Chipset questions

[Infamshxr]

I'm looking at buying new mods for my wife and I. I've narrowed the list down pretty far, but still not nearly enough to make a decision. The Voopoo Drag was on the list but has since been removed because of the size and weight. It was a hard decision though because of their Gene chip. I like how they actually give us the efficiency rating of 95%.

Currently I have a Minikin v2 that has some annoyances (soft touch paint is 75% gone, 510 isn't sealed so of I have any leaks it runs down the 510 and drips onto the board and shorts it out til it's dried up, and the last problem is the battery terminals arent very tight so of you put batteries in that have been used for awhile in another mod, and have a positive end slightly smooshed, it doesn't make good contact), but I love the size and feel and my wife has an Alien, which I accidentally killed and is currently using my trusty Arctic Fox RX2/3, but the battery door is finally starting to loosen up on us. Also, neither of us do TC. She vapes an OBS Engine RDTA at around 40-50w and I vape a VandyVape Icon around 80w. CurremCur using KA1, but plan to switch to Nichrome or SS when o run out of wire.

So the chipsets I'm left with for the mods I'm still considering are:
-ANT chipset (Smoant)
-AS chipset (Geekvape)
-Innokin chipset

Anyone been able to find the efficiency ratings on these chipsets? I did some googling but haven't found any answers.

All 3 chips are definitely good, but any downsides to any of them that I may have overlooked?

How do these chipsets compare to the GX chipset in my Minikin v2? The chipset in it is great, but like I said, some annoyances with the mod.

I think that's all I can think of as far as questions atm. Also, no I don't want a dna device, so please don't recommend one. I'd like to own one, but their too expensive and every dual 18650 dna device is way bigger than the ones I'm looking at.

 

[diagrammatiks]

Have you looked at the other voopoo devices. The vmate is pretty ergonomic. Smoant stuff is pretty good too. The Charon mini is super small.

 

[Infamshxr]

Checked into voopoo. Alpha is ugly as hell lol. The vmate size is amazing but I really dislike the dual battery doors. More parts to possibly break. The too looks bigger than the drag and I'm not a fan of the weird shape. It's a shame, they have awesome chips, but their modsl designs are mostly horrible lol the Charon mini is on my list, but I kinda like the look of the Cylon a little more, even though it's bigger. Digging the Innokin Proton which is the one my wife wants, but it's easily scratched so for me would be a bad thing, her not so much.

 

[Eskie]

Not sure why you're focused on the boards efficiency. At the wattage you vape at, the difference in run time on a dual battery mod isn't going to be dramatically different. IMO the functionality and user interface of the board will make a bigger difference in usability and preference.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

Agree with Eskie – Efficiency ratings are more marketing hype than anything else. I own the Voopoo Drag, can’t say its battery life is that much more noticeable than any other dual bat mod’s I own. Once you throw an atty/coil onto the mod, the type of battery you use and the way you vape there will be way too many variables to come up with any kind of accurate efficiency rating.

Outside the feature rich DNA chipset, the rest are pretty much the same. Some may do TC better than others but if you are just using wattage mode, you’ll be hard pressed to blindly tell a difference. It boils down to a personal preference with the graphical interface and how you navigate the menu.

If you were a fan of the Alien I wouldn’t be so quick to right Smok off. Yes they have released a bunch of gimmicky crap, but mods such as the Majesty have received excellent reviews.

If you are a fan of the Minikin V2 shape, the Wismec Reuleaux RX GEN3 dual battery (they also have a 3 battery with the same name) could be considered.

 

[untar]

The efficiency rating is useless if you don't know the efficiency at the power level the device is going to be used.
Like with the advertised power of mods, the efficiency isn't constant and can change depending on what power you vape and how full the battery is. That kind of information though can't be found online and I doubt any manufacturer will release it.

The Geekvape chipset isn't bad, as is the Tesla chipset (both not the best available but pretty good bang for the buck).

 

[papergoblin]

Checked into voopoo. Alpha is ugly as hell lol. The vmate size is amazing but I really dislike the dual battery doors. More parts to possibly break. The too looks bigger than the drag and I'm not a fan of the weird shape. It's a shame, they have awesome chips, but their modsl designs are mostly horrible lol the Charon mini is on my list, but I kinda like the look of the Cylon a little more, even though it's bigger. Digging the Innokin Proton which is the one my wife wants, but it's easily scratched so for me would be a bad thing, her not so much.

I actually like the Alpha, lol. Being a child of the 80's, it reminds me of VCR's and other electronics from back then.

