Charon TC by Smoant

[Tpat591]

Smoant is soon to release its first firmware update able TC mod called the Charon 218 TC. Charon is a dual 18650 series mod that retains a relatively compact size in conjunction with interesting and customizable features.

Available in Black, Gold, Copper & Stainless Steel frames in RDTA Mod Kit, RTA Mod Kit, & Mod Only configurations the accents can be further customized by ordering & applying one of 10 Unique self adhesive graphic Battery Cover Skins making it stand out from the rest. At 25mm thick, 53mm wide, & 91mm tall weighing 109g the Charon is not too big or heavy even for delicate hands. Smoant's matching RDTA & RTA Kit configurations have hard hitting rebuildable atties with plenty of build space for exotic coils on the Velocity Deck, huge wicking holes, and ample airflow configurations to suit your vaping style and handle anything you throw at it.

 

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[madstabber]

Yea I'm excited about this one. If it works anything like my Battlestar it's a winner. I need another mod for a backup in case something happens to my Battlestar and was wanting to see what people think about the Charon. I was gonna get another Battlestar because I love it so much but was thinking a little variety couldn't hurt. Besides it is the spice of life.

 

[Tpat591]

Yea I'm excited about this one. If it works anything like my Battlestar it's a winner. I need another mod for a backup in case something happens to my Battlestar and was wanting to see what people think about the Charon. I was gonna get another Battlestar because I love it so much but was thinking a little variety couldn't hurt. Besides it is the spice of life.

Agree completely, very well built mods. Been very pleased with my Knight V1 & Knight V2 Side by Side Stealth Mods.

My Copper & Stainless Steel Battlestar Mods are simply stunning, ergonomic & outstanding from a quality of build standpoint, (but do have some issues with erratic TC after it wakes from a sleep).

Remove the atty, press fire reinstall, choose new coil & works fine again, but it is annoying to have to resort to this regularly. Wish a simple software download & update would solve this issue, but therein has been the Achilles heel of the Smoant Mods, they have never been capable of firmware update.

Charon 218 TC addresses this for the first time & that is very exciting even if the overall form factor is admittedly less appealing & elegant than that of the Battlestar at first glance.

 

[madstabber]

I'm surprised tc is giving you a problem on the Battlestar. That's all I've been using on mine and I love the performance. Can you elaborate on the erratic tc performance? Mine has been performing flawless but would like to know what to look out for.

 

[Tpat591]

I'm surprised tc is giving you a problem on the Battlestar. That's all I've been using on mine and I love the performance. Can you elaborate on the erratic tc performance? Mine has been performing flawless but would like to know what to look out for.

Works fine in SS mode until it goes into a hard sleep for an extended period.

• Sometimes it will wake & work perfectly.
  
• Other times it will wake and provide anemic vape or no vapor at all until atty is removed, fire button pressed, atty reinstalled, choose new coil & new baseline resistance is locked in.
• There have been times where it will wake with extremely hot vape until baseline resistance is reset.
• it is sort of how the Evic VTC had the same issues before they fixed it with a firmware update.
• Of course we know that Battlestars cannot be updated.
• It may be mitigated if I lock baseline resistance, but I have yet to do so.

Now I have a number of Knight V2s & they do NOT exhibit the behavior. Both my Battlestars do however.

I had spoken with Taylor from Smoant about it & she is sending me a Charon TC Evaluation unit for review. Just received that the other day. Have not had any issues like this with the Charon TC yet.

She also sent a Battlestar RTA & a Battlestar RDTA. Coiled both atties w/ 24g 316L SS. The RTA got dual 11 wrap 3.5mm coils & the RDTA got dual 11wrap 4mm coils. Both are up & just chucking vapor. Had to go with a light Pear juice as anything more flavorful would be overpowering with that much vapor. Very impressed!

 

[madstabber]

Works fine in SS mode until it goes into a hard sleep for an extended period.

• Sometimes it will wake & work perfectly.
  
• Other times it will wake and provide anemic vape or no vapor at all until atty is removed, fire button pressed, atty reinstalled, choose new coil & new baseline resistance is locked in.
• There have been times where it will wake with extremely hot vape until baseline resistance is reset.
• it is sort of how the Evic VTC had the same issues before they fixed it with a firmware update.
• Of course we know that Battlestars cannot be updated.
• It may be mitigated if I lock baseline resistance, but I have yet to do so.

Now I have a number of Knight V2s & they do NOT exhibit the behavior. Both my Battlestars do however.

I had spoken with Taylor from Smoant about it & she is sending me a Charon TC Evaluation unit for review. Just received that the other day. Have not had any issues like this with the Charon TC yet.

She also sent a Battlestar RTA & a Battlestar RDTA. Coiled both atties w/ 24g 316L SS. The RTA got dual 11 wrap 3.5mm coils & the RDTA got dual 11wrap 4mm coils. Both are up & just chucking vapor. Had to go with a light Pear juice as anything more flavorful would be overpowering with that much vapor. Very impressed!

