Received mine a few days ago.. Wanted to try it out for a bit before posting anything.
EDIT: Please forgive the long post. I was aiming for a quickie, but as I always do, got excited and this wall of text came out. Apologies, skip on through if you don't really care about the Lambo 4.0.
First impressions are good, really seems like a solid design, it's heavier than L-Rider's first two versions and feels good in your hand, but only time will tell how well the finish and overall build quality resist everyday use (especially with a guy whose superpower seems to be acid palm sweat
).
But let's address some of the specs posted alongside the Lambo 4.0 in some vendors' sites. I am
not an electrical engineer so take this with a grain of salt and please correct me if I'm wrong.
-- PWM: as far as I understand, when a circuit uses pulse-width modulation the output voltage is a waveform, pulse train in the cases of most VV PWM mods I believe, ie it's not a "steady" DC signal, and it's therefor virtually impossible to check output voltage with a multimeter/voltmeter, you'd need an oscilloscope. If this is correct then I can confirm that
the Lambo 4.0 does not use PWM.
-- Amp limit: I can post all the numbers I got through my testing if anyone is interested (and since I measured Ohms, Amperage and Voltage for 2 different setups at multiple voltage settings with both a full battery and a low-charge battery they amount to a bit of data -- I will post them if anyone wants to see them, though, just let me know). Through my testing I couldn't push the unit higher than 2.57 amps with a total resistance load of 1.7 Ohm (my multimeter adds roughly 0.3 Ohm to the overall resistance when checked, when firing I get the feeling the resistance kinda drops back to 1.4 or close, netting numbers in compliance with Ohm's Law) when I set the voltage to 4.2V and 5.0V (though actual max voltage under load was roughly 3.6V).
So it seems the Lambo 4.0's maximum continuous discharge is 2.5 amps, not the 3.5 advertised.
-- Voltage drop under load: I got mixed results with my tests. It seems that when the resistance is either high (3 Ohm) or low (1.5 Ohm) the unit stresses out a bit more. On the lower end of the resistance "spectrum", this happens because of the 2.5 amp limit of the circuitry, but I can't think of what might be holding it back when you go the high resistance road -- amperage is low enough for it to be able to push the voltage to what you set it to, but it doesn't quite make it. However, in the resistance range of the attys I usually buy, 2.0-2.4 Ohm, and my target sweet spot in terms of vapor temp, throat hit and flavor, I found the Lambo 4.0 to be pretty darn good. With a full battery, voltage delivered under load is pretty much dead on from 3.0V to 5.2V -- with my AW IMR at or below 3.7V (and with most IMRs I've used, especially with VV mods, 3.5V is the lowest you can get, and some people say this is as low as you
should go, before the unit shuts down -- not the theoretical 3.2V) the voltage delivered under load stays spot on all the way up to, and including, 4.6-4.7V. Which
should mean that with a 2.0-2.4 Ohm load, and a set voltage between 3.0V and 4.7V, you should be able to vape the entire battery's charge and not feel a drop in performance. Real life usage seems to confirm this so far. Compared to the original L-Rider model (which, even with a full battery, suffered voltage drops when under load ranging from 0.2V to 0.5V and getting worse as the battery's charge went down), this circuitry holds up quite nicely..
-- Max Voltage: only paid attention to this because somewhere (tried to find the post again so I could link but couldn't find it, sorry) someone posted the ref number of the TI chip being used in this 'tube (can't remember that either, sorry) and looking at the specs, output voltage interval was 2.5-5.5V which should mean it won't go to 6V. Now, I don't know if indeed the chip posted is the one being used in the Lambo 4.0 but I couldn't get it to go above 5.25V under load regardless resistance, so there may be some truth to it.
-- Reading resistance: not sure I'm a fan of how they implemented it (you press the fire/activation button 5 times within a 3 second period) it'll depend on how this button behaves over time. On the original v1 'tube, the button got so unmanageable after a couple of months that I wasn't too excited when I read that they had tied this function to that button, of all buttons. Aside from that, it works pretty well and accurately.
-- Additional note on the fire button: As I said above, L-Rider's original v1 'tube had a button that tended to start sticking and then go wacko after a couple of weeks of usage. Since I was too lazy to try and do something about it, and since access to the innards of the button is damn near impossible without disassembling the unit, I waited too long to try and clean it and when I did, using only isopropanol, it didn't really do much, the effect didn't last long, and I get the feeling the electronics got a bit screwy after that. This button might have the same problem but looking at the inside of the tube, at least this time, the actual button's contacts seem to be more exposed, as in, you can actually see them as opposed to them being sunk beneath the plastic wall separating the battery compartment from the electronics compartment, which
could mean maintaining the Lambo 4.0's fire button in tip-top shape will be easier this time around, a quick spray with a good contact cleaner (just make sure it's safe to use around plastic) every now and then and you should be set. Be that as it may, though, and I admit that there is a good dose of wishful thinking on my part in my remarks above, it would be nice if they had come up with a button design that simply did not require maintenance or one where maintenance and even replacement was an easy job even for the less technically inclined.
-- Display: I know many people really enjoy Young-June's screen, with the battery level indication in bars, the sign for Ohm and Voltage etc, but to me it always seemed a bit cramped. This is a matter of personal preference and mine is probably highly biased from having used L-Rider's v1 for almost a year now, but I love the simplicity of it. On the Lambo 4.0 it
seems like they've punched up the brightness and contrast a little bit and, unlike the Young-June models, I can actually read the numbers at arm's length without my glasses on, which is
really useful to me (I have hyperopia, so resolution of details gets better at arm's length, but I've never been able to do this with the original LT and YJ's versions cramp so much info into that tiny display that I can't tell one thing from another -- on the Lambo 4.0 I can read both numbers
and the dot quite clearly). Oh, and another personal preference is being able to check the actual charge on the battery (read: difference in potential between poles, voltage), something they luckily didn't change from v1, as opposed to the "3 bars remaining" style YJ went with.
