Rhodium contacts?

[Vaporologist]

The issue is always the springs Vapor. I need to make plated springs to avoid this contacting issue.
Black mark will leave easily with autusol. Put a small amount of autosol to a towel and rub the button on it. Mark will leave in 3 seconds. Also check for black marks on the axis that is attached on the cap.
Your GG gets hot because of a short. Please change atomizer

Thanks for the advice Imeo. I don't have Autosol but I did try cleaning it by using Flitz which should offer similar results. But it just didn't work no matter what I tried. It wasn't just a black spot like a stain, it felt like it was caked on and the only way to get rid of it was by scraping it, or in this case sanding it down. Believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was apply sandpaper to it but it seemed like it was the only option. Whatever happened here must be an isolated incident if it hasn't happened to anyone else. I'll start over by getting a new button and paying better attention to what may be happening.

I don't think I experienced a short, I am using the same atties and cartos which are working great on other devices. The fact that the button stops heating up after I clean/sand the button spring would indicate otherwise. I'm happy you are considering plated springs, I believe they would offer a great solution. Any rough estimates on when they could be available? Thank you.

Believe it or not, I use a simple pencil eraser to clean all of the contacts of my GG devices. Works quite well for me

1.) Wipe down the contact areas to make sure they are free of any juice or oils from your hands.
2.) Clean the contact areas with a Pencil Eraser.
3.) Reassemble the device making sure you do not touch the contact points which may leave a slight film of natural oils from your hands.

Just my 0.02 on the issue.

Thank you Zoranth. This was actually the first thing I tried since that's how I mostly keep the contact points clean on my other mods. And for general maintenance it works great. But this was different, I wish I would have taken a picture of it before sanding it down. I'll start over and see what happens. Thanks.

 

[imeothanasis]

You had a short for sure Vapor. GG cant get hot in any possible way exept of a shot that batteries or atomizers produce. Its very rare for batteries to short your GG but its more than possible for your atomizer to do that. If this atomizer still works on your other mods its because they dont push hard the center pole of the atty just because they use only the battery spring to make the contact. But on GG you use the telescope so you put more pressure to the center pole of the atty because of the moving pin of GGTS 4 in 1 connector. That means that you dont have to screw hard the telescope buddy.

flitz had to remove this black spot too easy Vapor. Maybe this spot was always there and you never saw it. Sometimes plating doesnt go to all places of a metal. And when it doesnt go all over the metal what you see is not the metal under coating but a black spot

My advice is to keep it as it is and not to buy a new button. Check it for 1 month and then you deside. It will work great with brass pin. Just check when you will need a clean on it and if you see that its too often then you buy the button

To my opinion, the best way to have a good contact and dont get afraid of when the plating will leave the metal, is to not coat the metal at all. Pure metal is always better than coating even if you have to clean it every now and then. That way you dont have to be careful with plating, you can sand your metal (not recomenred because you will rough its surface but even if you do it it will still works), and it will never get damaged. We need good contacts but we dont need replacements. And if you ask me why I plated the pin of the button, its because brass tarnish too easy. Maybe the best solution is to make a steel pin to solve any possible problem like I did with the axis on the front cap and the fuse's body

 

[imeothanasis]

Also, the reason that older cars had platina to its contacts was not for a better contact but because it was impossible for the owner to clean those contacts. After some time when the platina was leaving the surface you had to change those contacts to your local workshop

 

[Vaporologist]

You had a short for sure Vapor. GG cant get hot in any possible way exept of a shot that batteries or atomizers produce. Its very rare for batteries to short your GG but its more than possible for your atomizer to do that. If this atomizer still works on your other mods its because they dont push hard the center pole of the atty just because they use only the battery spring to make the contact. But on GG you use the telescope so you put more pressure to the center pole of the atty because of the moving pin of GGTS 4 in 1 connector. That means that you dont have to screw hard the telescope buddy.

That does make sense. I guess I didn't consider this possibility since the issue of the button heating up doesn't happen for a couple of days after sanding the button spring.

flitz had to remove this black spot too easy Vapor. Maybe this spot was always there and you never saw it. Sometimes plating doesnt go to all places of a metal. And when it doesnt go all over the metal what you see is not the metal under coating but a black spot

Now, this really makes sense. The black marking from the side of the bottom screw post came off very easily but not from the button post. In fact, I had to sand the button post for a long time before I was able to take it all off. It really does make sense that it could have been there all along and that I never noticed it. Maybe it was smaller in the beginning and got progressively worse.

