Just in case this helps anyone in the future who has an older mod that starts acting up... not that it will be news to the old timers.
Have an HCigar VT133 DNA but the behavior and fix can apply to just about any mod. Noticed the (dual 18650) batts were being drained faster than usual last couple days, blowing through fresh ones every few hours... then suddenly fresh batts off the charger read near empty on the mod, though it still fired.
Hooked it up to Escribe to reinstall the battery profile (same one it already had for the Sam 25r's) but made no diff ... reset it (hard and soft) and still made no diff ... except the empty battery indicator now showed a lightning bolt ,which indicates a possible short.
Took mod apart including the plastic plate off the negative batt terminal circuit board so I could see it, (I THINK it's the negative terminals... the ones that don't have spring to them)... and saw the terminals on the board (soldered blobs for each terminal) had ashy battery acid dust (corrosion) on them, which had accumulated to form a spotty path between them, somewhat bridging them. Even I know that's no good and was pretty sure that's what was causing the problems.
Cleaned up with toothbrush, put it all back together and problem solved. Batts register as fully charged, no more short indicator, and the batts are lasting longer than they have in as long as I can remember. That stuff was building all this time, causing a faster drain, it seems, that crept up over time.
Now if only I'd thought to smear a little Vaseline on the soldered terminals before I closed it back up, to prevent it from ever happening again. (Do that with the car and bike terminals!)
Hope that helps someone else one day -
Have an HCigar VT133 DNA but the behavior and fix can apply to just about any mod. Noticed the (dual 18650) batts were being drained faster than usual last couple days, blowing through fresh ones every few hours... then suddenly fresh batts off the charger read near empty on the mod, though it still fired.
Hooked it up to Escribe to reinstall the battery profile (same one it already had for the Sam 25r's) but made no diff ... reset it (hard and soft) and still made no diff ... except the empty battery indicator now showed a lightning bolt ,which indicates a possible short.
Took mod apart including the plastic plate off the negative batt terminal circuit board so I could see it, (I THINK it's the negative terminals... the ones that don't have spring to them)... and saw the terminals on the board (soldered blobs for each terminal) had ashy battery acid dust (corrosion) on them, which had accumulated to form a spotty path between them, somewhat bridging them. Even I know that's no good and was pretty sure that's what was causing the problems.
Cleaned up with toothbrush, put it all back together and problem solved. Batts register as fully charged, no more short indicator, and the batts are lasting longer than they have in as long as I can remember. That stuff was building all this time, causing a faster drain, it seems, that crept up over time.
Now if only I'd thought to smear a little Vaseline on the soldered terminals before I closed it back up, to prevent it from ever happening again. (Do that with the car and bike terminals!)
Hope that helps someone else one day -