Silver plating your removable contact pins

[Surreal Vapist]

I've been looking into this to improve the conductivity of my mod that doesn't have silver plated contacts. First I took it out and carefully put it in the chuck of a drill and hammered away on a bar of .999 silver. Didn't really see much results, so I tried hitting it with a butane torch for about 15 seconds and tried it some more, really giving it all that seemed sane. It looks slightly silverish now, not like the fine stuff but it also does seem to get the current to the coil a little quicker. I also saw this video, anyone ever try this stuff??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OzblOt0f5c

 

[Surreal Vapist]

Possibly a dremel tool for the higher RPM to get more friction? I doubt you could get it up to 1700 degrees though (melting point of silver). Silver is considerably softer than brass though, which is the material my firing pin is made of.

 

[Froth]

Silver plating a base metal will only improve conductivity on a very small scale if at all, there has been testing done to show that it really doesn't help as much as using a properly designed mod that will not rely on plated contacts to remain highly conductive.

If a switch is badly designed, no amount of "highly conductive" materials will make up for that improper design.

My most conductive hardest hitting mod has a solid brass switch and brass battery contact and it puts some of my 100% copper mods to shame.

 

[Surreal Vapist]

hmm, good to know, but what if you could cast the pin out of pure silver?

 

[Froth]

hmm, good to know, but what if you could cast the pin out of pure silver?

Once the current leaves the silver, what is going to improve the conductivity of the rest of the mod? At very best, a pure silver contact would solve any possible issues at the contact point of the mod but if there are conductivity issues in the rest of the mod a pure silver contact would do almost nothing as it would just move the point of higher resistance away from the battery contact and into the mod.

A mod is only as conductive as its least conductive portion. Even a mod with an entirely silver switch could perform poorly if the rest of the mod is not properly designed to carry that conductivity.

I delved into this issue with my very first mech mod, a Smoktech Natural which had three piece chrome plated brass contacts. After painstakingly machining solid copper contacts for both the switch AND the top contact pin I had gained...wait for it, a whopping .07 increase in overall voltage drop. I abandoned that mod from that day forward and moved on to more conductive designs.

 

[Surreal Vapist]

my mods hit well, but I was trying to make them better....thanks for the info though. maybe if someone sold a mod that was made of silver lol, but it would cost way too much.

 

[Froth]

my mods hit well, but I was trying to make them better....thanks for the info though. maybe if someone sold a mod that was made of silver lol, but it would cost way too much.

It's been done, there aren't many out there but there is a Pure Silver version of the Caravela in 18350 mode. Even at ~$2800 they sold out during the pre-order.

 

[InfinityzeN]

A 1cm length of copper 18 AWG wire has ~0.0002 ohm of resistance. Silver would have ~0.000189 ohm of resistance. Brass would would have ~0.000757 ohm of resistance.

Even if we are dealing with a total of 20cm (nearly 8") of total wire/pin/connections you are talking about thousandths of an ohm. Thousandths! Even if we went from all brass wires/pin/connections to all silver you are talking about a difference of ~0.01134 ohms less. And of course it will be much less since your stock wires/connections will be copper or possibly aluminum.

As others have stated before, the quality of the design and ensuring that all connections are clean, solid, and insulated from possible shorts will make far more of a difference than changing the metal from copper and brass to silver.

 

[Surreal Vapist]

It's been done, there aren't many out there but there is a Pure Silver version of the Caravela in 18350 mode. Even at ~$2800 they sold out during the pre-order.

lol. I guess there are plenty of people willing to throw some real money at these things......which is a good thing, considering all the proposed bills that threaten the vaping community. Just like cigarettes, as long as the government can make bank from it, they'll allow it.

 

[Surreal Vapist]

Once the current leaves the silver, what is going to improve the conductivity of the rest of the mod? At very best, a pure silver contact would solve any possible issues at the contact point of the mod but if there are conductivity issues in the rest of the mod a pure silver contact would do almost nothing as it would just move the point of higher resistance away from the battery contact and into the mod.

This. I also realized that even if the entire mod was made from .999 silver, the RDA is more than likely never going to be, since silver has poisonous properties when superheated. Not to mention, an all silver mod would be fully tarnished like every 2 days.

 

[duc916]

an all silver mod would be fully tarnished like every 2 days.

Actually all the internal straps of our 13.56MHz RF matching networks in the semiconductor industry are made of silver-plated copper, and the reason for that is when it oxidizes it's still highly conductive. We used to use bare copper straps 15+ years ago, but process shifts occurred within weeks as oxidation built up. I'd take a silver-plated contact over bare anything, anytime.

 

[InfinityzeN]

^^^

Also why gold plated contacts are used. Gold is actually less conductive than copper, but it does not oxidize.