@Edge those components look like they will work, though it's about as bare minimum as you could get for a battery powered IH.
My biggest issue is the switch along with it's lack of DC current specification, specially since this is the ONLY control mechanism. That being said, specifications are for continuous or switched currents, which you could workaround (but there are rules to breaking rules).
The IH pulls about 4 Amps (depending on configuration and voltage) without ANY load in it. Once that VapCap tip goes in, it'll be pulling around 10A. Under normal usage, these are NOT continuous loads. At 10A, a vapcap only needs a few seconds to reach temperature. You would turn your unit on, and shortly after insert VC, heat, remove, and turn off. All good. The switch would only see the 0FF->4Amp current during switch, which should be fine, then 10A for a few seconds, back to 4, and a switch off to 0. My guess is that switch would probably handle this scenario just fine. However, you NEED to consider unintended scenarios - Switch bumped on in your bag? Continuous 4A heating up your (idle) induction heater - wouldn't last more than a few minutes. Switched on/off while VC inserted? It's seeing double the switch current (may not be an issue, but we don't have specs on those). etc. Depending on what they're made of, those switched could melt under the wrong conditions. VC left in while switched on? (if you're filling it with the same stuff I'm using
) - dunno.
Either way, you're now switching a mechanical switch on and off multiple times while your mind is likely to think of other things
I think
@Pipes solution is great, and I highly recommend you investigate it further. The rocker switch is used as a main kill switch, but the majority of switching is actually done by a separate MOSFET. A small (normally open!) pushbutton switch controls the MOSFET well within the button's specifications (a few milliamps @ ~11v). Search this thread for MOSFET and I'm sure some links and relevant discussion will come up.
As for the battery - It will probably work. I'm not too familiar with those packs though - do they have any integrated overcorrect protection? Over discharge protection? Unless you are continuously monitoring pack voltage to avoid over-discharge, and feel your design can handle fault conditions like short circuits from blown IH transistors, foreign objects, etc, I'd be careful to use such an unprotected pack. The dimensions aren't very different than using 3x18650 + BMS(Battery management system - overcurrent, overcharge, and over-discharge protection and maybe even balancing) and the cost + charger isn't any cheaper either.
About the 16awg multi-core wire. The posted guideline states about 5A as the maximum current. My guess is that thats continuous. You could probably get away with using that wire, specially while testing. While testing, you'll use the device for a short burst, and feel around for anything that may be over-heating, and slowly increase use time. If the insulation gets too soft or warm, you'll need to upgrade it.
All in all - I think the parts you posted are OK for testing and playing around with, building a proof of concept, or whatever, but not for throwing in your backpack or mindless use (prone to happen). A few upgrades will significantly improve the design. I think
@Pipes has put a lot of thought into the component selection with all above-mentioned considerations and has found a great combo. Have you read all his detailed posts about the process?
So, get the parts, play around, but be really careful and understand the limitations, and work on improving in the meantime.
Not trying to
after considering these graphs:
http://www.dampfakkus.de/akkuvergleich.php?akku1=485&akku2=523&akku3=507&akku4=490&akku5=0&akku6=0
would it be safe to assume, that essentally the preformance of these units are the same for
our application. and upon using this assumption: that anything you stuff into the belly of your beast
is going to preform equally within reason ( I know many variabilitys but I'm going to assume you know what I mean)
Thanks
edit : That no one battery is (going to to be all that better than any other for the PS or SK)
More or less, yeah. I agree that all those batteries will function in the PS. Though I don't believe they will function equally, specially not while compared to all available 18650 batteries.
Even at 5A, you can see a 0.1v difference between some batteries there, which turns into 0.3v with three batteries, and 0.6v difference at 10A. This will lead to a slightly slower heating time (which, IMHO, is not actually bad, the slower heating. I think the slower heating improves performance as it gets the whole tip mass a bit hotter, which just works better). There's also the capacity difference, about 25% between them. While yes, there are many parameters, and the affect of most of them won't REALLY change how the device behaves, there ARE differences between the cells. My current line of thought is to find the batteries with maximum capacity while maintaining CDR at least slightly above the use case (No real need for a 30A CDR cell here, and we aren't even continuously discharging - we're pulse discharging at currents below CDR, so well within spec). From there the differences will probably be a bit smaller. But yeah, My IH works just as well with INR 25Rs as with VTC6s, mostly just not for as long.
but ya know!
