Coils Whine and fluctuating battery % with Sigelei 100W box mod

[relink2013]

So both Me and my wife got A sigelei 100W and a Lemo RTA for christmas . We are both having some annoying issues with the mods though.

1. Coil Whine, there is a high-pitched noise that comes from the mod any time the screen is on, as soon as the screen times out the whine stops. When I get back to work on Monday Im going to try and isolate which component the noise is coming from and use some RTV to stop it, unless anyone has any better ideas.

2. The Battery percentage once below 100% will fluctuate constantly by 3-4%. As an example, you can just watch it bounce around between 77%-80% without ever stopping. It's aggravating to not know where the batteries actually are. Does anyone have any idea what is causing this? I have used mine with my Sony VTC5s and my brand new AWTs and it does the same thing for both sets.

3. The adjustable 510 sucks, it's a solid connection so long as your don't try to adjust it, lol. Just tighten it all the way down and hope your atomizer has an adjustable pin and you'll be fine. Other than that its a solid connection.

If anyone has any suggestions on possible repairs it would be much appreciated. I work in a electronics shop and am no stranger to soldering PCBs so nothing in this box should be much of a challenge.

Despite the issues, this setup chucks some serious clouds and performs great!

 

[porkchopbun]

Honestly, you're the first person I heard of this problem, is this newest revision, the plus ? It has wavy curve lines on it.

 

[relink2013]

Nope, no curvy lines. Just sleek black box. I was reading another thread where a few other people mentioned the same issues but none replied.

 

[roxynoodle]

One other person reported his chip was making a buzzing sound.

The battery level indicator does reflect the amount of sag in your batteries. 3-4% is a lot of sag. Are they a brand new pair of married batteries? High quality batteries? Its very important to purchase a brand new pair of batteries for this mod. They must be charged together and rotated in the mod with each use. I've had mine for 2 months and am still only showing 1% or less battery sag.

I haven't had any problems with my pin. Maybe change yours with one of the extras in the box and see if that helps.

 

[relink2013]

I have 2 pairs of batteries that I use, the first pair is a band new pair of AWT IMR 30A batteries, and the second is a older (non-married) pair of VTC5s, but I have reconditioned them and they perform fantastic. But i first noticed the jumping around with the AWTs which were bought specifically for this device, and have never been used in anything but this device.

 

[Waddle]

My battery indicator fluctuates 3-4% also, and thats with three different married sets of brand new Samsung INR18650 25r batteries. I really don't think this a problem. Apparently a common issue with the device. Same problem with the 100w plus.

Battery sag? I would think battery sag happens only when your firing, but when I fire the indicator stops fluctuating until I take my finger off the trigger.

The whining sound is a concern...I'd send it back right away.

No problem with my 510 either. Sounds like, sorry to say, its time for an RMA.

 

[tFOrRESTee]

That tiny buzzing sound happens even without the atty on and I have the + version. I think it's from the chip/board inside. It happens to other people as well as the fluctuation of the battery reading. Small annoyance but the performance has been great though.

The adjustable 510 works fine to me.

 

[relink2013]

well at least I'm not the only one with the jumping percentage.

As far as the whine goes it's not dangerous at all, it's just annoying. In fact if you let the screen time out and shutoff, you'll realize it's coming from one of the components that powers the screen, not your atty. But coil whine is more common than you'd think in electronics and it won't hurt anything. It can sometimes be silenced using RTV or even hot glue, I am going to try and isolate the component on Monday and see if I can get mine to stop. If I succeed ill post pics of where to apply the RTV to silence it. I think it's the toroid that you can see at the bottom right of the battery tray, but I guess ill find out on Monday.

As for the 510 connection, I'm not too worried about that, because my Lemo has an adjustable 510 that works great, but if i ever change atty and need to adjust it, ill take your advice and try one of the other pins that came with it.

 

[SonHouse]

The jumping percentage isn't an issue, it's how batteries work. The charge remaining being displayed is based on the voltage of the battery. The power of a battery is produced by a chemical reaction which does not always proceed at a constant rate. Therefore the voltage fluctuates slightly. Those fluctuations are large enough to change the capacity calculations. It can get rather complicated figuring out exactly how much charge is left, see this paper for example.

