Silver Bullet with Kick having major Problem!

[Anurak]

So I finally got all my supplies for vaping in the mail and started using them sometime last week. I've been avoiding cigarettes since then and only vaping with my SB + the kick. Thing works fantastic with a 1.7 ohm cartomizer inside a Lil' Mama tank I purchased from Big Daddy Vapor. It also works very nice with a variety of different atomizers I swap out occasionally to sample different flavors. It's been about 2 weeks or so and I've learned a lot from this forum and watching videos on youtube. Plus my own experimenting got me even more experience. I found that I like to use atomizers with VG blends over 60% and using cartomizers with at least 50%-60% PG ratios. A 70% PG ratio might be even better but I haven't tried it yet. My favorite juice so far in my tank is Medusa's Juice 60PG/40VG. I also purchased some Aphrodite's Affair in 50/50 juice that also works nicely with my tank. I haven't tried using a high VG ratio in a catomizer yet but I keep reading they cause clogging problems. All the juices I purchased above 60% VG are great in my atomizers! They give off huge vapor clouds and great flavor!

Well anyways this morning I woke up and threw a freshly charged 18650 2000mAh battery in the SB. I have the kick set to level 9, screwed it all together, and tried to take a toot. Got barely any vapor and then nothing at all. After only a week of use I thought, ohh crap, I finally blew out my first atomizer. So then I threw on my Lil Mama tank and still nothing. Did I blow out my carto too? Well this is odd off a fully charged battery? So I took out the battery and noticed the plastic covering on the bottom appeared to have burnt off! Then I looked inside my SB and noticed that the hot coil spring has collapsed!!! Great! Only one week of use and the thing is now completely unusable!!! So I tried calling Altsmoke several times today! I literally was on hold forever and never got through to anyone! So now what? Well I placed an order with them for 6 spare hot coils and 2 upgrade batteries. I got the 3400mAh 18650 batteries this time because the 2000 mAh batteries I used all week only lasted half a day each. They pretty much sucked!!! Hopefully these 3400's will last longer. Anyways now I'm without a mod and smoking a cigarette as I'm writing this. Which sucks for me since I also woke up this morning feeling good about going a week without smoking ! The SB and kick really isn't working out for me as I hoped it would. Especially for all the money spent! It's just really frustrating that I spent so much money for a device that lasted a little over a week. I'm not even sure that the problem won't happen again. I bought 6 spare hot coils and for all I know all 6 will collapse shortly after using them? Anyone know what the problem is?

I really don't think it has anything to do with the atomizers or cartomizers used with the SB. I tested everything with a multi-meter and everything reads correctly as it should. Continuity and ohms were perfect. With the exception of the batteries and one atomizer that reads higher than the ohms it should be. On the battery I keep getting a reading of 4.3 volts which is higher then the 4.2 it's suppose to be at when fully charged. Again this is a 2000 mAh 18650 battery. I even got readings as high as 4.6 on my battery when fully charged. Do you think my battery is overcharging and causing my hot coil to collapse? I charge them at 0.5 amps and also tried charging them at 1 A. The incident did happen after putting a fresh charged battery in the mod. Immediately collapsed the hot coil! I'm wondering if an overcharged battery will heat the device up too much and cause a short. Maybe the kick has something to do with it? At this point I'm not even sure if my kick still works or if my SB is defective. The atomizer I think is broken is reading around 2.7 ohms and it's suppose to be at 1.5 ohms. Is juice clogging the coil to make it read this high? I blew it out and cleaned it with vodka and it still reads the same?

Well this really sucks! lol

I sent Altsmoke 2 emails about the problem and waiting for a reply. Hopefully they will help fix this problem for me and let me exchange whatever is defected or causing this problem. Everything is less than a week old or so. I ordered everything on 5/27 and got it in 4 days afterwards. But like I said earlier it's only been used daily for a week and now it doesn't work at all!!!

And since I don't have a backup device yet to help with quitting cigarettes I'm seriously about to purchase a ProVari instead of another SB! I just hope I can get my SB + kick back up and running too! I have several friends whom I'm also trying to get to quit smoking and when they found out about what happened to my SB today they all basically said, "I told you not to spend all that money on e-cig crap!" Well at this point I can't defend the SB purchase but I hope Altsmoke will fix that shortly. Maybe I'm the unlucky SOB that got a defective SB??? Well I'm not letting something like this make me give up quitting! It really sucks that I'm smoking again but I know that vaping can work! So that's what's going on with my journey! Any thoughts? lol

 

[Sugar_and_Spice]

Sounds to me like you have the kick set too high, especially when already using a low resistance atty/carto. It sounds like you have burned it out. Take the kick out and try it with another atty/carto. See if it is really the SB. Chances are if you burnt the spring end you may have also burned the internals in the SB. Let us know what happens after removing the kick.
ps. Don't go back to smoking cigs. Pick up a disposable at the corner gas station or store.

