replacing heating element in really cheap vaporizer

Hey guys,

my really cheap/crappy chinese vaporizer from amazon stopped working today after 4 great years.
I dissasembled it and I think the metal tube in this picture has the heating element in it but I'm unsure where to proceed from here.


I'm dirt poor and buying a replacement vaporizer is out of the question (I need that money to spend on bud!) so I want to fix it. I looked on ebay it looked like ceramic heating elements go for like $5-10 which is in my price range. Can anybody point me in the direction of the a heating element please? And maybe some directions to make sure I dont burn down my apartment when I plug this thing in.


(The vaporizer is a lot like this one http://www.amazon.com/Aromafuser-Ar...UTF8&qid=1395458225&sr=8-2&keywords=vaporizer )

Welcome to FC my friend!

The heater is inside that metal sheathe there from the look of your picture. Can you remove the heater from that metal cylinder with the perforations in it? You should be able to pull it out very gently with the cables from the bottom (be extremely gentle, these cables may have very thin connections to the heater itself!).

I think you will find that to be a cheap cartridge heater, they are readily available online. You need to pull it out to find out the height and diameter of the heater element to find out the size for a replacement. The other consideration is the wattage of the heater. This may be harder to work out. Is your heater still working at all, I am assuming you aren't getting heat out of the vape? Are you 100% sure as to the heater being the issue. These are typically the sturdiest part of a vaporizer.

To test, put on a pair of non-conductive rubber gloves. Then disconnect the power cable for the vaporizer (I assume it is a plug-in, you may need to cut the cable, if you do, cut the cable inside the main unit casing as close to where it is terminated with other cables or circuit boards as possible). Then remove the heating element and cut the wires to it (obviously the unit should not be plugged in at any stage while you do these steps). Connect the power cable wires directly to the two wires on the bottom of the heater. Crimp the wires together with some cheap crimp terminals from an electronics store (will be less than $1).

Then plug in your new heater and cable only vape. See if it heats up after the required heat up time, you could use a multimeter to touch the cables at the exposed ends where you terminated them with the heater and see what voltage is being pulled through, this will allow you to see if the heater is drawing the voltage it should be. Remember, the cable/power supply/main part of the vape should say what its normal voltage draw is. Also keep in mind that other parts like light globes etc in your specific vape may be part of the power circuit and the heater/cable crude vape we have made using my instructions might use slightly less voltage - this is ok!). If the heater is not getting hot enough or not drawing the right voltage, you know it is cooked (pun intended).

Does the vaporizer have a temperature control on it? If it doesn't, I can show you how to procure the parts and add a temperature control yourself for $10 USD or so in parts costs

Send me a PM and I'll happily help you over skype sometime with the actual task of replacement!

awesome -- thanks for the in-depth reply. I'm pretty sure the problem is the heating element because everything else seems to be working fine. I'll test the element at work tomorrow because I think we have all of the appropriate safety equipment and get in touch with you once I'm ready to order parts, etc.