My Milo Clone

[jmlott]

Hi guys,

I'm proud to say I just (mostly) finished my very first mod!

A huge thanks goes to Mamu for the Milo tutorial which gave me the confidence to try this and everyone else on here (breaktru, retird, bapgood, etc) for the help and inspiration. It is a near clone of the Milo with just a couple of personal tweaks. Once I get the Testor's black tint paint in, I'll be done.

The DNA20D was super easy to work with even though I hadn't soldered anything in probably 10 years. The dremeling of the Hammond case to make it a little skinnier with one battery is a little rough around the edges, but not terrible. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to a table saw to make the cuts. The Lexan cuts and holes suffered the same fate, but all in all, I'm happy with it. I'll work on making everything a little cleaner next time.

Pics in a Dropbox album. Let me know if the link doesn't work.

- Matt

 

[retird]

Yep....pictures worked.....any completed mod is a success.....to use the words of mamu....

 

[bapgood]

Congrats!....looks good to me....I wouldn't worry to much about the little things....as former co-worker use to say "don't pet the sweaty stuff"

Just use it until your ready for a change. That's one of the great things IMO about the mod board, if you want to make a change you can.

 

[bzmotoninja83]

Now i gotta get workin on mine.....

 

[jmlott]

Once you cross the hump, modding is addictive apparently... I'm already in the planning stages of 2 more. One being a tube mod.

 

[mamu]

Awesomesauce jm!!

LOL - yeah modding is addictive. I'm still wondering where the last 2 years of my life went.

 

[jmlott]

I'm having an issue that I hope one of you super smart folks can help me with....

So, I read in breaktru's original thread about the "Check Battery" issue, but mine seems a bit worse than described over there. I'm seeing a couple of problems. On a full charge, when I press the fire button to wake it up, I get "Check Battery" for a second, then "Weak Battery" for a second, then the display shows no charge on the battery meter that gradually fills up to full over about 15 seconds or so. After I vape on it for about an hour, the meter shows that the battery is almost dead again. I also have my doubts about whether the battery is charging at all, though. If it is showing low battery level, I can put it on the charger and it will turn from red to green within an hour. After that, I get the same as above. The battery is a 1200mah 20C lipo with 2 PTC fuses in parallel on the positive lead and it is using the DNA charger.

Does this sounds familiar to anyone? If it sounds like a battery problem, I can try changing that out. I just wanted to get some advice first since that'll be a pain.

Thanks!

 

[mamu]

I get the "Check Battery" or "Weak Battery" after a period of inactivity. But it's never taken 15 seconds for the meter to indicate actual charge level - it's only like a second or less. It takes a bit of more time when I'm using Max with its 3600mAh, but never more than a few seconds if the batt is at its full charge level. And I only charge when there are no bars left on the meter and it won't vape.

It may be that your batt is defective as it seems it's not holding a charge and the meter is having a hard time reading it. Are you using a new batt or older one? Where did you get it?

 

[jmlott]

Thanks for the help, Mamu! I thought it seemed a little odd, but since others had seen vaguely similar results, I just wanted to make sure.

It's a new "E-Fly" battery I got from a Chinese RC site called RCEcho. I just bought a batch of them specifically for this build. I bought extras just in case, so I can swap another one in there. Hopefully, they aren't just cheap crappy batteries.

 

[bapgood]

I have had similar experience with delayed the battery display, but I'm also currently using a 6000mah battery. I have noticed (or think I have noticed) that the longer it sets inactive the longer the display takes to come up, to an extent. Say 5-10 minutes vs an hour or so, the 5-10 comes up to actual level faster than if it was off for an hour or so. But it might be in my head as well

What is the c rating on your lipo and what wattage are you vaping at?

By the charge time it seems a little off....as the DNA charger charges 500mah so your battery should take a couple hours to charge.

 

[jmlott]

Yeah, everything seems a bit off about it. The battery is a 1200mah 20C that I got here. The website title says 25C, but the label on the bateries themselves say 20C.

 

[bapgood]

Even if you were vaping at 20 watts 20c is oodles...I would say your heading down the right path and swap out the battery, if it still acts funny get ahold Evolv.

