Goodbye Snow Wolf mini - another reason I favour Mech mods

[Waine]

The little Asmodus 75W single battery Mod was one of my first VW Mod purchases early last year. During the honeymoon of my vaping euphoria I loved this 1K shiny mod. I even had folks tell me how cute it looked.

A few weeks ago it just went off the blink. It would not switch on despite doing all the usual tests, i.e. cleaning battery terminals, changing batteries etc. Then a week later it started to work again! Amazingly!

I left it in my office over my short festive break. Today I tried to switch it on. It was dead as a door nail. Again I did all the checks, but nothing. When I opened the battery door, I curiously smelled inside. I got this slight burned juice smell. Also, the bottom housing screws seemed to ooze a bit if juice. I had a tiny flicker of disappointment.

I think the classic, inevitable happened. Juice has seeped from the 510 pin, through the mod into the circuit board. So now I have my first broken mod in a space of one year. BTW, I obsessively clean all my 510 pins on all my VW mods.

This highlights my previous posts about why I am leaning more towards Mech mods. Not "Semi Mech" mods, but full Mech mods. Don't get me wrong, I love most of my VW mods but, it's inevitable! They will eventually give up the ghost, unless they are really "high end" mods —I guess?

I wonder which one will go next?

I will conclude with two statements though. First, serious vapers need a few VW mods. You need to get ohm readings when doing coils builds, (ohm meters are becoming out dated now) Also, the shiny bells and whistles are fun and it adds variety to the vaping lifestyle. Not to mention the beauty of stabilised wood mods. (If you are privileged enough to afford these.)

Second, my new stunning "KO" by "Hard Hitters Alliance" and Rig 3 mechanical mods will last me for way longer than any VW mod, in fact for as as long as China manufactures 18650 batteries.

So, I bid: "Good bye Snow Wolf, I enjoyed you while you lasted, but I thought you would give me a bit more life, perhaps more than a Blackberry."


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[incredible_hullk]

so right @Waine reg mods come and go but good mechs are timeless...

 

[kev mac]

View attachment 80537

The little Asmodus 75W single battery Mod was one of my first VW Mod purchases early last year. During the honeymoon of my vaping euphoria I loved this 1K shiny mod. I even had folks tell me how cute it looked.

A few weeks ago it just went off the blink. It would not switch on despite doing all the usual tests, i.e. cleaning battery terminals, changing batteries etc. Then a week later it started to work again! Amazingly!

I left it in my office over my short festive break. Today I tried to switch it on. It was dead as a door nail. Again I did all the checks, but nothing. When I opened the battery door, I curiously smelled inside. I got this slight burned juice smell. Also, the bottom housing screws seemed to ooze a bit if juice. I had a tiny flicker of disappointment.

I think the classic, inevitable happened. Juice has seeped from the 510 pin, through the mod into the circuit board. So now I have my first broken mod in a space of one year. BTW, I obsessively clean all my 510 pins on all my VW mods.

This highlights my previous posts about why I am leaning more towards Mech mods. Not "Semi Mech" mods, but full Mech mods. Don't get me wrong, I love most of my VW mods but, it's inevitable! They will eventually give up the ghost, unless they are really "high end" mods —I guess?

I wonder which one will go next?

I will conclude with two statements though. First, serious vapers need a few VW mods. You need to get ohm readings when doing coils builds, (ohm meters are becoming out dated now) Also, the shiny bells and whistles are fun and it adds variety to the vaping lifestyle. Not to mention the beauty of stabilised wood mods. (If you are privileged enough to afford these.)

Second, my new stunning "KO" by "Hard Hitters Alliance" and Rig 3 mechanical mods will last me for way longer than any VW mod, in fact for as as long as China manufactures 18650 batteries.

So, I bid: "Good bye Snow Wolf, I enjoyed you while you lasted, but I thought you would give me a bit more life, perhaps more than a Blackberry."


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Unfortunately I too have had a couple of my VW mods crap out on me.lucky for me they've been cheap enough that if I got a yr.out of them,no biggie.However my hcigar DNA 200 went ga-ga and I'm hoping a reboot will fix it,when I get around to it. I also had a nice semi mech short on me I think the MOSFET blew another bummer so I can't argue your point.

 

[RichJB]

They will eventually give up the ghost, unless they are really "high end" mods —I guess?

I'm not so sure about that. Electronics is electronics, whether it's a R500 mod or a R5000 model. My 60W iStick has had an awful lot of juice in the 510 connector well. I have my Virus clone on it and, with the Kennedy airflow on the Virus and my habit of over-dripping, I often come through in the morning to find a pool of juice around the base of the atty. The mod hasn't missed a beat so far in nine months of regular juice overflows. I just push a wedge of paper towel into the 510 and soak it up.

I'm regretting not buying at least one more of them now. They were on sale for under R500 and neither of them has given me any problems whatsoever. I guess you either just get good ones or duds. I know folks who have bought iPowers or iCares in the last month or two and already they're fried.

 

[Gazzacpt]

Sorry about your mod @Waine

A few mods have come across my healing bench hoping for another chance at life and the most common COD is, the smoke got let out due to juice ingestion. We all know that electronic trickery works on smoke and once the smoke escapes no more worky. If no smoke has escaped you could be lucky and a ultrasonic bath might revive it. Just bath the board mind you.
I wish manufacturers especially ones that sell 1k mods would conformal coat the boards. I coated any board that I thought may at any time in its life come into contact with moisture, so I coated everything. That process can't add more than a few cents to the manufacturing cost seeing as it is mass production.
All mods at some stage of their lives will suffer from juice ingestion no matter how carefull you are it happens.

