Vapor Flask V3 DNA40 Clone thread

[Mooch]

Hehe 3.45v is low? I vape mine down to 3.2V which is when I normally get Weak Battery - sometimes 3.1V on the ipv4.

I read a lot of reviews on a site called lygate.dk, he's a flashlight guy who has extensively tested hundreds of batteries and chargers. He tests that they will drain down to their spec level of 2.9v, and usually confirms that he can continue to drain them even lower without problems (down to 2.5v on the Samsung 25Rs I believe.)

I don't fully understand why it's a problem going down to 3.1 or even lower volts, at least on mods which don't sag at lower volts? I guess the battery doesn't last as long - but how much less are we talking? If it's the difference between lasting two months and a year, then OK that's fair enough. But I'm thinking it's more like 6 months versus a year, or that sort of magnitude? In which case, at £5/$8 per battery, I'd rather have the convenience of far fewer swap outs at the cost of re-buying twice a year rather than once a year (or whatever it works out to.)

Am I way out on these estimates?

Nah, you're good IMO.
You can take these cells down to 3.1-3.2V, even a bit lower for some cells, without significantly affecting cell life. Just recharge them soon, not at high current, and you'll get plenty of life out of them. It can be a problem if the cells are severely overdischarged though and then rapidly recharged. They don't like that. A standard for the manufacturers of the chips running a lot of better chargers is to slow charge until the cell rises up to 2.5-2.8V and then charge at the full rate. Keeps the heating to a minimum.

You can also extend cell life by only charging to 4.0-4.15V, instead of 4.20V. But you're reducing the cell capacity (vaping time) to gain that extra cell life. May not be worth it. And, your charger may not give you that option.

[edit] This all assumes we are talking about the actual cell voltage. You must take any voltage drops between the cell and what's measuring the cell voltage into account!

 

[dwcraig1]

Keep in mind that the "weak battery" error was triggered during firing which would have been lower than 3.4 volt when under load with what ever voltage drop was created. I believe 3.2 volts is the cut off on these mods.

 

[Mooch]

Keep in mind that the "weak battery" error was triggered during firing which would have been lower than 3.4 volt when under load with what ever voltage drop was created. I believe 3.2 volts is the cut off on these mods.

Darn good point...thank you!
Off to edit my post....

 

[rks1949]

I guess,that's one less thing to worry about? I had no idea you could pull these cells down so low without any damage. I've been running my Lemo V2 with a .14 build in it,at 450F and 30 watts. Man the flavor is over the top! It seems like I can "dial in" the best combination of flavor/vapor better with the TC, than I ever could just using watts/voltage. It's only been 2 days,and I'm already spoiled!

 

[ThunderDan]

My flask is doing some weird stuff. It's randomly switching to kanthal mode and I have to take the atty off and put it back on, sometimes several time, to get it back... It also will not fire out of locked mode if it sets too long, after five clicks to unlock it immediately displays "TEMPERATURE PROTECTION"... I think it's probably going back...

Sent from my LGUS990 using Tapatalk

I use mine with regular kanthal 95% of the time, and besides the fire delay and terrible battery life, its great.

 

[diceman1000]

That would be fine if I had a regular kanthal build on it, from my understanding, ni200 in regular VW mode is a big no no... Running it in kanthal mode completely defeats the purpose of spending $65 on a TC device, I already have plenty of VW devices...

Sent from my LGUS990 using Tapatalk

 

[Mooch]

I guess,that's one less thing to worry about? I had no idea you could pull these cells down so low without any damage. <snip>

Every discharge and recharge damages the cell and reduces the cell life, no matter what voltage you stop at.
But the damage doesn't take a big jump until you get to the lower voltages...or heat up the cells...or overcharge...or keep them fully charged for long periods. But at a certain point it gets just too nuts trying to extend cell life. As long as we vape safe that is.

 

[ThunderDan]

That would be fine if I had a regular kanthal build on it, from my understanding, ni200 in regular VW mode is a big no no... Running it in kanthal mode completely defeats the purpose of spending $65 on a TC device, I already have plenty of VW devices...

