Smok X Cube II 160watt TC Bluetooth $55.9 coupon

[Devlinukr]

Yep From Crazy Wire. Bought 0.35 SS and NiFi. Seeing your post just made me take a close look at them. The NiFe on the roll has a very slightly matter then the SS.
Haven't had a chance to try them yet as my XCube seems to be fooked. Can't log into the app to activate SS. The mod in nickel mode gives all or nothing. EG @200 degrees it takes your head off. Drop it down 10 degrees and not a whisper of vaper. Been ficking around with it all day.

I had the exact same problem with titanium (I don't have any nickel) so like Mad Scientist says probably a problem with the 510 pin.

Been vaping it all night and the difference is night and day, had the same deal with it literally burning the wicks one second and flat as a pancake the next.

 

[TheBloke]

Yep From Crazy Wire. Bought 0.35 SS and NiFi. Seeing your post just made me take a close look at them. The NiFe on the roll has a very slightly matter then the SS.
Haven't had a chance to try them yet as my XCube seems to be fooked. Can't log into the app to activate SS. The mod in nickel mode gives all or nothing. EG @200 degrees it takes your head off. Drop it down 10 degrees and not a whisper of vaper. Been ficking around with it all day.

So the NiFe does appear to be different to the SS?

If you get a chance, would you mind making a coil of the NiFe - 8 wraps times 3mm or something like that - and putting it on any atomizer and any mod and telling me the resistance of it? Any mod with two decimal place resistance reading will be fine. Thanks mate

 

[TheBloke]

The good news is Smok's backend is working again so I was able to re-enable Titanium and pay my $0.99 for SS.

The bad news is SS is simply completely broken. Tried three different SS 304 builds that are working on my Dicodes and my Apollo Reliants and my SXKs. All of them give no vapour whatsoever on the Smok, screen shows it firing at 0.5W.

That's TCR 0.00105 which is the correct value. I'll try other values later. But first indications is it's utterly broken.

 

[TheBloke]

Tried TCR 0.0008 and 0.00140, no difference.

The bizarre thing is that it shows a massive resistance rise - both on screen and via BT to the app. For example it shows a 0.60Ω coil SS increasing in resistance to 0.93Ω, which equates to temperature rising to 550°C. So no surprise it wouldn't put power to the coil, but how the hell is it seeing the resistance rise that high? There's no way the coil is actually changing its resistance that much. And if it's getting flaky resistance readings, why only with SS and not Ti?

Also, this is not unique to SS mode. Vaping the SS coils in Ti mode shows the same massive resistance rises, eg 0.60 -> 0.91Ω. So even if I set Ti mode to 100-130°C, it still gives no vapour, where it should in fact be over-heating the coil at those temps in Ti mode with TCR 0.0035.

Just weird.

 

[Devlinukr]

The good news is Smok's backend is working again so I was able to re-enable Titanium and pay my $0.99 for SS.

The message board on that Smok app are horrific, just message after message of people who have absolutely zero idea what they've bought or how to use it.

Mine is still working fine with ti as far as I can tell since I opened it up last night but I don't have any other tc devices to compare it to. Just being able to get a decent hit and being able to raise/lower settings without it crapping out is great for now.

 

[TheBloke]

The message board on that Smok app are horrific, just message after message of people who have absolutely zero idea what they've bought or how to use it.

Mine is still working fine with ti as far as I can tell since I opened it up last night but I don't have any other tc devices to compare it to. Just being able to get a decent hit and being able to raise/lower settings without it crapping out is great for now.

Yeah it's pretty much fine with Titanium - albeit probably still needing the temperature set a bit higher than you actually want. I haven't tested that properly in 1.092 but my subjective impression is that I still need to set the temp higher.

Perhaps not as much higher as I did before, I can't yet be sure. When I vaped Titanium on it this afternoon I had it set to 240-245°C, which is 10-15°C higher than I normally set my Titanum builds (230°C). When I was vaping on it before, with FW 1.07 and 1.08, I usually had 250-255°C.

So the required offset might have reduced a bit but I'm not properly comparing like for like so I can't be sure yet.

 

[Barry Hill]

Yeah it's pretty much fine with Titanium - albeit probably still needing the temperature set a bit higher than you actually want. I haven't tested that properly in 1.092 but my subjective impression is that I still need to set the temp higher.

Perhaps not as much higher as I did before, I can't yet be sure. When I vaped Titanium on it this afternoon I had it set to 240-245°C, which is 10-15°C higher than I normally set my Titanum builds (230°C). When I was vaping on it before, with FW 1.07 and 1.08, I usually had 250-255°C.

