Vapor Shark disassembly & self service

[bohrdom]

So my Vapor Shark dna 30W has started having a couple of problems and, well, times are tough and I can't afford to drop any money on new hardware right now. I wanted to avoid shipping the mod back to Miami for them to repair and, being a tinkerer and somewhat handy with a soldering iron, I thought I'd give it a try.

Does anybody have any advice for how to take this little guy apart?

I pulled off the cover and all the guts are pretty tightly squeezed in there. I need to replace (or at least access) the fire button, and it looks like the 510 connector needs to be pulled in order to make that happen. But the 510 connector seems to be reluctant to be removed, with minimal clearance between it and the fire button. If I could remove the positive wire, that would make everything easier - it almost looks like it's on some kind of connector, but I don't want to tug too hard and rip it off if it's just some sort of funky soldering job. I've seen photos of the device disassembled online, so I know this is somehow possible... just don't want to force anything and break it! Seems like this rig is a bit of a house of cards...

One of the things that needs to be replaced is the firing button - does anybody know where to buy one of these buttons? I sent a note to Vapor Shark last night and, while I admittedly haven't heard back yet, I suspect that I'll just get a response saying, "Please don't do this. Send it to us to fix." Which is a) not in my budget, and b) money that could be better put toward a Hana or something for the future.

 

[Technonut]

Moved from APV forum to Variable Voltage forum...

 

[bohrdom]

Not sure if anybody is following this thread, but I figured it out. Thought I'd post the photos here in case anybody is interested to read this in the future.

I slid a pair of round-point tweezers in between the positive pin and the side of the 510 connector and gently - GENTLY - pried it out. This is a slightly delicate procedure, since you don't want to pry so hard that you damage the 510 connector and you want to make sure you don't hit the fire button accidentally (of course, you should also double-check that you're in locked mode prior to starting the procedure).



Once the 510 connector was out, I worked the central plastic plate out and freed it from underneath the fire button wires.



With that removed, it took a few sharp pulls on the fire button to snap it out of place and free it as well from the chassis. Not sure if I broke anything in doing that - we'll find out when I slide in the new fire button. If I did, I figure a thin layer of 2-ton epoxy from the underside should do the trick to get the new button secured.



Props to Victor from Vapor Shark for helping me out to get a new fire button! Looking forward to having this baby up and running again. While I wait, it's time for a repaint... and one last scour of the internet for a higher-capacity 16600... it's so heartbreakingly close to being able to fit an 18650!!