Nixie Voltmeter - Vaping machine

[Paul Parry]

Hi All,

I've been asked if I can make a Vape machine with a little 2 digit IN-17 volt display built in. After doing some research ( I know nothing about Vaping machines ) there are some coils anywhere between 2 - 15 ohm and a couple of Lithium Ion cells. They heat up the liquid and then create the vapour.

From an electronics point of view it will need a fancy power supply as it will have to be powered from the 4 - 7v DC produced by the Lithium cells that it is also trying to manage.

Has anyone experimented with a Nixie Voltmeter, or Vaping machines that can help out a little?

Cheers,

Paul

[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

To make a voltmeter wouldn't be so diffucult, every modern microcontroller has a built in ADC which has a good enough precision.

But if you speak about the handheld vaping machines, space will be your issue.

Also be aware that lithium batteries don't have a linear curve discharge. The fully charged litium batteries (eg.18650 model) will have 4.2v, then rapidly drop to 3.7v, then it will rather slowly drop to 3.3v (like from 95% to 10%) after that, the smart cells switch off (0V) to prevent damage, not smart cells will then drop rapidly to 2.7-something V

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v137/Tweek_CPF/18650_2400mAh.jpg

So using the voltmeter as charge indicator might be not the best idea.

If i would do a voltmeter i would possibly use a Attiny and discrete transistors to control the cathodes of the nixies, and of course multiplex them. The attiny could measure the voltage too, and a pwm pin could be used for hv generating (yes, inefficient)

[gregebert]

Maybe a hookah would be a better size-fit.  Could double as  clock you wear around your neck. Anyone remember Flav-a-Flav ?

[Luka C]

I have been vaping for more than 3 years now. I'm not sure where you've found the 2-15ohm information on coils, but for most people that vape, including myself, sub-ohm vaping is the way to go these days. This pretty much includes coils of around 0.4ohm-0.8ohm. Also it is important to mention the difference between the non-regulated (so called "mech" / "mechanical") mods and regulated mods. The mechanical ones are pretty much like a basic circuit with a 18650 battery and a coil, when you press the switch, the circuit closes and the current heats up the coil...these are however dangerous as in the event of a short circuit the battery will heat up rapidly and might even blow up (this unfortunately happens to inexperienced users and brings bad publicity to these life-saving devices!). On the other hand, regulated ones both have the protection circuit in place (reverse polarity protection, short circuit, overcurrent, etc) and allow the user to apply specific wattage or voltage to the coil (referred to as VV/VW - Variable Voltage/Wattage), thus influencing the vapor production, taste, temperature. There is also a thing called TC (temperature control) which allows the user to apply specific temperature to the coil, thus allowing tight regulation of flavor and preventing the possible emission of formaldehyde by not overheating the e-liquid or causing dry burns on the cotton wick in the coil.

All in all, I think you could design a regulated mod with nixies to display variable voltage / wattage setting. Of course, keep in mind that these devices need to be able to fit in our palm and will be exposed to constant movement which is sometimes a challenge for nixies' lifespan :)

[David Forbes]

That sounds like a good application for my Nixie watch circuit.

It runs on a LiPo cell and has a PIC that drives two tubes. You'd want to display percentage of battery charge.

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[Paul Parry]

Yes, that would certainly be small enough if designed for a watch, would it be a big job to alter the code to display battery status? 

I suppose if there is room in memory, you could have it telling time as originally intended and also battery status..

Thank you for the suggestion!

cheers,

Paul

[David Forbes]

Paul, 

The code already measures the battery voltage, so it wouldn't be much work to display this in a suitable scale factor such as percentage of full charge. There's plenty of room in the PROM.

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[Joe Croft]

Not that I vape, but I think temperature would be much more 'interesting' than voltage.

-joe

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