 

[bapgood]

Btw....next time check out hobby king for lipo's. Quite a bit cheaper and I like the Turnigy nano-tech

 

[jmlott]

Got the battery swapped out and threw it on the charger to let it top off since it's a fresh one. I'll do some preliminary testing in the morning before I head off to work.

Of course I did manage to twist off one of the up/down wires from the board during the process, so I'll have to pull it back out tomorrow evening and resolder that as well. I really need to find some more flexible wire to make my life a little easier.

Thanks for all the help guys!

 

[retird]

JM....I'm using the same batts as you....noticed the same thing....2 out of 3 of my mods work great, and charge fine.....wondering about these "china" batts also.....replaced the questionable batt to see if it will charge (a new batt).....at this point I'm thinking a batt issue.....my batts say 20C also but the advertisement said 25C burst....may be junk batts, but don't know for sure....and I can no longer see where to buy more of these batts....my design depends on this battery's size in order to pack everything in the enclosure...

Still waiting on the new batt to charge....started a 1/2 charge...

and 1 of my mods (the one in question) take up to 15 seconds for the meter to indicate actual charge level ....??? may be tied to the batts ???

 

[bapgood]

The e-fly batts are spec'd at 20c continuous 25c burst. Most RC lipo's have a continuous and burst spec (burst is usually spec'd with time...ie 25c 30 seconds)

The e-fly batts you guys are using are small!!! This is the closest I could find but its only 1000mah GENS ACE 1000mAh 3.7V 15C LiPo Battery

 

[retird]

THX bap......shows out of stock.....maybe they are the same physical size??? e-fly says 50 x 30 x 9...these show 53 x 31 x 9.5....never know how accurate the measurements are....critical width and dept for me....can live with length....

Update.....the new batt has been charging 3 hours...still at 1/2 chg (where it started).....have red light on micro usb board indicating charging....thinking batt issue or maybe usb board? hum....original batt charged 1 time on this mod just fine.....but would not charge the second time....new bat not charging...

Opened mod and checked voltage at "charge" connections of the dna20d (while charging")....reading 3.81 v.....really only tells me there is voltage in the batt, I think I'm gonna revisit the solder points as I think I should be getting 5 volts or 4.5 while charging........wall charger is 5.0v +/_.5 - 500mA

 

[bapgood]

THX bap......shows out of stock.....maybe they are the same physical size??? e-fly says 50 x 30 x 9...these show 53 x 31 x 9.5....never know how accurate the measurements are....critical width and dept for me....can live with length....

Update.....the new batt has been charging 3 hours...still at 1/2 chg (where it started).....have red light on micro usb board indicating charging....thinking batt issue or maybe usb board? hum....original batt charged 1 time on this mod just fine.....but would not charge the second time....new bat not charging...

Opened mod and checked voltage at "charge" connections of the dna20d (while charging")....reading 3.81 v.....really only tells me there is voltage in the batt, I think.....wall charger is 5.0v +/_.5 - 500mA

moving the mod to chg off my computer.....narrowing down the possibilities.....

How much extra length can you deal with? (hehe...now answer honestly)

Check voltage at the battery and charger with and without the charger plugged in you should see a little difference if memory serves. You can also hook up the dmm at the battery and monitor the voltage, as is should slowly increase.

 

[retird]

I can deal with 3mm OK in length......unless I change to a shorter atty connector....then can spare a bit more length...

I revisited the 2 solder points, and no go.....took out the usb board and clicked it onto the charger cable....red light OK but putting out 0.00 voltage....think that was my issue....will have to get another...before I can verify that was it.....

 

[jmlott]

I did a little testing before work and it appeared okay after changing the battery. I am going to go home shortly and vape on it extensively to make sure all is well. It did still take a second or to go from showing no charge to full charge, but that's more acceptable than 15-20 seconds.

Yeah, I was happy to find these E-Fly batteries. I love the size of them. $3.60 a piece isn't terrible considering, but there are definitely better prices. I just hope they aren't complete crap. I haven't been able to find any Turnigy nano-techs that can really compare in size other than the round cells breaktru got that are never in stock. (No matter how long i have to wait, one of those things is going my upcoming tube mod, though.)