A bigger issue with the charge remaining is that the display is assuming that the voltage steadily drops in exactly the same manner that the capacity does. Real world batteries though tend to experience voltage drop more steeply as the capacity diminishes. (See graphic below for the mentioned Samsung 25R). So the rather naive algorithm measures 4.2 volts as 100 and 3.2 volts as zero and assumes that the amount of power remaining is directly proportional to the voltage throughout the range. See that dive below after it hits 3.4 Volts though? The mod will tell you that there is 20% charge remaining when you hit 3.4 volts which is not true. That means that last 20% is going to go away really, really fast.

That's a tough nut to crack though since all batteries perform differently depending on their construction and materials. You'd need an adaptive algorithm that could create a profile for each battery you use with the device and take it into account since an LG brand new out of the box will not perform like a Samsung or like an LG that has 300 charge cycles on it.

 

[roxynoodle]

Mine has no buzzing/whining whatsoever. I'm positive it doesn't. I live on a farm and its so quiet here, it freaks people out.

I have a Lemo on mine as well and use the adjustable pin in the mod's 510 rather than in the Lemo.

I managed to get 4 authentic Sont vtc5s before my mod arrived so those 2 married pairs are all that's been in it. I don't have another unused, married pair of batts to try to see what happens. Had your post been here a couple weeks ago I could have tested some Samsungs.

 

[SonHouse]

Mine has no buzzing/whining whatsoever. I'm positive it doesn't. I live on a farm and its so quiet here, it freaks people out.

I have a Lemo on mine as well and use the adjustable pin in the mod's 510 rather than in the Lemo.

I managed to get 4 authentic Sont vtc5s before my mod arrived so those 2 married pairs are all that's been in it. I don't have another unused, married pair of batts to try to see what happens. Had your post been here a couple weeks ago I could have tested some Samsungs.

Meant to mention this also. I have two of the Sigelei's and they're dead silent except for the crackling of the RDA on top when I put the power to them. I use both LG HE2 and the Samsung 25R's with them. I am over 50 though, so maybe I've lost some of that top range. I have never heard this complaint before though.

 

[relink2013]

All I can say at this point is hmmmmmm...It just seems like low quality standards on the "non-essential" parts of the mod. I say non-essential because the performance of this thing is unreal, my buddy put his Mutation-X twisted 26awg sleeper build at .2ohm on my sigelei last night and cranked it all the way to 100W, after less than a one second fire he didn't even know what to say, lol. he fogged out his entire apartment in a matter of a couple of minutes, and the mod never even got warm. So the parts of the circuit that has to do with the actual power delivery to the atomizer seem to be top notch. However the parts of the circuit that control the screen and battery level...could be better.

All in all, I don't regret buying this thing one bit, it's a beast, and I would buy one again in a heart beat...even with the issues.

 

[CaCHooKa Man]

Mine whines but you can only hear it if you put it up to your ear. It isn't loud enough to bother me otherwise. My battery percentage also fluctuates but other people told me that's normal.

 

[relink2013]

yours sounds exactly like mine, and that is exactly what my percentage it doing. well at least I'm not the only one.

 

[relink2013]

I'm trying to get into this thing to see if i can stop the whine and I cannot figure out how to get into it. All the screws are out and it's still not budging at all. lol

EDIT. Always look under stickers. lol. two screws under stickers in the battery tray.

Theres not a whole lot to look at on the inside of this thing. On the back of the board is a capacitor, and a toroid, both are held in place with epoxy already so it's doubtful that either of those are making the noise. on the other side is the screen and buttons. Whatever is causing this whine is in or near the screen and unfortunately I'm just not willing to tear my brand new mod down that far, Especially considering my mech broke the day before Christmas.

I am glad to know i'm not the only one with these quirks though, and that none of them affect performance, reliability, or battery life.

 

[Kaiser Bob]

My 100+ has that 'electronics whine' when the screen is on, it's like white noise so I can see where some people may not hear it at all. Also getting the battery % fluctuation from a new set of Samsung 25Rs, just figured it was a condition of the battery gauge code in the firmware. Other then that it's been an awesome mod, drives everything I put on it better than the Hana mini clone I was using.