Provari 3 battery life indicator inaccurate???

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AstroTurf

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If you can call Provape's recommended AW IMR batteries crap batteries...

Is that where you got them from?

I mean we are on P3 number 2 now.

I have seen plenty of clown aw batts from many other sources.

What else could it be?

What are your settings?

Thanks, Jim
 

bimmer88

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Oct 9, 2013
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Sacramento
Is that where you got them from?

I mean we are on P3 number 2 now.

I have seen plenty of clown aw batts from many other sources.

What else could it be?

What are your settings?

Thanks, Jim
Yep... got them from Provape... 2 of them... I really don't know what it is. i don't really set anything... All I do is set it to 13w then i just use it.... This second one was working perfectly for a month so i know it isn't "supposed" to do what it's doing now...
 

AstroTurf

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Yep... got them from Provape... 2 of them... I really don't know what it is. i don't really set anything... All I do is set it to 13w then i just use it.... This second one was working perfectly for a month so i know it isn't "supposed" to do what it's doing now...

Man, This all really sux...

Almost makes you want to go back to square one, and say forget this...

Has ProVape offered new batteries? That's what I would be doing next.

Keep us posted on the outcome, Please.

Jim
 

Michael Curry

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I'd be very surprised if it was the batteries. We're fighting the same thing with my wife's P3.
It says the battery is empty, the charger and my multimeter think it still has 4.0 volts left in it.
This has happened with three pairs of brand new batteries. Sony VTC4, Efest, and now Sammy 25r's.
I find it very hard to believe that the charger, my meter, and 6 brand new batteries from 3 different companies are all suddenly "broken".
I can take the empty batteries from her P3 and put them in my old V1 ProVari and it thinks they're at 4.0v . Guess it's broken too.
Sorry to say, the P3 has issues. Makes me glad I held off on "upgrading" mine. This is not an isolated thing, I really do hope they make good on this.
 

MonsterKenny

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Bimmer, do you have any other batteries to test in the P3? If its the batteries and your other batteries test out fine, its a good chance they may be bad cells. If its not the spring only issue i can think of would have to be leaning towards the batteries. If its not the batteries let me know and ill send you one of my personal springs for testing. Is your springs silver plated?

Ken
 

bimmer88

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Oct 9, 2013
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Bimmer, do you have any other batteries to test in the P3? If its the batteries and your other batteries test out fine, its a good chance they may be bad cells. If its not the spring only issue i can think of would have to be leaning towards the batteries. If its not the batteries let me know and ill send you one of my personal springs for testing. Is your springs silver plated?

Ken
Hi Ken. I've got two AW IMR batteries(one a 18650 & one a 18500) that I bought from you guys. I've also got several Sony VTC-4's, and two Efest purple batteries. All have the same problem. I've been through 3 different types of springs on my units. The one that came with my original unit, the one that came with the 2nd unit, and the extra extended spring you guys sent me. Yes, they were silver plated. How i know there's something wrong is because after I received the 2nd unit, it worked great for a month. All the batteries that were having the problems with the 1st unit functioned perfectly with the 2nd unit for a month. Then after a month on the 2nd unit, they all started working the same as with the first unit. Even after I changed the spring to the extra extended one you guys sent me.
 
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Ca Ike

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For those of you having battery life issues check your spring carefully. Especially if it happens on all sizes and different types. There are two things I found that cause this. One is the spring not fully seated in the cap. The other is a burr on the spring where it was cut. The burr causes the spring to warp when compressed making for inconsistent contact and can damage the battery contact plate. I had the same issue and found a bad burr on my spring that once filed down cured my issues.
 

joefisch330

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Sep 10, 2013
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Erie, PA
Okay so I am getting a sense that there are battery life issues with the P3. My 18350 batteries only get me about 30 puffs. I am running a kanger subtank mini on it with the 1.2 ohm coils at about 17 watts. I turned the screen off completely and turned the brightness all the way down and still only getting an hour of usage out of my P3 if I'm lucky. All AW IMR batteries, one is brand new and the other 3 I have are close to a year old but in my mini 2.5 they still get me almost a full day, but no matter which one I use I still only get around 30 puffs out of a battery. This is pretty infuriating. I spent close to $300 for a mod and now I need to invest another $300 in batteries apparently.

Any solutions out there?
 

schismz

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FWIW I have the same issue with the P3, ordered another Ti (obviously it's not a deal breaker for me ;-) and will see how that works with presumably updated firmware. I have similar experiences, multiple 18350 batts, all brand new, Efest, AW IMR, it doesn't matter. I've changed springs, changed end-caps, and my problem is nowhere near as bad as your 30 puffs and it's dead, but OTOH I vape at a very conservative 8-10 watts.

