Ovale V8 Spontaneous Turn On

[NoLeak]

My Ovale V8 just turned itself on. It was sitting upright on my desk. I had not done the five quick press shutoff before setting it down. There was nothing anywhere near the buttons.

Out of nowhere I smelled burning. I looked over to see the Ce2 in my Ovale V8 glowing like a light bulb. The strange thing is that I had the voltage set on 3.0 and that would never make the high resistance ce2 glow no matter how long it was on. The Ovale must have been hitting the ce2 with something like the 6.0 volt setting (pwm duty 100%.)

This happened a minute ago. I thought I should post ASAP since this could potentially be quite dangerous. I haven't even put the batteries back in the Ovale to see if it still works. I tore those batteries out like lightning! In retrospect, I guess I could have unscrewed the ce2 instead.

This is why all of my homemade mods have real power switches that open the circuit to the battery.

 

[NoLeak]

Looks like my V8 is toast. I put a new Ce2 on and put the batteries back in. The batteries are AW IMR's freshly charged in my Pila IBC. The V8 display came on and showed this on the display "5.0" "Lo" "Ch" with the Ce2 glowing brightly all the while. Had to pull the batteries to get it to turn off. Talk about a bad failure mode.

RIP Ovale V8. Less than one month old. Can't say I'll miss ya!

 

[YoureFired]

Does the vendor where you bought it know about this yet? They may have gotten in a bad batch or something. It's worth looking into, and you might get a replacement since you just got it a few weeks ago.

 

[Nomoreash]

Yes, even if it's past the return or warranty I'd let the vendor know just in case it turns out to be more than a rare instance.

 

[NoLeak]

Yes, even if it's past the return or warranty I'd let the vendor know just in case it turns out to be more than a rare instance.

I opened up my Ovale V8 to see what happened. It's not a rare one-off problem. It was caused by a design flaw.

 

[NoLeak]

I forgot to mention that the V8 murdered both of the AW IMR batteries that were inside when it went haywire. Another design flaw...

 

[thinkingaboutit]

I opened up my Ovale V8 to see what happened. It's not a rare one-off problem. It was caused by a design flaw.

I don't suppose you have a camera to show this design flaw?

 

[NGIB]

Might sound like a silly question but if it's a design flaw - why haven't we seen dozens of reports just like yours?

 

[NoLeak]

I should add that my batteries would not have been totaled if they had been "regular" protected lithium ion cells. The IMR's are a safe chemistry so they dom't have (or need) internal protection circuits. On the other hand, if unprotected "regular" lithium ion cells had been used I may have had a serious problem on my hands. I can't state enough how important it is to use high quality protected cells purchased from a store you trust. Some cheapo generics claim to be protected but do not have internal protection circuits.

I would love to see ECF put rules in place banning the advertising of devices that lack physical on/off switches that disconnect the batteries from all internal electronics. Every PV should have a real, physical on/off switch. There's really no excuse not to.

I don't suppose you have a camera to show this design flaw?

I do have a camera but I am not about to do free product engineering work for Ovale. The V8 is a commercial device not an Open Source / Open Hardware community project.

Might sound like a silly question but if it's a design flaw - why haven't we seen dozens of reports just like yours?

That's something no one can reliably predict. However, most people would probably contact their vendor, get a replacement, and be happy. Negative comments about products are met with a lot of hostility here, more so than any other forum I have ever seen and I have been on the Internet for a lot of years. It's a huge disincentive for people to be honest about their experiences with vaping products.

 

[NoLeak]

For devices that lack a physical on/off switch, it can be helpful to remove the atty when the PV is not in use. How well this works depends on the circuitry inside the PV. If I had done this I would not have lost a Ce2 or my expensive AW batteries. Remove your attys before you go to bed at night! It only takes 2 seconds.

 

[YoureFired]

Fotsirk -- I've read (and viewed) lots of negative reviews on the Ovale V8's design...

It's designed for right handed people only
Why doesn't it have a flat bottom so it can stand up straight
The connection is too deep, so you have to use an adaptor to put anything on it
The battery door is hard to open
You can't use flat top batts in it
The voltage up & down buttons are reversed (because Chinese don't read left to right)
And then some things about the on off button being a little tricky.

If it weren't for the negative reviews like yours, I'd probably have bought every single piece of vape gear I've put my eyes upon. So hey, I appreciate your negative opinion just as much as a positive one.

It's just the first I've heard about the spontaneous turn on with this device, so I'm thinking it might be a rarity, and it wouldn't be enough to deter me from buying a second one. Especially since at $29.99, it's quite a minimal investment on a variable voltage device compared to what's out there.

 

[NoLeak]

If it weren't for the negative reviews like yours, I'd probably have bought every single piece of vape gear I've put my eyes upon. So hey, I appreciate your negative opinion just as much as a positive one.

Thanks!

It's just the first I've heard about the spontaneous turn on with this device, so I'm thinking it might be a rarity, and it wouldn't be enough to deter me from buying a second one. Especially since at $29.99, it's quite a minimal investment on a variable voltage device compared to what's out there.

That's the sad thing... The V8 has very little inside, total unit cost might be $1 for the manufacturer, and yet there is no competition. There should be 50 devices like it. The electronics are nothing special. Any college kid taking Electrical Engineering could duplicate it in a week. I can understand why American companies are staying away but I don't know why there aren't tons of Chinese alternatives selling at $10 a pop.

If you are going to buy another Ovale and you're good with a soldering iron, you might want to install a real on/off switch. It would be easy to do and there's TONS of empty space in the upper half of the V8. Makes one wonder what Ovale was thinking not putting a real on/off switch in there to begin with.