Smok XPro M80 Plus - new version, v6 firmware: temperature control testing results

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Hello, this seems like the right place to ask - do we know how the smok XPro M80 Plus (v0006) performs using the Temperature Control feature?

Obviously the dna 40 uses the Nickel 200 wire's resistance to ballpark the temperature and controls the wattage, etc. but how does the M80 work?

I see it's been mentioned a few times, but I haven't found a real answer anywhere except speculation (which is fine too). The big part that through me for a loop was when I heard kanthal could be used in replace of nickel, for TC. It make's sense that perhaps it just has a prebuilt table of data that it can figure out what temp it's at by some other variables, but this is what I want to know...

Please enlighten me, if anyone knows :) thanks!
 

TheBloke

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Hello, this seems like the right place to ask - do we know how the SMOK XPro M80 Plus (v0006) performs using the Temperature Control feature?

Obviously the DNA 40 uses the Nickel 200 wire's resistance to ballpark the temperature and controls the wattage, etc. but how does the M80 work?

I see it's been mentioned a few times, but I haven't found a real answer anywhere except speculation (which is fine too). The big part that through me for a loop was when I heard kanthal could be used in replace of nickel, for TC. It make's sense that perhaps it just has a prebuilt table of data that it can figure out what temp it's at by some other variables, but this is what I want to know...

Please enlighten me, if anyone knows :) thanks!

Have you read through this thread..? It explains most of my findings thus far. My suspicion at the moment is that it has no temperature control as such, instead it has a pre-programmed range of wattages that it fires when you choose a given temperature. Yes that's a pre-built table, but it's not TC - it's just a range of wattages that it fires at, based on the starting resistance and the chosen temperature. So far as I can see it doesn't actually monitor the temperature - or even the resistance once firing starts - to vary what it fires.

See the video I posted on page two of this thread, and my notes above that.

In my first test of it, I did feel like it was doing something useful. I emptied my tank and kept firing it and I got no burnt taste. But then in my second test, I very definitely burnt my coil; and when I looked at the wattages it was firing, it was always the same range of figures (as seen in the video), regardless of the coil's actual temperature.

I'm still not completely sure on what the hell it's doing. I'll try and post a further video with further analysis later tonight.

But if you don't have the M80 and are thinking of getting one for TC : don't.

The DNA 40 (and the Chinese clones of it) is the only chip that is known to have real temperature control at the moment - available in various original and clone mods (I've got a Vapor Flask clone on order from china for which I paid $80 including shipping.)

And the IPV4 will be out next week, using the new Yihi chip that claims to have it too. (Or maybe you can get it sooner than next week - my preferred UK supplier said he wasn't getting stock until next week, as they delayed the first shipment so they could pre-install the Yihi firmware that enables TC.)
 
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Aha! Yes I have been reading through this thread and that's why I thought I would ask here, also seemed like you were making progress. I personally have a 'Cana Modz' that works great and waited for the second run of these M80's to try out for myself (one's one the way now), the way I look at it is there isn't many PV's out there that do something other than watts.

Anyway, I just stumbled across this video which makes a lot of sense and perhaps it's been seen before but this is all new for me. I am very interested in how it works rather than just a cotton burning test.



I will be lurking around, please keep us updated on your findings :D can't wait for the video.

Thanks
 

TheBloke

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Hey, I didn't get a rubber button!

I'd completely forgotten about that until now, but since you mentioned it I now remember seeing reviews talking about a changeable button.

Well, I don't have one. Just checked the box again: I got a manual, USB cable, and an eGo adapter in a baggy. Nothing else.

Maybe they stopped providing that with the latest versions? Or maybe it's just me that's missing one. Tell us when you get yours if you get one!

I think it's very unlikely that I would have changed it even if I did have it. My button doesn't rattle any more, and even if it did, I wouldn't consider that to be enough of a problem to worth risking taking it apart - not that I can't take things apart, but I don't have a super high opinion of this Smok's quality so who knows what could happen when I dismantled it.

In fact if they have stopped providing the button, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the reason - people opening it and finding a mess, or it not fitting back together properly or whatever. Or maybe they just found careless people were damaging them when trying to install the button and it was causing too many returns.

With Smok, who knows! But yeah, not even an option to try and change it for me at least.
 

TheBloke

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Oh, and if you need another example of Smok's.. tenuous association with quality (at least with this model):

The USB cable that comes with it is:
  • One of the shortest USB cables I've ever seen; forget pass-through vaping using this cable
  • Not a data cable. That'd be fine on most mods, but not on a mod that advertises "upgradeable firmware" as a big feature!
    • In fact their instructions for upgrading the firmware say "Take a USB cable from your Samsung phone or MVP" - it actually tells you to use the cable from a competing manufacturer's mod :laugh:

Actually I'm not super down on Smok overall. I think this mod has been poor from start to finish in many ways. But my first tanks were the Smok VCT (of which I bought three), followed by the Smok GCT, and they're all really good for the price. Build quality isn't excellent, but the VCT is nearly half the price of the Kangers and Atlantis, and is by no means half the tank. I also have a whole bunch of different Smok coils, and they make more different coil head types than any other tank manufacturer (six different types in all.) Plus I now have two of their RBA sections, which work in both the VCT and GCT, and they're really nice, better than the Kanger RBAs in several ways.