So when it goes into a deep sleep the resistance changes or unlocks? I never shut mine off completely but when it sleeps there is just one sleep mode. When I hit the button it fires or wakes up. But the resistance is still locked. If I take the tank off and back on it asks if it's a new coil and I'll say same coil and it goes back to the old resistance, it's locked I think. If I say new atomizer it re reads the coil and it's still the same but it's unlocked re reads the coil then locks. You are saying when yours sleeps and you hit the fire button it is re reading the ohms of your coil? And that's causing a problem because the coils temp is hotter or colder depending on the environment. I hope I'm making sense but is that what you are saying? And is your mod doing something different than how I explained mine to be working? If you can follow what I'm saying that is.

 

[Tpat591]

So when it goes into a deep sleep the resistance changes or unlocks? I never shut mine off completely but when it sleeps there is just one sleep mode. When I hit the button it fires or wakes up. But the resistance is still locked. If I take the tank off and back on it asks if it's a new coil and I'll say same coil and it goes back to the old resistance, it's locked I think. If I say new atomizer it re reads the coil and it's still the same but it's unlocked re reads the coil then locks. You are saying when yours sleeps and you hit the fire button it is re reading the ohms of your coil? And that's causing a problem because the coils temp is hotter or colder depending on the environment. I hope I'm making sense but is that what you are saying? And is your mod doing something different than how I explained mine to be working? If you can follow what I'm saying that is.

No it displays the old resistance unchanged, but the mod fires anemically or won't fire enough to vaporize at all. There were one or two times it vaped very hot on waking.

It is like the base resistance calibration wandered in the boards memory. It shows the resistance is unchanged, but the board fires as if the resistance did change but it doesn't know it did. In other words the calibration skews from reality in memory just like the early Evic VTC did or the Aliens did on the 2,2 version firmware. I know the Alien only had trouble with this in SS mode, not Ni or Ti so that might have something to do with it. Perhaps they used open source firmware with a bug from another manufacturer or pool sharing. Evics had problem in all modes. I have not tested Battlestar w/ Ti or Ni yet to see it issue exists in these modes.

It is a sporadic thing & it will happen once every few days on both my Battlestars. It is only when mod has been idle for hours, IE overnight. I had never sought to lock the resistance as I am a DNA user primarily and purposely am not in the habit of locking resistance setting into mods. That may solve the issue.

Again, easily solves by unscrewing & establishing new baseline, but very annoying.

 

[Tpat591]

Liking the Charon TC though and have not had that problem with this mod. The RDTA on the Charon is basically a Limitless style design with plenty of space & very easy fill, but noticeably whistles when you vape.

The RTA that is on the Reuleaux is much quieter and a doesn't have quite as much build space due to the chamber size. I probably could have fit a 4mm in there with less wraps I think, but the 3.5mm fit a bit more comfortably IMO.

They say distribution is set for mid May.

 

[louiesquared]

Is it just me or does that giant fire button look out of place on this mod? Everything else looks top notch, even elegant, but that button just looks like an afterthought. Especially on the Gold and Copper.

 

[Tpat591]

Is it just me or does that giant fire button look out of place on this mod? Everything else looks top notch, even elegant, but that button just looks like an afterthought. Especially on the Gold and Copper.

Couldn't agree more. The trim ring is completely oversized, sticks out entirely too far, and is just seemingly out of place on this mod IMHO. I cannot understand why they would use a Stainless button of normal size in an utterly oversized trim ring in the first place. They would have been much better served flush mounting the existing button or using a much smaller very minimalist trim ring and it would have blended in with and complemented the up/down buttons much better IMHO.

While an unfortunate design choice, by no means is it a deal breaker. I also have to give Kudos to the battery cover design. It is held on very tightly by the magnets & is rock solid.

 

[Tpat591]

So I was charging the Charon TC and vaping it "passthru" for over 1/2hr while it was charging when I suddenly had a series of misfires. Pulled the atty, re-calibrated resistance, still nothing, noticed charging had completed, pulled cable, re-calibrated resistance and all was well again.

This is the first time I have had any type of misfire but it acted exactly like the Battlestar did while it occurred. It was corrected after charging cable was disconnected & re-calibration performed & has not reoccurred. This have been due to the charging cycle having just completed with cable still attached.

Not sure why at this point, but it contradicts my previous statement that no misfires have ever occurred on Charon. I am still on the out of box firmware and have not yet looked for or performed any firmware update.

 

[madstabber]

So I was charging the Charon TC and vaping it "passthru" for over 1/2hr while it was charging when I suddenly had a series of misfires. Pulled the atty, re-calibrated resistance, still nothing, noticed charging had completed, pulled cable, re-calibrated resistance and all was well again.

This is the first time I have had any type of misfire but it acted exactly like the Battlestar did while it occurred. It was corrected after charging cable was disconnected & re-calibration performed & has not reoccurred. This have been due to the charging cycle having just completed with cable still attached.

Not sure why at this point, but it contradicts my previous statement that no misfires have ever occurred on Charon. I am still on the out of box firmware and have not yet looked for or performed any firmware update.

Thanks for the update, please keep us in the loop with any updates, future problems, or successes you have with the Charon.

 

[Tpat591]

Scan of User Manual:

 

[Tpat591]

Scan of User Manual:

View attachment 650055 View attachment 650057 View attachment 650059 View attachment 650061 View attachment 650063 View attachment 650065 View attachment 650067

The rest of manual repeats in Chinese so I will spare you displaying those pages.

There are no detailed instructions on use of DTC mod or DVW mod. Further investigation necessary.

Smoant site does not appear to have posted update software or any firmware updates for mod yet.