Sigelei Zmax V3 and V5 Telescopic: User's Group

[cllmda]

I have a zmax v5 telescopic ....
While removing the top to try to adjust the button (which was a little "off center" ) one of the 2 wires came un attached (there are two ,one black, one white, both extremely short so if you remove the top this is very likely to happen if youre not careful.....
My problem is that the black one came undone on one end ( the side attached to the card is fine)...Does anyone know where/what exactly the other end of the black wire is supposed to go so i can try to re attach it ?

This is my first mod and am not very mechanical, any help/indications would be REALLY appreciated

ps By the way I absolutely LOVED my zmax v5 telescopic before this happened..wasnt too big nor too heavy as i had initially been afraid of !!!(being a girl didnt see myself carrying ahuge flashlight type thing around )

 

[yzer]

Hi cllmda. Sorry to read about your troubles.

I haven't taken a sigelei Zmax apart but I have a strong hunch that the other end of the black wire is soldered to the inside of the top cap near the rim on first generation V3s without the removable top cap. If yours is a second generation V3 or a V5 with the removable top cap then the wire is soldered to the inside of one-piece 510/ego connector at the same location. Look for signs of solder or melted flux at this area. That's where the wire must be soldered. Black wires are ground (B-) and white wires are positive (B+).

This may help.

Sigelei Zmax repair photos

 

[yzer]

Any electronics repair shop can do this job for you or ask a friend who knows how to solder electronics. Just tell them where the wire needs to be soldered. If you want to do it yourself you will need:

-A soldering iron or soldering pencil
-Some electrical solder
-Soldering flux

 

[fairmana]

I haven't had my brand new V5 apart yet, but I've had plenty of V3's apart. I've broken those wires several times because they often get moved around too much and they get weak at the spot just above the solder. Most of the time they seem to break most often at the circuit card, and not at the top cap.

Yzer is spot-on regarding where the black wire needs to get soldered. If the spot the wire used to be soldered to is not obvious, you can solder it just about anywhere on the underside of the top cap but be careful that it's out of the way. In other words, just ensure the point where you solder it doesn't push against anything on the inside of the opposite tube or you may damage or short something when you try to put it back together. Worse case you should be able to rotate the top cap a little so that it doesn't hit on anything on the opposite side where the circuit card is.

Another issue you might encounter is being able to generate enough heat to melt the solder to that big chunk of metal (top cap). Some soldering irons can manage if you're quick about it, but many can't. That much steel will suck most of the heat from the soldering iron before it can properly melt and wick the solder to the cap. In these cases, it's best to use a soldering "gun". They are high wattage and quickly get very hot as soon as you press the trigger. Hopefully you won't need it, but if you can't solder it maybe you can take it somewhere or someone you know owns a soldering gun. Worse case scenario they sell them at Radio Shack for about $40 which isn't cheap.

Lastly, make sure you rough-up the metal where you're going to solder the wire with a little sandpaper or a sharp object so the solder has something to "grab" onto. If it's left smooth, the wire may just pop off again along with the solder. Also be sure to use a little flux so the solder flows well. Clean up the flux afterwards with alcohol.

Best of luck!

 

[yzer]

I was waiting for you to jump in fairmana because I wasn't sure what wattage soldering tool was needed for this job.

A 12W soldering pencil is fine for soldering the wire to the board but you need more watts to solder that wire to a big chunk of stainless steel that acts like a heat sink. I have a old soldering iron from WW2 that my dad gave me for soldering stranded antenna wire on USN ships. The thing must be a foot and a half long. I also have several Weller soldering guns that fall somewhere in-between.

You want to solder hot and fast. I'd recommend at least a 40W flat tip to solder that puppy.

 

[yzer]

These Chinese electronics folks don't bother to clean flux off of solder joins which is too bad because left-over flux can corrode the join over time. As faimana said, clean the finished soldering job with a Q-tip soaked in alcohol after you are done.

 

[fairmana]

Yeah, a 40 watt might do it. Anything less is doubtful. I wish I could be a little more specific, but the temp on my PACE soldering station is adjustable, so I just crank it up so I don't have to dig out the soldering gun (being lazy).

Cllmda you mentioned you weren't very mechanical, so chances are that you don't own a soldering iron. If that's the case, then hopefully you know someone that can help you out with the soldering part. Regardless, my hat's off to you for making the attempt to fix your own V5.

 

[fairmana]

Cllmda, you mentioned your V5 button was off center. I'm guessing that your V5 is an older version and the button is clear (not metal) and that's how you could see the button wasn't aligned. If so, you probably already confirmed that your circuit card was loose when you removed the cap. It was probably easy for you to pull out the circuit card along with your top cap, which shouldn't happen normally.

Usually either the half-round black plastic support comes loose from the tube or the card breaks out the little "stops" at the end of the grooves in the black plastic support the card rests in.