 

[Anurak]

That might be the problem? I did have the kick set to level 8 all week and turned it up to a 9 the night before this happened. It worked flawlessly all week at level 8 but I wanted to see what level 9 was about. I believe GrimmGreen uses his at level 9 as well. I tried emailing him today as well but no response yet. I also read on another forum that it's possible the center bushing on my SB collapsed and caused the short or that the bushing on the atomizer may have caused this?

silver bullet

As of now I will have to wait until the extra hot coils arrives to test everything out. I'll definitely lower the kick level and try it without using the kick first. Would you suggest only using 2.0 and higher ohm attys/cartos with the kick and using LR attys/cartos only with the SB itself? Is there a formula I can use to calculate everything so that I can minimize the chances of load?

Thanks for the help!

 

[bacc.vap]

Any chance you had the batt in backwards, even for just a moment. That'll do in a Kick right quick.

 

[Anurak]

Honestly I really don't think I did. I've been scarred of this mod blowing up in my face ever since I started using it. LOL. Stories about people blowing their teeth out is enough to scare anyone. Even with all the safety features built in such as the hot spring and the ability to vent through the button, I still feel like freak accidents can happen. I'm pretty much a newb to vaping but I understand how things can possibly go wrong with electronics that use rechargeable batteries. With that said I pretty much double check the mod every time I put it together and press the button to see if it's working correctly before I put it near my face. That sizzle pretty much tells me it's good to go.

When this happened it barely sizzled and then nothing. I immediately put on my tank because I felt the atomizer could be dead and still nothing. Then I opened the device. Remember the hot coil I mentioned that collapsed? Well that thing was hot as hell!!! I pulled it out with a pen and it stayed hot for around a minute or so. Thing was seriously hot. It was so hot it damaged my battery's negative side where the plastic wraps around the bottom. The coil literally scorched it off. So the battery must have been in correctly since the damage to the battery where the coil was hot proves the connection was there.

I tested the damaged battery and it reads 4.2 volts as it should for a fully charged battery. Seems to be fine although I'm not 100% sure I should keep using it because the bottom plastic wrapping is gone. Not sure if that's part of a batteries safety or not?

Well I seriously hope my Kick wasn't damaged? I didn't smell that distinct fried smell that usually happens you blow out an electronics device. I've smelled this quite a lot back in my newbie overclocking cpu days! It smells horrible and seriously sucks. lol. The kick actually looks fine and didn't smell so I hope it's ok? I also didn't notice any smoke emission during the incident. Just the hot coil collapsing. So only one of the 2 safety features needed to work basically. I will have to figure all this out once Altsmoke emails me back or I get the extra coils to run more tests.

If anyone knows anything about these hot spring coils please let me know. Is it normal for the SB to do this because of a problem in the line as a safety feature. If you own a SB how often do you need to replace you hot coil? I bought 6 as backups but still not sure what to think?

 

[~Shado~]

First of all...you had 2 levels of safety working in your favor....the hot spring and the kick.
As for what caused the fault.....hard to tell....obviously something failed.

Running the Kick at 9 watts...not a problem....you were actually limiting the load that a lot of vapers put on a Silver Bullet when they just use a 1.5 ohm atty.
At the full 10 watt setting, fully charged battery, 1.7 ohm carto/atty....you are at a calculated 10.3 watts/2.47 amps...but the Kick will be limiting it to 10 watts and 2.3 amps.
A simple 1.5 ohm atty moves these figures up to 11.76 watts and 2.8 amps...well within working range for the Silver Bullet.

I use mine with the Kick at 10 watts and LR cartos often...and....no issues....but mainly just use LR atty on it.

I would tend to think your carto/atty "tweeked" while attaching it and created the short at the connector.....and the hot spring did its job.

 

[~Shado~]

I posted and then read you last post.....

I have had my SB for a few years...and have yet to replace my hot spring....I do however have a spring for backup, just in case. ;-)

 

[Anurak]

Thank you very much for answering. I did forget that the kick limits you at 10 watts and is an additional safety feature. I really hope I didn't fry it.

"I would tend to think your carto/atty "tweeked" while attaching it and created the short at the connector.....and the hot spring did its job."


I was using my 510 to 510 adapter and a 510 yetti LR atomizer with a drip shield this morning when this happened. What do you mean by tweeked while attaching it? Is it possible the adapter messed up the line to cause the fault and spring to collapse? I really didn't do anything different than usual to screw on the atomizer. It usually just screws on and I never over-tighten it. Just snug enough. I can say that I've only used the 510 to 510 adapter for using a drip shied for a day or so before this happened?

 

[Anurak]

Ouch! So I guess I ordered 6 for no reason? lol. I guess I'll have to send a few back once I figure out what's wrong. Obviously nobody else has had a problem. Maybe my SB or Kick is defective? Or I'm doing something wrong? Which I don't think I am. Everything has been working great for over a week until this happened.

