USB Passthru works intermittently now...

[jmvallee]

I love my passthru but suddenly it only works every other time I press the button. This was the first one I ordered & has been used a lot for about a month.

Atty is fine cuz I put it on a battery and it was ok..

I have no probs (so far) with my other 2 (newer) passthrus.

Any ideas

(not an electronics person, so can only tell you the battery is blue lol)

 

[Levi]

Mine has the same problem. Ive seen a review that also talked about that being a problem. They are just made crappy. I have just ordered my passthrough from puresmoker

 

[ramblingrose]

I've been through this, and the fix is easy. Your battery is probably no good, so try a fresh one. If the PT is new, have the supplier send a new battery.

 

[TheLizinator]

I still don't get why there needs to be a battery on the USB passthrough. Can someone enlighten me?

 

[kingofyo1]

the usb system acts like a charger in the same way that you'd use a UPS system on your computer. when i say UPS i mean uninterruptable power supply. its a backup in case the system loses power.

 

[Less is more]

I'm having trouble with my 510 USB passthrough also after less than a month of use. If the power comes from the computer, then I thought the battery was merely so you could unplug it and use it away from the computer. (Obviously not a techie.) If it's there in case of a power loss, then is it worth the bother to try a battery replacement?

If so, can you buy replacement batteries at radio shack to test and see if that's the problem? What specific type of battery it takes?

Not happy at all with this development so soon. These passthroughs are pricey and should last a heckuva lot longer than a month.

Is there a way that your computer software can shut down power to that port?

Thanks -- I know this was rambling, but I REALLY could use some help here.

 

[JasonL]

If so, can you buy replacement batteries at radio shack to test and see if that's the problem? What specific type of battery it takes?

If all you see is "blue" roll that battery around or take it out, there should be some printing on it. Mine uses a typical e-cigar battery I believe: ICR10440 360mAh.

Better yet, just take the battery over to the Shack and tell them you want another one just like it.

Also, I believe many of the sites that carry e-cigars have those batteries for sale as well.

 

[Less is more]

Thank you very much! I will take it with me. (Duh -- should have thought of that myself! ) I'm hoping that this will be the fix.

I wonder if I just "blew the thing up" with constant vaping. It's so much weaker than the regular batteries that I catch myself vaping a lot more.

 

[a2dcovert]

I've been through this, and the fix is easy. Your battery is probably no good, so try a fresh one. If the PT is new, have the supplier send a new battery.

I tried swaping the battery and it had no effect. I also put in a 600mah battery in the case and it made a slight difference. The problem is that most of these passthroughs from Joye/pillbox38 are defective. The charging/protection circuit is defective and is limiting the power, current, through the circuit.

Some have bypassed the circuit and got a big difference until the on/off switch burned out due to extra voltage. It's junk and I have cut it up and used the parts in a mod.

Kevin

 

[breno]

I still don't get why there needs to be a battery on the USB passthrough. Can someone enlighten me?

The USB port on a computer can only supply about 1/2 an amp, however the atty requires 2 amps so you have a bit of a problem there.

Thus it seems the abttery has to supply 1.5 amps with just 0.5 amps from the USB when you press the button. When the button is not pressed the USB recharges the battery, so assuming you don't draw to often or too much it will seem like a constant 2 amp supply, untill the battery fails of course.

It seems like a bit of a 'con' to me as you still require batteries, I got the USB thinking I would be avoiding batteries!!

There is a passthrough without a battery available maybe from puresmoker but maybe it's for a different ecig but I don't see how this can work from a USB port as a USB port can only supply 1/2 an amp!!

I am a bit anoyed about that becauseI want to avoid batteries altogeather.
You could get your power from a seperate USB power supply such as those used for charging, but all the ones I have seen also only supply 1/2 an amp so you are back to square one.

So I think I wil be looking at buying a power adaptor which can actually supply 2 amps and then 'butchering' the USB passthrough to connect it to that.
something like this for example
AC/DC Multi-Voltage 5/4A Switched Mode Power Supply : Switched Mode Power Supplies : Maplin
It's £20 ($33) however in theory you should never have to buy a battery
and it should last 'forever'.
Also it produce 5V rather than 3.7 V so it will produce a lot more 80% more vapour which may or may not be desirable, however I could put a resistor in the circuit to drop it down to 3.7V. Infact I may well put a variable resistor in so I can try different voltages!!

Actually I should just update what I have said above:-
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/uk-e-smokers/36738-battery-usb-pass-through.html#post561658

Your standard USB port ( more so on older PC's ) will only supply 500mA of power to a device before it needs to negotiate with the host and request a higher output. an ecig passthrough currently cannot interface with your PC to request that power increase.

