Why would a mech mod stop working?

[rickylford]

I know there are very few points in a mech mod's life where it would cease to function (such as it just being flat out destroyed) which is the beauty of having them. However, I purchased a PureSmoker Legacy a lonnnnng time ago and it was a pure mech mod. I popped a battery in it a little bit ago (after it sitting stored away for about a year or two) and put a carto on top and it just simply wouldn't fire. I cleaned all of the contacts on the device where the carto and the battery touch, etc, and still, it just won't fire. I've tried loosening and tightening all of the contacts for the battery department and nothing...just won't fire.

I'm at a loss as to why in the world it just won't work any longer.

Any suggestions?

 

[suspectK]

Do you have a multimeter?

37, ph0n3 h0m3.

 

[rickylford]

Do you have a multimeter?

37, ph0n3 h0m3.

I sure do.

 

[suspectK]

Take off top cap with atomizer on it, one lead on pin.. other on body.

37, ph0n3 h0m3.

 

[rickylford]

Hmm.. Not really getting anything worth reading. For some reason my multimeter keeps jumping around even without the leads touching anything. I have it on volt mold, it's one of those 22-range Pocket Digital Multimeter devices from RadioShack. This is getting quite frustrating haha.

 

[suspectK]

Check resistance. You should get the same ohm range as the atomizer's coil.

37, ph0n3 h0m3.

 

[emcdannell]

Is it the Atty? You probably already tried but i had the same issue and my positive pin was grounding out

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[rickylford]

Hmm... Not quite sure I'm following the directions correctly now. When you said take off the top cap with atomizer on it, does that mean to touch the positive stick of the multimeter to the inside of my cartomizer? Or take the cartomizer off and touch it to the screw that's inside the top of the Legacy that the cartomizer screws down to?

And yea, I already tried changing out cartomizers. Doesn't work with my tank either.

 

[suspectK]

Sorry, take cap off mech mod with atomizer attached, and measure resistance.

If you have an adjustable pin..tighten the pin down to make contact with atomizer. If it is a fixed pin, you'll need to get an adaptor or use a different atomizer to make contact without a 510 adaptor.

37, ph0n3 h0m3.

 

[Ryedan]

Hmm... Not quite sure I'm following the directions correctly now. When you said take off the top cap with atomizer on it, does that mean to touch the positive stick of the multimeter to the inside of my cartomizer? Or take the cartomizer off and touch it to the screw that's inside the top of the Legacy that the cartomizer screws down to?

And yea, I already tried changing out cartomizers. Doesn't work with my tank either.

With the top cap of the Legacy and the atty on it, look at the bottom of the top cap and probe the center post that sticks out and the body of the top cap. Doesn't matter which probe goes where. You're checking resistance. If you see the resistance of the atty that connection is good.

If you see no resistance displayed, or much higher resistance displayed, take off the atty. Look into the top of the top cap. Unscrew the screw you see there a turn and gently install the atty. You should not be able to screw the atty all the way onto the top of the top cap. You should now see atty resistance when you check the assembly again.

 

[rickylford]

Alright, I'm assuming the top cap works. The multimeters reads "0.F" and then I attached the negative post to the threads of the cap and then the positive post to the gold pin at the very bottom and it shows 13.53 immediately. Then the longer I leave it on, it goes up by 0.01 increments about once every second. The bottom right of the screen of the multimeter shows "M Ω". It's weird because this cartomizer is at about a 1.6 ohms when plugged into my VTR.

EDIT: Alright, I unscrewed the inside screw a little bit where the cartomizer attaches and it now reads the ohms of the cartomizer just fine. It fluctuated from 1.6-1.9 and bounced around those numbers for a bit, but regardless, it still showed them. And the bottom right finally just showed the "Ω" sign instead of the "M Ω" sign. I tried it again on the mod and still, no luck.

 

[rickylford]

I got it to work! Apparently these new batteries I have are a lot shorter than the ones I used to use in it. I unscrewed the bottom screw a LOT and finally, it started making a solid connection. So I just need to fix it up so that the screw comes out a bit more than it is designed to haha. Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[Rickajho]

'Kay. I seem to recall center post issues causing a dead short if devices were over tightened onto the Legacy as one of the complaints in the second law suit against Puresmoker. (PS's fix for the problem on the web site? "Don't do that.") Just make sure you understand that mod and that it is functioning properly.

 

[rickylford]

'Kay. I seem to recall center post issues causing a dead short if devices were over tightened onto the Legacy as one of the complaints in the second law suit against Puresmoker. (PS's fix for the problem on the web site? "Don't do that.") Just make sure you understand that mod and that it is functioning properly.

Holy crap.. They were involved in lawsuits?! I had no idea haha.

But yea, I don't plan on using it. I was just curious if it would give me the same production as my Nemesis does on a sub-ohm setup. I mean, a mech mod is a mech mod, right? But either way, I appreciate the help!

 

[bce22]

Holy crap.. They were involved in lawsuits?! I had no idea haha.

But yea, I don't plan on using it. I was just curious if it would give me the same production as my Nemesis does on a sub-ohm setup. I mean, a mech mod is a mech mod, right? But either way, I appreciate the help!

Wow, I just researched the Legacy lawsuit as well. Not good.

In regards to all mechs performing the same, the answer is no. Some mechs have a higher voltage drop to the atomizer under load than others. The nemesis has a low voltage drop so you are getting more useable power to your atomizer than many other mech mods.