kngfdrgn Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 So I know this kind of thing gets said a whole lot around here but I figured I'd give an example. For those of you looking to build your own mods use quality parts and don't trust that the manufacturers specs are correct. I have a test box I built out of a plastic cigarette case specifically for test firing different parts. I bought what was supposed to be a 40 amp switch and test fired it last night. Things didn't go as well as I hoped but it did give me an opportunity to hopefully teach people something. This is what can happen when you use faulty or cheap parts. It melted all the casings on the wires and the switch smoked. That was using a 15 amp battery pressing the switch maybe 2 or 3 seconds. Now imagine what would have happened if I had used that switch in my mod with the 35 amp battery I wanted to. joejoevapekins, Tam and spydre 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tam Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 Thanks for the additional warning. We do harp on safety first, and this kind of thing is exactly why. Glad you weren't hurt. spydre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kngfdrgn Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 That's why I have the test box. All I have to do is pop the lid up and no more battery connection. You never know with this stuff and even when it's from a quality vendor you can still get a dud. In my case I suspect that they either used cheap materials that melted or soldered the connections with low quality solder. Either way I'm glad I tested it. If that had happened inside my metal box I'm building it would have ended badly. all in all I'd rather have a workshop that smells like burnt plastic than end up in the er Compenstine and Tam 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spydre Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 Where did you get the switch from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kngfdrgn Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 I got mine from the local hacker space/ hobby shop. It's a switch that was supposed to be rated up to 32v and 40 amps. Here's the similar one online http://www.delcity.net/store/Engine-Start-Switch/p_798479. I can't tell you Specifically what brand as the PN doesn't pull anything up on google and it was just in a plastic baggy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spydre Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 It's a good thing you tested it, then. I wouldn't buy any of that type of hardware from that store from now on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kngfdrgn Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 Not all of their stuff is junk. It's hit or miss sometimes, they don't always have brands I know. They have always been good to me though. if it's a part that costs more than $15 thats faulty they always give me a store credit and send the bad one back to the manufacturer. spydre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joejoevapekins Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 When it comes to electrical components anything can happen. Had a few plc racks that was bad straight out of the box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kngfdrgn Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 Exactly. it wouldn't have mattered if I bought the highest rated most expensive part I could find, I still would have put it on the test box first. spydre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spydre Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Exactly. it wouldn't have mattered if I bought the highest rated most expensive part I could find, I still would have put it on the test box first. And good stuff can still come bad. Had it happen to me - my first Zmax - V3. Loved the damn thing, but the button trouble popped up, and the place that I got it from agreed that it needed to be replaced, after I had to explain to them that no, it didn't just happen when the battery was low, they finally tested it and were able to replicate the problem, but they no longer carried it. Did some research, and the button problem was sort of frequent, but since I got it at a REALLY good price from Discount Vapers, I couldn't find any other site that had it for what I got back. So I moved on. Now after close to a year and a half, I'm back to a Zmax V5. But yeah, sometimes, good stuff just comes, essentially, DOA, or flawed for whatever reason. That's why there are return policies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kngfdrgn Posted December 14, 2014 Author Share Posted December 14, 2014 I don't think that most people stop and think about the fact that 99% of the time the part you're using hasn't been tested. Most companies do batch testing, which means only about two out of 2000+ built get tested. spydre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earthling789 Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 I've dealt with electronics from all over the world... from cheap Chinese no-name parts to high-end Japanese, US, or European parts, and one thing is constant... you do get a bad part from time to time. kngfdrgn is correct... most companies batch-test only a handful of parts per machine, per shift, daily... probably ~ 0.1% of the total production of any given part. spydre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spydre Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Yeah. From what I've seen, they test just a couple out of a run - a run that could potentially be thousands of items. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joejoevapekins Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Speaking from experience the QC department in majority of white rooms has only a hand few of workers. Been the only guy in before running QC spydre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kngfdrgn Posted December 14, 2014 Author Share Posted December 14, 2014 That's why from a safety perspective I feel like we should be teaching newbies to test parts before using them. It's really not hard to build a test box or safety cage. I had a buddy loose use of an eye for a little while a few years ago from a faulty capacitor that exploded. In quite a few of the hackerspace communities I'm a part of they have guides to setting up test benches and what safety precautions you should take with which parts. spydre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spydre Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 I had a buddy loose use of an eye for a little while a few years ago from a faulty capacitor that exploded. Ouch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kngfdrgn Posted December 14, 2014 Author Share Posted December 14, 2014 Yeah. I know failures don't always happen and can even be rare with higher quality parts but it's worth the extra little bit of time to avoid an E.R. trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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