Sent from my LGUS990 using Tapatalk

Yeah, I get that. I didn't buy it with the intension of using the board it has for TC, so I'm not really disappointed mine is janky/wonky. I mainly bought it for the enclosure/chassis to put a real DNA40 in it. (I don't even use TC much on my real DNA40s).

It should work though, many people do use TC on these Rayn boards.

 

[fcreeves]

I catch up with this forum every few days looking for a reason to order a VF. Luckily IPV4 round 3 group buy shipped. I think I'll be ready for a Flask around v5-v6...or just one of these v3's with some firmware updates as to try to get a completely good out of box experience. I've successfully filled the void for needing a vape order with Origin Vape's The Epoch D1 for $33.99 shipped.

I am hoping by the time I am ready for a proper cloned flask, an economical case will be available.

 

[Phone Guy]

Ok fellow flaskers. I retrofit my waidea vapor flask with a genuine dna40 and spring loaded FDV 510 pin with the single slot 510 connector.

Everything works great including the spring loaded 510!
This one was different from my infinite flask inside. There is no center compartment "sled" like in the infinite. The waidea has a tray on top only. And no funky breakout board for the up/down buttons (thank god).

The mating sides of the top plate and chassis were already sanded to bare metal.

The RAYN board has a separate battery board where each + lead for the battery's get connected and then get routed back to the main board. No clue what that does, but I think it has 2 mosfets. Not sure if that's to balance charging or balance drain or what? I removed it and did not use it on the DNA40.

I did take pictures of the dna40 board wired in.. Well I thought I did but they didn't show up in my camera roll when I went to upload them. Not sure how that happened. (doh!)

*note on the 510. I ordered 3 kinds from FDV and he does not label them.
The 510 pin, this is a fat daddy Vapes v4 (?) and the blue plastic piece does screw right into the existing 510 connector, but the brass fitting that holds the spring is press fit and came apart. so I soldered it together like you would a copper pipe in plumbing. Worked great. I taped the tops of the battery contact boards to prevent shorting, though I don't think it's long enough to short even fully extended.

 

[AtmizrOpin]

Ok fellow flaskers. I retrofit my waidea vapor flask with a genuine dna40 and spring loaded FDV 510 pin with the single slot 510 connector.

Everything works great including the spring loaded 510!
This one was different from my infinite flask inside. There is no center compartment "sled" like in the infinite. The waidea has a tray on top only. And no funky breakout board for the up/down buttons (thank god).

The mating sides of the top plate and chassis were already sanded to bare metal.

The RAYN board has a separate battery board where each + lead for the battery's get connected and then get routed back to the main board. No clue what that does, but I think it has 2 mosfets. Not sure if that's to balance charging or balance drain or what? I removed it and did not use it on the DNA40.

I did take pictures of the dna40 board wired in.. Well I thought I did but they didn't show up in my camera roll when I went to upload them. Not sure how that happened. (doh!)

*note on the 510. I ordered 3 kinds from FDV and he does not label them.
The 510 pin, this is a fat daddy Vapes v4 (?) and the blue plastic piece does screw right into the existing 510 connector, but the brass fitting that holds the spring is press fit and came apart. so I soldered it together like you would a copper pipe in plumbing. Worked great. I taped the tops of the battery contact boards to prevent shorting, though I don't think it's long enough to short even fully extended.

Looks great man! Isn't it great to have soldering skills? I also am going to do the same to my black Waidea. I have the FDV 510, just waiting on the DNA 40. Seriously though, looks awesome. Hey, did you remove any of the onboard buttons? Did you use both grounds on the DNA board?

 

[TheBloke]

Excellent job! And thanks for the detailed pictures, really helpful

 

[TheBloke]

Did you order your DNA 40 recently, @Phone Guy ?

If so, does it have the Resistance Lock thing? That's one reason I'd definitely consider, sometime, upgrading my Waidea - I do really like the Set Resistance of the IPV4 so it might be nice, eventually at least, to put in a proper DNA 40 with that feature.

