Redeeming a Sigelei TMax - non-fire / low power fix

[neptronix]

Ok, while i know that it may be strange for a new member to be posting advice, i have been lurking here for quite some time, and finally decided to join.

I am still a bit of a noob to esmoking, but not electronics. I started out with an ego v-v2 whose battery died in short order ( way underrated for the job!), and since, i have not really decided on what mod to buy, so i picked up a used Tmax for $32 - not a bad deal.

Upon the first few hits, i realized that this unit has a really wimpy hit. Couldn't get the cartomizer to start doing the familiar crackling, would have to suck on it forever to get a hit.. I got around this by jacking up the voltage super high, but suspected that there was something truly wrong either with the design or my unit. Sometimes it would not even fire, and i noticed that the battery voltage was reading a little lower than what my multimeter was telling me.

So i pop the bottom off and see the tiny little spring that touches the negative battery post to the absurdly thick steel piece which acts as a big negative post. The spring has little tension on it, and is very wimpy looking. I literally cannot believe that they designed the thing this way!!!



So what did i do? I stuffed some copper strands from a wire in the spring to lower it's resistance, dabbed a little solder on the contact, and holy smokes - literally - it hits like it did on 4.5 volts on 3.0 volts . And it's not misfiring anymore either . Also, the battery voltage readout on the screen is much closer to what my multimeter tells me.

I can only conclude that this little spring is an awful conductor of power. Why would such a little spring be used, when the positive contact for the battery is a big thick piece of copper/brass, and the negative contact is what feels like half a pound of steel? perhaps the spring is a *really ghetto* current limiting device? I'll let you know if my tmax blows up from this modification, but so far, it vapes like a boss

 

[onion456]

nice one... i think you found the problem =)

if i could offer my input? i dont mean to downplay your fix, im just thinkin that with the wire sitting in there, not really connected solidly to anything, it seems like you may get a different result every time you reinstall your battery. i was thinking, a lot of times you see metals that have coatings, and maybe theres a coating (or oxidation) on the spring, maybe just tinning the ends of the spring with solder would fix the problem, and you could remove the wire? and also, you said you tinned the plate that the spring sits on, is there a chance that the spring-to-plate connection was the whole problem all along, and you could again remove the wire?

anyway, gotta love a good fix, i believe your theory is sound for sure =) well done.

 

[Soberrider]

I've noticed the TMAX to have this trouble myself. Guess I'll be trying a fix when the replacement one gets here. The first one quit working.

 

[devauto]

Nicely done, how do you like the Tmax overall? I was considering one, but then read somewhere that there was a problem with the 510 connectors coming off. I was actually just about to pull the trigger on when when I ended up with an unexpected MVP 2. I am still considering one though and I'm interested to know what your take on the mod is ...

Thanks!

 

[dabrain]

well just to let you know that I have been using the tmax for about a month and a half i got from a vape shop that is local to me on black Friday for $30 and if you want to you can check out there site is Vapure Premium E-Liquid, Electronic Cigarettes & Accessories and they have lots of things and i am using a Igo-l with a 2 ohm atty on it and i have not had any power problems with it but i do have on Question i have noticed that my battery's aren't lasting every long i don't know if i am not letting them charge long enough or what but i have some new battery's on the way I just hope that they do better