The Orange Steam Box

[Xhale]

from paper to reality.

daytime today was amish day...no internet allowed, so I got the time to crack down and get this squonker made.

Bits I used:
An Orange Plastic Box
fat Daddy v4 brass low profile 510
fat Daddy bottom feeder insert for v4 connector (its the same centre pin but with a hole)
fat Daddy rda bottom feeder conversion kit (needed this for the hollow needle and piping...but ended up using all the parts)
a thick wire
keystone dual 18650 holder.
4 small magnets
^ these parts form the box, power wire and bottom feeder parts)

a long bolt, 4 nuts, a cup washer and a spring from a Nemesis, and a copper pipe flat U-clamp
^this all formed the switch

Now, the reason I did this was to see how my "switch" would end up working...from a napkin drawing to prototype. I have my eye on a nice piece of wood, so made this Orange Steam Box to check how everything will work before committing holes to dead tree.

Pictures:

so everyting was freehanded with a dremel, more to test theory than to create a masterpiece. This is the outside, squonk hole cut...the 4 screws are "blanks"...cut down screw heads epoxied in place...they connect to magnets inside so the lid just clips on and off

I had to trim a section off the switch as when pressed down it *could* contact atties if they were 23mm or bigger...and I didnt feel like wondering what was on top, so just chopped a piece off. The bit you see sticking out is the top of a bolt..

I suppose this is the money shot. The switch is simple and fully mechanical.Ok to the twop two nuts are tightened against each other, and they stop the switch ejecting from the case. I can move them a bit and this adjusts the switch throw.
The lower two bolts trap a copper piece and provide a "home" for the cupped washer. The copper piece was from some sort of U-section of a pipe clamp. It was meant to be a piece of old feeler gauge but I couldnt find an old feeler gauge..or a new one. Feel free to use an old feeler gauge. It needs to be a bit flexible.
The hole in the case for the bolt to go through is actually a square. This bolt has a square section right under the head, and together this stops the switch spinning around. The bottom of the bolt has the edges ground away, so that it actually locates in the plastic section of the keystone holder. This prevents the switch swaying about, or spinning or generally doing anything nasty.
The copper strip, on the left, connect to the positive pin via the needle. I made a small slit in the copper and then force-pushed the needle through so that the copper could split a bit at that point and grab the needle firmly in place. This is a success.

And a final overview of the internals. In homage to Reo, sure. Bodged, yes. If you used a hammond box you could get rid of the negative wire and it'll be fully mechanical.

Some thoughts: you get screws for mirrors which have a small thread tapped into the head, so that once you have mounted the mirror you screw on a decorative cover onto the screw. This would make an awesome switch too. I couldnt find any today at our excuse for a hardware shop.
While the bottle works fine, I want to use it for a bit to make sure I am happy with it. The fat daddy kits have thin needles and the tubing is thin so I would prefer to rework this with larger diameter tubes later on.

But the switch? it works lovely, so the prototype is *approved* yay!
Here is my Orange Steam Box, feel free to use any parts of this design if it may help.

(the eagle eyed amongst you may notice the technical drawing called for 5 nuts yet I only used 4. The 5th nut was meant to be a switch lock ala KUI boxmod, but whilst making it in reality it just made the switch sit very high and looked bad..so for now that bit needs a rethink as the switch cant currently lock. Also the bolts can be smaller..for sure..and the nuts, when I get the time, will be replaced with slimmer ones.)
In the wood box, there is a tray midway, like so.

so the switch bolt will go through two holes which will keep it perfectly aligned. You can see this in the technical drawing..the bolt goes through a tray section.
Although bigger than a sig100w currently, it is a heck of a lot loghter. Deceptively so. I will go make a wood one shortly based on this idea

 

[Rob Fisher]

Wow! MacGyver of note! Nicely done!

 

[Xhale]

ah, forgot to mention. I used a dual keystone holder as one of my wild assumptions was that a 10ml bottle would clip in like a battery does.
Well, it almost does..mostly...its enough for now...this keeps the bottle in place. I really wanted more of a generic box, with some switches, so that it can run as squonker mod, or dual 18650 in series or in parallel. Just flip some switches. I'll get to this eventually.

side note: why did I buy a brass 510? because "it'll look good on wood" (famous last words)
why should I buy a stainless 510? because it doesnt strip long-term and plays nice with eliquid.

