Mooch’s Minding Your Mech’s series

[Carambrda]

You're not going to have arcing on threads. Arcing occurs when breaking the connection.

Micro-arcing. Micro-arcing happens between the threads, but micro-arcing isn't normally a problem excepting only after the lube that's in the Noalox (or DeoxIT Gold or whatever the "protective" type of contact cleaner you think is going to help to protect your threads) gets broken down as a result from micro-arcing, as the broken down lube will speed up corrosion thereby making thigs worse, not better. The type of contact cleaners that contain some kind of lube or electrical grease are known to help protect a potentiometer against the friction that occurs. But on the threads of a tube mech I would stick with the type of contact spray that doesn't leave any kind of residue whatsoever after it completely evaporates. (Typically the latter type of spray comes in a spray can that contains some kind of isopropyl based mixture and propene.)

 

[Carambrda]

Arcing can happen on make and break, break is the most significant and common. Making contact should be very little arcing. Proper design limits both. And a proper design should not have making and breaking occurring on either side of the battery.

I disagree with that last sentence. Out of the 44 mech mods that I currently own, 26 are tube mechs that are using this so-called "improper design", yet, despite that, arcing spots on my batteries have always been either very minimal or completely nonexistent, like, for example, I have been vaping on my copper Purge Mods Suicide King 20700 Murdered Out using the stock copper firing pin, daily and pretty much exclusively for way more than a month, at .11 ohms with a single Samsung 20S battery in the 18650 copper contact adapter piece with the contact of the adapter piece facing upwards so that the firing pin still makes and breaks contact with the negative terminal of the battery, yet, despite this, there simply are no arcing spots to be seen on any of my twelve Samsung 20S batteries (Even, if I look at them under magnification.) I have a whole bunch of solid silver firing pins by Purge Mods lying around that were £50 each. But I've been being too lazy to spend the ~2 minutes it takes to screw them in.

Unfortunately, most of the mechs do this. Designs such as Sub Ohm Innovations, Broadside, 2JNT, Purge Slam piece, et al do in fact have contacts that do NOT make and break on battery terminals at all. Using an 18650 adapter in a 20700 or 21700 mod also prevents making and breaking on cells directly. Constant pressure on battery terminals results in less battery wear/damage and un necessary battery heating from associated power loss at the terminal point. I've been using my 2JNT Pilak Tycoon for nearly 3 weeks nonstop and pulled out the switch to check the contact area and it's perfectly clean as the day I got it! And (of course) the batteries look perfect since they make constant contact on both positive and negative terminals the entire time.

And threads should never, ever have arcing. Just as there should never be any intermittent connections (interruptions) along a circuit that's NOT intended to disrupt the flow of electrons. If there's intermittent connectivity in your threads you have a serious design flaw! Some mods may indeed have arcing in other places besides where make and break occurs at the battery terminal. I've seen cloned AV tubes, due to the sloppy tolerances around the firing pin, for example, get arc marks between the firing pin and ring where it travels. That's one area that was addressed in the Dreamer mod.

With high current designs, the best way to keep arcing to a minimum is the open and close the contacts as quickly as possible. This just isn't feasible with the simplicity of a mechanical mod. And most people wouldn't like the snap noise that would sound similar to say the piezoelectric igniter found on a gas grill which employs an impact principle to increase spark energy.

Here we can see not only the significance of AC vs. DC (which doesn't apply to battery powered mods) AND arcing on make and break.

 

[triakis]

Perhaps the proper wording would be poor design. These batteries were never designed to be used in products where their contacts are part of the switch, ESPECIALLY at very high current levels. The black marks, pitting, heat (hot buttons, etc) are warning signs.

Fact is these new high current batteries we use aren't designed to be used in this manner, PERIOD!

The fix isn't really difficult and will actually make the mod more efficient as the switch will have less voltage drop and better consistency. This is precisely why the side fire mods vape smoother and hit harder. And they keep the batteries in much better condition while doing the same.

All firing pin style tubes are going to arc. If you're not seeing (evidence) of this after use, that means you have a good contact patch. A pin that strikes even slightly perpendicular is only going to have a fraction of its available surface area and this will increase pitting. Hot buttons are bad too as this heat transfers quickly to the battery can (when facing negative).

