Won't turn on from deep sleep

[Jetro]

Conrad thanks for starting this thread.

When I got this Paranormal 250c 4 weeks ago. I threw in a pair of VTC5a's that were not fully charged ( about 85% ). I pressed fire button and nothing happened. So I held the button down and the mod started. I thought that was strange because the 4 DNA 75c mods I have more or less come on instantly. So I the put in a set of fully charged batteries and ran the battery analyzer. I then put in the original pair of batteries that were about 50% charged and vaped on and off for three days with no issues at all.

I put on a new theme and a set of fully charged batteries and everything was fine until the next morning. The mod would not come on at all. So I opened Ecribe and hooked the mod up, as soon as I plugged in the usb cable the mod came on. That started a week or so of resetting defaults, hard reboots etc.... Any way. I found this thread and watched what you had posted. While fooling around trying figured out what was happening with this mod. I got a second Paranormal 250c that has zero issues, what in the world?

The I saw John's post asking for board and battery details. The battery inquiry went right over my head. So  I kept fooling around. Then it dawned on me that the mod worked perfectly with low batteries. So I did some testing.

At 4.2 to 4.05 volts the only way the mod will start up is to open the battery door or hook it to a usb cable. From 4.04 to 3.95 volts the mod would start by randomly pressing all the buttons and holding the fire button down. From 3.95 to 3.82 volts the mod would start by double tapping the fire button or holding it down after the double taps.  From 3.82 to 3.71 volts a long press of  the fire button would always start the mod.  At 3.70 / 3.69 volts down the mod works perfectly.

I then put in a set of fully charged batteries and after it went to sleep, it would not start. I then put in the low batteries and it started instantly and I vaped with no issues until I got a weak battery warning. As long as I do not put in batteries that are over 3.70 volts the mod works perfectly.

For John, the Paranormal with the issues :

    sn: XTEZ ZOYW DVFY,  board programed 18-0319,  mod configured 18-0331

The Paranormal with zero issues :

   sn: XRGW SEMG XRAA,  board programed 18-0226, mod configured 18-0402

John, I hope this info helps with a fix for this problem. Would you like to play with this mod? I would be happy to send it in for your inspection!

Guys, Sorry for writing a book. But I was just flipped to figure out my mods issue.

JT
 

[conradisrugged]

Hey JT!

Thanks for this! I am hopeful that it will greatly contribute to John and his problem solving of this issue. I haven't actually checked my battery settings as such, but I do find that halfway through the day when batteries have been drained a bit I can only get it to boot by opening the battery door and closing it again. I have also reset to defaults, done a soft reboot and hard reboot and set the idle time to 60 minutes, I haven't run into the problem again since doing that yesterday. Someone on Reddit told me that the Theme may be taking up too much space, which it did seem to do.

Kind regards,

Conrad

[NMEones]

The not waking up issue happened to me once again for the first time in over a week.  My batteries were under 50% (I only remember because it happened under an hr ago) but like I’ve said previously... it never NOT woke up after a few seconds (this time maybe 5ish seconds).  I’ve still yet to have the device not wake up and have to hook it up to a usb or remove the battery, etc... 

[conradisrugged]

Hey NMEones,

Are you maybe using a theme? Removing mine and setting to defaults have sort of eliminated the problem, for now.

 

 

[GHammer]

3 minutes ago, conradisrugged said:

Are you maybe using a theme? Removing mine and setting to defaults have sort of eliminated the problem, for now.

I likely missed it, but what theme were you running?
I don't have the problem using the latest Gauges.

 

[NMEones]

4 minutes ago, conradisrugged said:

Hey NMEones,

Are you maybe using a theme? Removing mine and setting to defaults have sort of eliminated the problem, for now.

 

 

Yeah I’m actually using my own theme.  To be honest, it doesn’t bother me much since it rarely happens... I just want to get my experience with it on record so maybe it will help fix it in future updates that get pushed out

[conradisrugged]

7 minutes ago, ShowerHead said:

I likely missed it, but what theme were you running?
I don't have the problem using the latest Gauges.

 

I was using one that I modified to suit my needs a bit. I probably did something wrong. Here's the link:
 

 

9 minutes ago, NMEones said:

Yeah I’m actually using my own theme.  To be honest, it doesn’t bother me much since it rarely happens... I just want to get my experience with it on record so maybe it will help fix it in future updates that get pushed out

Oh okay, next time you are on eScribe can you maybe go to Theme Designer and then copy and pasted the information from the Space Used tab?

[GHammer]

11 hours ago, conradisrugged said:

I was using one that I modified to suit my needs a bit. I probably did something wrong. Here's the link:

Here's the memory usage info from the newest Gauges. Don't know how it compares.
I wonder where the off-board memory is?