So I do like Smok, and I think they're making several interesting contributions to the market. I just think they really need to buck up their ideas on quality and communication.

If they'd released the exact same M80 but with no mention of Temperature Control, instead calling it "Wattage range mode to help reduce dry hits" or something, I think a lot more people would think this is a good mod, and great value. They over-promised and under-delivered on this one.
 

rowsley

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I've got 10foot USB cables for my ps4 if I ever need to use them. Yeah it seems they are in hiding as far as the m80 goes. Not replying to emails and not one official announcement about this updated version that I have seen. If it works good as a 80 watt device I'll be happy. I use RDA mostly anymore and I know well enough if I'm going to have a dry hit.
 

TheotherSteveS

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Yeah we talked about that video earlier in this thread, check back. His test is wrong, he's just getting the 12 second cut out that happens in every mode and isn't related to TC.

I just watched that video. It is 8 minutes of waffling, unsupportable BS. What an amazing tale he tells of this mystical effect he is seeing - the 12 second cutoff...Oh dear!
 

jimmyw1986

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Mar 25, 2015
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I've been experimenting and know that my kanger subtank mini with a nickel build will never read correctly with a nickel build. It will jump from .16 to .24. Has anyone else had any issues with that? I made sure the contacts were secured. I have a dna 40 clone vapor flask and the readings stay the same. I just hate that I'll get a small amount of flavor and vapor to a huge ... hit.
 

TheBloke

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Jump when exactly? Between fires, or without firing it? If it's without firing, then that just sounds like a 510 connection issue - the 510 on my M80 is not nearly as smooth as my iStick 50W, and it's a lot more work to tighten a tank or RBA down fully. And yes I do see changes of resistances as I'm tightening; I tend to use my iStick 50W for reference - once the resistance on the M80 reads in the same area as the iStick, I assume it's tightened enough.

But during/after firing is a different matter. Nickel is meant to jump noticeably in resistance during firing - that's why nickel is used for (proper) temperature control, because its resistance increases fairly linearly as its temperature increases.

I don't have any Kanger Nickel coils, but I've done some experimenting with Smok's own Ni200 coils. My coil will read 0.20 (or lately, 0.22) when cold, and then tends to jump to 0.30 - 0.35 once it's had a vape or two on it. I thought that was entirely to be expected.

So your DNA 40 doesn't show that?

Of course one major issue with the Smok is that it has no live resistance reading - or at least, it doesn't display resistance live. But my feeling is it doesn't read it live, either. So it always shows whatever the resistance was from the last fire - and, I'm pretty sure, that's the start of the last fire. Even if you take the atty off, it'll still be showing that last resistance, until you hit fire again.

I'm almost certain that if you were to watch your DNA 40 screen while firing a nickel coil, you'd see it go from (for example) 0.20 quickly to 0.30 to 0.35. In fact I've seen that for sure, on pbusardo's Evolv DNA 40 review (part two, where he talks in detail about TC.)

The difference with the DNA 40 (both original and, hopefully, clones) is that it should display the current, live resistance at all times. Pretty quickly that coil will cool down again and so it should only show the higher resistances for a short while, before fairly soon returning to the base resistance. So you might only see the raised resistances if you watch it during a fire.

Can you explain in more detail what you're seeing? I'd in particular be interested to hear about the Flask DNA 40 clone, because I have one on order! If that isn't showing the resistance rising from 0.16 during a fire, that's not great; though I've heard from many people that the DNA 40 clones do work with TC, so at most it'd be a display issue. But that'd still be frustrating.
 
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jimmyw1986

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Mar 25, 2015
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I'll definitely take a look for you when I get the chance. My first vapor flask from focalecig.com broke down after only 1 hour of use. The screen wouldn't turn on and it was a dud. I'm getting my other vapor flask from them. Should be here in less than a week. The vapor flask is a kangaxin v3 flask. On the M80 plus, I just don't like the fact that almost every other pull I take, it's not giving me a consistent hit. So, I just put in my kanthal build and tried temp mode. I know it's probably not doing anything for me, but i'm not getting any dry hits at all. I even had it at 30 watts and no issues.
 

TheBloke

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I'll definitely take a look for you when I get the chance. My first vapor flask from focalecig.com broke down after only 1 hour of use. The screen wouldn't turn on and it was a dud. I'm getting my other vapor flask from them. Should be here in less than a week. The vapor flask is a kangaxin v3 flask. On the M80 plus, I just don't like the fact that almost every other pull I take, it's not giving me a consistent hit. So, I just put in my kanthal build and tried temp mode. I know it's probably not doing anything for me, but i'm not getting any dry hits at all. I even had it at 30 watts and no issues.

Ah OK - so any issues you had with resistance not updating would very likely be down to the whole unit being faulty.

I've found the hit to be OK from the M80 - I wonder if you have a loose 510 or something, so the resistance keeps changing (for reasons other than temperature) and so it keeps changing the volts fired at?



Did you get your M80 today, rowsley? Any thoughts?
 
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