I also think I can afford to chop some off the bottom of the needle so that it "ends" int he top section of the mod, so that more plastic tubing is used than current. This'll give it a bit more flexibility to get the bottle in and out, and doesnt sacrifice anything.

 

[huffnpuff]

Nice, and there's still space for a fuse for safety

 

[Xhale]

fuse...I understand why, but it isnt strictly necessary when so many other devices make do without. To me, its a mech, I wanted to build a mech..hecne the switch concept. I couldve got a 3amp switch and some mosfets but I (selfishly) wanted to testbed this switch idea....I have a vv/vw device to check ohms on and so on.
Also, in case people wake up and start having a go at my expert neatness and precision..I had a day off today and had to get this done with bits I could lay my hands on so that I could check the switch idea works out ok. This is a testbed and will most likely be destroyed and cannibalised for parts once the proper wood comes.
It is slapped together, and it meant to be slapped together. The battery sled isnt even glued in. The wood one will be built using a ruler and drill bits and templates and correctly sized knurled nuts etc etc If armageddon struck tomorrow I could build another (non-squonker) in 5mins flat using a hacksaw, some nuts and bolts and a broken ego connector. This was a good learning exercise

 

[Coera]

Where can we get stuff from fat daddy vapes? Is anybody selling in sa?

 

[Silver]

Congrats on your testbed @Xhale
For something that you "slapped" together, its amazing!

Two questions if i may:
1) how is the vape itself and the squonk action?
2) did you measure the volt drop under load?

 

[Xhale]

vape is fine...I have a a6 rda which I have modified for bf, an igo-f and a tobh, and they all work ok on this box. The squonk action is a bit lethargic, hence me wanting to go bigger pipes. Its around 8 second of firm push to get a good wetting.

I'll do vdops test and so on later today. There will be some as usual As long as it is "little" I'll be happy.

 

[Silver]

vape is fine...I have a a6 rda which I have modified for bf, an igo-f and a tobh, and they all work ok on this box. The squonk action is a bit lethargic, hence me wanting to go bigger pipes. Its around 8 second of firm push to get a good wetting.

I'll do vdops test and so on later today. There will be some as usual As long as it is "little" I'll be happy.

Thanks @Xhale
Amazing stuff.

 

[Xhale]

ok at 1.80hm on a fresh vtc4 we are dropping 0.3v. (3.8v output)
at 0.5ohm we droop below 3.3v (my measuring thing blanks out below 3.3v....so all I know it droops below 3.3v)

the same 0.5ohm atty on a sig100w, I set it to 15w for a nice-enough vape, and the reading is around 2.9v/3.0v on the sigelei display.

So I assume its between 15w to 20w or so getting out the coil judging by the lung-meter. Not stellar, yet good enough to vape on.
There is room for improvement though.

 

[Xhale]

small update:
Its been a day now of heavy use..I started the morning by chopping the needle smaller so that more tubing is used, and also glued down the battery sled.
Its been fine (on the squonking side), yet I noticed tonight I'm getting some bad contact every now and again. There's arcing at the switch contact (normal for a mech) and I think there's some spark erosion/pitting taking place. Will investigate this tomorrow.

You Reo guys put something on your contacts..but I forget the name..some liquid or something..? help

 

[Silver]

small update:
Its been a day now of heavy use..I started the morning by chopping the needle smaller so that more tubing is used, and also glued down the battery sled.
Its been fine (on the squonking side), yet I noticed tonight I'm getting some bad contact every now and again. There's arcing at the switch contact (normal for a mech) and I think there's some spark erosion/pitting taking place. Will investigate this tomorrow.

You Reo guys put something on your contacts..but I forget the name..some liquid or something..? help

Hi @Xhale
We put Noalox or dielectric grease on our Reo contacts
Helps to reduce the arcing and pitting

Some folk use a pen called Deoxit Gold - which should be more easily available on your side of the world than here in SA

 

[Silver]

ok at 1.80hm on a fresh vtc4 we are dropping 0.3v. (3.8v output)
at 0.5ohm we droop below 3.3v (my measuring thing blanks out below 3.3v....so all I know it droops below 3.3v)

the same 0.5ohm atty on a sig100w, I set it to 15w for a nice-enough vape, and the reading is around 2.9v/3.0v on the sigelei display.

