Arctic Fox: Protection

[KurtVD]

istick Pico 75W with a rda atomizer

I’ve installed a NI200 30Ga coil in my atomizer and set up temp control with 0.23 Ohm locked resistance and 34W in Arctic Fox. It seems to be working fine - I get big clouds of vapor and I like the taste - but the display shows “protection” almost at every puff. What does that mean? It doesn’t seem to cut power, since I get these big clouds of vapor, so how does it work? One observation: If the mod has been sitting for a long while (like a few hours), it doesn’t come up right away at the first draw, but maybe at the second. So it seems to be related to the temperature, but since that is the whole point of TC, I don’t get why it says “protection”?

 

[flavourchaser]

what temp did you set it at?

 

[KurtVD]

what temp did you set it at?

Depends on the juice I’m dripping, between 190 and 210 Celsius. (On the low end I guess)

 

[Eskie]

I don't use Arctic Fox so this is a general response for mods with temp control. Temp protection is not a warning. Nothing is broken. The board is simply informing you that the coil reached the temperature you selected and it's protecting your vape by holding that temp for you.

On some mods which don't display real time temperature or have software to monitor the mod like Arctic Fox provides that protection display may be the only way you know you're actually reaching the temp you set.

 

[KurtVD]

I don't use Arctic Fox so this is a general response for mods with temp control. Temp protection is not a warning. Nothing is broken. The board is simply informing you that the coil reached the temperature you selected and it's protecting your vape by holding that temp for you.

On some mods which don't display real time temperature or have software to monitor the mod like Arctic Fox provides that protection display may be the only way you know you're actually reaching the temp you set.

That makes sense - I guess the few times I thought it wasn’t displayed, I simply hadn’t seen it (it’s only displayed as long as I press the button, and the screen is hard to see while I’m vaping)

 

[stols001]

Yup it is just doing its thing and informing you that it would like a gold star for like, protecting you from the frightening phenomenon of Tank Climate change, and if only everything could be so easy. I don't use arctic fox (that I know of, should be my disclaimer) I'd imagine there MAY be a setting where you can turn that off if you want, IDK. If it's set fairly low it makes sense that you would hit that warning fairly early on in the vaping process. Etc.

Anna

 

[My Batt Hurts]

Yes - I use ArcticFox on a Pico and that message means it's trying to control the temperature - it's doing what it's supposed to do.

If you've got access to a Windows environment, you can run NFE Toolbox and see what's going on. It's fun (for a little while).

 

[flavourchaser]

Depends on the juice I’m dripping, between 190 and 210 Celsius. (On the low end I guess)

Yeah that's fine, I get it as well on low temps with my Wismec RX gen3. I vape mainly around 220-230 Celsius

 

[Beamslider]

If the wattage is set too high for the coil in TC you will see that message a lot. Sometimes it will throttle the wattage enough to get a lousy vape. It is better to set the wattage for the TC just above what the coil would use in Wattage.

 

[KurtVD]

Yes - I use ArcticFox on a Pico and that message means it's trying to control the temperature - it's doing what it's supposed to do.

If you've got access to a Windows environment, you can run NFE Toolbox and see what's going on. It's fun (for a little while).

Fortunately, I do: it’s literally the first time in over 5 years that I have to use the Windows installation on my MacBook. A few months ago I was thinking about deleting it to free up disk space, fortunately I didn’t
You’re right, real time monitoring is a nice feature, I’ve used it before to see if my power curve was doing what I wanted it to do. I’ll try and see at what point or temperature “protection” is displayed, good idea.

If the wattage is set too high for the coil in TC you will see that message a lot. Sometimes it will throttle the wattage enough to get a lousy vape. It is better to set the wattage for the TC just above what the coil would use in Wattage.

I did set my wattage to the same as I had it before, although I don’t know if I should have raised it since the resistance of the NI200 is about half what the KA1 coil was. I vaped at about 33-37 Watts with the resistance around 0.5 Ohm, and now I have 0.23 Ohm; do you think I should have set another wattage? How much?

 

[Myk]

That means you're hitting the temperature. It's doing what it's supposed to be doing. If you weren't getting "protection" your resistance would probably be set wrong. If you were instantly getting "protection" and no vapor your resistance would be set wrong.

Interesting note, I had mine not getting to temperature. Resistance was set too high. Every other TC firmware I have would have that be burnt, Arctic Fox on a VTC Mini wasn't.

Plug it in and watch it on the monitor. Play with your adjustments until you get it to have a fast ramp up and smooth temperature hold. If you get a spike and then smooth I've found wattage helps there. If you get a lot of ongoing spikes it's probably resistance.