To the OP, you could look into the Cloupor 80w mini plus. It will do TC, is small and fits power wise. That would be one of the most cost effective choices, not saying it's the best choice compared to higher wattage devices.

Like has been said above, don't get too hung up on efficiency of boards. Not saying companies lie but they can exaggerate. Honestly as long as a mod isn't loaded with lights and doesn't have a huge screen, battery power should last (a dim option is a plus). This of course relates to known quality brands, not relabels and such.

Personally I just buy what I like the looks of, as long as it has a decent reputation (or the company does) and provides the options I want. I've never looked at the chip, unless I was looking for a DNA powered device.

 

[Infamshxr]

I basically wrote off Wismec and Smok devices due to cheap construction. The gen3 has overheating issues and too many Wismec devices with crappy 510s. Smok has the cheaper 510s as well which is why I eliminated the Vaporesso line. All press fit stuff. Thanks for the insight on efficiency of the boards though. I guess it's going to come down to more of the accuracy of them, and the menu/feature set like you guys were saying, and basically the physical look of them. Which unfortunately doesn't help me eliminate any more, so I'm going to have some hard considering lol.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

Any company can release a lemon or a product that is flawed. The question is, do they learn from their mistakes. Nothing wrong with a press fitted 510 if done correctly. Yes, past Wismec devices may have ran hot, but look at DJLsb review on the Reuleaux RX GEN3. Wismec addressed the heat issue along with their problematic 510. And he was super impressed with the construction of the Smok Majesty. Not trying to push either device, they were only suggested based on what you previously used and the fact the Wismec is a similar form factor to the Minikin. I also understand brand preferences and biased opinions and or personal values. I have my own. But sometimes stepping outside our comfort zone can be very rewarding.

As for chip accuracy. Again, have a look at DJLsb Vapes objective reviews. There is no such thing as a perfect chip. Some may hit that 100 watt benchmark with a 0.25 ohm coil closer than others, but any mod can easily be compensated through simple adjustments. I use what the screen says not as a point of accuracy, but as a point of reference. Knowing that there are way too many variables involved to achieve that perfect 60 watt vape, I adjust according to preference and just reference what it says on the screen for future use. Despite my mod reads 60 watts, I know it is not outputting at 60 watts – in fact, I have no idea what it is outputting at. This goes for all my mods.

 

[Zaryk]

I basically wrote off Wismec and Smok devices due to cheap construction. The gen3 has overheating issues and too many Wismec devices with crappy 510s. Smok has the cheaper 510s as well which is why I eliminated the Vaporesso line. All press fit stuff. Thanks for the insight on efficiency of the boards though. I guess it's going to come down to more of the accuracy of them, and the menu/feature set like you guys were saying, and basically the physical look of them. Which unfortunately doesn't help me eliminate any more, so I'm going to have some hard considering lol.

The 510 is solid as a rock on my gen 3. I am very confident in saying that there is zero chance it will pull off, and I know for a fact it is not press fit. I have taken it apart for a deep clean and have seen the nut holding the 510 to the casing. My gen 3 does get warm on the screen area, if I run it hard at above 130w and chain vape, but most mods do as well. At the wattage levels you mentioned it does not get warm at all.

Sounds like you just make assumptions about a brand based off of the worst product they released. With that mind set I guess you won't buy a Ford because they are know to explode when rear-ended?

 

[Infamshxr]

No need to get defensive about brands. Yours work good, which is good. My RX 2/3 has been a solid device for 3 years, no complaints except the paint job. My wife's alien should not have broken as easily as it did and I have a G-priv with a wiggly 510 as well that's been shelved until I can figure out why. I had a Predator that lasted 6months before it shorted for no reason. I know that's probably their worst mod. Also had a Cuboid that shorted at the 510 as well. These are the reasons I'd rather stay away from press fitted 510s. Just terrible luck with them. My Minikin 510 has been solid for s year now minus it being unsealed and letting leakage affect the board til it dries. Wish I could find a way to seal it.

As for DJLsb, he's the first reviewer I look at when available. PBsurdo would be the other and sometimes Vaping with Vic. Jai Haize or however it's spelt seems like he hates everything lol

 

[Zaryk]

No need to get defensive about brands. Yours work good, which is good. My RX 2/3 has been a solid device for 3 years, no complaints except the paint job. My wife's alien should not have broken as easily as it did and I have a G-priv with a wiggly 510 as well that's been shelved until I can figure out why. I had a Predator that lasted 6months before it shorted for no reason. I know that's probably their worst mod. Also had a Cuboid that shorted at the 510 as well. These are the reasons I'd rather stay away from press fitted 510s. Just terrible luck with them. My Minikin 510 has been solid for s year now minus it being unsealed and letting leakage affect the board til it dries. Wish I could find a way to seal it.

