Battery Voltages -- Surprise!

[Scottbee]

Scottbee, are you saying that the working voltage in the newer eGos is further reduced in comparison to the old style eGos? I'm slow, please forgive me.

No.... I don't think so... but it's hard to get an exact measurement/calculation on the old style units due to the irregular waveform. I personally believe the newer style units give out a bit more over the majority of their charge life. But I can't give you a hard number at this point.

 

[Switched]

Thanks Scott, it is what I had sorta surmised but I'm no "techno" dude perse. They have increased the overall effectiveness of the unit, over a longer period of time. Cool beans.

To me the eGo may provide a cooler vape, but it provides a consistent vape.

 

[supremekizzle]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Ill wait to buy more riva batteries until I hear back the results from the ones Abe is sending you Scott. Maybe I should just switch to an ego 900. I need the battery life anyway, but I just love the riva button. Ah well, sacrifices.

 

[YKruss]

I need the battery life anyway, but I just love the riva button.

Actually the button on the newest Riva is different - a little bit wider (not taller) and harder to press down, some might not like it.

 

[supremekizzle]

Actually the button on the newest Riva is different - a little bit wider (not taller) and harder to press down, some might not like it.

its more about the rubberized feel and the blue led. I know, I know, DETAILS, details.

 

[Scottbee]

Actually the button on the newest Riva is different - a little bit wider (not taller) and harder to press down, some might not like it.

Not on the Riva SE that I just received from LF. Same size button (and feel) as previous versions.

I continue to wonder if there are now "Riva knockoffs...."

 

[pkj]

Not on the Riva SE that I just received from LF. Same size button (and feel) as previous versions.

I continue to wonder if there are now "Riva knockoffs...."

I would Not be one bit surprised to learn there are Riva knockoffs. I've wondered this for about a month.

Paula

PS - Scottbee - Are you a teacher?
Thank you for your hard work, for sharing info, and for taking the time to explain it.
I appreciate you and I have learned a lot from you.

 

[Scottbee]

PS - Scottbee - Are you a teacher?

Nope.... just a (not so) humble engineer/businessman. I did teach engineering/physics at the university level, but that was in my youth. I miss it now and again.....

 

[Katya]

PS - Scottbee - Are you a teacher?

He's been my teacher for almost a year now.

 

[-iD]

Not on the Riva SE that I just received from LF. Same size button (and feel) as previous versions.

I continue to wonder if there are now "Riva knockoffs...."

a knockoff of a knockoff... now THERE'S irony!

FWIW, i was talking to TY today while ordering some SE goodness, and he says the "large button" batt with the carto kit that YKruss and one other are mentioning are NOT the same as the SE batts, so there are at least a few variants of the "Riva" batt floating around at the moment.

Scottbee, do the SEs you have testing show the same "blink a few times then go off while charging" behaviour or do their firing buttons stay lit during the duration of charging like mentioned in the other thread?

 

[JollyRogers]

Scott, just noticed what you are using for an o-scope. Very nice. I am used to using a Tektronix mostly. Now I am looking for a Linux/Mac version USB O-scope for home use So next time I won't have to post lousy xmeter pictures to try to show someone what I am seeing

 

[DaveP]

Scott, good stuff, as usual. It looks like they stabilized the oscillator frequency and pulse width on the newer units. Thanks for all your hard work.

Have you discovered anything about the voltage comparator circuit that they are using to determine cutoff? I also notice that my chargers blink green for a split second every ten or so seconds. My guess there is that there are internally switching from charge to voltage read to determine when to stop the charging cycle. On the ecig there must some switching going on to monitor cutoff, also.

I've always though the the chip in the battery was an ASIC. You mentioned you did a MOSFET change on one battery to repair it. Or, is it both and the MOSFET is the driver? I'm curious about seeing the schematic for a typical ecig control circuit. Can you point me to a link?

I'm surprised that no one has optimized everything about ecigs at this point. I guess someday we'll see an infrared or ultrasonic atomizer that holds juice with no leaks and lasts twice as long between fills on the same amount of juice. I have a cold humidifier that produces clouds of vapor with no heat and a little ultrasonic element the sized of a dime.

 

[Scottbee]

Scottbee, do the SEs you have testing show the same "blink a few times then go off while charging" behaviour or do their firing buttons stay lit during the duration of charging like mentioned in the other thread?

The button light goes off during charging (after the blinks), just like the eGo and my other Rivas.