Edited May 17, 2018 by ShowerHead

[conradisrugged]

Hey ShowerHead,

Mine was: 

Quote

Evolv DNA 250 Color: Off-Board Memory: 79,2% used On-Board Memory: 44,3% used

When I reset to defaults it was this value:

Quote

Evolv DNA 250 Color: Off-Board Memory: 36,0% used On-Board Memory: 43,7% used

I have only changed to the default them and done a soft reboot and a hard reboot and since then I haven't had any problems.

[maximumsport]

So woke up this morning, left it unlocked before bed. First press.... nothing. Kept pressing, holding down fire button, after about a minute screen pops on lock screen, ready to go. My question is whats the techincality behind this? Still no answer. After sleeping for so long is there some type of button press or timer after buttons are pressed?

Every time this happens I just hit all the buttons like a madman and it finally awakes every time. Hasn't once never came back on. Since we love modding and learning the ins and outs of our chips I would really love to hear the real answer or some type of technical reasoning behind this from Evolv please!

Thanks!

[conradisrugged]

On 5/10/2018 at 9:02 PM, John B said:

A few things to look at:

The real-time clock runs off the battery, not the main regulator.  That always stays on, unless you remove the batteries and leave it long enough for the storage capacitor for the clock to drain (5 minutes-ish)

There are three turn-on sources for the main regulator. One is the processor (which is how it stays on) one is the fire button (how it turns on normally if it is off) and one is the USB. So USB should always wake it.

The fire button turn-on is capacitively coupled (as it is on some other DNAs) so that if your button gets stuck down in some luggage or otherwise it don't force it to stay on and drain the battery. But that means that the processor has to wake up and take over the job of keeping it on fairly promptly, or it'll turn back off. 

Likely there's something going on in the firmware that occasionally delays the boot long enough to miss the turn-on pulse. The board does a number of self-checks at power-on, and one may be taking too long depending on the state of whatever it is checking. 

If you run into this, can you post up your manufacture date for the board, your serial number, your firmware revision, your number of cells and the approximate state of charge of your batteries?  I'm reasonably certain I can get to the bottom of it with sufficient information. 

Thanks!

John

This is what John B had to say about it in earlier posts

[maximumsport]

Hey John B,

I've attached the info my DNA 250C chip for your troubleshooting research. I'm on firmware 1.1 SP33.2. Mod: Finder250c 3 cells and fully charged batteries.

[Tazrok]

Is there anyway to disable sleep mode as mine seems to have gotten worse, if I leave it for an hour it won't turn on unless a charger is connected, ,it's not a big problem when I'm indoors but it keeps happening when I'm out and I'm unable to vape, 

I now have to stop using the 250c untill this problem is sorted and go back to my 75c

[maximumsport]

Little update.

I ordered another Finder DNA 250C in a different color that just came in. This one was sitting all night woke up soon as I hit the fire button it waked instantly! This chip was programmed March 22, 2018. My first DNA 250C chip with the delay wake was programmed March 15, 2018. Not sure if this matters much but wanted to share this.

Also I uploaded the same exact settings from my other chip to this new one.

[ruudde]

Hi Also have a finder DNA 250C with the same problem added the info.
 I'm on firmware 1.1 SP33.2. INT, 3 cells and fully charged Sony VTC6 Batteries.

 

[ruudde]

Update..

Also loaded the default theme and did several resets/reboots.  Still keeping the issue.

Reset to default settings too, still same problem

[Jetro]

My Paranormal that won't startup properly is still dependent on the battery voltage be under 3.70 volts  to start with no issues. Themes and firmware make no difference.

I also got a Thinkvape Finder 250c. It has zero issues starting or vaping.  I now have 3 250c mods.  Two that have no problems and one that won't startup properly.

I read some where on the web that someone was having startup issues and they had strange voltages on battery 3 and 4 on their Paranormal. As you know these boards can be wired for 2, 3  or 4 batteries. So I modified the default theme to show the 4 batteries. This is what I found :

The Paranormal with problems starting, battery 3 reads 0.234 to 0.932 volts usually 0.547 volts , battery 4 reads 0.354 to 0.737 volts usually 0.604 volts.

The Paranormal with no issues, battery 3 reads 0.010 to 0.035 volts usually 0.010 volts, battery 4 reads 0.007 to 0.009 volts.

The TV Finder with no issues, battery 4 reads 0.005 to 0.056 volts, usually 0.024 volts.

If you want to check this out here is the theme. You can lock the mod and turn off autolock  from Main screen.  The battery screen is accessed from the Settings screen so you can see the voltages.

JT

Default 250C 4 Batt for testing.ecigtheme

[Jetro]

On Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 4:38 PM, Tazrok said:

Is there anyway to disable sleep mode as mine seems to have gotten worse, ......

