It's contagious.... Yet another DNA40 Kit Build

[Deleted]

With so many inspirational post on here I've long been tempted to build something. It started about a year ago but the posts by VapingBad davetherayon and crystal recently have made me bite the bullet.

I've bought the kit from Stealth Vape and this is what you get (I forgot the plastic cover):



The tactile buttons were glued in place but I'm replacing them with some of a little better quality so I removed them.

The wire is 20 AWG, all red and one 16 AWG brown? so I'm replacing that with 18 AWG silicon and the hook up with solid core. I bought an OCD 510 connector from Stealth Vape but wasn't happy with the quality, hence the fat Daddy.
When I bought that I added 3 better quality tactile buttons to the order, magnets and then thought what the heck, get a better battery holder as well. These are the addition items:



To me the board is mounted the wrong way round, surely the pos and grd to the 510 should be as short as possible? Turning it round would also make the charge board wiring easier also



The board can't be turned round without modifying the cradle. The screen fits in a rebate in the window and in the cradle as seen below, so I plan to glue a piece of plexi in the window rebate to make it level. Modifying the cradle so I can turn it round means l won't be able to use the screw mounting so will grind them off. Charge board will be mounted a'la dave's CD

 

Any comment welcome as there's bound to be a glaring mistake in my plan somewhere.  

[robby]

Nice pics, good luck with it

[Deleted]

I have exactly the same kit sitting in a draw waiting for me to get my finger out and do something with it. I shall be watching with interest how much you have to mod the box to get that 510 in with the divider in the way

[Deleted]

Is it really going to make that much difference to the way it performs @scooby It seems a lot of agg to turn it round as you will end up with longer wires from the up/down switches.

[VapingBad]

I've just come in from the shed to thaw our my hands for a bit, doing a DNA40 box. Nice one @scooby, I would agree that the board would be better the other way around to keep the positive short. There is probably not much in it as you would need to have more slack the other way for the sprung 510 to move freely. And on this board you can interchange any of the large -ve holes (batt + out) holes as they are the same electrically.


See davetherayon I told you posting a thread about you build might inspire others and it has

[Deleted]

Looking forward to your build, nice upgrades.

[crystal]

Looking good @scooby nice upgrades

[davetherayon]

Some lovely pics there @scooby. You must try the fdv for size before assembling it, looks like there's not much room in there with the size of the caddy.

[Deleted]

Cheers guys, good to have comments that make me think.

@windows I hope to to do all the modifications to the cradle not the box, I don't really have the tools for that. Regarding turning the board round, my thinking was that it's easier to route the solid core from the switches neatly than the thicker 510 ones and they are only low current. Better to have them longer and the current carrying one short as possible. There is also just as much modding to be done to the cradle to fit the FD either way.

davetherayon yep it is overly big but I'll be losing some of it, I'm not 100% sure yet but getting more confident it'll fit and make a neat job.



What I've done today is drill and tap the M10 thread, as mentioned I won't be removing any of the box so can't use a nut, was going to epoxy it in, is that the right thing to do?

Also drilled the cover and case in the position of the existing screws and fitted magnets, it's not quite as secure as I was hoping, might have to do a fix latter when I can see what room I'll have.

[Deleted]

@scooby

Good luck with the build, hopefully give me a kick to start mine....
 

Anyway here is a pic of the magnets mod maker recommend to me for for my Hammond box, much longer for the box, you got the depth for these or longer than you have?

[Deleted]

Jan 26, 2015 3:36:29 GMT @letsavit said:

@scooby

Good luck with the build, hopefully give me a kick to start mine....
 

Anyway here is a pic of the magnets mod maker recommend to me for for my Hammond box, much longer for the box, you got the depth for these or longer than you have?

Yeah should have gone with the longer (stronger) 3mm dia ones in the body @letsavit there's enough depth. The 2 x 4mm dia stacked fill the depth of the cover nicely.