I haven't been able to get much info on it. pbusardo and others have mentioned that it exists, but Evolv are ridiculously bad at publishing any information, so I have no idea if I can just buy any DNA 40 board currently in stock and it'll have it, or if there's still some older stock around, or maybe if it's not even been released on the boards yet

 

[dwcraig1]

@ Phone Guy, nice....looks like one of the v4 sockets maybe.

And speaking of v4, I see the Waidea board is marked "RAYN V4" where as the Kx40 boards were V3.

 

[dwcraig1]

Did you order your DNA 40 recently, @Phone Guy ?

If so, does it have the Resistance Lock thing? That's one reason I'd definitely consider, sometime, upgrading my Waidea - I do really like the Set Resistance of the IPV4 so it might be nice, eventually at least, to put in a proper DNA 40 with that feature.

I haven't been able to get much info on it. pbusardo and others have mentioned that it exists, but Evolv are ridiculously bad at publishing any information, so I have no idea if I can just buy any DNA 40 board currently in stock and it'll have it, or if there's still some older stock around, or maybe if it's not even been released on the boards yet

I think only the ones with the large screen have "atty lock" currently, I may be wrong though.

 

[Phone Guy]

Looks great man! Isn't it great to have soldering skills? I also am going to do the same to my black Waidea. I have the FDV 510, just waiting on the DNA 40. Seriously though, looks awesome. Hey, did you remove any of the onboard buttons? Did you use both grounds on the DNA board?

I did not remove any buttons. And they are wired in without any kind of breakout or daughter board... The infinite flask I did before had a daughter board of somekind that consolidated the grounds (I think?) so it would be 4 wires instead of 6. And I spent about 2 hours trying to use that before I just gave up and removed the extra board completely and hard wired directly to the buttons... Again that was on the infinite made flask. The waidea made flask had no such issues. Straight forward install.

I wanted to ground to the main chassis, and there is enough room in the center compartment to do it, but I didn't have the silver epoxy. So I just used the 1 ground on the 510 using a proper brass ring with the wire soldered on, and I also jumpered the GND and B- on the dna40 which was not required, but I did it anyway.

 

[Phone Guy]

Did you order your DNA 40 recently, @Phone Guy ?

If so, does it have the Resistance Lock thing? That's one reason I'd definitely consider, sometime, upgrading my Waidea - I do really like the Set Resistance of the IPV4 so it might be nice, eventually at least, to put in a proper DNA 40 with that feature.

I haven't been able to get much info on it. pbusardo and others have mentioned that it exists, but Evolv are ridiculously bad at publishing any information, so I have no idea if I can just buy any DNA 40 board currently in stock and it'll have it, or if there's still some older stock around, or maybe if it's not even been released on the boards yet

I ordered the dna40 thru a co-op here on ECF. these are directly from Evolv.

I think only the ones with the large screen have "atty lock" currently, I may be wrong though.

Yes the new small screen does have ATTY LOCK. Holding +/- at the same time in temp mode locks the resistance.

 

[Phone Guy]

@ Phone Guy, nice....looks like one of the v4 sockets maybe.

And speaking of v4, I see the Waidea board is marked "RAYN V4" where as the Kx40 boards were V3.

I don't know why he doesn't sharpie on the bags what's what.

I'm guessing the one I used was the v4. It looks right, but at the end what looks like a brass nut is actually press fit, no threading. And it popped off. Once I soldered it together it was fine. But I didn't know it popped off until the pin didn't pop back out. LOL.

 

[dwcraig1]

^^^ the 3 that I have only lock the power that way, guess I'll have to install one of these newer boards that I'm now keeping to have that option.
It looks like only the FDV v4's have the nut with hex on the part that holds the spring in, the others are rounded. (never mind)

 

[Phone Guy]

The only part of the flask I couldn't get to was the usb charge board, which is in the bottom of the center compartment covered by something (grommet kind of thing?) I'm not sure if it's a 500ma charger or 1a charger?