Arctic Fox / Joining the NFE team

[KurtVD]

E-cigarettes-forum
Hi,

Long time on/off vaper here, and got recently hit by a bout of the shynitis. So many nice things, reduced prices, sometimes actually ‘cheap cheap' likes 10$ for a mod, and without really realizing, I had spent at least a couple of hundreds on new mods, a new atomizer and more stuff that I absolutely do not need. But maybe there’s stuff in there that I actually like, and if it makes me vague t rather je and every missed smoke is a win.

Possibly I won’t even unbox all of them…just kidding, I will wanna know if they work , at least.



But that’s not why I’m writing: some of my favorite mods for the last years have been the Teslacigs mods, particularly the plastic ones with the funny colors (like the WYE series. I was still not infected by shynitis back then, so I completely missed the WYE II /86 Watts. Sooner or later there will be used ones for a decent price, I hope ). I also really like their software, for my purposes (TC vaper) , it wor of as much as Arctic Fox, but they seem to have a flaw that always bugged me. So I said to myself that as a now retired coder, I should be able to maybe help make the Teslacigs models compatible with Arctic Fox, or otherwise maybe fix what I don’t like. I figured the reason that they aren’t yet, is certainly because they’re not (enough) popular. But maybe I’m wrong, and they’re just hard to work with.



Either way, I opened a GitHub account as well as an NFE team account, where I left an introductory message just like this one here. And my main (and for now only) question was, how do I get started? To which somebody told me to take the box apart and identify its MCU. So I answered that the board contained no number, names or any other ‘inscriptions’, just about a dozen of black ‘chips’, at least on the side where the chips are. Unfortunately i got no further answers, and a search didn’t help me either, so I’m giving it a try here. Does anybody know how I identify my MCU? If I remove the board complete, should there be any identifying letters and numbers? Or could it be that nobody has done anything about Teslacig mods because their MCU is unidentifiable??





And the dumbest question of them all…what exactly stands MCU for?



I know I’ll probably have to find these answers on the NFE team forum , but I can always try…



So, anyone, maybe?

 

[ShowMeTwice]

Hi Kurt

The NFE Team were excellent at what they did, from scratch, with the Arctic Fox firmware, NFE Tools and all the mods they managed to get AF working with. From what I've seen on their forum they are not very forthcoming with sharing information.

what exactly stands MCU for?

MCU is an acronym for the microcontroller unit.

And my main (and for now only) question was, how do I get started? To which somebody told me to take the box apart and identify its MCU. So I answered that the board contained no number, names or any other ‘inscriptions’, just about a dozen of black ‘chips’, at least on the side where the chips are.

A few years back I called and asked the engineers at Asmodus (California) what chipset was used in one of their mods. They told me straight-away.

I would start with asking Teslacigs, they may or may not tell you. If they won't tell you then you will need to desolder the chips to see what is written on the opposite sides of the chips. Then you should be able to lookup and identify the chips online. Process of elimination will lead you to the MCU. Once you identify it you will be looking online for something like the PDF I attached below. Then find the reference manual for whatever MCU you have.

 

[ShowMeTwice]

You have access to all the Arctic Fox firmware builds via the forum and probably at GitHub.

Are you able to use your coding skills to look at the code and figure out what it is that you want to improve?

And may I ask, what exactly are you looking to improve?

 

[KurtVD]

And may I ask, what exactly are you looking to improve?

One thing that’s quite annoying is the fact that the resistance lock isn’t working correctly. It sometimes works for a few puffs, or even a few hours, but it will always end up resetting itself. This is particularly annoying because the resistance meter isn’t the most accurate, I usually have to set it at least 0.05 higher than it’s measured value to obtain a satisfactory vaping at around 200 degrees C. 0.05 doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you’re building with low-resistance wire (like Ni200), it makes a huge difference.

Other than that, no complaints.

 

[ShamrockPat]

One of the very first questions is if teslacigs ever said/produced firmware upgrades for the one's you have?

One thing that’s quite annoying is the fact that the resistance lock isn’t working correctly.

So if you don't futz with the value your mod reads, can you turn up the temp (to a value you might not like to see) and does it still occur?

 

[KurtVD]

One of the very first questions is if teslacigs ever said/produced firmware upgrades for the one's you have?

So if you don't futz with the value your mod reads, can you turn up the temp (to a value you might not like to see) and does it still occur?

Not that I know of, no upgrades on their homepage. And I have been checking a ´
I’m not sure about your second question: you want to know if the resistance lock works at (very) high temperatures ? Like how high? 500 F /260 C? Or more? And tbh, I don’t quite see why I would try that? Why would such a feature be working correctly if only the set temp is high enough?

 

[ShamrockPat]

Not that I know of, no upgrades on their homepage. And I have been checking

Then your firmware might not be able to be upgraded at all

you want to know if the resistance lock works at (very) high temperatures ? Like how high? 500 F /260 C? Or more? And tbh, I don’t quite see why I would try that? Why would such a feature be working correctly if only the set temp is high enough?

Some mods require you to lock the resistance for their TC, others such as DNA's do not. You would try increasing the temp (without you adjusting the resistance) to what you prefer to see if it would drop out of TC. Having to fake the resistance is certainly not working for you and it appears to be reading the actual live resistance (similar to DNA mods).
Edit: You might want to ask Tesla how their resistance lock works, because your thoughts that it's not working correctly could be wrong.

 

[KurtVD]

Some mods require you to lock the resistance for their TC, others such as DNA's do not. You would try increasing the temp (without you adjusting the resistance) to what you prefer to see if it would drop out of TC. Having to fake the resistance is certainly not working for you and it appears to be reading the actual live resistance (similar to DNA mods).
Edit: You might want to ask Tesla how their resistance lock works, because your thoughts that it's not working correctly could be wrong.

Unfortunately, the Tesla WYE manual is really short, for example all it says about the Resistance Lock feature is how to switch it on and off. But of course, it might just be that in their software, all it does is prevent an accidental adjustment (because you have to go into the menu to unlock the R. Lock, which will exit you from the menu, but at this point you can go back into the menu to adjust the resistance value, within a certain limit).
And yes, initially I just tried to raise the temperature as much as possible and necessary to obtain a satisfying vape, but that didn't work. However a very small adjustment of the resistance will do it, and I feel more comfortable if the set temperature is in the same range as my other mods.
I havent checked in a while, but if I remember correctly, the Teslacig WYE's Ohm-meter just isn't very precise, and therein lies the problem. Of course, I don't have precision equipment to actually know by how much, but every other mod, and also my cheap Ohm-meter (with the pin to screw the atomizer on) show a higher resistance.