The Kick...dead in 13 days

[Pooladdict247]

Got a kick starter kit from nhaler 13 days ago(i got lucky) and have been loving every minute of it...until yesterday. Props to nhaler for super fast shipping. Love how they packed it all up in a nice blue nhaler eyeglass cleaner bag. Every now and then it wouldnt fire so I would just tap the bottom of my Silver bullet(my only mod) on my palm and back to vaping. It was barely making a connection on the ground spring because the plastic wrap was holding the spring back so I had to cut the wrap a little on the top side of the spring to free it and gently pull the spring out a lil bit. No big deal, only does it maybe once in a while now.
I have the sleeve and have only used the 18500s that came with the kit a few times. 90% of the time its been ran with AW18650 2000mah batts @8-8.5w on a single coil 1.7ohm resurrector in a tank. The main reason I bought it was because I was sick of the "battery is almost dead" vape toward the end of the battery life. With my SB kicked I would get about 7hrs out of my 18650 and then it would pulse fire(meaning dead batt).

Well yesterday after refilling a tank, first vape I noticed the carto wasnt doing its normal rice crispy talk to me snap, crackle, and pop action. Didnt think much of it, thought maybe the coil was just a little too wet. Today I took off to work and all day have been getting that "battery is dying" vape. So I got home from work a few hours ago, time to investigate. Have been going on the same batt all day(12-14hrs) I never really take the kick out because it stays in the sleeve as I change batts. I pulled it out and noticed a bulge that wasnt there before on the side of the black part on the bottom chip(near the B+ plate). The only thing I come up with is a blown capacitor. I threw a freshly charged batt in and bam now its vaping like normal now, swapped back and forth between my 2 batteries a few times and then w/ out the kick and am convinced that a cap failed. I dont have an inline meter yet but am ordering one tonight, kick failure helps me justify spending more money on vape hardware with the wife

So for now Im just gonna run kickless until I can get ahold of nhaler. Really wish I had a darn meter to verify. Was hoping to get a lil feedback on here to see if Im the only one. Should I wait to contact them to verify the voltage? Im sure Id be on a waiting list anyways since they are out of stock

Heres a few pics, sorry for the poor quality, my POS galaxy phone doesnt have a flash on the camera so I had to use a flashlight with it.

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[Martö]

Sounds more like your not getting a good ground connection.

Oh yea BTW if your going to test, you need a capacitance meter, multimeter, and an Oscilloscope. So figure on spending about $600.00 just to test everything.

Oh yea and a 1.8 Ohm 50 watt wirewound resistor and a variable bench power supply. So add in another $200.00+..

[Pooladdict247]

Pbusardo has a video on the kick showing it boosting the voltage to 4.xx with a regular inline 510 meter. Im just trying to verify my voltage is being boosted like he did. The only ground issue i could have would be internal on the kick itself. From my experience with it, if it has a ground problem with the spring not making good enough contact it wont fire. My SB has no coating on the inside so Im sure there would be an issue there.
If a cap didnt blow what would be the cause of the bulge that was never there? Hoping i can test with just an inline meter, but if I do need all the equipment Ill just take it to my dad, he used to build custom cb radios and has everything except maybe the 1.8 Ohm 50 watt wirewound resistor. Thanks for the feedback!

[Bmays]

Pbusardo has a video on the kick showing it boosting the voltage to 4.xx with a regular inline 510 meter. Im just trying to verify my voltage is being boosted like he did. The only ground issue i could have would be internal on the kick itself. From my experience with it, if it has a ground problem with the spring not making good enough contact it wont fire. My SB has no coating on the inside so Im sure there would be an issue there.
If a cap didnt blow what would be the cause of the bulge that was never there? Hoping i can test with just an inline meter, but if I do need all the equipment Ill just take it to my dad, he used to build custom cb radios and has everything except maybe the 1.8 Ohm 50 watt wirewound resistor. Thanks for the feedback!

I'd like to see a pic of the swelled cap. You could really be onto something there. That does happen from time to time.

[Martö]

Pbusardo has a video on the kick showing it boosting the voltage to 4.xx with a regular inline 510 meter. Im just trying to verify my voltage is being boosted like he did. The only ground issue i could have would be internal on the kick itself. From my experience with it, if it has a ground problem with the spring not making good enough contact it wont fire. My SB has no coating on the inside so Im sure there would be an issue there.
If a cap didnt blow what would be the cause of the bulge that was never there? Hoping i can test with just an inline meter, but if I do need all the equipment Ill just take it to my dad, he used to build custom cb radios and has everything except maybe the 1.8 Ohm 50 watt wirewound resistor. Thanks for the feedback!

That would be your best bet is to take it over to his place then..

Best guess is heat generation

I think the Kick uses SMD and through hole but I think the caps are SMD from what I've seen.

[Unforeseen]

Moved from Mod Discussion to E-Cigarette Accessories Discussion.

[gamedemon]

Had exactly the same issue. Contacted Evolv Vapor and sent it for an exchange. Don't have the email here, but it is on their site.. I did not see or look for a bulge... but mine did the exact same thing after a few deal.

[Endweaver]

@Poola: Thanks for bringing up this incident with the Kick by Evolv. Hopefully we can all get an official statement either from drew at nhaler or from evolv regarding this issue. Keep us posted!

[Firefly13]

I had to send one of mine in to Evolv, Nhaler won't deal with it, just go onto the Evolv site and email them, they will take care of it. I sent it back to them and had a replacement out very quickly.

[Pooladdict247]

Ordered an inline meter. Should be in earlier next week.
@Martö I think the heat is probably the most likely cause also, especially with the silver bullet, its walls are pretty thick and does get warm from time to time, but im also assuming the caps themselves are probably not of the highest quality ones out there either. If they were tantalum or porcelain, that would be probably 40-50% of the cost of the kick, and I wouldnt expect to see that from a company that has to make a profit after distributing them to vendors. Business-wise it just wouldnt make sense. Im could be way off tho and just sound like a bafoon

Had exactly the same issue. Contacted Evolv Vapor and sent it for an exchange. Don't have the email here, but it is on their site.. I did not see or look for a bulge... but mine did the exact same thing after a few deal.

Feel so relieved Im not the only one! Its inevitable to have a few of these fail premature just like any mass produced electronic. All in all I still love it and would encourage others to not let this thread discourage them from purchasing the kick, its a great tube mod add on.

@Poola: Thanks for bringing up this incident with the Kick by Evolv. Hopefully we can all get an official statement either from drew at nhaler or from evolv regarding this issue. Keep us posted!

Shot nhaler an email earlier today. Ill wait to see what drew wants me to do, might send me to Evolv for warranty since technically its not his fault, he's just selling em

I'd like to see a pic of the swelled cap. You could really be onto something there. That does happen from time to time.

Tried to get a few more pics of the bulge... so hard tho because its so small

^3 o clock

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^3 o clock