Wierd voltage drop under load issue - need assistance in troubleshooting

[holy_handgrenade]

I got a gifted mechanical clone, which worked great for about a month. Then ceased to work.

I've cleaned all contacts and have checked with my multimeter, the body, button, and contact of the mech mod seem to be working fine. Placing the leads to the positive contact and body result in an expected 4.1-4.2V current with a fresh battery. However, once I put an atomizer on the thing, it seems to be sluggish and not work at full power.

That sluggish start is one of many symptoms. It will work great for about 5-10 drags on the atomizer - then it'll just fail to fire altogether. I thought it might be my atomizer since there are other oddities with it, so I busted out a new genesis device and test fired it on my main mech mod. Fired up fine and tested out at .9ohms resistance and showed 4.0V running through the device. Threw it on the problem mech mod, again, sluggish fire, if it even fires.

The question if I have: what and where do I start troubleshooting this? Again, i've cleaned all contacts, took it apart completely and thoroughly cleaned and polished all pieces.

The other thing that confuses me is that when it is firing, especially when it's sluggish, the bottom button heats up. That leads me to believe there's some extra resistance in the button, but I cant find it anywhere.

Same battery and same atomizer fires perfectly in another mod.

Any ideas?

 

[suspectK]

I'd look at switch contacts, probably needs to be cleaned.

Do you know what clone it is? Picture?

 

[blueGrassTubb]

I'm wondering if the connection pin isn't somehow disengaging from the atty during use . . .

Other than that, I got nothin'.

 

[holy_handgrenade]

Well, it's a nemesis clone.

I took it to a local shop that more or less specializes in rebuildable stuff and apv's. Turns out it was the spring in the bottom switch. It wasnt conducting enough, causing resistance in the switch and an overall voltage drop to the atomizer.

I replaced the spring with a 3rd party stiffer spring with a special conductive coating and seems to have fixed all of the issues. Only problem now is that the spring is much shorter than the stock spring, so the button throw is too short for my liking.

 

[minimalsaint]

Well, it's a nemesis clone.

I took it to a local shop that more or less specializes in rebuildable stuff and apv's. Turns out it was the spring in the bottom switch. It wasnt conducting enough, causing resistance in the switch and an overall voltage drop to the atomizer.

I replaced the spring with a 3rd party stiffer spring with a special conductive coating and seems to have fixed all of the issues. Only problem now is that the spring is much shorter than the stock spring, so the button throw is too short for my liking.

You can always stretch it out a little bit.

 

[holy_handgrenade]

Ok, seemed to work fine for a few days, now is slipping back into the problem. It is *NOT* dirty contacts. This thing has been stripped out and cleaned quite thoroughly several times at the bare component level.

What seems to be going on is that the manufacturing tolerances suck. The metal ring that makes contact with the silver plated firing pin are not connecting right unless it's as tight as it can be - eliminating any adjustability that the nemesis is designed on, hence the short throw I didnt like. But even doing that, apparently keeping things tight like that is wearing and stretching the delrin isolators in both the positive and negative caps.

As things start making a loose connection, the electricity has to jump to make the connect, hence the resistance/heat in the button as I'm pressing it.

I'm hoping beyond hope that I can either find a replacement button or that there's some sort of fix online for it. Otherwise, strongly recommend against the clone nemesis from fasttech; the tobecco or hcigar ones may be better, but this one is junky.

 

[cjxxvi]

try upgrading the button with magnet for nemesis.