Steam Crave Mini Robot self-firing?!

[nickydrinks]

I've just had something that has never happened with any other device I've owned (I use regulated devices, collected a few mech mods over the years but all just cheap rubbish from fasttech that look nice but I'd never put an actual battery near).

The Steam Crave Mini Robot Kit has been pretty great for me, I only really use it for random nic salt liquids as MTL isn't my thing and I really liked how compact it was, I've had no problems with it until just now. I was sitting browsing RDAs I'll never be able to afford when suddenly it was just firing. As far as I understand it the mod part of the Robot kit is just a fairly simple control board with an LED and mosfet or something similar to allow the limited control over voltage and the fire button. I was able to grab it and unscrew the battery fast enough to stop it but surely the fact that this happened defeats the purpose of it not just being a straight mech mod?

I didn't have any unusual coil build in it, just a prebuilt Coilology MTL clapton, if I don't have any I'll usually stick something quick like a 2.5mm 28 guage kanthal of 4 or 5 wraps aiming for about 1 ohm or so. I've put the actual Mini Robot tank as it is now on my BPM tab and it reads it at 0.43 ohms, then using the monitor on the DNA250C the reading hovers between .453 and .455.

The Coilology MTL coils are listed as 0.7ohm so this is not far off half of that which seems a bit of a drop even taking into account the leg length or adjusting the coil for the deck. Even If it was the coil shorting then surely it should have just cut power shouldn't it? I'm just trying to work out what actually caused it as I wasn't using the device at the time, but if I can't trust the safety on the thing then there's no way I'm using it again because that could have happened when I wasn't in the house and if it's going to just fire randomly then the only protection left would be the 10 second cut-off (I think, I'm not familiar enough with the boards that can be used in mechs)

Shame as it was a very handy little mod to carry about and looked great with things like the Pandora V2 on it but I'm not about to risk a battery venting randomly, I've never had it happen and it's not something I really need to see either! I'll probably just dismantle it to get a look at the board and see if there's anything obviously wrong, not worried about causing any damage to it because it's definitely not getting a second chance not to become a pipe bomb..

 

[MrDJ]

Hi @nickydrinks. i was just about to welcome you but as youve been here for past 8 years i guess your not new but good to see youve made that step to post and maybe join in the convos.

I dont know anyting about that kit so wont even start to advise but hopefully someone will be along soon who knows what they are talking about.

 

[Deleted member 54254]

Wow, first post, joined in 2014, where you been hiding? lol

 

[nickydrinks]

I was quite surprised too! I think it's because I used to mainly be on ECREU but I sort of lost track of it all and just stuck with a Crown 3/4/5(not as good as the 4) and a few different mods over the years but recently got back into it again. I knew POTF was always better for the more advanced stuff and since I got a DNA I was almost converted to dripping completely, now I'm having to put up shelves for all the devices and tanks and have 2 large Dewalt toolboxes for all the build gear I thought I should probably post somewhere to see if it's just me that thinks the Pandora V2 is over-engineered rubbish, the Woto SRPNT is better than the Yachtvape Claymore etc :-)

 

[Deleted member 54254]

I don't think you're alone in thinking the Pandora's were shite.

 

[nickydrinks]

I've had it with two Yachtvape devices now, the Claymore just doesn't seem to be any kind of "flavour banger" like so many reviews say, not unless I'm missing an exact coil size, material, how much of the coil you can see through the air intake when the sun is at the correct angle in the sky. It's a really messy device and with the addition of the beauty ring just feels like one of those RDAs you'd throw in your cart to get 2 week shipping instead of 3 from China. The only thing I've yet to try that I can even think of is a 2mm single round wire kanthal build, I'm no expert in tank design but the single large airflow that is mirrored on the other side is just going to either spin round and round inside before ever going up, or go straight up before much hits the coil. That's my theory as to why it has so much condensation building up and can spit a lot even without overwicking, and why they include those drip tips because they know you'll get more juice in your mouth than gets heated. I did laugh at Vaping Bogan's review where he literally had to find a long 510 drip tip because it was so short on the top that his mouth was covering the airholes, I'm sure I've done that and not even realised but it just doesn't strike me as some masterpiece of engineering. On Yachtvape's website they show you this amazing diagram of how the airflow dial works, all CAD markings like it's super clever...it's just a worm gear! It's something that's been used all over the world for God knows how long, I'm sure other manufacturers had thought of it before then realised that it would just be a massive pain in the ass so didn't bother, like Hellvape with the Vertex. I mean just make a DTL or MTL tank, trying to do both just means it does neither well. I didn't even realise it was meant to click into each position, not until I found a random extra screw beside the 510 connector that made that click suddenly work when I tightened it. I swear the same effect could be done just by having more sets of holes on the bottom, call it "airflow control" or something mad. I'm not even sure I'd give that thing away to someone because I know they'd be messaging me asking how it works and the only answer I have is, "It doesn't!"

Spending more on hyping their products with fancy websites and claims that mean nothing, it's like the Smok model of business but instead of targeting one demographic they're trying to build one up as experts on fluid dynamics. Bogan seems to be on the right track with the Blotto, forget exact airflow sizes etc and just blast the thing with smooth airflow from as many angles as you possibly can, that thing was firing out flavour that reminded me of the original Aspire Atlantis, and it wasn't even dangerous!

 

[Deleted member 54254]

Your first post was easy enough to read, but your second was just a wall of text, maybe break it up a bit for ease of reading

There are a lot of RDA's and RTA's on the market these days you look at and wonder what they were thinking. I guess it's hard keeping coming up with new stuff to keep the gravytrain rolling along.

 

[nickydrinks]

Ha yeah sorry that's something I have a really bad habit of doing, going off on very long tangents about unrelated stuff and before I know it I've got War and Peace! On the actual topic I was supposed to be on, I've tried the Mini Robot tank on a few mods probably against my better judgement so it looks like it was the actual mini robot mod/battery section itself that did it. I think I'm going to email Steam Crave's support and see if it's something they've encountered before, mech mods being sold to people who don't know how to use them safely is something vendors can only do their best to actually warn them about, but this one that appears to do something similar but claims to be safe whilst potentially not being safe at all is worth at least letting them know about I think.

It's made me reconsider whether my search for a similar device that takes a single 21700 is really worth it, I don't even vape at very high wattages so even 3.2, 3.6 and 4.2v from the Mini Robot was often a bit much.