Another Reuleaux Warranty Service, but different symptoms

[coolpowers]

I've had my Reuleaux about 3 months, I love the form factor and the consistent TC vape on SS430 that the DNA200 provides.

But the other day it just died, mid vape. When I got home I hooked it up to eScribe and it powered on but went straight to WARRANTY SERVICE. I now see that this isn't uncommon, but my symptoms seem to be a bit different.

- Pack shows 0.00V with 3 cells inserted
- Each cell shows correct voltage
- It does charge, and it does balance
- It doesn't read an atomizer
- Bandgap is 1.009V (or it least it was before I opened it up to look at the internals, now it's higher, around 1.1V)

So I'm not an electronics guy so I don't have any testing equipment or even a soldering iron, but I figure I know when something looks wrong  so I opened it up.

- all wires seem fine - no problems at the soldering points etc.
- the fuse isn't blown

As I've been typing this, I've been doing some more tests:

- if I remove cell 2 (the front battery), it does read a pack voltage
- if I slowly insert cell 2, there is a brief moment where it seems to make contact, correctly reads the pack voltage and all three cells and it will detect the atomizer, and is capable of firing
- there's a slight "ping" sound when the above happens, but I can't tell if it's from the positive end of the battery as it passes the plastic protection ring in the battery bay or something else
- it doesn't matter which batteries I use in the cell 2 position

I would understand it being a simple contact issue if cell 2 wasn't being detected properly at all when fully inserted, but it is and charges fine.

Any idea where to go from here to fix this? I don't expect Wismec or the online vendor to do anything about this, and I don't think it's a problem with the board itself so I don't see a reason to submit a ticket to Evolv. I'm posting here mainly because you guys are the most knowledgeable when it comes to wiring/connections, which is where I assume the issue is.

[Spector NS5 RD]

coolpowers said:

I've had my Reuleaux about 3 months, I love the form factor and the consistent TC vape on SS430 that the DNA200 provides.

But the other day it just died, mid vape. When I got home I hooked it up to eScribe and it powered on but went straight to WARRANTY SERVICE. I now see that this isn't uncommon, but my symptoms seem to be a bit different.

- Pack shows 0.00V with 3 cells inserted
- Each cell shows correct voltage
- It does charge, and it does balance
- It doesn't read an atomizer
- Bandgap is 1.009V (or it least it was before I opened it up to look at the internals, now it's higher, around 1.1V)

So I'm not an electronics guy so I don't have any testing equipment or even a soldering iron, but I figure I know when something looks wrong  so I opened it up.

- all wires seem fine - no problems at the soldering points etc.
- the fuse isn't blown

As I've been typing this, I've been doing some more tests:

- if I remove cell 2 (the front battery), it does read a pack voltage
- if I slowly insert cell 2, there is a brief moment where it seems to make contact, correctly reads the pack voltage and all three cells and it will detect the atomizer, and is capable of firing
- there's a slight "ping" sound when the above happens, but I can't tell if it's from the positive end of the battery as it passes the plastic protection ring in the battery bay or something else
- it doesn't matter which batteries I use in the cell 2 position

I would understand it being a simple contact issue if cell 2 wasn't being detected properly at all when fully inserted, but it is and charges fine.

Any idea where to go from here to fix this? I don't expect Wismec or the online vendor to do anything about this, and I don't think it's a problem with the board itself so I don't see a reason to submit a ticket to Evolv. I'm posting here mainly because you guys are the most knowledgeable when it comes to wiring/connections, which is where I assume the issue is.

you 100% sure your fuse is good? don't go by color alone. there have been at least couple that have posted their fuse was still green in color but 100% blown. do you have access to a digital/analog mutlimeter?

it will still try and charge the batteries even with a blown fuse. a transient voltage diode soaks up the power being produced by the charger when it doesn't reach your batts. just because you think it's charging, it may not actually be charging anything.

[coolpowers]

See? I said I wasn't an electronics guy And this is exactly the sort of feedback I was looking for, thanks.

Unfortunately as I say, I don't have anything to test the fuse with. I might see if they have anything down at my local B&M. But if the fuse was blown, would it even fire at all?

 

[Spector NS5 RD]

coolpowers said:

See? I said I wasn't an electronics guy And this is exactly the sort of feedback I was looking for, thanks.

Unfortunately as I say, I don't have anything to test the fuse with. I might see if they have anything down at my local B&M. But if the fuse was blown, would it even fire at all?

 

no the device will not fire if the fuse is blown. (you don't for sure yet your fuse is blown, it may not be.) in device monitor what is your 'pack voltage' (all 3 cells)? is it 0?

just to be clear you were vaping and mid puff the device died? are you running the latest firmware [RECOMMENDED]*** 2015-10-21 EScribe 1.0.35.2 ***? try to re-flash (re-install) the firmware. then do a 'hard reboot' after. 

[coolpowers]

Yeah like I say, the pack voltage usually shows 0 except for a second if I take out and reinsert cell 1. During that second it shows the correct pack charge (~11 volts) and can detect an atomizer and fire it, so I don't see how the fuse could be blown. I was saying it's charging the batteries because that's what it looks like when all 3 cells are in - they slowly rise in eScribe, even though the pack stays at 0.

I've tried the latest official firmware and the very latest pre-release firmware. 

[Spector NS5 RD]

coolpowers said:

Yeah like I say, the pack voltage usually shows 0 except for a second if I take out and reinsert cell 1. During that second it shows the correct pack charge (~11 volts) and can detect an atomizer and fire it, so I don't see how the fuse could be blown. I was saying it's charging the batteries because that's what it looks like when all 3 cells are in - they slowly rise in eScribe, even though the pack stays at 0.

I've tried the latest official firmware and the very latest pre-release firmware. 

when you say it can fire an atty when you reinstall cell 1, how long does it fire the atty for? is it for any length of time or does it seem like it's going to fire the atty, when you press the fire button, then screen goes blank and restarts?

this is all when plugged into escribe, watching device monitor?