Tazrok you can turn off autolock on the Safety tab in EScribe by unchecking the Automatically lock when idle box. Or you can use the theme I posted above. It might help you to do this but there is no way to disable deep sleep that I know of.  I also tried setting the lock time to 480 minutes ( 6 hours ) but that did not work.

Hope this helps.

JT

[ruudde]

Jetro thanks for all the testing,

I have a TV Finder with the same issue, just tested the battery with 4 cells and the 4th reads 0.009 to 0.050 volts, usually 0.029 volts.
It's beginning to bother me at the moment, just disabled the autolock see what that does.. Looks like a bug, but not sure since it's so random.
It's happening to mine at all voltages. I always get it to switch on again, but even then it's random how long it takes to actually start working..
Hope the problem is found soon..

[retird]

If I recall the Paranormal uses 2 batteries and the TV Finder uses 3.  The device wiring for 2 and 3 batteries is different than a 4 cell device as you said.  The link below is the  Datasheet and has wiring diagrams.  EScribe settings are to be set for the wiring and number of batteries.... What voltages do you have when the correct number of batteries are selected in EScribe ? In order to get the correct voltages the wiring has to be correct for the number of batteries selected in EScribe, don't you think?

 

https://downloads.evolvapor.com/dna250color.pdf

[Jetro]

ruudde , No problem on the testing, just trying to help diagnose.

retird , Yes all my mods are set up in EScribe with the correct number of batteries. The theme is set up on the battery screen to show the voltages from Cell1 , Cell2 , Cell3 and Cell4. On a 2 battery mod like the Paranormal there should be zero volts showing on cells 3 and 4 and on a 3 battery mod like the TV Finder it should show zero volts on cell 4. But probably due to component tolerances or leakage they show a small amount of voltage. like mine do in my post above. I am sure that my Paranormal that shows consistently above a half a volt is a problem. As it will not start properly at 3.71 volts or above as in my first post.

For everyone wanting to use the theme I posted above. DO NOT change the battery amount in EScribe. Just install the theme and look at the Battery screen. I should have stated that in that post, I will edit it .

Well, I can not edit the post. I hope it does not cause anyone a problem. 

JT

Retird, if you think that my post with the theme will cause a problem then I will hide it and repost.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Jetro

[retird]

Will look at the theme just to see how you set it up....I will load it on a 250C with 4 batteries as I have no 2 or 3 cell 250c.... can you PM me with your ecig file with the theme you made?  Question: When batteries are fully charged and the DNA is not charging anything do you get the voltage on cell 3&4? In other words could this be a voltage charge rate reading?

James would be the one to talk about battery balancing 2,3,4 batteries.....  My question would be how do you measure voltage on batteries that don't exist in the device and would/could leakage cause the issue you are describing?

[Jetro]

1 hour ago, retird said:

Will look at the theme just to see how you set it up....I will load it on a 250C with 4 batteries as I have no 2 or 3 cell 250c.... can you PM me with your ecig file with the theme you made?  Question: When batteries are fully charged and the DNA is not charging anything do you get the voltage on cell 3&4? In other words could this be a voltage charge rate reading?

James would be the one to talk about battery balancing 2,3,4 batteries.....  My question would be how do you measure voltage on batteries that don't exist in the device and would/could leakage cause the issue you are describing?

When I made the theme all I did was make a battery screen that has voltage fields for four cells. Cell1, Cell2, Cell3 and Cell4.

It makes no difference whether the batteries are charging or not or whatever voltage they are at.  I am seeing the same small amount of voltage on cells 3 &4 on the Paranormals and cell 4 on the Finder.

As far as how I am getting these voltage readings on the nonexistent batteries I have no idea. All I can say is what I see in the fields on the screen. Because of the way the balance connection is jumpered from the positive terminal of the battery to the unused pins on the balance connector it should not show any voltage on the nonexistent cells. But it does. Other than voltage or current leakage in the balance circuit I have no explanation to why it shows these small voltages. But it does and it is fairly consistent. Also on the Finder and Paranormal that wake up and work properly the voltages are very small ( .005 to .056 volts ). The Paranormal that will not wake up as in my first post in this thread the voltages on cells 3 & 4  are between .234 & .932 volts. Again, I have no idea why.

PM sent

JT

Edited May 21, 2018 by Jetro
to add

[retird]

And I am not schooled in electronics but James is the expert so maybe he can shed some light if he drops by.... and/or you could open a ticket with Evolv...

https://helpdesk.evolvapor.com/index.php?a=add&category=1

 

[Jetro]

52 minutes ago, retird said:

And I am not schooled in electronics but James is the expert so maybe he can shed some light if he drops by.... and/or you could open a ticket with Evolv...

https://helpdesk.evolvapor.com/index.php?a=add&category=1

 

Thanks for looking into this.

I have a support ticket in the works already .

JT