's not big at all. My Tesla is about 1" dia nominal if I remember correctly. The primary threads are 7/8"-14, leaving a decent wall thickness.

 

[ZeroDisorder]

I'm having problems designing a good contact system for the side firing switch in my head... One idea is to set/press the switch spring into grooves to give it the best connection possible, and use a rather thick spring to have the least amount of voltage drop. Though, I't'll have to be thin enough to not require an unnecessary amount of force to fire. Hmmm.... The other idea is to have a type of mesh inside the spring to enhance the connection. I don't like the idea of relying on the firing pin's tubing for the primary contact. Conductive lubricant? Hmmm.... I'll look into high conductivity springs.

Edit: Overthinking this. I'll just get a silver plated beryllium copper spring, like I used in flashlights.