Does anybody else's Kanger Topbox/Kbox Mini smell... funny?

[skeleton.man]

Hi guys. Strange question. Could anyone with the aforementioned mods take the battery out and smell the battery tray/inside, and tell me what, if anything, you smell?

I've had this thing for 3 weeks. Since I got it, the inside has had this weird electronics smell. Not really a burnt smell, but almost. It's kinda like what a new dvd player or computer smells like when you take it out of the box.

It's always worked fine, with the exception of that when I first got it and wanted to charge the batteries before I used them, I tried to use it with the USB cable plugged into my laptop (with no battery in it) and it turned on and everything, but it shut off and became unresponsive when I pressed the fire button. I became concerned this evening when I noticed the smell was still there, so I tried the pass-through thing again, and the same thing happened.

The device itself nor the batteries ever get hot. Barely even warm. I run it around 15w with .5ohm Kanthal in the Toptank mini it came with, so I'm hardly working the battery at all.

I've currently got it sitting opened up in front of a little fan to see if it's a smell that'll air out.

I talked to Mt Baker Vapor and they said it sounded like something is shorted out or for some reason the board inside is getting too warm, and they "strongly recommended I initiate a return" for it. But that sounded extreme so I wanted to see what you guys had to say first, especially since like I said, it works beautifully and never gets warm. This is the only mod of this kind I have, and I don't want to have to return it and be without anything but my eGo style and ProTank 2 in the meantime.

Thank you!

 

[penstyle]

Smells like China.
Don't plug it in to the laptop.
If Mt Baker is nice enough to be concerned I would take them up on it. Kudos to them.

 

[skeleton.man]

Smells like China.

Is that similar to what I described?

 

[penstyle]

Yes. But really if you are concerned I would return it.
I have several cheap mods, clones, etc and they do not smell.

Maybe Mt Baker would let you re order another and then let you return the current one for a refund. That way you would not be without. Give it a try, all they can say is no.

 

[skeleton.man]

Wasn't able to find anything about this before my original post, but I finally found some other people talking about the same thing:

"I work at a vape shop and every single kangertech mod does this. It has a weird electronical smell and makes any battery smell like it. I dont believe it's causing any harm since not many people complain about the batteries. I've only seen kangertech units produce this smell though. I'm very curious on why it happens."

"Ok, I was prepared to think you were nuts but I've got my kbox mini beside me as well as my rx200 so I decided to give them both a sniff (which caused my lady to question my sanity). You're right the kbox battery compartment does have a metallic, "circuit board" smell that my rx200 doesn't have. I don't think it's a safety issue, just whatever their their pcb is made from."

"Yeah, that's actually normal. At least for mine. Been using for over a year and had no issues with it."

"Mine have that smell too, even after a year of constant use."

Guess there's nothing to worry about after all?

 

[penstyle]

Cool by me. I stand by my statements and apparently Mt Baker is taking care of there customers concerns.

 

[IMFire3605]

Well, my Kbox Mini has a smell as well, closest I can think the smell is like is soldering flux, an acidic compound that helps solder bond to other metals and finish a weld. It could also be the remnants of whatever they use to rinse the circuit boards with after etching and manufacture before they solder components to it.

 

[skeleton.man]

Cool by me. I stand by my statements and apparently Mt Baker is taking care of there customers concerns.

Thanks for the advice. Since I've seen other people talk about it now I'm gonna keep using it for now. I'll go to a local vape shop Thursday and see what they say. And yes, MBV has been great. Their live chat is very helpful, especially after-hours.

Well, my Kbox Mini has a smell as well, closest I can think the smell is like is soldering flux, an acidic compound that helps solder bond to other metals and finish a weld. It could also be the remnants of whatever they use to rinse the circuit boards with after etching and manufacture before they solder components to it.

That sounds almost exactly like what I'm experiencing. Glad I'm not alone.

Not only did I air it out with the fan for an hour, I opened it up and checked it out. All the soldering points look good. Nothing looks fried. I've used it since and the smell is back but not as bad. We'll see how it goes.