If that black plastic support is loose, you'll need to glue that back to the inside of the metal tube (epoxy glue works well). When you glue it in, it's important to put the circuit card back into it so you have a way of judging the position it needs to be glued in. Make the flat part of the button on the circuit card sit flat against the underside of the outer button. Rotate the black support inside the tube to make minor adjustments as you look down the length of the tube from the open end. Don't worry about aligning your screen to the rectangular opening in the tube. This is fruitless exercise that will bleed away your sanity. I've found that it's more important that the button alignment be correct and the screen alignment will follow. Even if the screen alignment doesn't seem right, don't second guess yourself. Trust me. The screen alignment is never perfect (even from the factory) but you will still be able to read the screen just fine after the fact. Keep it in the correct position until the glue is dry enough that you can lay it down or stand it at an angle to keep everything in place. The top cap dangling from the wires has a tendency to shift everything around if you try to lay it down to dry, so you'll need to get creative.

If you're lucky and the black plastic support is still glued inside the tube, you can obviously skip the above in which case that means your card "broke out" of the support. You'll need to make a spacer that the circuit card can push against from the pressure of the battery pushing on it from below. Even if your support had broken loose, I highly recommend you do this anyway so that you'll never have to worry about it again. The spacer will be sandwiched between the circuit card and the top cap and will need to be about 2mm thick. That will keep the card in place and keep the button in the position it needs to be in permanently. I wrote a tutorial on how to make a spacer waaaay back in this thread.

Hope this helps you!

 

[BXfan]

I believe there were also some pics of the wire soldered in place further back in the thread - someone thought there was a slit in the seal below the center pin that was allowing juice to get inside - if that rings a bell? If i recall the issue proved to be a stress crack, but i do remeber a nice set of pictures with wiring attached.

 

[yzer]

I believe there were also some pics of the wire soldered in place further back in the thread - someone thought there was a slit in the seal below the center pin that was allowing juice to get inside - if that rings a bell? If i recall the issue proved to be a stress crack, but i do remeber a nice set of pictures with wiring attached.

This one is good.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-telescopic-users-group-116.html#post13043095

 

[yzer]

Varitube has restocked the flat head V3 and dropped the body only price a couple of dollars.

Sigelei Zmax, Legend, 20W

 

[fairmana]

This one is good.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-telescopic-users-group-116.html#post13043095

I had forgotten about that pic. Thanks for remembering BXfan and for posting the link Yzer. I don't know if the top cap on the V5 is identical to the V3 in the pic, but it should be close enough for someone to get a good idea of where the wire should be soldered. It's apparent how it's soldered on the inner recessed lip so it doesn't interfere with anything when it's all put back together.

 

[MSD1405]

In relation to Noalox availability in Australia as being discussed back on Thread page 274

I found this at Ideal Industries, the Corporate HQ for Noalox. also this for IDEAL INDUSTRIES AUSTRALIA...
Ideal_International@idealindustries.com

Ideal Industries I don't believe exist anymore here. I emailed and called without success. Thanks for the heads up though.

I'm sorry to hear that Noalox is difficult to find in Australia. I found a thread where some folks from Australia were also trying to find a substitute for Noalox. One vaper was using "conductive carbon grease" that was purchased at JayCar That product sounds like it could be a good substitute for Noalox.

Thanks for that. I had a look at the JAYCAR Product which shows as CT-CCG-50 Carbon Conductive Grease . Looking at the associated PDF it shows as being the same product made by Chemtools called R006 Conductive Carbon Grease

I have since found this is available from Vapeking in Sydney which is one of my Vape suppliers sells it as well. Link Here.

Chemtools Official Website Link: Here

I might give this a go...........no idea how it compares to Noalox.

Another link was provided for Noalox at www.vapebar.com (Australian vape store) but that site was down when I tried it. It was "down for maintenance" but I got the feeling it might be shut down permanently (might be worth checking back later just in case).

I can confirm that Vapebar is closed as it is now illegal to sell anything E-cig related in Western Australia. Shame as I liked them and their juices.
Cheers

EDIT: Further research shows that
Noalox is made up of (80%<Polybutene, <20% Zinc Dust & <5% Silicon Dioxide)
Chemtools CT-R006 is less specific however = Non Hazardous Ingredients 60-90% & Graphite Powder 10-30% 3mg/m3

So the conductive component of each is different, Zinc in Noalox and Graphite in Chemtools.

Potential Graphite issues (As per wikipedia) here The use of graphite is limited by its tendency to facilitate pitting corrosion in some stainless steel, and to promote galvanic corrosion between dissimilar metals (due to its electrical conductivity). It is also corrosive to aluminium in the presence of moisture

Chemtools however state: It is easily applied and will give you trouble free performance even on dissimilar metals.

Ha........life is never easy however will use it myself as don't see it being an issue on the Siegeli V5 or other Mods!

