Couple of questions. HELP!

[Bardman]

Hello there fellow vapers

1. I have an issue with my istick pico X. Sometimes it doesn't power on although I have a charged and recently bought Samsung 30Q inside. Therefore i have to remove the battery and place it inside again, any help??
   
   
2. Is it safe to use and Evic mod that has been sitting for around a year? Of course I will first clean the pins and use a new battery.

 

[Hawise]

For the battery, would I be correct in assuming it's a 30Q? Also, does the Pico turn on and work properly once you replace the battery? If it does, the first thing I'd try is cleaning the battery contacts. The only other thing I can think of is a loose connection inside, and that would involve taking the mod apart. Hopefully someone else will have a more helpful suggestion.

Regarding the evic, a year's vacation shouldn't do the mod itself any harm unless it was left with a tank and battery and one of the two leaked all over it. The battery, as you say, is a different story.

 

[Bardman]

It is a 30Q my bad.

Yes once it does power on and work properly, if it has a loose connection inside can it be considered unsafe for use?

The Evic was left with a tank but it has not leaked, all I can see that resembles a leak is the grime between the base of the mod and the tank but i guess

 

[Baditude]

With the Pico, I'd clean the battery contacts with a cotton applicator and some isopropal alcohol, or the eraser end of a pencil. Also clean the 510 center pin while you're at it. I'm not sure that I would go to the trouble of taking a mod apart searching for a loose wire. Do you even have a soldering gun? You don't even know what you should be looking for.

With the Evic, I'd clean it up the same way as the Pico. Check the charge on the battery, a year without a charge may have ruined the battery. If below 2.5 volts, throw it out and replace it.

 

[Ryedan]

Hello there fellow vapers

1. I have an issue with my Istick pico X. Sometimes it doesn't power on although I have a charged and recently bought Samsung 30Q inside. Therefore i have to remove the battery and place it inside again, any help??

Hi @Bardman and welcome to ECF

I've been using a few Pico 75 watt mods for a couple of years as my all day vape and am pretty familiar with them. The Pico X board is slightly different but I think it and the mods are similar enough for me to feel confident in commenting on it.

What you've described above happens to me after using the mod for a while. I've always been able to solve that issue by cleaning the battery cap threads on both the cap and the mod. Those threads are part of the electrical circuit for the mod and because of that they will oxidise in use over time. I give them a wipe with a Q-tip wet with alcohol and follow that up with an aggressive paper towel wipe. Use a thumb nail over the paper towel on the cap threads and a fingertip on the mod. If the paper towel has a dark spot on it when you've used it you did it right, more so on the cap.

I have found that the 510 connection is almost fool proof. I clean it with a Q-tip and alcohol when I feel it needs it, but I've never had a juicy 510 connection give me performance issues.

I have had one board go bad and had to replace it, but I've not had a loose connection inside the mod. That doesn't mean this can't happen, but IMO this is not the issue in your case. To take the board out of the mod you need the correctly sized small torx screwdriver to take the mod apart, and you need to unsolder the battery wire connection from the lower mod plate and then re-solder it on assembly.

Try the thread cleaning first. IMO that will fix it.

2. Is it safe to use and Evic mod that has been sitting for around a year? Of course I will first clean the pins and use a new battery.

If you left a battery in the mod, I agree with @Baditude. Make sure it's not below 2.5 volts, the farther below the more of a risk there is.

Otherwise, you have nothing to worry about

 

[ShowMeTwice]

I have had one board go bad and had to replace it

Ryedan, great post! Question for you, that's the FT board right? Have you tried the FT replacement board with Arctic Fox? If so does it work? I'm curious as I have a bunch of Pico 75's. I grabbed a few of the FT replacement boards for stash. They will eventually die so might as well be prepared.

 

[Ryedan]

Ryedan, great post! Question for you, that's the FT board right? Have you tried the FT replacement board with Arctic Fox? If so does it work? I'm curious as I have a bunch of Pico 75's. I grabbed a few of the FT replacement boards for stash. They will eventually die so might as well be prepared.

Thanks ShowMeTwice!

Yes, I used the FT cloned replacement board. AFAIK this board does not support updates through the USB port, so AF is not an option. Just checked on FT and saw this thread which agrees with that.

As for the board, it seems to handle different from the OEM. I vape VW all the time and even that is different. I've had it in one mod for about a week, but I still have only about a day of use on it and I'm still getting familiar with it.

My impressions so far:

It just seems to handle different. Issues could be inaccurate wattage output, lower frequency PWM regulation, or the VW regulation responds a little slower than I'm used to. It's too early for me to have an opinion on what's really up with it, and it could also just be a sub-optimum wick in my tank (DoggyStyle). A week or two more with it and I should have a much better feel for it. I vape at around 13 watts. I cranked it up to 50 watts once for a short drag and it blew my socks off, but that's in a tank set up for 18'ish watts max

I tried it in TC with SS (which is what I use most of the time) for a few dozen drags just to see how it would work and that seems to handle very different from the OEM board. If you like vaping TC, from my limited experience with it I would say don't buy too many of these boards until you've experienced one for yourself.

Some people have said the board's power noticeably drops as the battery gets low, but I didn't notice that when I ran one battery almost down to the mod shutting off.

There are three wires soldered onto the board. The two 510 wires, red and black, come off the FT board from opposite sides of the board as the OEM version. I did wonder if they had soldered the wrong colored wires on the board but decided to trust their colors and it worked fine.

In the end and with what I know right now, for me in VW mode these boards are way better than loosing a Pico