I'll leave it for now and when its complete sort it out. There's a huge selection of shapes and sizes available from first4magnets round, oval, square, oblong, self adhesive etc, so will see what will fit where.  

[davetherayon]

If you're epoxying in the 510 you'll need somewhere to solder the negative lead to. There's a drilled hole next to the connector that would do the job, with a screw & lug to hold in place.

[VapingBad]

Jan 26, 2015 7:53:59 GMT davetherayon said:

If you're epoxying in the 510 you'll need somewhere to solder the negative lead to. There's a drilled hole next to the connector that would do the job, with a screw & lug to hold in place.

Not aimed at you Dave, but applies to making this connection

A mechanical connection is better electrically, solder is not nearly as conductive as copper, aluminium or IIRC Stainless steal and does not bond to aluminium or stainless steel vary well.  Solder is really used to keep components in place and seal the join from the corrosive environment (oxygen etc).  For fixing small components to circuit boards it is the most practical method, but where possible put you solder on a good mechanical connection (both conductors making good contact & ideally held in place first).

For these a crimped ring terminal bolted to the 510 would be the best or if the 510 has good contact with the body a screw or bolt to the body.  The negative connection on the one I did wea not ideal as it came, so I scrapped of the anodising around the hole, cleaned the hole, replaced the screw with a flat head and put some Noalox (Vaseline will do) in the hole to keep the oxygen and e-liquid out.  You could drill a larger hole for the connection, use a self-taping screw or tap to a thicker bolt.   You can solder the crimp connectors after you crimp them to make them more secure.

[Deleted]

I chopped the cradle so I can turn it round but before I did I thought I'd take a few photos with the cradle as it's supposed to be, it may be helpful if anyone is thinking of building this and maybe upgrading the 510.

The three pics which I've layered together show at top the empty cradle in position, next down is with the OCD 510, the cradle is balance on top to give an idea of the position in relation to the 510.
and on the bottom the FD. you can see why Stealth Vape say it will need some trimming and fettling to accommodate a better connector.

Btw, if anyone is thinking of using the OCD (personally I wouldn't) it has a M9x0.75 thread, the box as it is has an 8mm clearance hole.



I did the mod to the cradle and removed the mounting lugs. On turning it round I found that it wasn't symmetrical across the width, easy to see in hindsight but I missed it. I managed to remove some material from one side and it seems ok.
I won't know the exact position of the cradle until I power it up but I'm quite happy so far.

It may seem a bit clearer now why I wanted to turn the cradle round.



Soldering practice for me now.

[Deleted]

Life, other things and a major balls up has slowed me down on this............

I built up a rebate with Sugru to hold the screen, and cut a piece of perspex to fill the rebate in the window:




When the Sugru had set I put the board in and powered it up to find the position where the screen aligned correctly in the window, I used Sugru to fix it in that position. And here comes the balls up, once in position I didn't remove the battery and while applying the Sugru I dropped a mini screwdriver on the board, it lit up never to light up again!

Such a stupid mistake, especially as I'd made a mental note to remove the battery as soon as I had marked the position. Anyway, no use crying over spilled milk so after a couple of mins when the air was blue I decided to use the dead one for solder practice and ordered another.

I have to admit I found this quite challenging. I'm not comfortable with soldering PCB's, even after practice, and to be honest I'm not really happy with the job I've done, even though it works. Respect to you guys who knock them up in an evening. I'm hampered with bad close up eyesight and davetherayon third hand with magnifier advice was invaluable. My hands don't seem to be as nimble as they were and don't always do as I want, (reason for the balls up) all this seems to make it even more fiddly.

I'm glad I bought the StealthVape kit and did the modification to it as it was good practice if (when) I build another one but i think the kit davetherayon got with the superior parts  looks a better buy to me.

Anyway here's the finished job: I couldn't be arsed with the USB, I never charge like that anyway, it's just there to fill a hole