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My nemesis aka the 510 connector

steffijade

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Jul 11, 2012
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It was probably about a year ago that I first tried to make my own box mod.

After a few weeks of ordering the wrong parts, knackering them through incompetence, much swearing, screaming and hair pulling I finally had a box mod that worked .... when it felt like it.

I recently asked Garry Dibley to make me a mod but he was a bit skeptical about the specs I wanted, so I decided to leave it. Then I noticed he had some vv boxes up for sale on UKV and thought 'great, I'll nab one of those' only to find out that they'd been sold and poor old Garry hadn't got round to updating his thread.

It was at this point that I suddenly had the strangest thought .... why don't I just make my own? I mean, how hard can it really be? (I can't be sure, but at this point I think I heard a Clarksonesque chuckle in theback of my mind).

Anyhoo, I rationalised to myself that I'd learned a fair bit by watching Tin Your Tip and if I invested in a half decent soldering iron, I'd do much better than my first attempt.

That was the idea anyway.

I sent off for some parts and took a trip to Maplins to buy a snazzy soldering iron and sat back waiting for the bits to arrive. The parts have arrived (in dribs and drabs) and I had a go at doing a test setup today.

It was going fairly reasonably until it came to soldering up the 510 connector. I'd honestly forgotten just how much of **** these things are to do. I had a couple of connectors left over from last year and after an absolute age, I finally managed to get one of them connected. (Hurrah!)

I tested the setup and it actually worked .... voltage was showing correctly and the atty I connected was firing. (Wohoo!)

Then I moved the battery box slightly and it all stopped working (Oh FFS!) I moved the battery box again and it worked again, intermittently and then stopped again.

I assumed that it was my dodgy soldering and got the multimeter to work checking out the connections. The strange thing was that I couldn't get a reading from anywhere ... not even from the battery box fly leads. I puzzled and pished about for a good 10 minutes before it suddenly struck me that the pos end of the batteries didn't look quite right. Without even thinking about it, I'd picked up a pair of nearly flat top batts to use and they were only just about making contact with the box terminals ... hence the very intermittent connection. (Slaps forehead).

I swapped the batteries out for some with bigger nipples (honestly, behave) and that sorted the intermittent firing out. (Yay!)

Pleased as punch, I picked up the parts to clear desk space to measure up for drilling holes/positioning in the box.... and the 510 connector promptly fell off the wire. (OMFG NOOOOOOO(pause for breath)ooooooooooo (etc.) )

Try as I might, I couldn't resolder the connector back on and buggered the other one up trying to do the same.

So, that's brought my little project to halt for now, but I've decided to try a (hopefully) easier option and ordered a few pre soldered connectors from Stealthvape.

No doubt, I'll find new and interesting ways of fecking them up too. ;)
 
A perfect exposition of all the reasons why I wouldn't even think of attempting such a project though I can perfectly see why it would appeal to some :)

Good luck with future attempts. And of course we will want to observe the fruits of your stressful labours steffi ;)
 
You're not alone Steffijade - I steadily naused my way through about ten of the bloody things before I got the hang of it. I found that removing the centre pin was a nightmare too - invariably the little washer came out with it and is a total b*stard to get back in without splitting it. I worked out an easy way of removing the pin with a pair of tweezers and solder the centre pin with a mini blowtorch. Of course, the biggest joy, without doubt, is learning that the plastic boxes will melt quite quickly if you leave the soldering iron on the connector too long (lost about five cases that way!). I'll try and get some piccies up as I'm doing a few custom tin mods at the moment - it might make things a little bit easier for the future. :smile-new:
 
How about making a box mod from an Orange box, some nails, a car battery and some jump leads as the first attempt and gradually scale it down ?

no ... I'll get me coat and see meself out
 
LOL Steffi I loved reading that! Cheers to stealth for sending the parts out so quickly too! I am going to move this down into the DIY section :D
 
A few tips...

Don't use the thin wire that comes with the battery boxes. For regular box mods use stranded 24 awg / 7/0.2, for VV use 20awg / 16/0.2 wire

You can melt a little solder onto positive battery connectors to make sure they connect nicely

Use flux paste, it will make your life better I've been using this flux paste but it's probably all the same

Keep your tip clean and tinned

Have a battery meltdown plan

A little spit helps that rubber grommet go back in :)
 
I loved that story too and I noced up my first connection too. My stupidity in my first mod was to assume that copper pipe is copper pipe. It ain't - over the years the copper content has dropped - especially now that it costs 2 arms and a leg. So when everything oxidized my idea which worked brilliantly at first using the body and my home filed bayonet connection to carry the -ve from the bottom of the battery tube to the head turned into its Achilles heel. It's become pathetic. I cleaned everything up, which took about 40 minutes and got the power back in full for an afternoon... I then rushed into making something in a stupid flip top metal fag box finished it and decided it is not what I wanted and have binned it (did rescue Lee's fab chrome switch though).

Plan B has emerged and I eventually found the case(s) I want for it, which took months. If it works, there will be at least 2 upgrade models using the same box. But it took months to find the box and an afternoon to work out how to get it apart and dismantle its innards. I bought battery boxes from Maplins and when I got them home realised they had ppesky PP3 fittings on the top. I am now pondering whether t grind these down or buy the £1.19 PP3 connectors.

Much fettling to go, but if V1 is a success V2 will be much easier
 
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I've just read the bit about pre-soldered connectors Steffijade - stick with them! For the number of "wasted" ones you are going to produce manually soldering them, you'll start saving money straight away with the one's you're getting from Rob as you won't need to take them apart of solder them at all! :cheerful:
 
The pre-soldered connections were waiting for me when I got home from work last night .... super fast delivery from Stealthvape, much appreciated.

Got more work related stuff today but will have another bash in the next few days.
 
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