 

[AndriaD]

I can confirm that Vapebar is closed as it is now illegal to sell anything E-cig related in Western Australia. Shame as I liked them and their juices.
Cheers

Aww man... I had a terrible nightmare the other night... I dreamed I had gone to Australia for some reason, and they confiscated all my vape gear at the airport... that woke me up in a sweat!

Andria

 

[MSD1405]

Aww man... I had a terrible nightmare the other night... I dreamed I had gone to Australia for some reason, and they confiscated all my vape gear at the airport... that woke me up in a sweat!

Andria

Ha...........funny dream! You would be fine.....as it is only WA that has this ruling (although its not illegal to Vape, buy or own vape gear, its the selling of it that they stupidly clamped down on over there. All other states in Australia are fine (for now at least)!.

 

[AndriaD]

Ha...........funny dream! You would be fine.....as it is only WA that has this ruling (although its not illegal to Vape, buy or own vape gear, its the selling of it that they stupidly clamped down on over there. All other states in Australia are fine (for now at least)!.

Well I wasn't sure of the details, but somewhere I read or heard something about a ban of some kind on vaping or vape gear, somewhere in Australia. Apparently my subconscious picked that up for later review in a night-time horror movie.

Andria

 

[TjNyc]

Well, it finally arrived! My new Gun Metal Zmax V5... I already love this thing.

My RDA looks a little anemic on it, so that'll be the next thing on the list to replace.

Quick observation tho -- the button on this seems a little finicky. Sometimes while the button is pushed, I must be ever so slightly releasing a little pressure on it and the display flickers briefly, almost as tho the contact between the button and whatever it is making contact with is being lost for a brief moment. I Noalox'd the threads the moment it arrived, so I don't believe there is any issue with conductivity. It doesn't seem to be much of a problem at all tho -- I think I'm just more used to the very positive buttons on my old eGo style batteries. Anyone else notice this?

- John

 

[yzer]

Well, it finally arrived! My new Gun Metal Zmax V5... I already love this thing.

My RDA looks a little anemic on it, so that'll be the next thing on the list to replace.

Quick observation tho -- the button on this seems a little finicky. Sometimes while the button is pushed, I must be ever so slightly releasing a little pressure on it and the display flickers briefly, almost as tho the contact between the button and whatever it is making contact with is being lost for a brief moment. I Noalox'd the threads the moment it arrived, so I don't believe there is any issue with conductivity. It doesn't seem to be much of a problem at all tho -- I think I'm just more used to the very positive buttons on my old eGo style batteries. Anyone else notice this?

- John

That's a great-looking V5! It should give you a lot good vaping. The V3 and V5 are 23mm in diameter. On a flat top the 19mm atomizer will match up with the inner edge of the bevel and a 22 mm will match up with the 23mm outside diameter. You have to look very hard to see any size difference between a 23mm top cap and a 22mm topper.

The tactile switch does not respond at it's best to gradual pressing or release. It's better to hit and release these switches with a quicker motion to avoid misfires. You will become accustomed to this soon.

A 22mm tank on a a flat top.

A 19mm tank on a flat top.

 

[TjNyc]

The tactile switch does not respond at it's best to gradual pressing or release. It's better to hit and release these switches with a quicker motion to avoid misfires. You will become accustomed to this soon.

Should hopefully be picking up a less gimpy looking RDA soon, perhaps next paycheck, else my wife will probably hurt me (Why do I live in constant fear of this woman? Haha). Have to try and find one that'll match up not only in diameter but color as well.

Thank you for your words in regard to the button -- as with anything new, I was wondering if I had a bum unit that'll fail in two weeks, but that idea has pretty much been alleviated.

Thanks again, and have a good one.

- John.

 

[AndriaD]

Well, it finally arrived! My new Gun Metal Zmax V5... I already love this thing.

My RDA looks a little anemic on it, so that'll be the next thing on the list to replace.

Quick observation tho -- the button on this seems a little finicky. Sometimes while the button is pushed, I must be ever so slightly releasing a little pressure on it and the display flickers briefly, almost as tho the contact between the button and whatever it is making contact with is being lost for a brief moment. I Noalox'd the threads the moment it arrived, so I don't believe there is any issue with conductivity. It doesn't seem to be much of a problem at all tho -- I think I'm just more used to the very positive buttons on my old eGo style batteries. Anyone else notice this?

- John

I am drooling with envy, I want one of those so bad. Be *sure* to show some pics of whatever topper you get, if it's a gun-metal finish. Probably the major reason I'm holding off is that my favorite top to use with the Sigelei is a kayfun, and those don't [yet?] come in a gun-metal finish. Darn it. They do come in black, though it's a "russian 91%", but I'm not sure the black would look any better atop a gun-metal mod than a plain stainless tank would.

Andria