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[Clouds4Days]

@Waine my wifes Snow Wolf mini died last week too.
Exactly same thing that happend to yours happend to hers.

Yesterday by buddies SX Q class bombed out on him with a big puff of smoke apparently.

I am also leaning towarda Mech Mods now a days.
Doesn't matter if a Regulated mod is high end or not, they all use the same chips cheaper mods use dna and sx.

Mech Mods for the win.

 

[blujeenz]

Now Im not saying its a conspiracy to relieve us consumers of our money but, designing a device with a pcb under a possible juice leak area just makes no sense to me.

Compare any regulated device (HE or cheapie) pcb with the pcb from my LG washing machine, can you spot the difference?


My guess is the manufacturers tread a fine line making something that lasts just long enough to let us think we got enough value out of it to keep on buying their products.

 

[Clouds4Days]

Now Im not saying its a conspiracy to relieve us consumers of our money but, designing a device with a pcb under a possible juice leak area just makes no sense to me.

Compare any regulated device (HE or cheapie) pcb with the pcb from my LG washing machine, can you spot the difference?
View attachment 80547

My guess is the manufacturers tread a fine line making something that lasts just long enough to let us think we got enough value out of it to keep on buying their products.

Judging by this, they are designed to not last.

 

[Rob Fisher]

I too lost a Snow Wolf to Juice... and it was my beautiful Champagne one... it was about 3 days old when it died... well it didn't technically die... it developed a mind of it's own... sometime it would ramp up all the way to 75 watts and other time it would go all the way down... I was hoping it would dry out and start working again but tried it a month or two afterwards and it still did the same thing.... that reminds me... I should try it again...

 

[Clouds4Days]

I too lost a Snow Wolf to Juice... and it was my beautiful Champagne one... it was about 3 days old when it died... well it didn't technically die... it developed a mind of it's own... sometime it would ramp up all the way to 75 watts and other time it would go all the way down... I was hoping it would dry out and start working again but tried it a month or two afterwards and it still did the same thing.... that reminds me... I should try it again...
View attachment 80548 View attachment 80549

I remember this uncle Rob, it was the big Melo tank that dumped juice all over your mod wasnt it?

Let us know if shes alive again .

 

[Rob Fisher]

I remember this uncle Rob, it was the big Melo tank that dumped juice all over your mod wasnt it?

Let us know if shes alive again .

Yes it was.

 

[Clouds4Days]

Yes it was.

After only 3 day of having the Mod.
I would cry myself to sleep.
Im so bummed my snow wolfs gone and there is nothing i can do.
I wonder if we contacted asmodus or ask sir vape to if they could sell us the board.

By the look of this thread we need 3 already.

 

[Huffapuff]

I hear what you guys are saying about regulated mods vs mech mods. Mechs definitely have strength and durability on their side. But if you look at what mostly causes your regulated mods to fail it's human error, like juice leaking.

Just imagine human error on a mech...

I'd rather lose a 1k mod than my face.

#justsaying

 

[RichJB]

Compare any regulated device (HE or cheapie) pcb with the pcb from my LG washing machine, can you spot the difference?

The mod doesn't have a spin cycle?

 

[DoubleD]

I hear what you guys are saying about regulated mods vs mech mods. Mechs definitely have strength and durability on their side. But if you look at what mostly causes your regulated mods to fail it's human error, like juice leaking.

Just imagine human error on a mech...

I'd rather lose a 1k mod than my face.

#justsaying

When talking about 'Newbs/Noobs' then, yes I totally agree with you.

I'd rather educate myself, spend wisely on quality mechs and vape away, happily, safely, blissfully

#mechs4life

 

[Clouds4Days]

Regulated Mods will always have their place, heck i use one everday.
The one thing i like most about Regulated Mods is knowing your battery life and also you get the same hit untill your battery gets low (device locks)

With a Mech the hit gets weaker as the battery gets low.

But yeah one day in 100yrs when man digs looking for fossils and finds a Mech mod, all he needs to do is chuck in some batteries and it will be working.

 

[Spydro]

I too lost a Snow Wolf to Juice... and it was my beautiful Champagne one... it was about 3 days old when it died... well it didn't technically die... it developed a mind of it's own... sometime it would ramp up all the way to 75 watts and other time it would go all the way down... I was hoping it would dry out and start working again but tried it a month or two afterwards and it still did the same thing.... that reminds me... I should try it again...
View attachment 80548 View attachment 80549

Well remember when that happened to you, so soon after you finally located a Champagne one like mine. Since you had other SWM's I suggested swapping the guts out of one and into this one, but guess you never did. Easy enough to do... I even found a YT video how. The Champagne became the favorite of my 3 SWM's, was the last one I still used and still resides on my desk as a back up.

I used the Kidney Puncher Mod Guards on them and they greatly help prevent tank leaks from getting down into the 510. I hate anything that leaks, so those tanks were delegated to the out of service gear box in short order. None of my 5 Melo III tanks ever leaked let alone dumped. Probably a product of leaving the top cap loose for the many vaper locked tanks that folks in SA was having due to faulty ceramic coils in them. (None of my tanks that use those coils ever vaper locked... 3 Target 2's, 2 Gemini's or the 5 Melo's). In fact I've never had a vaper lock in any tank, and none of my cCells used were duds. Luck of the draw I guess.

A great mech replacement for these TC mods are the Reos. I'm gravitating back to some of mine as my primary daily gear. As @Clouds4Days stated, they'll still be work horses well into the 22nd century.

What champagne dreams are made of...

 

[Lord Vetinari]

Why the VW hate when it seems to be Snow Wolves cant make it past a week? Why not leave it at Snow Wolf hate?

 

[Huffapuff]

Long time no see @Spydro, you been busy?