 

[KurtVD]

I’ve done some monitoring on Arctic Fox, and it’s true: when “Protection” shows up, I’m just below or at the temperature I have set as maximum (provided, of course, that the base resistance is set correctly). Speaking of which: If I’m not mistaken, the base resistance is set for a room temperature which is assumed to be 21 Celsius. Is there a way to change that? Right now, it’s more like 25-27 outside and inside, I guess that makes a difference.

 

[Myk]

I’ve done some monitoring on Arctic Fox, and it’s true: when “Protection” shows up, I’m just below or at the temperature I have set as maximum (provided, of course, that the base resistance is set correctly). Speaking of which: If I’m not mistaken, the base resistance is set for a room temperature which is assumed to be 21 Celsius. Is there a way to change that? Right now, it’s more like 25-27 outside and inside, I guess that makes a difference.

The good thing with Arctic Fox is you can enter the proper resistance and somehow it figures the proper cold resistance, or close to it. I enter my cold resistance from the monitor. Then recheck the monitor. If it doesn't keep changing with the new entries I fill up the different profiles with resistances around that mark, maybe .002Ω changes both above and below until I figure out which setting works best and is consistent between all my mods.

With other mods I can't manually enter I put them in from of the AC vent or inside the freezer until I get a reading that agrees with Steam Engine and or seems to vape right.

 

[KurtVD]

The good thing with Arctic Fox is you can enter the proper resistance and somehow it figures the proper cold resistance, or close to it. I enter my cold resistance from the monitor. Then recheck the monitor. If it doesn't keep changing with the new entries I fill up the different profiles with resistances around that mark, maybe .002Ω changes both above and below until I figure out which setting works best and is consistent between all my mods.

With other mods I can't manually enter I put them in from of the AC vent or inside the freezer until I get a reading that agrees with Steam Engine and or seems to vape right.

Today I experienced how important it is to read the resistance correctly: After changing the coil, I got a very anemic vaping experience, just like I heard TC can be. Raising the temperature, even by a lot, didn’t help either, but rechecking the resistance and setting it up correctly made all the difference in the world. I would have thought that raising or lowering the temperature can correct a wrong resistance setting, but apparently it doesn’t. I wonder if those who complain about an anemic TC vaping experience just hadn’t set it up correctly?

 

[Myk]

Today I experienced how important it is to read the resistance correctly: After changing the coil, I got a very anemic vaping experience, just like I heard TC can be. Raising the temperature, even by a lot, didn’t help either, but rechecking the resistance and setting it up correctly made all the difference in the world. I would have thought that raising or lowering the temperature can correct a wrong resistance setting, but apparently it doesn’t. I wonder if those who complain about an anemic TC vaping experience just hadn’t set it up correctly?

That's my thinking. It's also why I think all mods with TC should have some way to manually enter the resistance. When I was setting up a new tank on the road when it was 90°F outside it was hopeless. I finally took it into the guy's house and stuck it in his freezer for a while.

Don't click the Arctic Fox update button while taking a puff, trust me

 

[KurtVD]

That's my thinking. It's also why I think all mods with TC should have some way to manually enter the resistance. When I was setting up a new tank on the road when it was 90°F outside it was hopeless. I finally took it into the guy's house and stuck it in his freezer for a while.

Don't click the Arctic Fox update button while taking a puff, trust me

I have no experience with other mods or firmware, and I don’t even know Arctic Fox that well. All I know, when I googled “How to set up up TC”, it said “Read base resistance and lock it” and that’s what I did.
Concerning my previous experience, it was quite amazing: I usually set the temperature between 190-210 Celsius, but with the resistance set wrong, even at 250, the vapor was still unsatisfactory.
About the base resistance: have you noticed that it’s slightly different once the wick is soaked with juice? I wasn’t sure which value to use, but now I’m using the ‘wet’ resistance, since it’ll be soaked all the time.

 

[Myk]

I have no experience with other mods or firmware, and I don’t even know Arctic Fox that well. All I know, when I googled “How to set up up TC”, it said “Read base resistance and lock it” and that’s what I did.
Concerning my previous experience, it was quite amazing: I usually set the temperature between 190-210 Celsius, but with the resistance set wrong, even at 250, the vapor was still unsatisfactory.
About the base resistance: have you noticed that it’s slightly different once the wick is soaked with juice? I wasn’t sure which value to use, but now I’m using the ‘wet’ resistance, since it’ll be soaked all the time.

With Arctic Fox wet because it's easy to change it. On others dry.