How to improve the reliabilty of the Prodigy

[Royal]

The Prodigy 801 has become my main go to e-cig of choice. However it does have some shortcomings. There are a few simple tricks one can do to improve the reliability.

The Prodigy was originally designed to work with two different types of batteries. The most popular choice is the CR123s. The housing on the prodigy is much larger than the diameter of these types of batteries, and occasionally, if the batteries are slightly off center, proper connection can be lost.

A quick and easy fix for this is to take a cardboard toilet paper tube, with no TP on it of course, and cut it so that it is of proper length to fit inside the prodigy without interfering with the threads on the end cap. Now cut it down the side and remove enough of the cardboard so that when folded back into a tube, the sides will not overlap when sleeved into the prodigy. This will take up the gap space in the housing and will keep the batteries centered for proper connection.

Next issue is also easily resolved. These CR123s comes with a plastic insulating jacket. This jacket overlaps on the bottom of the batteries on the negative side. The spring on the prodigy end cap which makes the ground connection is large in diameter and occasionally makes contact with the batteries insulating jacket and not the bare negative bottom of the battery as it should. There are two things you can do. First carefully peel away part of the insulating jacket only enough to expose more area on the bottom of the battery. Second, take a pair of needle nose pliers and gently bend the end of the spring wire inwards so to make contact with the center of the battery post.

Lastly is how to properly mount an atomizer on the Prodigy.
The Prodigy 801 threads are slightly longer than is needed for an 801 atomizer. One must always take this into consideration as an 801 atomizer can easily be overtightened and cause damage to the center insulator on the atomizer, which could result in a dead short. Or the Prodigy threads can simply cause a short out across the two terminals on the atomizer. If such a short occurs and is left unchecked, it can over load your batteries causing them to get hot, and could also burn out your switch and resistor if one is being used.

Do not over tighten the atomizer. Screw the atomizer on just until you feel it start to tighten, then give it no more that a quarter turn more, only enough to make for a slightly snug fit. If this is practiced the risk of damaging your atomizers, switch and resistor will be reduced.