So, I am not very mechanically inclined, I know little about electronics, but I love my Vamo. And I fear it has taken a turn for the worse. I have a stainless steel V2, and 2 days ago it basically stopped working. Whenever I put a fully-charged battery in and try to fire it, it reads "LoV" and when I hold the left button down to check the volts, it reads out anywhere from 3.3 - 2.4, which is quite unusual, as it has never read below 3.2v until this problem started. I've tried 18650s, 18350s, and 2 stacked 18350s with little success. Randomly, I will get it to fire a few times and read out at 3.7v, but I'll get maybe a hit or two at most and it will crap out again. When I hold the right button down to check the ohms, sometimes it reads out "LoV" and sometimes it reads out "2.6", with no rhyme or reason. I have messed with it in both NO1 and NO2 with no results. Anybody have any advice for me? Is it dead? Or could someone with little to know knowledge in electronics crack it open and try to trouble-shoot it? Help Please!
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Does the problem happen when there is no delivery device installed on the Vamo? The isolation washer under the center pin can also crack even if it looks ok from the top, thus the pin could get shorted at the side of the pin. Don't know if you tried it yet, but pull the center pin up a little and try to make sure the center pin is not touching anything (shorting), then fire the Vamo and check the battery voltage... do this with no delivery device installed.
This was happening to mine and it was 5 days old ...I was lucky enough to send it back to exhale vapors who did a awesome job resending it....the white washer around my post was constantly misreading and not firing...
Have you tried cleaning the contact surface on the batteries? Cleaned the battery contact on the vamo?
Its a long shot, but if ya got some gunk in there, it could cause a poor connection.
Its a long shot, but if ya got some gunk in there, it could cause a poor connection.
The problem occurs with or without a delivery device installed. I tried teasing the center pin up but that had no effect. I just took some isopropyl to all contact points, as well as a couple of batteries, dried everything off, and still no fix. I appreciate the thoughts so far, does anyone have any other advice? One thing I did notice when I took a q-tip to the center battery connection on the inside of the vamo is that the post coming out of the bottom side of the vamo seems to be loose to me, I can push it in a little bit. As a try to look in there, I can see this pin is attached to a chip/board of some sort, which causes me to wonder if that is where the problem is. Come to think of it, a week before this happened I was having issues getting the vamo to fire every time I pressed the button. Sometimes I would have to push it really hard in order to get a hit off of it.
Yes, that could definitely be the cause of your problem. That loose pin you're seeing is soldered to the PCB and the joint is probably broken if you can move it. If you can pull the PCB out, you can resolder it. Not an easy task to pull it out though as you need to remove the Vamo head. There are a few threads here explaining that, but can't find the link at the moment.
Here's what the PCB looks like...
View attachment 222445
If your feeling brave here's a teardown video:
Vamo first impression and disassembly how to - YouTube
Vamo first impression and disassembly how to - YouTube
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