The BEST e-cigar mode ever !

[nickarsow]

Dear e-smokers,
A few weeks ago I made a mode of a J1800 cigar, because i found out that this cigar is the best one-time cigar ever made. I decided to make it rechargeable, because it was brutal to throw away suck an atomizer and cartridge. The atomizer is huge and the liquid cartridge is huge too. The cartridge holds nearly 4cm3 liquid. This cigar gives vapour like a locomotive and amazing throat hit.

So here is the modding process:

1. Remove the upper LED cup carefully to avoid breaking it;
2. Drill a hole in it for the female power jack - see series 1610/1614 from here: Lumberg ;
3. Cut the cigar into 2 halves carefully to avoid cutting the electronics;
4. Pull away the upper part of the body;
5. Unsolder the primary battery which the cigar is equipped with;
6. Carefully solder Ultrafire Li-Ion 3.7V 1800mAh LC 17670 instead;
7. Solder the (+) of the jack to battery (+) and (-) to battery (-) using 50mm black and red AWG22 wires;
8. Add a tube with the same diameter as the cigar to compensate the jack length, stick it with a self adhesive tape;
9. Assemble the cigar case backway without any force;
10. Glue the cap and cover the cigar body with a decorative self adhesive foil according your color taste.

Thus the cigar is ready.

Here's the Pass-Through/Charger description:

I developed a PCB according the Microchips documentation for MCP73832 - 500mA Li-Ion battery USB charger: MCP73832
The PCB is very small - 24mm x 16mm and needs just 4 passive components and 1 LED arround the IC. This USB charger is fully automatic and is the cheapest one a man could build. From one end a USB cable is soldered - RED=(+) and BLACK=(-). On the other end of the PCB a DC power cable is soldered. You could choose a jack from series NES/J or XNES/J as you like.
Note the (+) is the center pin !

Thus the modding is finished. See the attached pictures. I will answer all your questions about this mode. Believe me - It's a pleasure to vipe this GREAT rechargeable e-cigar.

P.S. The additional pictures follow in the next post.

 

[nickarsow]

Here are the remaining pictures for the USB charger.

 

[Sci]

Great job on this and great find on the charger.
Is that the actual board that they ship that is shown in the pictures? Or is that link just for the IC? Also, you soldered to an 18650? I was under the impression you weren't supposed to solder Li-ion battery terminals?

 

[nickarsow]

The PCB i've made(designed) myself. I had bought just ICs.
Soldering of 17670 Li-Ion battery terminals - I had found one with flat terminals and solder the cables to them. Also it's possible to solder wires directly by 80W soldering iron with solder Sn/Pb 40/60 with 2,2-2,5% flux. First clear the battery terminal with a fine sandpaper, take some solder with the soldering iron tip and preheat the battery terminal for a few seconds. Then add a little more solder avoiding the flux to burn. The soldering should be shiny.
I forgot to mention that the charging current is set by a resistor and has been choosen to be 450mA. Thus this USB charger could be used with any USB standard. Changing the resistor value you could select different charging currents between 50 and 500mA.

 

[Sci]

The PCB i've made(designed) myself. I had bought just ICs.
Soldering of 17670 Li-Ion battery terminals - I had found one with flat terminals and solder the cables to them. Also it's possible to solder wires directly by 80W soldering iron with solder Sn/Pb 40/60 with 2,2-2,5% flux. First clear the battery terminal with a fine sandpaper, take some solder with the soldering iron tip and preheat the battery terminal for a few seconds. Then add a little more solder avoiding the flux to burn. The soldering should be shiny.
I forgot to mention that the charging current is set by a resistor and has been choosen to be 450mA. Thus this USB charger could be used with any USB standard. Changing the resistor value you could select different charging currents between 50 and 500mA.

Thanks for the info.
I was looking on Digikey, they have this in the SOT-23(I think) package. It looks like something I can solder. I got the datasheet on these & will dig into it when I get off work.

The batteries I have all have buttons(Ultrafire 3.6v) on them with the exception of some Fuji NP-120(3.6v camera batteries) that have the typical 3 windows with what looks like copper strips in them. They are the main ones I would like to solder strips to. Have you ever worked with batteries like that? How safe would it be to solder one of them? One last thing on this, I've got an adjustable iron with a 50w max, would that be safe to use or should I just wait til I get an 80w? Wish I knew someone with a spot welder.

Back to your mod. How long does a cartridge last on one of those? Have you thought about making it a 5v mod? Talk about vapor production, I'll bet it would be massive. Texas Instruments makes a board(ptn04050c) that will boost 3.6v to 5v & it would probably fit in this cigar. Or, you could always use 2 batteries & a voltage regulator.

Once again, great job & thanks for the extra info.

 

[nickarsow]

Dear Sci,
First - for the soldering. You could learn to do it fine on an old discharged primary AA elements to avoid the damage of a new accu. Try soldering till you find you could make it fine. The best and safest way is the profi spot welder.
The package of that IC is SOT-23/5 ( 5 pin SOT-23 ) and is not difficult to solder with a sharp soldering iron tip. I could send you the PCB gerber file and the schematics if you wish. Just need your e-mail ( you could send me a private message ).
What about the voltage - you do NOT need more, say 5V. The steam and the throat hit are so plenty. More, 3,7-4,2V keeps the heater in good health. Overheating is not necessary and will shorten the heater's life.
About the accus - only 17670 fits in the J1800 tube. If you use 18650, you should either use a tube with inner diameter 19-20mm, or use the accu externally.
The cartridge - I use a similar mode but without USB pass-through since January this year.The mode is powered by 3V AC/DC adaptor directly by male/female jacks. Fully filled cartridge lasts 3-4 days without any refilling. The felt lasts more than a month and half. Then I had changed it with a blue sponge. But don't forget to restore the aluminium foil - stick or glue it by heat or glue. The aluminium foil prevents the leakage of juice. Keep the hole in the AL foil, made by the attomizer's bridge as small as possible ( do not rotate the cartridge ).

 

[Sci]

Thank you for the information. I may have to get one of these & check it out. I'm definitely going to get a couple of those charger chips.

 

[nickarsow]

During my experience with J1800, I found a small problem, which I'd like to share.
When one do not use the cigar for a couple of weeks, the liquid smudges the vacuum switch contact system by capillary way. This makes the cigar almost unusable. You should then disassemble it, clean it with pure alchohol and again assemble it.
Please if you do not use the cigar for a long time - just disassemble the cartridge or keep the cigar with the cartridge downwаrds.

 

[Mr.Mad]

Thats a great idea for a internal usb charger checked that site they only sell 25 @ a time... So I had a idea.. I had a blue that had a charger board inside ... I wont be using the blu anymore cause its junk.. But the PCC has it built in ... took it apart and thats what Im going to us to charge my 18650 mod im building... and the pcc on blu site is like 10 bucks. cheaper alternative.
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