 

[~Shado~]

Yea...by tweeked that is what I mean.....while attaching it, it is possible that it was put on a bit too tight, or simply just leaned (tweeked) of center enough to make contact and allow the short to happen.

I wouldn't worry too much until you get your springs in and can then do proper testing to see what the issue is.

The Silver Bullet is a solid device and a great performer....built very well....you didn't waste any money on investing in it.
There are vapers here who have every color SB put out in their possession...and is their main device.

 

[Anurak]

Cool! Thanks a lot for the advice. I really hope Altsmoke will be cool about this. I don't mind paying for replacement parts such as hot coils, batteries, and possibly the kick again one day when the circuit board goes bad because of heat. But 1 week of use and broken is ridiculous! I guess only time will tell how this ends up for me. If my Kick is dead I will be expecting them to replace it for free. My order is technically less than 14 days old considering it was purchased on 5/27 and I didn't get it for half a week. Plus I started using everything on Monday June 3rd. And on 6/12 dead!!!

Technically replacement coils and batteries shouldn't need to be replaced anytime shorter than several months down the road of heavy usage, if even that. Unfortunately for me I already need a new battery and spring coil to replace the damaged ones. If the short did happen because of tweeking then it shouldn't be the user's fault. Especially if no warning about doing this was given! If this is truly the case then unscrewing the battery before attaching the atty/carto to the SB would be the best routine to prevent this? I've been doing it the opposite and attaching the atty/carto last which seems to be the norm?

Well I emailed Altsmoke to cancel my order for 6 additional hot springs and the 2 extra batteries and just told them to call me. I will also try calling them early when they open to see if I can get a hold of someone who can help me. At most I will pay for 2 extra hot coils and maybe the 2 upgraded batteries. Anything else I'd consider a waste of money at this point! Especially if my Kick is dead and no replacement warranty! For all I know the Kick caused the fault or something is wrong with my SB itself such as the firing mechanism?

I'll let everyone know what happens! Hopefully everything works out!

 

[Anurak]

At least all the juices I bought from 4 different vendors will have some time to steep before I get to try them out. I ordered some samples from Alice in vapeland, Fuzion Vapor, Zeus Juices, and Mt.Baker. I haven't even tried a 1/4 of what I purchased yet! Until my mod gets fixed or I buy a better one as a primary or backup, I will be smoking cigarettes. lol. I refuse to get ripped off on disposables at the gas station. Especially when I haven't even quit for long yet. I'm definitely buying a backup device sometime today with a good reputation if not better than the SB. I've been looking at the ProVaris since it has a digital volt meter installed. I was wanting another SB as a backup in a different color or one for my gf who has become fond of mine. She doesn't even smoke so technically she doesn't need one yet. lol. But until I figure out what's wrong with mine I definitely won't be one of those guys that has more than one of the same mod. Especially if the first week using it gives me this kind of problem. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. At least for a long time! And I use to think Ego's were bad! lol. Those at least lasted a few weeks before needing anything replaced. Usually just the carto's or those weird looking clearomizer tanks. But still the vapor production isn't that great in the Ego's I've tried. If you guys were me what would you upgrade to to possibly replace the SB as a primary mod?

 

[Anurak]

I posted this reply in another thread but if anyone stumbles across this one I wanted to address the problem and solution to this post!

Well I just found out what the problem is with my SB! The center post insulator o-ring has fallen out of the center post of my SB and caused the mod to fail when fired! How did it fall out? Who knows? Maybe I over tightened it and messed it up or it was possibly defective in the first place and would have eventually failed anyways. I will definitely be more careful when putting it together in the future once it gets fixed.

Even though this situation has seriously railroaded my attempt to quit smoking and frustrated the hell out of me trying to figure out what's wrong with my mod, I have to give props to Altsmoke for being so cool about fixing it for me. All I have to do now is send it in and wait for them to fix it and return it. So as of now Altsmoke is definitely a A+++ vendor in my opinion. Sure I bought a mod that broke in a little over a week but .... happens. This is most likely my fault as well even though I thought I knew how to properly use it. Being very careful when connecting the atty/cartos will be top priority once I get it back. They should have an instruction sheet that comes with the SB to warn against this! Maybe the manufacturer will consider writing one? Hopefully this doesn't happen to me again for a long, long time!!! lol. Next time I guess paying for the repair is most likely and I wouldn't have a problem with it as long as it's not too ridiculously priced considering what needs to get fixed. The SB + kick is definitely one of the best vapes I've ever had when it works! I still need to buy another mod as a backup! I want to vape now!!! lol

Anyways, I feel a lot better about the situation. Thanks for trying to help everyone!!! As for the my next mod! I've already decided on a ProVari! You just can't beat the warranty it comes with! In my opinion ProVape is the most professional vendor site I've visited to buy from. The guarantee they provide with their products seems to be top notch and I don't have to think twice about wanting to be their customer! I'm sold!!!