-- Connection: I've been using Vivi Novas for a while now and don't plan on stopping so reading that I'd need an adapter with the Lambo 4.0 (this was
after I had already ordered it) was kind of a downer for me. I think I'm onto something in terms of the culprit -- the way I see it, it's the floating/spring-loaded positive pin. Nifty idea but a poor implementation, I guess. The pin is too thin and with the Vivi Novas what I think is happening is that the pin is riding up inside the Nova's positive "well" until it gets stuck as you screw the Nova in. By this point, you've gotten the pin so tightly jammed inside the Nova's positive "cylinder" that it essentially seals it -- you see, on the Novas, the positive "pin"/post is hollow (it has to be) so that air can get into the atty area. Since the Novas seem to use two rubber washers to isolate the positive post from the body (which acts as the ground) there's no air getting into the tank between the positive post and the bigger outer cylinder with the 510 threading, it
has to go through the positive pin -- but with the Lambo's spring-loaded pin jammed inside of it, air just won't get through. I'm thinking about a way to fit a sort of a "metal hat" to the Lambo's positive pin so that it connects with the tank's positive right at the base, as most other connections do. That way, air
should flow through easily with a draw comparable to what you get on just about any other mod. Same goes for the excessively open draw when you fit a normal atty on it -- the hole on the bottom of the positive of an atty has a smaller diameter than that of the Nova so the pin shouldn't be able to fit inside it on most attys. But since the Lambo's pin is kind of "pitch-forked" at the end, instead of the normal base for the pin which is wide and smooth and typically closes that hole (very few air is supposed to be going through it, most of it is coming from the sides -- the Nova does this too, but the air is then "collected" by the hollow center pin, which is why its sides stick out a bit but not all the way around, so that even when it sits on a typical flat connection, there are still those two pathways for the air to flow through), with the Lambo's forked pin, air does get in through that bigger bottom hole -- a
lot more air than what you need. So for both these situations, if/when I can find a decent way to put a "flat top hat" on the spring-loaded pin, I'm pretty confident I can do away with using adapters with both the Nova and regular attys -- stay tuned.
My only remaining doubt is if the Nova's body itself, when fully screwed in, as it sits on the lip of the outside rim of the connection, will or won't create another near-vacuum situation in terms of draw, but barring that, I'm sure a simple tweak to the pin will solve the issue. I don't have any CE4s or any other tank/atty with a eGo-style connection so I can't comment on how well it works with this Lambo (seems like previous L-Rider's attempts at fitting an eGo-compatible connection weren't fully successful).
..
Pretty sure I had more to say but can't remember anything else at the moment and the post is long enough as is (sorry again). Final thoughts for now:
-- I do realize I've had very little time and experience with the Lambo 4.0 to properly review this product, so please consider all of the above as "first impressions". I can't speak to the durability of anything in it as most things tend to happen a few weeks (sometimes months) down the line. It does
appear to be of a better build quality than the previous L-Rider version and for me, aside from that misbehaving fire button and the plastic end caps of the v1 which cracked and finally broke apart a few weeks in, the v1 was pretty well built. Took a whole lot of abuse, very nearly fell apart on me (especially after the top cap broke) a number of times, especially after a fall, and once put back together, as long as the gods of the darn button allowed it, it friggin' worked. Can't count the times I thought I'd finally killed it only to see it come back to "life". Also, the finish on the original was so good that even after all the scratches it got (from falls, rolling around inside pockets with my keys, etc) even for a guy like me that seems to exude acid through my palms, it held on very nicely, only fading a bit over time (I had the black model). In contrast, that simple Bauway 510-N mod with a chrome/nickel-plated look to it, started to corrode on me after just 5 weeks of use, and no more than 2 weeks later you could see exactly how I held it as those areas were completely coppery in color -- in contrast I had the original LT for almost 11 months.
The above and the fact that for my target wattage, vapor temp, throat hit and flavor, and the resistances I use with the attys/cartos/tanks I buy (2.0-2.4 Ohm at 4.2-4.5V for roughly 8.2-8.4 Watts) this Lambo 4.0, although quite definitely very short on a number of the promises made in the "specs" posted alongside the product in a couple of shops, it nevertheless does the job for me -- feels like it was tuned to my sweet spot.
That and my feeling that I can solve the draw issue and the fact that I really don't want to go with a YJ at the moment, not until
the Vavg vs Vrms debacle is done and people stop complaining about the finish coming off, etc,
personally I feel a lot better sticking with this model for now. It's a lot better than my v1, feels great and with my v1 looking like a geriatric patient on the final days of a really nasty terminal disease, it's certainly better than nothing -- and going back to mechanical mods just isn't going to do it for me.
Since it falls short of the advertised claims I could just simply return it, but after having tried it, I feel I'm better off with this model than with most I've seen reviewed these past few months (including Volcano's whose build quality I won't question, but whose aesthetics of their upcoming Lavatube 2.0 are just too damn ugly for my taste, to the point of actually
looking like that stereotypical plastic crap people associate with "Made in China" -- just my opinion, though, and just as far as how it looks, at least in pictures and in the review I watched).
-- my two cents, comments and criticism welcomed