PCC issues...

[dr_al]

It used to work great, now a few months later it will turn on and charge a battery for ten or fifteen minutes and it quits leaving us high and dry with no battery power... I have tried different batteries and the battery in the unit is charged up but nothing.

Its never gotten wet and we use the neoprene case to protect it to.

I sent SI a message but i don't expect much as its been more than 3 months. Other than that we are very pleased with the products they offer.

 

[Imagine]

have you tried cleaning the connections as shown in the demo video?

 

[starsong]

Mine has been acting wonky lately too -- either get the infinity red light and it won't do the charge, or the batt LED flickers and won't stay solid to charge, or have to slightly unscrew it, etc. Never occurred to me that it might just be the battery that needs adjusting or cleaning. The same ones that didn't work in the PCC worked fine with the USB charger tho. Maybe I'll give them all a good cleaning this weekend and see what happens.

 

[dr_al]

yup i clean them between every carto change which is a few times a day

 

[Imagine]

including the threads on the PCC?

yup i clean them between every carto change which is a few times a day

 

[Mroutlaw]

Mine has been acting wonky lately too -- either get the infinity red light and it won't do the charge, or the batt LED flickers and won't stay solid to charge, or have to slightly unscrew it, etc. Never occurred to me that it might just be the battery that needs adjusting or cleaning. The same ones that didn't work in the PCC worked fine with the USB charger tho. Maybe I'll give them all a good cleaning this weekend and see what happens.

I recently learned that in addition to cleaning your batteries, you need to clean the threads on the chargers and pcc. The gunk on the battery threads gets not the charger and then the charger won't work properly. Use a qtip with a little alcohol. MAKE SURE IT'S NOT PLUGGED IN


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[Konstantine]

Also make sure the center posts are ok on both batteries and PCC (i would check the pcc only).
The connection on the pcc connectors is done by simply soldering, and as i know factories over there are not well known for their soldering skills. Since it's done by a person who doesn't even understand soldering you might also want to check the connection on the back of the pcc connector.

 

[dr_al]

posts are ok, cleaned the threads on the pcc not much came off but i havn't done it in a month. i put a battery on to charge with a timer to see if things change, all the posts seem to be ok, i solder laptop motherboards some times so checking is easy lol.

my ticket was promptly replied to as well if it doesnt charge properly i will be using the rma number ect. Thanks SI you guys are great. I hope i didn't come up with a new problem lol.

 

[dr_al]

ok, different battery, pcc fully charged, battery being charged is not completly dead but has had regular use since last evening, its been charging for 49 minutes and the led on the battery is starting to slowly blink off and back on again and now its doing the crazy flicker like its fully charged. next i will vape it to death against the timer, and recharge again, also against the timer. I just want to make sure its not user error. also all threads freshly cleaned on battery and pcc and posts all checked.

edit, i just pulled the battery off the pcc, it did not do its typical blinking while being removed.
charge time 54 minutes

 

[dr_al]

chain vaped the battery to dead, took 33 minutes, average for me.

contacts and threads cleaned on everything and set to charge against a timer again.

 

[starsong]

33 mins is average?? Dang. Is this PCC the small one or the mega?

 

[Mroutlaw]

33 mins is average?? Dang. Is this PCC the small one or the mega?

I think he means the battery vaped for 33 minutes. Remember, if you use a standard volt carto (2.8ohms), the 65mm battery will only fire the coil for a total of 10minutes. The 78mm will fire for about 14minutes and 30 seconds.

Before you freak out, that is if you pressed the button to fire the coil and never let go. Now, we don't vape that much (though it seems dr al is close). We only vape for a few seconds at a time. The average vaper takes 3-5second drags. A chain vaper would be taking 3-5 second drags once to twice a minute, constantly. That's where the whole "battery lasts for 2 hours" comes from.

Think about it. Let's say you vape one 4 second puff each minute. So that means over the course of an hour you will vape 240 seconds. If the battery lasts 10minutes, that is 600seconds. 600/240= 2.5. So,if you take one 4 second puff every minute, your battery will last 2-2 1/2 hours. This isn't exact because it doesn't take into account how old the battery is and other variables, but it's close.

If dr al is using a battery in 33minutes (which I have done), he is really chain vaping. I would say he is taking 4, 5 second vapes per minute or 5, 4 second vapes a minute. AM I close Dr. Al?


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[dr_al]

you are correct mr outlaw, i hit it hard just to kill the battery its the smaller battery and an auto, i get the carto pretty warm stop let it cool for a bit and keep on going.

so back into the pcc it went just under 2 hours the led shut off no flickering restarted charging on the pcc but it wouldnt start so i took it off and threw it on my usb charger the light fired up and it continued to charge.

im not sure whats going on but its deffinatly not charging the batteries all the way.

 

[Konstantine]

Maybe the PCC battery has problems.

 

[awsum140]

Maybe the PCC battery has problems.

I was going to make a similar comment. The PCC has a rechargable battery in it as well and it, too, has a finite life span. If it's used heavily, as the primary method of recharging PV batteries, it could simply be at the end of it's life. It would seem that recharging one battery with another puts additional stress on the source battery, so it is to be expected.

 

[Konstantine]

It could also be a DOA from the factory, has happened on many similar devices even mobile phones.
PCC's like that use buck-boost converters since the battery is 3.7 and it need to charge with 4.2-5, that puts some strain on the main battery.

 

[starsong]

On the slider PCC, I used to take out the battery after it was done charging there and put it on the USB charger to top it off. Sometimes that would only take a few minutes.
On the mega PCC I do the same thing, and most of the time the USB will start out with the red light but the battery LED stays out, and shortly thereafter the USB light goes blue too, so I know the mega PCC did its job.

(and it was the 33 minute volt battery I was surprised about -- another reason I prefer 78s )

 

[dr_al]

it charged for another hour on the usb, i kept the timer going. I charge my batteries on the usb plug, my wife cycles though her batteries on the pcc about 1 charge a day, i don't know if thats considered heavy use.

 

[Mroutlaw]

On the slider PCC, I used to take out the battery after it was done charging there and put it on the USB charger to top it off. Sometimes that would only take a few minutes.
On the mega PCC I do the same thing, and most of the time the USB will start out with the red light but the battery LED stays out, and shortly thereafter the USB light goes blue too, so I know the mega PCC did its job.

(and it was the 33 minute volt battery I was surprised about -- another reason I prefer 78s )

Yep, for $1 more, you get 50% more vape time.


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