My advice is to keep it as it is and not to buy a new button. Check it for 1 month and then you deside. It will work great with brass pin. Just check when you will need a clean on it and if you see that its too often then you buy the button

I will probably just get a new button. I pretty much know that I will not like having to keep the brass pin shinny to get the best performance. I want to be able to experience my GG exactly the way it was meant to.

To my opinion, the best way to have a good contact and dont get afraid of when the plating will leave the metal, is to not coat the metal at all. Pure metal is always better than coating even if you have to clean it every now and then. That way you dont have to be careful with plating, you can sand your metal (not recomenred because you will rough its surface but even if you do it it will still works), and it will never get damaged. We need good contacts but we dont need replacements. And if you ask me why I plated the pin of the button, its because brass tarnish too easy. Maybe the best solution is to make a steel pin to solve any possible problem like I did with the axis on the front cap and the fuse's body

I like the idea of a plated button pin. I prefer low maintenance. I actually prefer a concept of a plated pin vs. a SS one without plating due to my previous experience. When the Prodigy V3 was released, it came with a SS button screw. The screw had to be sanded every few days or so and coated with Noalox because it would start developing little black spots which would interfere with proper connection. That's why the V3.1 version included an upgrade with a brass screw because it's easier to maintain and clean it.

To me, the right kind of plating sounds like the way to go based on my current experience with a different device.

 

[imeothanasis]

I dont own a prodigy but if they were recomending the sanding procedure then they havent shined their contacts. Thats not good and when a surface is sanded then 2 problems occure: 1. bad surface so bad contact and 2. too often black marks on the connections. The reason for those black marks is that the more rough a surface is, the more small "mountains " it has that can be get black. A shiny steel dont produce those marks easy at all.

I will make some experiments with a shined steel pin and I will tell you my results Vapor. I will short the batteries many times to check what is going on but I am almost sure that they will stay clean.

 

[Vaporologist]

Sweet! Thanks Imeo. I'm curious of what you find out.

 

[imeothanasis]

I will inform you soon Vapor. Maybe I will make an online video about it, shorting batteries. I hope they will not explode to my face lol

 

[Moshmarr]

I don't know if this is relevant to your situation, vapor, but heres a long post anyhow..
I've had very similar sounding issues with my Stealth for the past few days
I figured it out, it was something easy to fix, but not what I thought it was at all-

So, the button on the Stealth was getting quite hot right away when vaping it,
and as Vaporologist said, had a loss of performance too.
This happened with every atty/iAtty I put on it, and they all worked fine
when I tried them on any of my other GGTS's.
The Stealth cap worked fine on my other TS's as well..
I figured it had to be in the button or the spring area somewhere at this point.

Then I noticed that the black plastic in the bottom cap wasn't quite tightened all the way,
so I removed the button center post.
The plastic didn't want to tighten more, so instead I unscrewed it from the bottom cap.

There were a fair amount of plastic shavings wrapped all along the threading of the piece.
No threading seemed damaged at all, just looked like I got a little extra in there
They were easy enough to remove,
and the plastic and center post went on, further than before, quite nicely afterwards.
I reassembled, and no more hot button!

Going on 3 days now and it's working just great again. Again, not sure if this applies to others or was just a quirk with mine.
It's worth checking out if you get these symptoms, anyhow. It was a quick unexpected fix for me.

 

[Vaporologist]

I will inform you soon Vapor. Maybe I will make an online video about it, shorting batteries. I hope they will not explode to my face lol

Double-check to make sure the camera is on for sure. Sounds like you'll only have one take at this

Kidding, I'm sure you know what you're doing

 

[Vaporologist]

Thanks Moshmarr. How exactly do you take off the plastic from the bottom cap? I've tried everything short of pliers but haven't been successful. How do I remove it without damaging it?

 

[Moshmarr]

I got lucky with that, since the plastic wasn't quite tightened down, it came off with the center post quite by accident for me..
With my other GGs, I can't get it to budge either, maybe a mousepad type of material to get a better grip with?

 

[JollyRogers]

I have a alum GGTS and a couple SS GGTS(s). Never had a problem with them firing except for two reasons. Once, my atty shorted due to me putting to much pressure on center post tightening the telescope. This was a 901 in an alum GGTS, The button got hot, and the spring in the end cap shrunk up. I replaced atty and batt, and stretched the spring back out. It hit terrible and inconsistent. Took the spring out and it was good to go. Second time was with the fuse upgrade... my fuse only had one spring in it. After a while, it started hitting terrible. I ordered more springs/fuses and doubled them. Hits great every time now.

The Alum has the brass switch (which I really like) and I only hit it with an eraser every couple weeks, pull my switch apart and clean it in rubbing alcohol, put it back together, and wipe the post down.