As for DJLsb, he's the first reviewer I look at when available. PBsurdo would be the other and sometimes Vaping with Vic. Jai Haize or however it's spelt seems like he hates everything lol

Sorry if it seemed like I was being defensive. That's not how I ment it. I am not a fan of any brand. I look at each product for what it is, and make my decisions on a device to device basis. I found that if you lump things together by brand, you can miss out on some decent stuff. The only brand I lump all their products together is smok, since most of their stuff has the same 2 or 3 boards and just cosmetic differences between each product.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

The only brand I lump all their products together is smok, since most of their stuff has the same 2 or 3 boards and just cosmetic differences between each product.

No offence but that somewhat contradicts what you are saying about not lumping products. Not sticking up for Smok, we all have our own brand preferences and opinions and there’s nothing wrong with that.

As for chipsets, as I am sure you know, many share the same chipset just with different branding. Companies add their own little graphical flare and calls it their own. Bit ironic that Vandy Vape came out with their own chipset for the Pulse 80 within a few weeks after Voopoo dropped out of the project. Guarantee they did not design this chipset…impossible task for the given time frame. In fact, I’d bet that Voopoo doesn't design their chipset and that the 2 source from the same OEM. You can find Smok chipsets, which is not their own, in different products.

 

[Zaryk]

No offence but that somewhat contradicts what you are saying about not lumping products. Not sticking up for Smok, we all have our own brand preferences and opinions and there’s nothing wrong with that.

As for chipsets, as I am sure you know, many share the same chipset just with different branding. Companies add their own little graphical flare and calls it their own. Bit ironic that Vandy Vape came out with their own chipset for the Pulse 80 within a few weeks after Voopoo dropped out of the project. Guarantee they did not design this chipset…impossible task for the given time frame. In fact, I’d bet that Voopoo doesn't design their chipset and that the 2 source from the same OEM. You can find Smok chipsets, which is not their own, in different products.

I know it contradicts what I was saying, that's why I mentioned that brand separately. They use the same chip in almost all their recent mods with no differences to it. It is literally the same thing with only cosmetic differences. I know there is some cross use, but usually there will be small tweaks or differences. Look at the pro color and the smok s-priv for example. The exact same thing. These are not the only two that do this, and this is exactly how they can flood the market with so many products so quickly.

I'm not saying they are bad, but if you seen one you have seen the bulk of what that company offers. Some other companies do something similar, but not on that scale. They will usually put out two or three with the same chip, and then move on to more recent developments and sometimes sell the older chip to smaller companies. Smok on the other hand has been putting the same chip in the bulk of their mods for over a year with no new develpoments.

 

[untar]

Bit ironic that Vandy Vape came out with their own chipset for the Pulse 80 within a few weeks after Voopoo dropped out of the project. Guarantee they did not design this chipset…impossible task for the given time frame.

Can't say if they design their chipset themselves but if not that isn't the reason at all. If you do a bit of research you'll find VV were developing their vandy chip at the start or shortly before the collaboration with TonyB (Tony didn't want the VV chip and insisted on the voopoo because he knew and liked it), plenty of time there. It's even rumored they wanted the deal with voopoo to fail so they can put their own board in... we'll never know.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

Can't say if they design their chipset themselves but if not that isn't the reason at all. If you do a bit of research you'll find VV were developing their vandy chip at the start or shortly before the collaboration with TonyB (Tony didn't want the VV chip and insisted on the voopoo because he knew and liked it), plenty of time there. It's even rumored they wanted the deal with voopoo to fail so they can put their own board in... we'll never know.

Define develop. It would be a massive undertaking for any vape company to develop a chipset from scratch. A company such as Vandy Vape would approach an OEM with certain design parameters. The OEM further develops it where they will produce samples for approval. This is how the tech industry works. And this is the reason why a Pulse 80 mod costs what it does. Even tech giants such as Apple do not develop their products from scratch. They have certain goals to which they will approach their tech partners for further development. A iMac is developed by Intel (for the most part), Apple just put it in a nice shinny case. In fact, they don’t even do that.

There is nothing proprietary with these chips. Controllers are designed and fabricated by another company, picked from a bin and are used within multiple industries that require similar control.

