protank deck shorted out atomizers

[caligirlINky]

Has anyone had grounding problems with decks before?

My original protank deck broke (the threads broke off inside my battery) so i bought a replacement generic deck from a local store. Ive been rebuilding my single coil atomizers for a while with 6 wire wraps giving me 1.8-2.0. When i first got the deck, no problem. After about a week i was only getting 1.4-1.5 from 6 wraps. The last week, only 1.1-1.2. A few days ago i was only getting 1 out of 3 rebuilt attys that was good (the rest said "shorted" on the battery). Last night, none of them worked. I found a protank my hubby bought a while ago where the glass broke but the deck was good. I switched out the deck and tried the "shorted" attys again... work no prob and getting 2.0 from 6 wire wraps again.

 

[classwife]

Moved to Clearomizers from Rebuildable Atomizer Systems

 

[Rickajho]

If the 510 threads on the generic PT base are longer than they should be the center post on the PT coil won't make good contact with the battery positive. If it's bad enough - or your center posts are mashed into the insulator on the PT coil - you could end up with a situation where both the 510 threads on the PT base and the center post are touching the battery positive - thus the short. Try pulling your center post out of the post insulator the tiniest bit and see if that fixes things.

 

[caligirlINky]

I tried adjusting the center post a little. Didnt seem to help. I checked the length of the threads tonight with an atty in both. Looks the same (as far as length is concerned) but it could be just slightly off and i wouldnt be able to tell without measuring. It makes sense if both the atty and the deck threads were touching at the same time that is might short everything out.

Everything works fine now that im using an original protank deck. Just didnt know if anyone had this happen to them before.

 

[Rickajho]

The tolerance doesn't leave for a lot of 'error' the way these things are designed. As it is, on a good base the center post barely extends longer than the 510 threads. Best bet to troubleshoot it would be to put a coil in both bases and have a good look at the bottoms under a magnifier. See if you can spot any obvious difference.

 

[DaveP]

I always pull the center lead and the ground lead nice and tight to straighten and keep them from touching each other or the center lead touching ground . It could be that the design of the knockoff Protank was allowing a light touch to ground at the center lead. If the real Protank base works, then use it.

Shining a light into the other one might reveal shoddy machining that left spurs inside the knockoff tank. Using an ohmmeter with probes you might be able to determine what's happening as you move the leads around by turning the insert at the bottom of the tank. There's definitely an issue going on with the knockoff tank.

If you want a good tank that's easy to recoil, try a Kayfun or one of the other RBA's. I was a big Protank fan for a long time until I tried the Aspire Nautlilus and the Kanger Aerotank. Both require buying coil heads and aren't easy to recoil, being dual coil heads. The Kayfun was what made me drop all the others in a box in the closet.