So I assume its between 15w to 20w or so getting out the coil judging by the lung-meter. Not stellar, yet good enough to vape on.
There is room for improvement though.

Hi @Xhale

When you say you are droppimg 0.3V on a 1.8 ohm load, was your battery measuring 4.1 V?

Incidentally, when i last measured my Reos with various builds i was getting a volt drop of between 0.2 and 0.3 V which I understand is normal for the Reos with the new gold coloured contacts. My builds for that test were between 0.5 and about 1.0 ohms. And thats measuring at the posts when firing (with coil and wick) versus the battery measurement.

 

[johan]

small update:
Its been a day now of heavy use..I started the morning by chopping the needle smaller so that more tubing is used, and also glued down the battery sled.
Its been fine (on the squonking side), yet I noticed tonight I'm getting some bad contact every now and again. There's arcing at the switch contact (normal for a mech) and I think there's some spark erosion/pitting taking place. Will investigate this tomorrow.

You Reo guys put something on your contacts..but I forget the name..some liquid or something..? help

Any dielectric grease, most car battery installers use it on the terminals. The USA product is called Noalox. In your neck of the woods you can use Copper-ease or Copaslip available at car parts shops.

 

[Xhale]

yeah it was a full charged (4.v1-ish) battery that drooped to about 3.8-3.85v under a 1.8ohm load. I've got an inline meter that screws between the atty and the 510 that I use for this, but it requires 3.3v or higher to power up...so if the display is blank I know its less than 3.3v.
Without an atty=measures battery voltage when fired
with atty= measures voltage under load.

The switch (bottom of bolt) contact to the keystone section is a place I can look for improvement. I didnt dremel it perfectly level when I shortened the bolt, and because the bolt can sway about 2mm in the front/back direction it is seldom level. I dont think this will happen in the wooden box version due to the extra panel the bolt will go through, but the Orange Steam Box is kinda growing on me for a kick-about braai/work in garden box so I'm seeking out improvements to this design while I am here, which is exactly the point of it. Loving it so far.

 

[Xhale]

just updating. This morning it started to get ridiculous..almost no vape and the switch was the culprit.
Taking it apart, there was some pretty serious eroding going on at the top of the keystone connector. Whenever the bolt touched to create contact, we had a small spark and an accompanying little black dot...which tyrned into loads of black dots, which turned into one big black area of bad conductivity.

I took it all apart, cleaned up the area, and cut some of the copper U-bend into a small section that I then soldered to the top of the keystone connector (big flood of solder, then sanding drum on a dremel to re-expose the copper strip), replacing the existing contact area with a copper strip. I also took the time to "level" the bottom section of the bolt that makes contact with the new copper strip.

Result: 4.16v battery into 0.5ohm load = 3.68v output. So that area couldve done with improvement and hopefully this copper strip has resolved the volt drop on that part, and we will see in a few days how it has held up.

 

[johan]

just updating. This morning it started to get ridiculous..almost no vape and the switch was the culprit.
Taking it apart, there was some pretty serious eroding going on at the top of the keystone connector. Whenever the bolt touched to create contact, we had a small spark and an accompanying little black dot...which tyrned into loads of black dots, which turned into one big black area of bad conductivity.

I took it all apart, cleaned up the area, and cut some of the copper U-bend into a small section that I then soldered to the top of the keystone connector (big flood of solder, then sanding drum on a dremel to re-expose the copper strip), replacing the existing contact area with a copper strip. I also took the time to "level" the bottom section of the bolt that makes contact with the new copper strip.

Result: 4.16v battery into 0.5ohm load = 3.68v output. So that area couldve done with improvement and hopefully this copper strip has resolved the volt drop on that part, and we will see in a few days how it has held up.

Glad you got it sorted, but; irrespective how smooth both the switch contact areas, you still going to need some dielectric grease to prevent oxidation and pitting.

 

[Xhale]

yeah, I think I have some copperslip in the shed from when I did my car's brakes. Will go dig it up.
Interestingly, I have a 69 mod (tube mech side firing) and dont really need to do anything special on that button. I only mention this as it is also a small diameter rod hitting another surface too. But copperslip it shall be shortly.