What happens 100% of the time is my battery meter goes from showing 50 or 40% or whatever, then suddenly it's dead and at zero, so, same old same old solution, unscrew bottom cap, screw it back on, and magically I'm back to the "correct" battery meter reading, and can go back to using the P3 for a while.

I don't think this is spring and contacts, I think there's something wrong with how the current firmware is calculating what battery life is left, it gets confused.

Again, not a deal breaker for me, but it is extremely annoying when I'm dropping $300 (give or take, ok it was $279 for the shiny P3 and another, however much I just paid, I don't even know, for the Valentine's day P3 Ti).
 

joefisch330

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Sep 10, 2013
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Erie, PA
Go to Steam Engine | free vaping calculators on the battery drain tab on the top of the page and enter info. and see what it says. Under run time.

It says I should get 9 minutes and 104, 5 second second puffs...I'm getting less than half of that. I under estimated. I'm getting roughly 40 puffs.

Edit, I do take roughly 5 second puffs. Some less some more, give or take a second. I did the math. If I take 45 puffs at 5 seconds I'm getting 3 minutes 45 seconds of use when I should be getting around 9 minutes. There's definitely something wrong here.

Sent from my XT1096 using Tapatalk
 
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Ca Ike

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I've read this same issue several times do I set out to reproduce it. Now using aw and vtc4 batts only since that's what I have. I've only had it happen once in 18650 mode and only on one of my AW batts by chain vaping.

What I figure is happening is the voltage drop of the battery under load is telling the p3 it can't get the power it wants so the p3 is letting you know. Turning down the power, letting it rest a bit or resetting the p3 by removing the batt cap fixes it most of the time.

Some factors that seem to affect it are first and formost, battery size. From gleaning the posts it's most common on 18350,s and least common on 18650,s and that is expected based on the batt specs. The other factor I found to trigger it is boost in that the higher the boost duration the more likely it will occur.

Now this may sound crass and I don't mean to offend but those of you using 18350 batts above 13 w on 1.5 or lower builds with boost are pretty much asking for this problem unless you get really good battery's. This is not a provape problem but a result of the limits of the battery itself. The p3 is simply telling you your overworking your batt and not letting you go any further.

I found this not on my p3 but on my Amod Zna clone because it's batt meter drops based on the actual battery voltage and on certain settings a half charged 18500 will drop to empty once fired because the draw is more than what the battery can sustain yet will return to half full at rest. Turn the power down and problem solved. The p3 is showing the same thing only it won't let you vape after it senses that situation.

Frankly, instead of just empty, there should be an error code we can see but I can understand why it defaults to empty as a lot of your average Vapers might not get the voltage drop issue.
 

JetLiOrigami

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Nov 22, 2014
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I have seen the same issue with the 350 batteries. I have two settings stored for 350s without boost for 1ohm builds and the situation is resolved. I figured it was more battery sag than poor batteries/software problems. Plus no 2 batteries perform the same, I have had 4 18650s purchased at the same time charged roughly at the same times (3.5v Im meticulous about it) and one battery craps out before the other 3. Sometimes all but one will die off. I even have one 18650 thats lasted almost a year and a half and works like brand new. Just the nature of the beast I guess.
 

critterbug

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I have the same issue with 18650 batteries. I bought two new AW IMR 18650s and a new charger to rule those out as the problem. Provari tech support told me to clean the contacts and sent me a new spring, but the problem continued. Cleaning it helped the battery IQ and seemed to improve the battery life temporarily, but I'm thinking that was just wishful thinking. Then I mailed the P3 back to them and said they couldn't replicate the problem, but replaced the spring just in case. Now they insist there is no problem. I'm really getting angry about it because I *know* there is a problem and it's not my batteries, charger, or voltage. It's the device. I couldn't even sell it in good conscience. It's worthless to me. I can vape it for a few minutes and if I leave it alone for 30 minutes, it's empty. Unless, of course, I unscrew and reconnect. Then I can get another 15 minutes out of it. I regret buying the thing.
 

AstroTurf

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I have the same issue with 18650 batteries. I bought two new AW IMR 18650s and a new charger to rule those out as the problem. Provari tech support told me to clean the contacts and sent me a new spring, but the problem continued. Cleaning it helped the battery IQ and seemed to improve the battery life temporarily, but I'm thinking that was just wishful thinking. Then I mailed the P3 back to them and said they couldn't replicate the problem, but replaced the spring just in case. Now they insist there is no problem. I'm really getting angry about it because I *know* there is a problem and it's not my batteries, charger, or voltage. It's the device. I couldn't even sell it in good conscience. It's worthless to me. I can vape it for a few minutes and if I leave it alone for 30 minutes, it's empty. Unless, of course, I unscrew and reconnect. Then I can get another 15 minutes out of it. I regret buying the thing.

Where did you buy your AW Batteries?
 
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