dead lipo on VTBox200?

[1Cas]

So I have a VapeCige VTBox200 that stopped firing and charging after one day. While waiting for the Chinese holiday to pass, I shelved the device with (according to the battery gauge), about 50% charge. 

Today, I picked up the device to see if I could breathe new life into it, and found the device completely 'dead'. I hooked it up to my PC and all 3 cells are at 0.00v.

As before, it will not charge, but now that I have another DNA200 (and have spent some time on the forums), I am starting to think that it could be that the battery is broken, not the board.

I have opened up the device and the fuse seems to be OK.

I tried the 'recovery USB charging'. It's been charging for about 2 hours so far, and the device monitor reads:
Pack: around 2.7v
Cell 1: 1.09  
Cell 2: 1.59
Cell 3: changing frantically, anywhere between 0.09-0.32

- Is the behavior on cell 3 an indication that the lipo is busted?
- How long should I leave the device in recovery charging mode (the lipo is cold to the touch)?
- Is it normal for a lipo (or the DNA200 board) to lose *all* of its charge when shelved for a few weeks? I know that batteries will slowly lose their charge, but have not seen this with any of my other regulated mods (it seems that 'off' does not actually cut the power).

Thanks!

[blueridgedog]

Cell 3 may be impossible to recover and the pack is shot.  I see no reason why you can't leave it for a few more hours though.  I don't know the standby power requirements of the DNA200, but it should not have driven them down to 0.  I suspect a bad pack or cell at this point (that took the others down to 0).

[VapingBad]

Have you update the firmware since getting it?   The very first batches of boards went out with pro-production firmware that the manufactures and resellers should have updated to a release version and that had an issue that could discharge the batteries, but it shouldn't have go out into the wild.

[1Cas]

Interesting. I am pretty sure I did when I first received it, because I downloaded the latest eScribe + firmware from this forum right before the device arrived.

As an update: Cell 3 is now stable at 0.00v, so my guess is that the battery pack is indeed kaput. Going to leave it for a few more hours, but I am not very hopeful.