Testing atomizer resisitance

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VaperEd

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Nov 1, 2011
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You're welcome, vaprhead. Welcome to ECF. It's good you recognize the importance of a DMM this early (I presume) in your journey. You're on the path to success. There's bunches of good info available at the ECF, and more than a handful of good people. :)

You are correct. I have been vaping about a week now. I visit ECF daily and have gained much insight from the information provided here. I appreciate the time you and other members have given me freely and I will be glad to pass it on.
Thank you
 

makasin

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Feb 22, 2010
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just get a multimeter from an electronics store, connect the wires to the two poles aka connect the red wire to the center post of the atomizer and the black one to the outside metal where the threads are. It doesn't really matter which color (polarity) wire you connect to which, just connect one to the center and the other to the other thread part.

you can get cheap multimeters from 10-20 bucks online or at radio shack or something, or you can buy a dedicated tool for atomizers but I wouldn't recommend that since you can't really use it for anything else. Multimeters are incredibly useful tools for anything electrical so I would recommend spending some decent money, although really accurate and good ones are in the 200-400 dollar range. You can get by with a 20 buck one though, just don't expect it to be super accurate or last long. I luckily inherited one from my dad (putting it at 30 years old or more) that was pretty damn good. It had the original battery till recently lol. Fluke makes really good ones
 
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WillyB

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Oct 21, 2009
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Just so you are clear this is the correct procedure.

Here's step-by step (for digital multimiters):

1. Turn your multimeter on and select the lowest Ohms setting, usually 200Ω.
2. Look at the display; the left side of the screen should display number 1.
3. First, test the resistance of your leads. Touch to two leads together, firmly, and wait for numbers to stabilize. On the right side of the screen, you should see a number between 0.0 and 0.4, or so. This is the resistance of your leads. Remember that number.
4. Now, to test your atty. Position your carto firmly on your desk; you don't want it to slip and slide all over the place. Touch one lead to the hole in the center of the atty and the other lead to the threads. Again read the display after the numbers have stabilized.
5. Subtract the resistance of your leads (#3) from the resistance of your atty(#4). This is the resistance of your atomizer.

This process takes some getting used to. Steady hand helps. Just keep practicing and you'll figure it out.

And FWIW a $20 (or even $40) meter is no more accurate than the $4 ones. Better build quality, but no more accurate.
 

makasin

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Feb 22, 2010
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mmmmm... I wouldnt say a 4 dollar one is just as accurate as a nice Fluke though... :) although that may be true on the low end if it is, I doubt it's true for the higher end ones. Sure if you are only testing resistance, its probably not a big deal, although I would think that especially in the lower resistances a cheaper one (cheaper internal parts, cheaper design) wouldn't be as precise nor accurate, but I haven't really used any cheap ones except for my friends devil (cause it's red and reads "666" when u turn it on for some reason) flea market one that he got for a buck or two. It got the job done, but jumped around in values a bit and probably wouldnt be so good when measuring things for our job. But if you just wanna measure resistance of atomizers, get a cheapie.
 
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