Your standard ecig can draw up to 1500mA of power. This is why if you want to run a passthrough without a battery you will see most people use a mains powered USB hub which can deliver a higher ( 1500mA ) amperage without negotiation.

So maybe you can run it from a USB hub, kind of gets a bit confusing.

 

[Vex444]

I never relized you can unplug the usb passthrough and it still works. Been vaping on it for an hour now and it stll going. Is this not good for the battery?

 

[KevinD872]

I never relized you can unplug the usb passthrough and it still works. Been vaping on it for an hour now and it stll going. Is this not good for the battery?

I do that all the time. I probably wouldn't let it get too discharged though. So if you notice a big difference in performance, I'd plug it back in and let it charge for a while. Can't say for sure if that is bad for the battery. I suppose it was probably intended to always be plugged in when in use, but I wouldn't sweat it too much so long as you don't let it discharge too much as said above.

 

[Elapid]

Get the USB passthrough from Pure Smoker! They are a little pricey but killer passthroughs without the battery. They make it for the 801, 901, and 510, I have all of them. Pure Smoker makes the best equipment, at least the best I have ever bought. Totally happy with my Prodigy and now their passthroughs. Everything I have ordered from PS is the bomb, they make great hardware. I'm going to get their new Protege just because I know it will be more solid equipment manufactured by PS.

JMO, Elapid----<

 

[dougp925]

Hi guys, I also have a 510 pass-thru and started experiencing the same intermittency. I also wasn't satisfied with the power it was delivering to the atty. I feel that a fully charged normal battery performed better than the passthru. I'm an electrical engineer so I opened up the case(which is only held together by one screw) and completely removed the battery and charging circuit. It is very simple to do even if your not electrically inclined. Simply connect(solder or twist together and put tape around it) the two wires coming from the cable from the PC to the two wires going to the ecig. My passthru is no longer intermittent and performs just as good, if not better than a fully charged battery. This is because the USB power is at 5v and a fully charged battery is around 4.1v.

Now to clear up a common misconception. A usb port on a PC can deliver more than 1500mA. I have 2 pass thru's for two different models that connect directly to my laptop and deliver plenty of power to the atty's. I have never gotten a message from windows indicating that the USB port power is overloaded. I'm not sure what the PC manufacturers spec the usb port power capability to be, but I know from experience that the multiple DELL PC's that I have used my passthru's on deliver full power to the atty.
Using Ohms law shows that a 3 ohm atomiser coil at 5 volts will draw (5/3) Amps or 1.67 Amps. (1,667mA) So don't be afraid to take that charger and battery out of the passthru, it works 100% better without them.
-Doug

 

[a2dcovert]

If the server will stay up long enough, I wanted to warn you that the switch in that passthrough is not rated for that much current. Others have done what you have only to have the switch fail.

Kevin

 

[dougp925]

Thats interesting b/c by doing so, I've only increased the current through the switch by 18 - 20% max. I'd be surprised if the switch was so closely rated to begin with. Usb passthru's would fail left and right just under normal use of people who take 20 second pulls(which I dont). Switches could also be failing b/c people are letting fluid get into them. 510's are notorious for leaking, and it can leak along the outside and right into the switch. Ive had a few close calls myself. I modified 3 passthru's this way and so far I have no probs with any of them. THough I did have prob's begore I modified them. If a switch fails, I'll definitely post back here to let people know.
-Doug
-DOug

 

[greenie]

 

[a2dcovert]

Thats interesting b/c by doing so, I've only increased the current through the switch by 18 - 20% max. I'd be surprised if the switch was so closely rated to begin with. Usb passthru's would fail left and right just under normal use of people who take 20 second pulls(which I dont). Switches could also be failing b/c people are letting fluid get into them. 510's are notorious for leaking, and it can leak along the outside and right into the switch. Ive had a few close calls myself. I modified 3 passthru's this way and so far I have no probs with any of them. THough I did have prob's begore I modified them. If a switch fails, I'll definitely post back here to let people know.
-Doug
-DOug

I'm going to have to get me a good multimeter. My Fluke migrated to my Son's tool kit several years ago.

My point is that if your stock pass through is like mine was, it would easily work on a 500ma DC power source. After doing the bypass it smoked that dc power source. Also I tried a 1amp ac to dc power source and it wouldn't power it either. So one can assume that there is a significant increase in current. If the switch is rated for < 500ma then it could burn from over-current.

I now use a nicostick I made earlier by simply wiring in a standard USB 2.0 cable and removed the 14500 battery. Works like a champ, cost almost nothing.

Kevin