That's me done with DNA 200's

So, after 1 DNA board failed on me after less than 7 days, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and buy 2 couple of 2nd hand to see if I was just unlucky.

Now a second board has crapped out on me. 60% failure rate on a personal level is too high and too expensive.

Although I love the vape I get from the DNA200 it is not yet reliable enough for me to continue giving the benefit of the doubt.

 

Sorry to hear about your loss, Longtail. Rest In Peace.

I know it is hard to think about that right now, but what are you going to do from here on out?

 

Was it mine?

 

Not important @Rick O-Shea It was sold in good faith and has been working perfectly until now. I have no hard feelings towards the seller.

**Updated**

TBH, I have a feeling i will just have a good look around for high end mods, single or double battery, regulated to 100+W and stick with power mode vaping. Matbe I will try and get back in to the exotic coils again on drippers or something for the fun of it. I never got any better performance from them that was enough to stop me going back to dual or dual parallel coils but it could be fun. Got a lot of Kanthal here. lol If the other DNA200 goes to the ghost as well I won't use TC at all until there is something as good as the DNA200 that is reliable. I knew it was a risk as there have been a lot of failures posted all over the place but wanted to do it anyway.

 

While I own a DNA40 I never looked back since I got my eVic VT mini. I have it since 3+ month and it did not fail and even if it did I only pay 40$ for it....

Not saying the DN200 isnt a great device but it sure carry its price if it fail on you like it did twice for @Longtail1

 

I wish the general quality of the Mini was better. But after I learned it's quirks functionally I can only concur with my predessor.

 

Wow! Really sorry to hear about the failures! What are the symptoms? If it's the chip, have you written to Evolv and asked to see if you can have warranty service? I know they did that for most DNA 200 mods with failed chips and boards regardless of mod maker. A level of service you wouldn't find from Yihi, Joyetech/Wismec or others directly. I'd think it well worth trying considering the expense.

Doesn't help I know but I have had a total of 6 Evolv chipset boards (4 DNA40 + 2 DNA 200) and no failures.

 

First one has been returned to vendor and I believe returned to manufacturer. Waiting to hear now.

Second one only failed yesterday. It basically won't work unless plugged in to USB. It has a nearly full charge. I haven't done much to diagnose the problem yet. Once I have I will approach Evolve and see what can be done.

I agree that the CS from Evolve is second to none in this respect and like to look on the bright side that it will sort itself out. I guess the underlying point is that until the reliability problems are sorted out by Evolve I am giving the DNA200 chips a miss. I've lost a lot of money during the 2 years vaping from customs and buying crap products to save a little money that didn't work correctly. I'm not going to do the same with an item this expensive. lol Once sorted out I will probably give them another go.

 

Hope you get it sorted. Again, I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties!

 

I have the Hotcig DX200 and have never had issues with it, but I do agree with the OP that there are many board issues if you take a look at the Evolv forum and that is very bad for a pricy product like the DNA200, But I am happy with mine.
I also have the Evic mini and the Cuboid plus some Istick TC mods. The Evic mini and the Cuboid is also great TC mods and now that we have the ability to set the TCR ourself we can use any wire we want just like on the DNA200. But the DNA200 still gives a much better vape, because of the ability to change many settings like preheat punch the joyetech also gives you some king of preheat, but you cant choose not to have it. When I run SS on my DNA200 I dont use preheat at all, because that is the way it works best for me.

It is a little funny with the Joyetech TC Mods, because they dont do SS in there Cubis tank very well unless you run them at 280 degree celsius, so i use them in Power mode and they give a great vape there with 210 degree celæsius, but I bougt the Cubis because of the SS TC ability which is not that great.
Longtail I hope that you soon get the prob sorted out and maybe the upcoming release of new firmware to the DNA200 will solve some of the problems some people are having.

 

I would call them, at best, problematic TC mods that require workarounds and custom settings to produce a vape at the temperature specified. Then, on top of that, a great likelihood that the workaround or custom setting one spent time on developing and setting for atty A will not apply at all with atty B. Once you do have the proper setting or workaround it's a good vape. If they had no TCR function these mods would be a joke with TC, IMO.

Unless you want to crank up the temp setting to nearly 100 F (in some cases) over what you want the actual temp to be at, or as I found with an SS coil, setting the temp downwards by about the same amount, one has to fix the inaccuracy themselves. I bet most would just crank up or lower the temp and not go with the custom settings to try to dial in some accuracy. VTC Mini, RX200 and Cuboid are in real need of a firmware fix.

Made mention to Siam Diesel that I know I am coming off as obsessive about these mods but it really bothers me that they receive so much praise yet are so inaccurate and have inconsistency across different attys. They are deserving of praise in many respects and areas that I too appreciate and keep using them for, but as it relates to TC, there are several more straightforward and user-friendly choices, some of which also provide TCR functionality. Granted, these other choices may be lacking on other areas in comparison.

 

Strange, hmm, the own SS coil does not work their very own SS TC setting, and then on a tank that is actually created for that device? How can that be?

Try in TCR set 105 and you probably will be vaping fine.

 

Evolv have released new firmware for the DNA200

 

Yes. Evolv released it on the 10th. It hasn't hit auto-update yet.

*** 2016-02-10 EScribe 1.0.38 *** [IF you want to test new features]
https://www.dimensionengineering.com/software/SetupES_2016-02-10.exe (52MB standalone installer)

This version features:
(1) a new Materials tab where you can store and transfer material settings onto and from the DNA,
[We've included our Ni200, and Steam Engine's SS316 and Ti1. These will be upgraded in the future, if better data becomes available, and others added if others become common.]
(2) the ability to change a profile's material without EScribe, by holding down all three buttons while locked,
(3) Profile Name and Material Name can be displayed on-screen as custom fields,
(4) profiles now have a "Temperature Dominant" option, making temperature the main adjustment for a profile if you want to do so,
(5) for small batteries, in the Mod tab, you can reduce max continuous and pulse battery input currents,
(6) in Help->Language, you can override the language detection,
(7) Device Monitor has "Simulate Button Presses" for remote testing,
(8) Device Monitor can run Python scripts for scientific study and automation,
(9) the ability to adjust the temperature increment, and
(10) various OS compatibility and miscellaneous improvements.

 

Thanks for the heads-up!