Thanks to the GearBest we can look at the Spartans 300W TC Box Mod by Vapmod - let's see wheter it is really one of the more powerful mods on market?
1. FINISH.
In short: you love or hate. Gloomy piece of iron with elegance of brick :-) But this brick ... quite well lays in my hand - forefinger surely reaches the fire button, thumb lays on side wall so the grip is quite sure:
And the material - according to the manufacturer the body is made of zinc alloy, coated with my favorite black mat layer. So we have an impression of gunmetal finish. It is just mod for James Bond :-)
Up/down buttons are quite small but work well and the FIRE button is bigger, with short jump and clear click, so far it fires 100/100. Spring loaded 510 connection handles well all my atomizers.
Inside:
we have 3x18650 battery bay with spring loaded pins and cover on magnets.
There is no vent holes at the bottom:
On top we have 510 connector and display:
2. FEATURES.
* power: 300W (hmm),
* temp. control: predefined Ni200, Ti, ss316 + TFR curve approximation(!)
* resistance in VW: 0,15 - 3 ohm,
* resistance in TC: 0,05 - 1 ohm (Ni i Ti) | 0,15 - 3 ohm (ss316),
* max. current: 40A
* max. voltage: 12,6V
* battery: 3 x 18650,
* dimensions: 104x62x25 mm,
* weight (with batteries): 370 g.
The things worth pointing out are the TFR curve approximation (about this later) and 3 ohm coils handling for ss316.
Finally we can look at the display:
to see typical parameters for TC mods.
3. VOLTAGE SHAPE and EFFICIENCY.
Measurements were carried out by use of real atomizer with coil resistance 0.31 ohm:
Until this point is quite good. At the beginning the resulting power is less than the set, but since 50W SET-vs-GET power difference is about 10%
Then we observe marketing witchcraft:
As we can see all what we can get is about 206 W and 8V. Hmm... let's calculate a little:
In my opinion we have current limitation level much smaller than declared in specification...
It is quite easy to check - let's do two more coils and try them with 300W:
First 0.2 ohm:
As we can see the maximum voltage to reach at 0.2 ohm is 5V. So the limitation of current is EVIDENT - 25A.
Now 0.6 ohm:
This time we can see evident limitation of voltage: 9.5V.
4. TEMPERATURE CONTROL.
4.1. PREDEFINED SETTINGS.
Ni200
Dry wick first:
Not bad - wick gets "brown" but only a little. So we put some juice on the wick and:
Not bad again - when the wick gets dry mod doesn't try to modulate - it just lowers the voltage to almost 0 and that's it. So the wick must be wet to pleasant vaping.
Ti grade 1
Dry wick:
As we can see the Spartans is trying to control the voltage but finally wick is burned. Interestingly with wet wick is better:
SS316
Dry wick:
And that's it - there is no regulation. The Spartans holds constant voltage level until wick is burned. The same is with wet wick...
4.2. TFR SETTINGS.
In this mode we do not enter only one TCR value (as usually). We have to enter three values of TCR for 200, 400 and 600F taken from TFR curve. Thereby Spartans may approximate the proper TCR for any temperature. It may sound complicated but with steam-engine page is quite simply:
First we select the coil material, then in "TFR" tab enter 200, 400 and 600F temperature and we get "Res. factors" which have to be entered to the mod. In theory it is very good feature which should increase precision of temperature regulation. Let's see how is in practice:
Ti grade 1
Hmm, it is similar to predefined mode, maybe a little better...
SS316
YES! As we can see, thanks to the TFR option regulation with ss316 finally works!
5. CONCLUSION.
If you want the mod for TC forget about the Spartans - there are a lot of cheaper, smaller and better mods for temperature control.
But for the extreme VW... power margin is enough for EVERYTHING what you want. Yes, the wattage is overstated but 238W is still more than most of mods on the market, including the dna200.
What I LIKED?
* very solid finish and gun-metal look,
* voltage shape in VV mode,
* the potential of TFR curve using.
What I DISLIKED?
* overstated wattage, max. current and voltage,
* poor predefined TC settins for Ti and SS,
* screen could be a little brighter.
