Has anybody's Vamo V2 had a Catastrophic failure?

[Steamboat Willy]

I had been vaping on my Vamo for a little over a month now coupled with a variety of different tanks (pro tank,smok carto tank,ce4 clearo's,iClear 30) without any problems. It had been about a month since I replaced my pro tank head so I went to the local B&M shop and picked up a new 2.2 ohm head,and an iClear 30. When using the iClear my Vamo worked beautifully,with the new head in the pro tank it wouldn't fire,instead I would get the battery low signal.

I figured the head was just a dud and would bring it back the next time I went to the shop,fast forward two days and I decide to try it again but this time it fired and worked nicely for a few hours,and from here it all went downhill. I went to fire up the Vamo and got the low signal again,tried again same thing,tried one more time same thing but the lcd screen started flickering and stayed on without me holding it,smoke started trickling out of the plastic screen. After that the screen was glowing orange from inside and the smoke had gotten worse,I tossed it into my shower and let it fizzle out. Ten minutes later I finally thought it'd fizzled out only to see melting circuit boards and the plastic screen bubbling onto the floor of my shower,I grabbed t with a shirt interviewed the batteries and I find the screen turned almost black and has warped completely.

The place that sold it to me says they don't cover anything after a month,but will give me a hefty discount on my next mod which is better than nothing,but I'm still pretty disappointed that this happened after only a month. Could it have been the bad head? The batteries seem to be fine but are getting tossed just to be safe,any input is appreciated

 

[vjc0628]

That really sucks

I think fastteck give 3 month warranty

Any way its much cheaper less then $40

Mine works good maybe give them a shot

 

[Steamboat Willy]

I'll keep it in mind,I was looking to get an mvp soon anyway. I'm just really bummed because my only back up is a knock off ego twist that has a cross threaded 510 connection,and all my tanks other than a few old ce4's have a 510 connection. Going from a mod with a pro tank or the iclear back to an ego with a simple clearo is like pulling teeth lol.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

Oh, that's tragic.

It does sound like the head was bad, and perhaps allowed liquid to flood the battery compartment, thus shorting out the circuit board. In fact, that's the only reason I think something like what you described could have happened. Something got to the PCB and shorted the circuitry.

Leaking bottom coil devices can be a nuisance on eGo and other similar systems. They can lead to disaster on APV systems.

 

[SissySpike]

get a Provari they don't leak threw the top cap just kidding........... sorta I am sorry to hear about your bad luck.

 

[SonHouse]

Glad no one was injured, sorry your Vamo went up in flames.

 

[dstin1]

vamo is a little fragile

 

[SissySpike]

I think you just got a bad one I went threw 3 before I had one that worked right they are produced quickly and cheaply. That is a pretty bad melt down! Im glad no injury or property loss. I dont think this is common or there would be a recall.

 

[UncleChuck]

Considering the huge number of vamos out there in the wild, and many in the hands of the less experienced, I think it's fairly safe to say you just got very unlucky and got a junk unit. If this was the result of a large design flaw I'd imagine we would have seen a lot more stories before now. I got my vamo with the v2s first came out, have dropped it tons of times on concrete, had juice flood all over the screen, been carried around in pockets with other stuff knocking into it, and it still functions fine except for the button which every once and awhile won't fire when you press it the first time.

I doubt it would be from juice getting on the circuit board, juice is non-conductive and wouldn't be able to short out the board. If juice was conductive the coil tech we use wouldn't work, as the juice would instantly short the coil out, which it doesn't.

It also shouldn't have happened from an atty shorting or anything, as the vamo has a protection circuit that refuses to fire if the resistance is below 1.3 ohms. You say it gave you a low battery warning, are you sure it wasn't the low ohm warning? A shorted head should cause low ohms to show, not low battery. If low battery showed that's a sign of a defective board.

Did the battery vent or was it just the board that burned up?

 

[RoseB]

I'll keep it in mind,I was looking to get an mvp soon anyway. I'm just really bummed because my only back up is a knock off ego twist that has a cross threaded 510 connection,and all my tanks other than a few old ce4's have a 510 connection. Going from a mod with a pro tank or the iclear back to an ego with a simple clearo is like pulling teeth lol.

At least you've got something to use, but yeah.. that sucks. Glad you're ok

 

[The Ocelot]

You might want to check in the Vamo sub-forum in the APV forum for any owners with similar problems and to see if there are suggested fixes.

 

[Thrasher]

You might want to check in the Vamo sub-forum in the APV for and owners with similar problems and to see if there are any fixes.

I agree.

whats worse is theres more them one company manufacturing the vamo and some are definitely not made as well as others

 

[friedbob]

Sorry to hear the Vamo blammod. If your thinking of going for an MVP I would say wait on the MVP2 should be hitting markets soon and has all the bells and whistles of the Vamos.

 

[Steamboat Willy]

Considering the huge number of vamos out there in the wild, and many in the hands of the less experienced, I think it's fairly safe to say you just got very unlucky and got a junk unit. If this was the result of a large design flaw I'd imagine we would have seen a lot more stories before now. I got my vamo with the v2s first came out, have dropped it tons of times on concrete, had juice flood all over the screen, been carried around in pockets with other stuff knocking into it, and it still functions fine except for the button which every once and awhile won't fire when you press it the first time.

I doubt it would be from juice getting on the circuit board, juice is non-conductive and wouldn't be able to short out the board. If juice was conductive the coil tech we use wouldn't work, as the juice would instantly short the coil out, which it doesn't.

It also shouldn't have happened from an atty shorting or anything, as the vamo has a protection circuit that refuses to fire if the resistance is below 1.3 ohms. You say it gave you a low battery warning, are you sure it wasn't the low ohm warning? A shorted head should cause low ohms to show, not low battery. If low battery showed that's a sign of a defective board.

Did the battery vent or was it just the board that burned up?

The ohm readout was 2.2-2.3,but I had it come up as 0.1 once until I snugged up the tank a little more and it went back to 2.2 ohms.

 

[retired1]

Sorry to hear the Vamo blammod. If your thinking of going for an MVP I would say wait on the MVP2 should be hitting markets soon and has all the bells and whistles of the Vamos.

MVP v2 went "live" last week.

 

[SupplyDaddy]

2 Vamo V2's here since the end of December. Both going strong with various drops, kicks and knocks and cracked screen covers...

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

Considering the huge number of vamos out there in the wild, and many in the hands of the less experienced, I think it's fairly safe to say you just got very unlucky and got a junk unit. If this was the result of a large design flaw I'd imagine we would have seen a lot more stories before now.

This is true.

I doubt it would be from juice getting on the circuit board, juice is non-conductive and wouldn't be able to short out the board. If juice was conductive the coil tech we use wouldn't work, as the juice would instantly short the coil out, which it doesn't.

This is inaccurate. While PG/VG based liquids are not as conductive as pure water, they do have the ability to carry current and any liquid containing water will have conductivity. A lot of our liquids have distilled water added. Our coils are insulated and isolated. They're simply a load placed in a location that exposes them to a liquid with a low vaporization point. The coils are made of resistance wire and don't mind working wet. You can mount a freshly rinsed coil/wick assembly on your device and fire the button to vaporize and clean the coil.

A printed circuit board with resistors and other little thingies installed does not work well when it's wet. Anything that could change the resistance (or reciprocally, conductivity) of the circuits on the board will cause problems, and dousing them with a liquid having even minimal conductivity is going to make it very unhappy.