Anyone else had problems with SOI Subzero short switch?

[wraith]

This thing is driving me nuts.

Had it a couple of months and when it works it's fantastic but it's unbelievably temperamental.

It works great then suddenly stops working. Have to reseat the clutch anything up to a dozen times to get it working again and it will work great for anything from one to a hundred hits before I have to reseat it again. I totally stripped it out and rebuilt it and it seems more reliable so far but still requires a lot of precision and force to get a clean contact (which is what this switch design was supposed to address).

The button can get painfully hot in the center which suggests arcing and/or the center pin being too close to the plastic plate.

Any ideas welcome bearing in mind that both the UK supplier and manufacturer don't seem to have any replacement switches in stock.

 

[mattvapes1976]

I'm about to send mine back to custom vapes as I just CANNOT get it to run with an rda on it . I have the sub zero 24mm hybrid rda - and it works great in hybrid mode .... But when I screw the top back on the mod and try it with a different tank or rda - not a bean . Not a single puff of vapour . I was thinking I'm doing it wrong but again - I stripped it and checked it and just can't find any reason for it not working !

 

[wraith]

I'm about to send mine back to custom vapes as I just CANNOT get it to run with an rda on it . I have the sub zero 24mm hybrid rda - and it works great in hybrid mode .... But when I screw the top back on the mod and try it with a different tank or rda - not a bean . Not a single puff of vapour . I was thinking I'm doing it wrong but again - I stripped it and checked it and just can't find any reason for it not working !

I thought my problem was the top-cap so got the hybrid and it didn't help. Assuming that your tube and switch are fine if the hybrid is working the only thing I can think of to help you is you have to put the atty on the top cap before you put that on the tube, push the center pin of the top cap up to make sure you have a good comnection and then adjust the reverse thread screw and screw the whole thing onto the mod. Will take some fettling to get the reverse thread screw so it fits tight.

 

[wraith]

I suspect that these designs rely on manufacturing and assembly to within very tight tolerances to get such good performance and if they are even slightly off it knackers things totally. Kind of like a family car can handle defects that would wreck a formula one engine.

 

[mattvapes1976]

Got it - took some fine tuning but I'm getting good solid connection now . Hope you get yours sorted , it's a beast of a mod when you get it right !

 

[wraith]

Don't want to jinx it but mine has been behaving itself for the past few hours.

Reseated the pin and pin plate in the mod, cleaned and lightly sanded the clutch contact areas and tweaked the spring so that the clutch sits totally flat on it.

Then I sat the thing next to the tupperware fume chamber that has a copper mod hanging in it that I'm trying to patina and told it that that's what happens to naughty mods.

It's been fine since.

 

[wraith]

Update in case someone searches for this.

It worked OK for a few hours then back to being totally flaky. Worked randomly then didn't and basically was being a real pain.

Stripped it down completely yesterday including popping out the center pin housing and pin. Cleaned all components (especially threads) with vinegar, baking soda and a wire brush. Sanded off all the black spots from the silver plated clutch.. ended up going down to bare copper.

Rinsed, dried and rebuilt using the instructions on the custom vapes video for installing the silver plated clutch kit (using a hex socket to ensure the pin plate is put in evenly).

Has been working fine since.

I'm guessing that the pin plate was not quite straight when I got it which caused arcing which led to an insulating build-up on the clutch making it more unreliable over time.

Now that I can trust it to fire reliably I really have to put a decent build in it rather than the playing-it-safe 0.35 plain parallel.. but I just ran out of 36 NI80.. grrr.