So the required offset might have reduced a bit but I'm not properly comparing like for like so I can't be sure yet.

I am finding the same as you with Titanium when I was using 1.091 firmware was setting the titanium temp to 520 degrees F but now seems to give a similar vape on 480 degrees F so I am finding the same thing as you wont be getting any stainless steel until I see some positive results with people using stainless. But seeing that Smok are releasing a Stainless steel temp control coil for the TVF4 I would hope they will end up fixing the stainless steel option at some point.

 

[TheBloke]

I am finding the same as you with Titanium when I was using 1.091 firmware was setting the titanium temp to 520 degrees F but now seems to give a similar vape on 480 degrees F so I am finding the same thing as you wont be getting any stainless steel until I see some positive results with people using stainless. But seeing that Smok are releasing a Stainless steel temp control coil for the TVF4 I would hope they will end up fixing the stainless steel option at some point.

Good to hear, thanks. The 1 .092 did specifically say it had fixed/reduced underheating problems; the trouble is it said it was for Ni200 only. But seems like that may not be the case after all. I will temp test it properly soon.

As for the SS, I have absolutely no idea what is going on. It's thoroughly bizarre. More testing later.

 

[TheLordWinter]

Got my XCube II about a week, week and a half ago, and I'm loving the performance on regular mode. Haven't dived into temp control yet, but I'm eyeing some 316L SS wire and plan to start experimenting with it in the next couple weeks. Menus are really nice, too. Easy to navigate, and pretty self-explanatory.

The only thing I don't like about it is the lights. I keep mine turned off as they seem to produce a noticeable loss of battery life when turned on. Since this is my first 18650 mod, I picked up a couple different sets of the most popular batteries... 2 pairs of VTC4's from IMRBatteries , a pair of HG2's (came highly recommended by my local shop), and a pair of Samsung 25R greens both from the aforementioned local shop, and I've noticed decreased charge life on both the VTC4's and the HG6's when the lights are on, haven't tried it with the 25R's as I just got them yesterday and they went into use for the first time today, not sure if I'm gonna bother, logic and common sense say I'm gonna see the same thing... it IS an extra power draw when they're turned on, after all.

All that said, since I can turn the lights off, it's just a ding and not a serious fault against Smok. It's there if I want it, and not there if I don't. That's all I care about.

Upgrading the firmware can be a bit tricky at first. First, you must turn download on in the device menu, then you have to do the version check on the upgrade tool before you plug the mod in, THEN you have to hold down the fire button for the entire remainder of the process until it tells you that the upgrade is finished. Let go of that button even a split second and it's going to throw that error at you and you'll have to start over. Once you get the hang of it, though, it's pretty simple and quick.

All in all, it's a a solid mod for me so far and I've got no real complaints. Smok is hammering out firmware updates pretty quickly and, having been a PC tech for quite a number of years, this makes me much more forgiving in the face of the bugs that have been reported on functionality as it shows they are well in control of the situation and we need only be patient.

As a final note, right now I'm vaping on a .27 dual nichrome80 clapton setup in a Mutation X V4 with my XCube II and it's heaven. Not sure on the gauges used, the clapton wire was given to me at my local vape shop to try out the last time I went in to pick up juice, I only wrapped the coils from it. They recommended 6-8 wraps, and I used 7.

My recommendation... if you're curious about the XCube II, pull the trigger and bring one home. At worst, you get a secondary mod that anyone would be pretty happy to have on hand. At best, you love it as much as I do and end up wanting extras.

 

[TheBloke]

Upgrading the firmware can be a bit tricky at first. First, you must turn download on in the device menu, then you have to do the version check on the upgrade tool before you plug the mod in, THEN you have to hold down the fire button for the entire remainder of the process until it tells you that the upgrade is finished. Let go of that button even a split second and it's going to throw that error at you and you'll have to start over. Once you get the hang of it, though, it's pretty simple and quick.

Ah interesting, maybe that's why the new upgrade tool didn't work. I'd wondered why that setting was even there, and I didn't go to Download on the mod before trying the new tool. This resulted in it wiping settings but not applying the FW.

With the old method, that on-mod Download setting system was not required. And the instructions on the new tool also mention nothing about it at all, just to remove the batteries and hold the bar.

I'll try this when they put out the next update. Thanks.