1. FINISH.
In short: you love or hate. Gloomy piece of iron with elegance of brick :-) But this brick ... quite well lays in my hand - forefinger surely reaches the fire button, thumb lays on side wall so the grip is quite sure:
And the material - according to the manufacturer the body is made of zinc alloy, coated with my favorite black mat layer. So we have an impression of gunmetal finish. It is just mod for James Bond :-)
Up/down buttons are quite small but work well and the FIRE button is bigger, with short jump and clear click, so far it fires 100/100. Spring loaded 510 connection handles well all my atomizers.
Inside:
we have 3x18650 battery bay with spring loaded pins and cover on magnets.
There is no vent holes at the bottom:
On top we have 510 connector and display:
2. FEATURES.
* power: 300W (hmm),
* temp. control: predefined Ni200, Ti, ss316 + TFR curve approximation(!)
* resistance in VW: 0,15 - 3 ohm,
* resistance in TC: 0,05 - 1 ohm (Ni i Ti) | 0,15 - 3 ohm (ss316),
* max. current: 40A
* max. voltage: 12,6V
* battery: 3 x 18650,
* dimensions: 104x62x25 mm,
* weight (with batteries): 370 g.
The things worth pointing out are the TFR curve approximation (about this later) and 3 ohm coils handling for ss316.
Finally we can look at the display:
to see typical parameters for TC mods.
3. VOLTAGE SHAPE and EFFICIENCY.
Measurements were carried out by use of real atomizer with coil resistance 0.31 ohm:
Until this point is quite good. At the beginning the resulting power is less than the set, but since 50W SET-vs-GET power difference is about 10%
Then we observe marketing witchcraft:
As we can see all what we can get is about 206 W and 8V. Hmm... let's calculate a little:
I = U/R = 8/0.31 = ~25.8 A
In my opinion we have current limitation level much smaller than declared in specification...
It is quite easy to check - let's do two more coils and try them with 300W:
First 0.2 ohm:
Now 0.6 ohm:
This time we can see evident limitation of voltage: 9.5V.
Having these two limitations we can simply calculate that the maximum reachable wattage for the Spartans is ~238W.
4. TEMPERATURE CONTROL.
4.1. PREDEFINED SETTINGS.
Ni200
Dry wick first:
Not bad - wick gets "brown" but only a little. So we put some juice on the wick and:
Not bad again - when the wick gets dry mod doesn't try to modulate - it just lowers the voltage to almost 0 and that's it. So the wick must be wet to pleasant vaping.
Ti grade 1
Dry wick:
As we can see the Spartans is trying to control the voltage but finally wick is burned. Interestingly with wet wick is better:
SS316
Dry wick:
And that's it - there is no regulation. The Spartans holds constant voltage level until wick is burned. The same is with wet wick...
4.2. TFR SETTINGS.
In this mode we do not enter only one TCR value (as usually). We have to enter three values of TCR for 200, 400 and 600F taken from TFR curve. Thereby Spartans may approximate the proper TCR for any temperature. It may sound complicated but with steam-engine page is quite simply:
First we select the coil material, then in "TFR" tab enter 200, 400 and 600F temperature and we get "Res. factors" which have to be entered to the mod. In theory it is very good feature which should increase precision of temperature regulation. Let's see how is in practice:
Ti grade 1
Hmm, it is similar to predefined mode, maybe a little better...
SS316
YES! As we can see, thanks to the TFR option regulation with ss316 finally works!
5. CONCLUSION.
If you want the mod for TC forget about the Spartans - there are a lot of cheaper, smaller and better mods for temperature control.
But for the extreme VW... power margin is enough for EVERYTHING what you want. Yes, the wattage is overstated but 238W is still more than most of mods on the market, including the dna200.
What I LIKED?
* very solid finish and gun-metal look,
* voltage shape in VV mode,
* the potential of TFR curve using.
What I DISLIKED?
* overstated wattage, max. current and voltage,
* poor predefined TC settins for Ti and SS,
* screen could be a little brighter.
