OK, so I bought this cheap VV mod kit from a store where I belong to their test area, paid $20 and a few days later I got the mod. This VV mod was just basic; has a digital display, vape and voltage up/down buttons, and takes 2 18350 batteries. Without the batteries the mod weighs next to nothing, and the battieres that came with the kit didn't work.
I finally add batteries that work and boom I am vapeing!! Dripping my regular vape on a 1.8ohm Boge 306 atty @ 4.1v and wow this vape tastes horrible, so I drop the voltage to 3.5v and boom it still tastes bad but not as bad. So I throw on my threaded voltage meter and no reading shows up..hmmm? I then decided to throw on a Boge LR carto and vape at 3.5v, and wallah now finally decent flavor. A couple days later this this new carto just dies. I wasn't sure if I should blame the device or a bad carto. Next I try a Bottom Coil phoenix clearo, and again the flavor seems a little off, but not bad enough not to use, and boom a few days later the clearo dies, which was fairly old. Anyway at this point I give up this mod because it just seemed like too much trouble to fiddle with.
A couple days later I'm watching a review of the new VV Gripper done by PBusardo and he talks about the gripper having "Pulse width modulation". I heard of "PWM" before, but none of the mods I own had it, so I never paid much attention to it. Well it turns out the PWM mods will cause a threaded voltage meter not to work. So I connect the dots to my VV mod and come to the conclusion that it has PWM as well, then was able to confirm.
Basically if you have a VV mod with PWM set to 3.0v, the mod is going to fire at 6.0v approx 50% of the time, like 50 times a second to achieve the 3.0v. IMO this is like a jimmy rig and no wonder my juices on this mod tasted funny or bad. I'm using LR atties n cartos on a mod that is firing in 6.0v in essence. This also explains why potentially my cartos were dying quickly. I can't say how ...... off I am that these companies can't provide a mod that fires a steady voltage.
I just wanted to warn others that cheaper VV devices, especially from china, may have this Pulse Width Modulation and they want to consider this when making a purchase, especially a newbie who has no other baseline to compare it to. It may also not affect some people as much as it affected me. Also if you are a high voltage vaper PWM mods won't make a big difference because all your cartos, atties, etc are high ohm. Plus, if you are vaping a PWM mod at 6.0v, there will basically be no PWM.
One thing is for sure, I will never buy another PWM mod, no matter what the price is and I hope others can learn from my mistake. I'm generally a low voltage vaper because I'm big on flavor and dont care much about throat hit. My other mods dont have PWM so I noticed a big difference in flavor. I feel bad for all those newb's who bought unknowingly a PWM mod as their first mod.
hope this helps and serve to warn other low voltage vapers on PWM mods