 

[Croak]

I really doubt the lights are drawing that much power. It's four LEDs (two top, two bottom) and those use power in the low milliwatt range. All four together might take 0.2 watts to run. That is barely going to be noticeable or measurable in normal use.

For example, with your 3000mAh LG batteries in your cube, you've got 22 watt hours of power, so it would take nearly FIVE DAYS of steady illumination to discharge with those LEDs alone.

 

[TheLordWinter]

Ah interesting, maybe that's why the new upgrade tool didn't work. I'd wondered why that setting was even there, and I didn't go to Download on the mod before trying the new tool. This resulted in it wiping settings but not applying the FW.

With the old method, that on-mod Download setting system was not required. And the instructions on the new tool also mention nothing about it at all, just to remove the batteries and hold the bar.

I'll try this when they put out the next update. Thanks.

My pleasure, friend. Hope it helps. It was the only problem I ran into during my firmware updates. I did, however, only ever have to use the new update program. 1.08 was already on mine, and I've only done the 1.09 and 1.092 updates, myself.

I really doubt the lights are drawing that much power. It's four LEDs (two top, two bottom) and those use power in the low milliwatt range. All four together might take 0.2 watts to run. That is barely going to be noticeable or measurable in normal use.

For example, with your 3000mAh LG batteries in your cube, you've got 22 watt hours of power, so it would take nearly FIVE DAYS of steady illumination to discharge with those LEDs alone.

You know, I thought the same thing, Croak. While it is not a horrible loss of battery duration, it is definitely more than barely noticeable. Edit: If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it reduces my batt life by between about 15 and 30 puffs.

 

[RingaDing]

So the NiFe does appear to be different to the SS?

If you get a chance, would you mind making a coil of the NiFe - 8 wraps times 3mm or something like that - and putting it on any atomizer and any mod and telling me the resistance of it? Any mod with two decimal place resistance reading will be fine. Thanks mate

Coming in @ 0.57 8Wx3mm

 

[RingaDing]

The good news is Smok's backend is working again so I was able to re-enable Titanium and pay my $0.99 for SS.

The bad news is SS is simply completely broken. Tried three different SS 304 builds that are working on my Dicodes and my Apollo Reliants and my SXKs. All of them give no vapour whatsoever on the Smok, screen shows it firing at 0.5W.

That's TCR 0.00105 which is the correct value. I'll try other values later. But first indications is it's utterly broken.

Getting the same issue. I have managed to get the atty firing. Took the temp to 420 at which point the atty started to fire. Slowly brought temp down to 330. The vape is very inconsistent and as such can only be said to be broken.

You're right in respect to the ohm reading. My 0.71 goes up to 0.97.

 

[TheBloke]

Coming in @ 0.57 8Wx3mm

That's Stainless Steel 304. OK so it's not just me. Utter fools they are. You should contact them and inform them that a) you've heard there were problems with the NiFe and therefore b) you've measured the resistance of your wire, and that you found approximately 100mm of wire has a resistance of 0.57 which matches Stainless Steel and matches what others have found with their same wire.

 

[Devlinukr]

I now think the problem with the device is it's under rating coils on a constant basis (at least with my titanium coils). I woke up this morning, put my tank on and almost no vapour whatsoever, checked out the coil and it's reading .375, cranked it up to .425 and it's running fine again.

 

[JoeBattams]

Hiya, so it looks like their 'new' firmware flashing tool doesn't always work, and since they've removed all mention to the PCB manufacturers flashing tool that was on their site previously, I thought i'd upload it for anyone who doesn't have it. I've uploaded it as 7-Zip, but had to re-name it to 'txt' to allow it to be uploaded to these forums, just download and rename from 'txt' to '7z'.

You'll still need their 'new' tool to download the .hex firmware file, but then you can use this to flash the file.

The main things to note if I recall:

Firstly, once connected to the Xcube 2- select the 'erase' radio button at the bottom and erase the existing firmware on the device to prevent corruption.

Then select APROM+Config, in the config setting ensure that the file size is 52.00KB

Go back to main screen and and flash the firmware!

 

[Devlinukr]

When you say it doesn't work do you mean it screws up the installation or just completely doesn't work? I updated using the latest tool and didn't have a problem and my cube says version 1.92 or whatever but it's flaky as .....

 

[JoeBattams]

Ah fair enough, when I tried it, it just remained at 1.091, I assumed it was because it wasn't 'erasing' the old one firmware properly since it just seemed to do one 'pass' when flashing...

 

[Devlinukr]

Their app is borked again, I now have the option for "active temperature control" but have as and titanium unlocked.

Incompetence.