As for Vandy Vape designing their own chip only to switch to Voopoo once Tony B came on board? I don’t know how much fact there is to that. At the very least a collaboration with an OEM would have been established and most likely a development and manufacturing contract written. It would be a bad business practice to sever that tie, plus a loss in investment if one was to switch to another development and manufacturing OEM, in this case Voopoo. If there is any fact to this, Vandy Vape most likely approached the same OEM that Voopoo uses for development. A decision was made to licence the Gene chip branding which to me makes perfect sense from a marketing standpoint. Voopoo decided for what ever reason not to licence the Gene chip name and Vandy Vape continued with the same OEM.

 

[Zaryk]

Define develop. It would be a massive undertaking for any vape company to develop a chipset from scratch. A company such as Vandy Vape would approach an OEM with certain design parameters. The OEM further develops it where they will produce samples for approval. This is how the tech industry works. And this is the reason why a Pulse 80 mod costs what it does. Even tech giants such as Apple do not develop their products from scratch. They have certain goals to which they will approach their tech partners for further development. A iMac is developed by Intel (for the most part), Apple just put it in a nice shinny case. In fact, they don’t even do that.

There is nothing proprietary with these chips. Controllers are designed and fabricated by another company, picked from a bin and are used within multiple industries that require similar control.

As for Vandy Vape designing their own chip only to switch to Voopoo once Tony B came on board? I don’t know how much fact there is to that. At the very least a collaboration with an OEM would have been established and most likely a development and manufacturing contract written. It would be a bad business practice to sever that tie, plus a loss in investment if one was to switch to another development and manufacturing OEM, in this case Voopoo. If there is any fact to this, Vandy Vape most likely approached the same OEM that Voopoo uses for development. A decision was made to licence the Gene chip branding which to me makes perfect sense from a marketing standpoint. Voopoo decided for what ever reason not to licence the Gene chip name and Vandy Vape continued with the same OEM.

This is the story as we know it. And manufacturers never go into that amount of detail about how they develop these chips and other components, so all any of us can do is speculate how that process was done in this case.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

I know it contradicts what I was saying, that's why I mentioned that brand separately. They use the same chip in almost all their recent mods with no differences to it. It is literally the same thing with only cosmetic differences. I know there is some cross use, but usually there will be small tweaks or differences. Look at the pro color and the smok s-priv for example. The exact same thing. These are not the only two that do this, and this is exactly how they can flood the market with so many products so quickly.

I'm not saying they are bad, but if you seen one you have seen the bulk of what that company offers. Some other companies do something similar, but not on that scale. They will usually put out two or three with the same chip, and then move on to more recent developments and sometimes sell the older chip to smaller companies. Smok on the other hand has been putting the same chip in the bulk of their mods for over a year with no new develpoments.

The 2 Smok devices you mentioned share a very similar manufacture timeline and release date. It makes perfect sense for them to also share the same chipset. You see this throughout the entire vape industry so Smok is not alone in this regard. As for further development…well they have button control in various sizes, touch screen in various sizes and even voice control….I’ll withhold my opinion on the later. Their graphical interface, where applicable is consistent which could be considered a good thing.

There is a certain design aspect behind Smok products. Shinny and cobra! Obviously that is going to be subjective.

 

[Zaryk]

The 2 Smok devices you mentioned share a very similar manufacture timeline and release date. It makes perfect sense for them to also share the same chipset. You see this throughout the entire vape industry so Smok is not alone in this regard. As for further development…well they have button control in various sizes, touch screen in various sizes and even voice control….I’ll withhold my opinion on the later. Their graphical interface, where applicable is consistent which could be considered a good thing.

There is a certain design aspect behind Smok products. Shinny and cobra! Obviously that is going to be subjective.

The x priv, delvikin, s priv, majesty, pro color, and veneno all use the same chip. Im sure i am missing a few more, but I think this is enough to prove my point that they are very predictable in their chip selection.

Edit- I am not saying it is bad, some people grow comfortable with a set up but want a different form factor. Smok fills that role nicely. But other manufacturs, while they do recycle their chip, they don't find the need to do so on such a large scale. Why put out so many products that compete with themselves?

Smok does put out something new occasionally, but it is usually a form factor thing and not often a software upgrade.

 

[untar]

Define develop. It would be a massive undertaking for any vape company to develop a chipset from scratch.

I didn't suggest they do.

All I said is they started more than half a year earlier than the moment voopoo backed out (or said there was no contract, whichever of those is true). If they really meant to go with Tonys preference or planned to use their own sourced hardware all along is a different discussion altogether (I believe there's 1-2 threads).