What's Inside A Cart?
Dismantling Genuine and Knockoff Ccell TH210 Vape Cartridges
TLDR - both of these work on an identical principle, using an absorbent ceramic bead in the cart's atomiser. This has a hole running through its centre and is covered in a fabric tape. A heating coil is formed around the inside of the bead's hole. The wires that feed power to the coil are held in contact with the '510' centre pin and body of the cart with pressure applied from a rubber insulator grommet.
Where there is no significant difference, the pics shown below are of the genuine TH210.
1. Mouthpiece & reservoir glass removed. The centre pin and insulator is pried from the cart's '510' connector. The rubber insulator grommet not only prevents short circuits but also aids electrical contact by applying pressure to the coil wires against the body of the cart & the centre pin. Another grommet function is to hermetically seal the 510 connector so that air intake is correctly directed through the small air inlet holes (which are just above the connector).
Mouthpiece & juice reservoir glass removed
Rubber insulator grommet & centre pin for the '510' connector pried out
2. The 510 connector sliced off with a dremel and now we can look inside to see the hollow ceramic bead, an outer wrap of fabric, and the protruding wires that feed power to the heating coil
With the '510' connector sliced off
The wire connection to the coil are now visible, as well as the ceramic bead and fabric tape
3. A bit more sliced off and now we can see the turns of the heating coil formed on the inside of the ceramic bead, plus it's now possible to remove the entire atomiser for closer inspection
The heating coil turns are now visible on the inside diameter of the ceramic bead
The complete atomiser part-way through being pushed out
4. Fabric wrapping removed from the bead, and can now see the differences in wrappng styles plus the wiring arrangement within the bead
Genuine - On the genuine TH210, the fabric that covers the ceramic bead is in the form of a tape, which appears non-ceramic-based as it yellows at the same ballpark temperature as tissue paper on the emesh at 200°C
Knockoff - this uses two fabric bonnets to cover the ceramic bead. Fabric is once again apparently non-ceramic
Genuine - The ceramic bead with heating coil turns visible inside
Knockoff - Very similar arrangenent, but apparently an extra turn on the coil
Genuine - Crumbling the bead with mole grips fully exposes the 4 turns of the heating coil of the genuine TH210
We can now see that the wires feeding the coil are thicker that the coil wire itself. Presumably this maximises power dissipation in the coil itself rather than being wasted along the feeding wires.
Knockoff - knockoff's coil has an extra turn, but doesn't have the thicker feeder wires. Perhaps the extra turn allows a longer, lower resistance wire to be used so there is less Wattage per cm dissipated and therefore it can get away without using the thicker feeder wires. Just a guess.