guide for a VV booster? or anyone know of a PCB supplier.

[CraigHB]

CraigHB how on earth do you solder the TPS43000? .65mm centers on the pins, wow!

Yea, it's tricky. I use .015" 63/37 wire solder, .015" tip on a digital controlled soldering pencil, and a good 10x magnifier. However, those aren't the hardest ones. I do the DFN chips with a .5 mm pitch which are most difficult, but I try to avoid using them if I can. Those are meant to be soldered using reflow. Using an iron is actually harder than doing your own reflow. I guess I'm just stuck in my ways, been hand soldering since forever.

Almost sounds like more trouble than its worth! 2S mods are so much easier, lol.

It's a fairly subjective thing. I've been doing stuff with electronics for a long time so building something using a PCB is pretty much par for the course. Plus, I put other stuff on my boards as well as the converter like an MCU, display, and charging system.

 

[asdaq]

I see it as worth the trouble. Beyond my ability but well worth it. I hope to see more of this, and the display sounds most curious.

 

[mv2envy]

To me, it would only be worth it if it was able to output 3.5-4 amps. I hate that I cant use any of the available booster mods with DC cartos at the voltage I want.

 

[CraigHB]

The "display" is one of the new features I'm working on, going from LED digital on my last one to LCD graphic on my new one. I'm actually getting ready to test the graphics subcircuit here in a bit. I've done a bunch of different projects with various LCD displays (not just e-cig modding), but this new display uses a controller I've never coded before. Have to make sure I can get it working right before going any further with it. It's an amazing part, highly compact. Similar in overall size to the display in the Darwin, but not segmented. It has a larger graphic view area.

I'm kind of leary of posting any of my work here, people like to steal ideas from this forum. However, if and when I finish it, I may post something on it. It takes me quite some time to design and build these things. It's just something I play around with in my spare time.

Oh yea, and the output is 30W, 5A at 6V, that's assuming I can get the converter working as well as the one in the mod I'm currently using.

 

[executivul]

The "display" is one of the new features I'm working on, going from LED digital on my last one to LCD graphic on my new one. I'm actually getting ready to test the graphics subcircuit here in a bit. I've done a bunch of different projects with various LCD displays (not just e-cig modding), but this new display uses a controller I've never coded before. Have to make sure I can get it working right before going any further with it. It's an amazing part, highly compact. Similar in overall size to the display in the Darwin, but not segmented. It has a larger graphic view area.

I'm kind of leary of posting any of my work here, people like to steal ideas from this forum. However, if and when I finish it, I may post something on it. It takes me quite some time to design and build these things. It's just something I play around with in my spare time.

Oh yea, and the output is 30W, 5A at 6V, that's assuming I can get the converter working as well as the one in the mod I'm currently using.

Power doesn't come from nowhere, so assuming an ideal 100% dc-dc converter, 30W means 10A from a 3.0V discharged battery, that is a part hard to find, a battery able to supply 10A (at least).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.

 

[CraigHB]

Not really, RC LiPos have discharge limits a minimum of 20C or 20 times the charge capacity. So, a 2200mAh LiPo with a 20C max drain can output 44 Amps continuously. I'm using a 10C LiPo and it's still way over the max drain the booster could ever put on it. As a reference, an IMR 18650 is typically 8C or about 12 Amps max drain. My booster pulls about 10A at 30W with the cell at 3.5V so I could run it at max output even with an IMR 18650. 3V is actually an over-discharge. Once the LiPos hit about 3.5V they fall off quick so there's little benefit in running them any lower. The IMR and ICO round cells can run a little lower, but not a whole lot. They still fall off somewhere between 3 and 3.5V.

I've never actually vaped at 30W. That's ridiculously hot. That 30W max output was derived through bench testing with a load bank. The highest I've taken it vaping is about 20W with a triple coil carto and that was way too hot for me. I haven't tried the dual coils, but I imagine they would also be too hot for me at 6V. But still, it's good to have more power than you need, better efficiency and tougher electronics. If I can ever find a good dual carto adapter, I would probably be able to vape at 20W comfortably. Main thing I'm looking for is a nice two into one tip, haven't come across one yet.

BTW, just finished testing the graphic display I mentioned before. Damn if it didn't work as soon as I hooked it up. Had to do some tweaking on the code to get serial comms dialed-in, but otherwise, worked right out of the gate. That hardly ever happens. Things like that almost always involve some amount of head scratching. .....en.