The Cloupor T5 upgrade to 75 W Boom Boom

Wow.....how prophetic the boom surprise announcement was huh? For sure wont be upgrading my firmware until they get it sorted. Mine's been working great up to this point and I really don't need the jump from 50 to 75 but do look forward to a couple of the other enhancements as long as it doesn't kill the mod.

 

I bet there's some freaking out happening at Cloupor right now and as seen all too often with companies facing a problem, they are not immediately and publicly acknowledging it nor are they outlining steps that will be taken to rectify. Hell, they haven't even pulled the firmware off their Website! Apparently no one with decision making power there has the common sense to see that this is not only a dangerous situation but also could permanently damage the company's reputation and business performance. Just plain stupid burying your head in the sand.

 

Saw this coming. Its absurd to offer a wattage upgrade with firmware, the only reason to do it is to make people think there will be even more upgrades in the future. The limit comes from the hardware, so having a lower wattage to start means they are intentionally crippling it. Now they're killing their customer's devices as a direct result of their hubris. As much as I like the design and features, I knew as soon as I saw that Cloupor made it I wouldn't be buying it.

 

Love the John Lee Hooker

And let the wattage wars begin...take no prisoners

 

Well,

Rip Tripper made a note that it was bad already in the beginning.

Now they completely made it the news and talk of the month maybe.

 

Firmware updates are likely to be fairly commonplace...such as with the eVic S and other devices and I think it's a good thing to have adding features and capabilities but only if it's safe and within the limits of the hardware. Not at all absurd in my mind if that's the case. Here, Cloupor F'd-up big time though. Very bad QC and testing again by a Chinese manufacturer.

As for intentionally crippling, in this case it looks more like they couldn't complete the engineering of the 75W capability earlier....it likely wasn't ready (even now its not!) cuz if it had been and ready to release to market with it they would have really been out and in front of the pack of high-power VW mods and sales would have benefited and they could have caught a lot of additional and, if working safely, positive attention.

Now it makes you wonder about the T6 and T8 devices coming out.

Anyway, I love my T5 as it is today and absolutely no regrets whatsoever in having purchased. The promised Sept 16 surprise (Fail!), meant nothing to me back when I decided to buy it.

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As with most all devices there are pros and cons and in the end he said it was a great deal at it's price point. He liked the style and form factor (though others may not) a legitimate 50W for .6 ohm and above and overall he liked it but was pissed with the false advertising where it cannot do a legit 50W at .5 ohm or below. He also wasn't happy with the USB charge port at the bottom and unhappy with battery life which I agree needs to be improved and expect it will be if they ever get a properly working firmware update. Weird he had an issue with the puff counter...mine's never gone inaccurate....maybe something to do with the resetting of it he did.

Anyway, for an at-home mod and for my typical builds and power I want going to my atty's, it's a great device....I don't need 50W for my builds that's for sure and I don't need pass-through vaping/charging. I love the form factor especially....my most comfortable to handle mod.

Pity Cloupor really shot themselves in the foot.

 

Watching RIP's vid and reading scratchy's post leaves me thinking it's a good buy for anyone who stays within the mentioned ohm limits and looking for a genuine 50w, it's a steal. Think they are 75usd from 3avape with free shipping. Hmm.....

 

Firmware updates for features is great, but for wattage it makes no sense. I'm all for firmware updates, but the engineering is finished before you ever have the device in your hands, the only thing firmware can contain is programming. There is absolutely no necessity for firmware to INCREASE the maximum power output, if anything you would would decrease it for safety concerns. If the wire, the traces on the circuit boards, and the chips can all handle 75 watts, you program it for 75 watts.

If you love it and have no regrets, that's fantastic. I'm glad you didn't upgrade the firmware and fry it, and I hope it serves you well for as long as you need it to.

 

Update: Cloupor finally pulls the firmware update from their Web page. Still not seeing any public statement or response about the issue.

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If they could safely and effectively get a lower wattage (50W) working but they couldn't get the programming and needed support in the firmware to get to 75W by target release date, then I think it's perfectly reasonable to provide the increase with a later firmware update. However, nobody except those at Cloupor really knows what the decision making was in regards to providing increased power capability later. Very well could have been that they felt they already did have the 75W firmware ready and wanted to entice customers to purchase partly based on a future mystery upgrade and let it create some buzz. Stupid to me if that's the case cuz if I were running the show, had 75W available and the QC team and engineers say it's working fine and knowing the interest and demand in the market, I wouldn't have even toyed with the idea of crippling. I would have gone right at it with the device and made waves with 75W power. Obviously, given the fiasco on their hands now, they didn't have a capable 75W firmware (or components), even weeks after the device started selling.

I'm really glad I didn't do the update too and thanks. Also hope it continues to work as well as it has been. I've messed up more than one electronic device in the past with a firmware update and have made it standard practice to wait and see what the general consensus is first before doing any.

 

In order for firmware to actually work correctly to up the wattage of the device the manufacturer will have to make say a 100 watt device, deliver it as a 50 watt device and then they will safely be able to upgrade through firmware....what cloupor did was make a 50 watt device that they are now trying to push past it's limits. The fact that the boards are burning up is a tell tale sign that they were not made to handle the upgrade.

 

Only Cloupor knows for real.....they may have indeed made a capable 75W device at the hardware level but the programming/electronics support through the firmware is not managing it properly. The burning and smoking does not necessarily indicate the boards themselves are not made to handle 75 W....the firmware is also a component that needs to be accounted for and if it does not instruct the device to use the power properly....can have the same results I would think.

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Update: Cloupor's FB page:

We notice the recent upgrading problem from users,and we find there are conflicts between the new software & the T5 procedure.
Please give our company 48 hours to release a new software which will help the broken T5 BACK to original T5 and work perfectly.
We feel very sorry for this...

 

Well, not defending Cloupur here, but when my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 told me there is a upgrade to latest Android i did without thinking

and ohh boy did i regret that, nothing worked, all was laggy, worst nightmare EVER ....
i checked later on the net and it seems a shitload of people have issues with it,

super horrible a downgrade was not available for most of the devices, not even a factory reset worked.

took me a week and tons of experimental crap to get the old working version back,

and i thought as well how could Samsung release such a crap without double checking before ...
.... but to top it up, for the people which didnt have had the luck to revert to former android version .... up to date .... samsung never offered a fix, besides telling them to buy new devices