The SS have the nickel plated switches. No problems what so ever. I just wipe them occasionally.

So I get that you have a fuse in your GGTS Vape, I wonder... how does it do with out that fuse installed? Any difference... IF those fuses were activated at anytime due to overheating or a short, they may have some corona on them preventing a good contact.

As far as some special alloy for contacts, I honestly see no reason on my GGTS(s), as they work just fine the way they are. I switched to magnets in my SSGTS switch, and its like not having a switch anymore. Perfect imo. Speaking of which, I need some more magnets as I only have the ones I stole from my old(er) brass switch.

 

[Vaporologist]

Hey JR,

Thanks for those tips. Yea, I do have a fuse kit installed (two springs). But I have gone back and forth and tested performance with the fuse kit vs. the bottom post only (no spring installed). Performance between the two setups is virtually identical. I have sanded both fuse springs a few times and made sure they are set up properly. I haven't noticed any issues with the fuse and really like using it. I like the no drop in performance while having the peace of mind of maximum protection. I have purchased extra fuse springs just in case...

After seeing everything that Imeo has suggested so far, I'm quite certain that maybe there has been a problem with my button post all along. We'll never know for sure but there could have been an issue with the way the button post was plated. Who knows... It took a lot to get rid off the little black circle. It was there even after all the plating was removed from sanding and I had to keep on going another minute or so before it disappeared. All I know is that now that I eliminated all that caked-on black buildup by sanding it off, my GG is hitting beautifully. I've cleaned the whole thing with Flitz and it works as good as it looks. The question is for how long, without the plating on the button post. I am getting a new button and hopefully that will put the end to all this. I really can't imagine anything else being the problem here. That black circle could have been the cause of the problem with my button getting hot after every couple of days of sanding the button spring.

 

[dspin]

Hey V, I hope thats what it was. All my GG's hit like a hammer and yours should too, that black on button post is not normal.

 

[imeothanasis]

Vapor, I did the experiment. I shorted many times the steel and I let big current through it. Pitting was the result. I did this with nickel. Same thing. I want to do that with chromium but I am sure that same will happen. Rhodium will have the same luck because arc temperatures can go too high, like 5000 celsious degrees. There is not a real solution when arc happens. The best solution for me is to leave pure metal on the contacts because of a very simple reason. And this reason is that when a short will happen and the contact will go pitting you have the very simple choise to sand it, something you cant do on plated surfaces. And the more easy a surface can be sanded, the better. So maybe I have to go back to brass switches than steel ones because brass is softer, so easy to get cleaned and also it has great contactivity. The most important to me is a high polished surface for the best contact.

GG was made to be user friendly and making it not user friendly is not what I want to do. As for the contactivity, brass cant be beaten either.

ps....... We plate contacts only when we want to sell an application where the user has no way to clean the contacts. This isnt happening to GG series and maybe to all the other mechanical e-cig mods. And if you ask me why I plated the GG contacts, it was because I wanted to avoid tarnish. But the nice thing is that I just notice that brass doesnt tarnish almost at all when you dont keep it on your hands. I have some GGTS in my house for 1,5 month now and the front brass caps are shiny and yellow like the day one. So a pure metal is always better for our applications. And to speak the truth, this plated proccedure always annoyed me because its not stable. It will leave some day and I dont want to see that. I plated some GGTS before 1 year just because people had issues with aluminium but after I saw that plating was leaving the base metal I desided to go with steel to solve this issue.

 

[Major]

Yes I sanded the contact post of the button to bare brass when I first got #1376 as it was such a close tolerance to the bottom post. It has stayed untarnished but I do use a Q-Tip to polish the button contact when I am polishing my other brass.

I haven't had a single issue with it just being brass since it is as Imeo says. No oil or acidity from the fingers touch it so it stays clean a long time. I am very happy with it just as a bare brass contact. So happy in fact I would probably sand it down to brass if I everr needed to replace the button in it now.

 

[womblebat]

 

[raceengine]

Looking forward to the brass button comeback. Thanks Imeo

 

[fright88]

Looking forward to the brass button comeback. Thanks Imeo

You and me both. I like my old brass button most of all of them.

 

[Vaporologist]

Imeo, thanks for reporting your findings. I'm sure everyone here appreciates you running these tests to find the best solutions for GG products.

I would like to be able to understand what you wrote a little bit better but I don't understand all the terminology related to metals. You said: "Pitting was the result." What exactly is pitting?

Also: "There is not a real solution when arc happens." What is an arc?

As you can tell, I am not knowledgeable on even the basics of metals or the language surrounding it and I appreciate your help.

Thank you.