 

[Scottbee]

Scott, just noticed what you are using for an o-scope. Very nice. I am used to using a Tektronix mostly. Now I am looking for a Linux/Mac version USB O-scope for home use So next time I won't have to post lousy xmeter pictures to try to show someone what I am seeing

Yeah.... it's kinda handy for stuff like this. Obviously, from my other posts, you can see that I have access to a Tek, BK, and a few others.... but this little USB jobber is great for small-signal, relatively low bandwidth tinkering like this. Doesn't take up much space either....

 

[Scottbee]

I've always though the the chip in the battery was an ASIC. You mentioned you did a MOSFET change on one battery to repair it. I'm curious about seeing the schematic for a typical ecig control circuit. Can you point me to a link?

Sadly I don't have a full schematic, nor do I know where you can get one. The PCBA for the 510's and the eGo/Riva units isn't all that complicated though. It's got a programmable micro-controller (supporting both analog and digital I/O), two MOSFETs (one for power delivery, one for the charging circuit if I'm not mistaken) a few passive components (chip caps and resistors) and two LEDs (on the eGo/Riva board). Not much else. At one time I thought the controller was an ASIC... but I later convinced myself that it was just a standard micro-controller.... even going as far as to convince myself that I had figured out the industry-standard P/N. That information is scribbled down somewhere..... somewhere.. somewhere....

As far as the "charger blinking" is concerned... my hypothesis is that you're seeing the micro-controller off-pulse the charge MOSFET so it can read the no-load, no charge current cell voltage to determine the state of charge. If the voltage is above threshold it will simply leave the MOSFET "off" and signal "end of charge", if not.. it quickly turns it back on and continues.

 

[Scottbee]

OK... sadly or happily (depending on how you look at it) the plot has thickened. There are apparently AT LEAST two different "revisions" of our old friend the Riva out there... and to the best of my knowledge they are coming from the same basic source (EM). That is not to say that I can guarantee at this point that they come from the same actual factory (I haven't broken a R2 open). What is most troubling is that there was no big hooplah announcement about this new revision, and it would appear that very few people or distributors actually know that two different revisions exist. Sad and unsettling.

Please see the following picture (sorry, best I could do with the wife's pink camera!):

The unit on the left is representative of the traditional (what I will call R1) Riva battereis that I have gotten in the past from EM. I know (for a fact) that as of this writing the R1 battery is still being sold and shipped by some vendors. This R1 battery has the traditional "eGo" brand of PWM and does not put out the "full 3.7V". The effective voltage is reduced via the "pulses".

The Riva in the middle (note the difference in the engraving) is a "R2" unit, as is the unit on the right (A "SE" with silver/chrome accents). Both of these batteries put out "straight DC" voltage as I have mentioned in previous posts. They are "3.7V" devices.

There is another way to differentiate between these units. The "R2" units use a semi-transparent insulator on the center pole of the battery connection. If you look down into the battery connector and press the button, the insulator will glow blue. The insulator on the R1 version is essentially opaque.

Now let me say this straight up.... I certainly haven't seen every Riva battery that is out there and I have no factual information from the factory regarding the revisions. I can't say that all Riva's with "big" etched letters are "R2", and I can't definitively say that all units with small letters are "R1". But on the units that I personally have, that's the noticeable external difference.

For all the "good" that is coming out of this "discovery", I'm pretty sure an equal portion of confusion is also on the plate.

 

[Cee_Jay]

I have one of the R1 type and noticed the difference out of the box. ( glad I got only one ) Another clue may be the cone threads - The R1 version has a 'shoulder' above the cone threads, one less thread cut, and smaller 'air' chambers machined.
May be other combinations out there as I obviously received that single R1 version in one of the four sets purchased.

Scottbee - Thank You for the research !!

 

[YKruss]

Scottbee,

The batteris from my LF Carto Deluxe kit don't have "Riva" etching at all but insulator glows blue and thread does look like on the R2 - missing step without threads.

 

[Scottbee]

Unfortunately one of my "R2" Rivas suffered from infant mortality, so I had the opportunity to pull it apart and look at the construction. Simply said, I do not believe that the "R2" Riva is made by the same people as the "R1" is. Aside from the obvious physical differences (insulator, nose-piece), the internal construction is different also. Completely different PCB (not just different software), different battery cell, different PCB plastic carrier, and other manufacturing differences. Also, my "R1" Rivas had a PCB that was clearly made by "Hello", with their logo on it, along with "013". While I can't say that this new PCB isn't made by Hello..... it does not carry their logo and the overall fit, finish, and design of the board is markedly different.

As an interesting aside.. the battery is marked "2.41Wh". Ponder that..... ;-)

 

[Whistle_Pig]

2.41 Watt-Hours?