VapingBad

My point was the 317L ss that came from the vape mesh co had a much lower TCR, it would have been extremely low if it matched SteamEngine's value of 0.00094, but the wire got roughly 150 - 200 F too hot. At a TCR 0.00094 the board would expect a rise of 28.4% form 70 F - 600 F, but my guess on temp suggests and it is just that as I didn't accurately measure the temp that the actual TCR is about 0.0007 - 0.00075, that would give a 28.4% raise in res from 70 F - 800 F and 70 F - 750 F respectively. Not very accurate or scientific and maybe overstating the degree of error in the TCR, but the extremely low TCR is pushing the envelope a bit too much ATM. Higher TCR should not be such a problem, but if it is out I doubt it will be higher. And I have been running Ti on a DNA40, but it has a much higher TCR than any ss alloy, 3-4 times higher. Contrast that to NiFe30 which only about twice res than Ni200 or Ti both regulate extremely well with 0.4 mm wire, the 316L that worked was 0.29 mm about half the cross sectional thickness of 0.4 mm. If I get a change I may make up a twisted 316L coil to increase the bulk (thermal inertia), 2 strands will be within 10% of the 0.4 mm x-sectional area and see how that performs, but the 0.4 mm NiFe30 I have from Stealth Vape works so well it is hard to get the motivation especially as I just put a dual Ni Clapton on the atty I use for this.

I don't know, but I think the match between the wire and materials profile is probably an important issue at least if that is not very close you are not going to get good results. Have other people been doing single coil scorch tests and comparing them to Ni200? I know the 317L I had was running way too hot, but the 316L was very close to Ni. I'm sure the mass of the coil plays a part to, but IMO you should get a profile that matches the wire for at least 100 F each side of your vape temperature before drawing too many conclusions. On the first plot you can see it getting spikier as the wick started drying, I think I put more liquid on the second one and could be why it is smoother. And that the most aggressive preheat setting didn't adversely affect it.

Good luck Jowie, it looks likes it should work.

After my complete fail with vape mesh co 317L 0.4 mm ss I did some scorch testing on it and none of the ss profiles on Steam Engine worked with this wire it was way too hot, too low TCR and just unsuitable wire. Then I tried the 0.29 mm 316L and the scorch test was pretty good so I vaped it on device monitor to get some screen shots for Bobby.

I saw one in the flesh at a meet last night and IMO they could have fitted a considerably larger battery as it is a big box, pic compared to a Evolv Reference Mod.

You are right I misremembered, it was the composite nature of the USB comms (HID + serial) that was the issue I read about, the lack of support for interface descriptors needed for serial in OSX /topic/66142-topic/?do=findComment&comment=894235

You're kidding me, right? Funny that every phone manufacturer uses one[/QUOTE] No see /topic/66331-topic/?do=findComment&comment=896335 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_human_interface_device_class I don't believe any phones use USB HID drivers out of the box (USB connected mouse keyboard etc) they are far more a PC thing, but these guys want one for a MAC not a phone.

Yes it will you don't need any materials profiles for Kanthal, but it will also auto detect Kanthal or Nichrome so you don't need to do anything other than set the watts.

The only other thing I can think of is to try different USB cables and power supplies, if that doesn't work I would return it.

IIRC the delay is because they had/have not been able to source a USB HID driver to be able to interface with the board, it is not as simple as it appears. But if the store lead you to believe it was Mac compatible surely your beef is with them as it seems to have come as a shock to you.

You don't need recovery with the cell at those voltages, try a hard reboot it is like disconnecting the battery and charging as normal, maybe clean the USB contacts & lead with IPA or rubbing alcohol.

My Reuleaux came with temp in the 3rd field, maybe you have temp limiting off either by adjusting the temp above 600 F or in a profile with it turned off.

Yes

IMO it needs the battery replacing as cell 2 is bad and battery analyser will not help so I would stop it myself.

Try messing the GearBest's rep who is a member here Vapor.gearbest.com and lets us all know how you guys got on. Remember it is their New Year holiday ATM so it may take a couple of weeks to get a reply.

The battery cell 2 looks bad, see how much more the voltage drops than the other 2 cells, it is just possible there is a connection issue, but I think the battery is much more likely to be the issue and IMO the next step is to replace battery if you built it or return the device.

If Cell 2 is not changing from 4.12 after a time (sorry don't know how long, say an hour) then if you are confident to remove the battery and test on a multimeter I would do that. On the white plug with 4 terminals test the voltage between the middle 2, if it is 4.12 V then the battery is faulty, if it is 4.2 V then the wiring/soldering is faulty or dirty.

0.080 A is still charging, almost certainly balance charging if it stays around that level for long. After you get it balanced if it continues to go out of balance a lot you either have a faulty battery, wiring or board, in that order of likelihood.

Give it time and maybe try a different USB supply, if you have USB Current as one of the fields on the charge screen you can see when it stops charging it goes to almost 0.000 A.

The balancing happens at the end of the charge cycle, it works by discharging the highest cell or cells then charging them all again until the highest reach the max voltage and should repeat until they are all close enough. This happens at a very low current so it takes time and it is conceivable that if your USB supply switches off when the current drawn is low that it doesn't get to finish. It is implemented like this as all 3 cells have to be charges together at the same rate.

Thanks Russ

I have seen that when accidentally pressing fire while fitting the batteries when only 2 of the 3 are installed and don't think it is anything to worry about as long as it stays clear.

A few questions: With the board mounts deeper did you have to make the case wider? (I has no problem with the first batch after grinding a lot off the back of the buttons and think raising the mounts will change the fit of the USB socket) Is the 510 the same fitting as the Evolv one? In the pictures of the anodised ones the 510 thread is anodised, can you confirm that this and the board mount threads come not anodised so we can use the chassis as common ground? (With the first batch I had a really low internal resistance with common ground 0.003 ohm) Will the board mount holes be tapped? There are differences in control panel bevels and raised bevels around the buttons, which will be in the final production unit?

I have not got much experience with ss and prefer Ni200, maybe I just got used to it from DNA40s, anyway at first I though ss was surprisingly good after realising that pulsing new coils was necessary. But after playing with the settings more I realise that my original opinion that the TCR is too low to work really well was correct for the set up I have anyway. Preheat works very well and I did not find it caused any problems at all like some people have suggested, I guess because it just limits once and does not try to regulate the temp. They maybe able to tune the control loop timing or reducing the degree of power attenuation for low TCR materials to alleviate this to some degree in future firmware or designs. IDK if these will work just a guess. ATM I find this is a good compromise: You can use 200 W, punch 11 preheat to get the coil hot quickly and view in device monitor to find a power level that keeps it below the temperature limit during normal vaping for a great vape. If you increase the temperature limit then you can really feel the chopping and it is just better and smoother to keep below this IMO, but if you are interested this is quite revealing. (dual horiz 10 wrap 0.4 mm ss317L 2 mm coils in amromanizer RDTA) YMMV and as I said I have not got much experience with ss just musings from one set up with one kind of wire.

Any electronics or radio repair shop could do it, but they don't ship with a connector as there is no standard connector and the Evolv Reference Mod doesn't use a connector at all. The XT30 isn't even standard in the world of RC it is a smaller version of the XT60 that HobbyKing devised and I am not sure that anyone else produces them, you can find them on eBay and from some mod parts stores.