I've never had (thread) arcing on a GOOD mod with threads. Threads will collect all kinds of FOD (foreign object debris) combined with moisture in the air and anything else and will turn colors. You're not seeing the telltale signs of arcing. There's simply too much surface area for the energy levels involved. Threads need to be kept clean, always. If you put a cloth over your finger and spin it around on internal threads and see black, your threads are already way too dirty.

 

[Carambrda]

Perhaps the proper wording would be poor design. These batteries were never designed to be used in products where their contacts are part of the switch, ESPECIALLY at very high current levels. The black marks, pitting, heat (hot buttons, etc) are warning signs.

I have no idea what you are talking about, as .11 ohms on a single Samsung 20S is still a couple amps more than 30 amps. (Even, after you factor in both the voltage sag of the battery and the voltage drop of the copper tube mech that I mentioned.)

Fact is these new high current batteries we use aren't designed to be used in this manner, PERIOD!

So what? No visible arcing spots on the battery itself means no visible arcing spots on the battery itself, at least in my book.

The fix isn't really difficult and will actually make the mod more efficient as the switch will have less voltage drop and better consistency. This is precisely why the side fire mods vape smoother and hit harder. And they keep the batteries in much better condition while doing the same.

I have to disagree on all counts. Like I already explained, a firing pin making and breaking contact directly on the battery terminals isn't necessarily always going to create visible arcing spots on the battery, even if used at high current levels, as that still very heavily depends on the design and the machining so there can be no fix when there's nothing to fix, and, adding a separate contact in between the battery and the switch is logically the same as adding the voltage drop of this same added contact, albeit you won't feel it on the vape the fact that the added contact is there, at least not if we can assume that the contact is clean. See Ep10 in Minding Your Mechs for hard evidence... the difference resulting from the added contact of the 18650 adapter piece used in the white brass Admiral was so totally microscopic in fact, it didn't even show up in Mooch's measurements so good luck on trying to tell the difference by vaping when blindfolded. The bottom line here is you need to either stop chasing ghosts or start looking for ghosts in other locations other than this one, as a firing pin making and breaking contact directly on the battery terminals can offer easier maintenance by having one less contact to clean.

All firing pin style tubes are going to arc. If you're not seeing (evidence) of this after use, that means you have a good contact patch. A pin that strikes even slightly perpendicular is only going to have a fraction of its available surface area and this will increase pitting. Hot buttons are bad too as this heat transfers quickly to the battery can (when facing negative).

See Ep10 in Minding Your Mechs for hard evidence that the white brass Admiral, which isn't a firing pin style tube, is still going to arc all the same. That is, although I should add that Ep9 had shown no visible traces of arcing in the copper Broadside so this appears to suggest the metal type of each one of both contact surfaces are all that really counts in this regard in this specific tube mech anyway, but like I said I've done way, WAY more than 300 button presses with a copper firing pin at above 30A, yet my batteries still aren't showing any sign of it so at least to me, personally, my aforementioned observations very clearly refute your conclusion of "poor design is the proper wording when talking about ANY firing pin style tube".

I've never had (thread) arcing on a GOOD mod with threads. Threads will collect all kinds of FOD (foreign object debris) combined with moisture in the air and anything else and will turn colors. You're not seeing the telltale signs of arcing. There's simply too much surface area for the energy levels involved. Threads need to be kept clean, always. If you put a cloth over your finger and spin it around on internal threads and see black, your threads are already way too dirty.

Micro-arcing is not the same thing as arcing. Tolerances in the machining of the threads are what makes micro-arcing unavoidable in areas where the two metal surfaces aren't touching each other properly, but like I already tried to explain up thread, micro-arcing normally (normally, i.e. if we can assume threads are always being kept clean and you're not causing any excess wear and tear nor any damage on them by, e.g., polishing them all the time instead of just cleaning...) only becomes a problem after you did something obviously wrong, like, you wrongfully assumed that electrical lube doesn't speed up corrosion after micro-arcing has caused the lube to break down.

 

[The Cromwell]

A hot button on a mech is a sign of either a bad design or a poorly maintained mech.

 

[KingPin!]