paranormal 167 odd behavior.

[Aalmosawi]

not sure where to post this but iam seeking a solution or dissection video perhaps to my paranormal 167 mod. 

lately, in the last day or two i noticed something odd. if i plug a USB cable into the USB port to charge the unit it keeps charging at low power. it keeps going to 0.54A and sometimes fluctuates. previously it would be ok and charge at 1.94A. constantly. 

another unusual behavior is: i took batteries of my d4 charger and on the mod it read 80%. on the charger it read FULL. i tried two sets of batteries that are full and both read 80%. a few minutes later they changed to a 100% on the mod. 

the mod has not fallen from my hand nor have i put anything strong nor yanked at the usb port. i am trying to rule out any damage to the usb port.

i did pop out one of the magnetic doors and found lots of juice behind it. cleaned that up. same behivour. i also reached with my small finger into the battery compartment and it was rather dry. no moisture / juice.

what should i do? does this sound like a hardware issue ? should i attempt a tear-down?

[Boopinhoopties]

I am experiencing this exact same issue. I have a Paranormal 167 / DNA 250 and it was working perfectly, but now will only charge between .54 and .59 amps. I have also noticed some battery shenanigans like yours, where my mod tells me my (brand new) 18650 batteries are ~70% full, but my external charger reads them at 4.2v, I have also vaped until my batteries are down to 30-40%, then charged them internally (at around .59 amps) for a while until they read around 70%... and then I vape for a minute or two and the battery indicator will jump up to almost 100%.  

Using eScribe, I have also noticed some behavior that seems linked to the low amperage issue. I have seen people suggest that the mod compensates for voltage sag by lowering the amperage... but those people were also suggesting that the voltage sag was coming from the charging cable, which is NOT the case for me. When monitoring 'USB Voltage' in eScribe while connected to  my PC, I can see the voltage rise and fall between 5.0v and 4.27v every few seconds, with matching dips in the amperage... but it still never rises above .59 amps. 

I'm confused and unhappy, because the reliable internal charger was a big reason why I bought this mod. The chip also forgets your coil when you remove the batteries to externally charge them, which can cause loads of TC problems... and TC is the other big reason I bought the mod. 

 

I apologize for not attaching eScribe screenshots, but this issue has been posted about before (with no solutions?) and all of my information would just look identical to theirs. 

[Spector NS5 RD]

@Boopinhoopties can you post a screenshot of DM with cells 1/2, USB voltage, USB current boxes ticked? It's a great tool for diagnosing problems. The USB voltage should not dip between 5v~4.27V during the constant current phase of charging. Slight peaks and valleys (a few hundred millivolts) are ok. The 250/167 should charge at 1 amp when connect to a PC. Current limiting will happen if : the USB voltage starts to sag around 4.27v / either of the two cells are close to 4.20v / the board temp is reading abnormally high or low temps / USB socket, on board, is wearing out (same for USB cable, itself).

what version FW are you running?

below is normal charging for a DNA 167 2 cell

[Boopinhoopties]

Here is my unhappy looking graph:   

 

My voltage is rolling consistently... and those spikes are new, they weren't there the last time I looked. In this screenshot, my batteries are right at 4.0v, but this behavior is identical no matter what their charge level is (last time I hooked it up to eScribe they were around 3.5v). I know the voltage rolls like this when it's plugged into the wall too, as I can read the fluctuations straight from the device's screen. 

It used to charge at 1 amp while connected to my PC and 2 amps when connected to my wall charger, with steady voltage. Now it reads around 4.2v and .5 amps no matter what it's connected to... and I have verified that my charger, cable, wall socket and batteries themselves are not the source of any of these problems. 

One thing you mentioned that I haven't experimented with yet is the temperature cutoff... I did run the 'case analyzer' when I first got the device, though I'm still not very knowledgeable about that feature. 

 

[Spector NS5 RD]

@Boopinhoopties You're board says 116f when only charging at an average of .6 amps. This value is unaffected whether case analyzer is ran or not. case analyzer only corrects the room temp readout. My guess is it's board related. Could be a variety of possible causes. Juice on the board somewhere / missing or failing thermistor (or some other board component).

have you tried  re-flashing the FW? just for the heck of it, couldn't hurt at this point.

I'm not sure of Lost vape's warranty service but the board inside the mod is covered for 1 year by Evolv. I would open a help ticket with them explaining the problem.

[Boopinhoopties]

@ChunkyButt200  I have not tried re-flashing firmware, I'll attempt that shortly and see if anything changes. I also tried contacting Lost Vape two days ago and have not heard back yet, I suppose I'll send Evolv a ticket as well. 

I just noticed more weirdness with my temperature readings... it's claiming my room temp is 110f, which is obviously not correct. I can also watch my board temp rise and fall while it's charging, but my room temp is rock solid at exactly 110 and never changes. That's not a good sign, is it?  

Thank you for all your help btw!  

[Spector NS5 RD]

If you never ran case analyzer then the room temp displayed will be incorrect. But even when calibrated it won't fluctuate like board temp. So it staying at 110F and not changing as frequently as board temp is normal (although the value itself is incorrect). If the board temp is all over the place that could be could be real or false reading. It's almost impossible to diagnose a problem through forum posts. Either way, contacting Evolv and Lost Vape is your best bet as i suspect this not fixable by your average consumer.