Discontinued RBT Splinter (All Versions)

[NimChimpsky]

I’ve been playing with TCR on the new v2 I just got in that firesale. Other than the Shammer I’ve had a week longer, these are my first 510 mods running AF.

Ive got AF running on a RXGen3 and a CB80. Used the setting I’ve seen in this thread and Fear went thru some additional stuff with me on DM but I’m not getting good results on 120-145 TCR using .24-.25 ohms and 42-45w.

I suspect it’s another setting like the PI regulation which is just turned off. So is preheat although i have no problem holding a button an extra 5 sec and I got auto fire working as well.

At 145 I can push the temp to 450 and get vapor but it’s not right.

anyone have a suggestion or a working TCR profile for the v2 they can share? Screenshots of the setting screens is good enough for me.

Others can probably provide better tips, but it sounds like you need to up the resistance a bit. Check the resistance on the mod when it hasn't been used for a while (i.e. cold resistance). I'd keep your TCR around 125 for the V2 and just bump that resistance up till you are getting good results in the temp range you want.

 

[FearAndLawyering]

Others can probably provide better tips, but it sounds like you need to up the resistance a bit. Check the resistance on the mod when it hasn't been used for a while (i.e. cold resistance). I'd keep your TCR around 125 for the V2 and just bump that resistance up till you are getting good results in the temp range you want.

yeah this is what I was saying too heh. I think the locked cold resistance is probably low. its been so long since I used one I tried to give a range but it needs to be read and set proper

 

[4everpushingaboulder]

I think I’m closer now. I increased the ohms to .260 and am down to 135 TCR and getting pretty good results at 360-380. Had some help on IG too and between everyone’s hint I think I’m set.

 

[GoldenBud]

@4everpushingaboulder try TCR 290, Locked 0.08 (even locked 0.1 below) below cold resistance, 42W, Temp 365F-380F. it's how I configure the iHeat 510 and it seems to work perfectly, maybe with the Splinter it will work too. Don't cruise/auto-fire until you are sure it's the right settings, just on demand...

I dunno why 290 work, maybe because the heater has a lot of volume to it comparing to simple ss coil

 

[Pea_Oh_Tea]

I think I’m closer now. I increased the ohms to .260 and am down to 135 TCR and getting pretty good results at 360-380. Had some help on IG too and between everyone’s hint I think I’m set.
View attachment 14807

These are the same settings I've been using for a while with excellent results!

 

[GoldenBud]

I know TCR 145 works 100%, but I dunno how accurate it is. on 190C with TCR 135 or 145 - slow draw - I had a tiny hotspot...but strong AF hit .
anyway, it is enjoyable with TCR 145 too. i had great hits. P80 + tubomyfirm + Splinter V2 , TCR 145 40W and dunno the resistance. around 0.05 below cold resistance

 

[FearAndLawyering]

I know TCR 145 works 100%, but I dunno how accurate it is. on 190C with TCR 135 or 145 - slow draw - I had a tiny hotspot...but strong AF hit .
anyway, it is enjoyable with TCR 145 too. i had great hits. P80 + tubomyfirm + Splinter V2 , TCR 145 40W and dunno the resistance. around 0.05 below cold resistance

I got curious on these and did some math (assuming a real cold ohm of .25) -

https://imgur.com/3lXsmCt

dropping your cold resistance and increasing your TCR is basically the same thing, looking at the delta ohms (the amount of heating applied until the mod turns off the power)
0.0475 vs 0.0505, yours will be less hot by about 36F (real temp) [.003 delta, with an avg tcr 132.5 gives 2.26C]

 

[Hippie]

Yes but the TCR is the rate of change soooo if you then increase or decrease the temp by 10 degrees and judge if it's actually gone up or down 10 degrees. the temp will change by more than 10 degrees if the TCR is too high and less than 10 degrees if the TCR is too low.
I like to set the TCR a little on the high side as it's less button presses to temp step

 

[bossman]

I’ve been playing with TCR on the new v2 I just got in that firesale. Other than the Shammer I’ve had a week longer, these are my first 510 mods running AF.

Ive got AF running on a RXGen3 and a CB80. Used the setting I’ve seen in this thread and Fear went thru some additional stuff with me on DM but I’m not getting good results on 120-145 TCR using .24-.25 ohms and 42-45w.

I suspect it’s another setting like the PI regulation which is just turned off. So is preheat although i have no problem holding a button an extra 5 sec and I got auto fire working as well.

At 145 I can push the temp to 450 and get vapor but it’s not right.

anyone have a suggestion or a working TCR profile for the v2 they can share? Screenshots of the setting screens is good enough for me.

I saw you got your config sorted out already; I just wanted to say I always leave resistance unlocked on my Arctic Fox and Red Panda mods and they work great with a V2 or Z in the TCR 130 to 160 range. As long as I'm not getting hotspots I like my Splinters aggressive and I'm happy to never give a thought to resistance, cold or otherwise

Yes but the TCR is the rate of change soooo if you then increase or decrease the temp by 10 degrees and judge if it's actually gone up or down 10 degrees. the temp will change by more than 10 degrees if the TCR is too high and less than 10 degrees if the TCR is too low.
I like to set the TCR a little on the high side as it's less button presses to temp step

Yeah, I switched all my Z mods up Celsius just to minimize button pressing to temp step. It's especially handy for Red Panda since there's only 2° or 10° increments and not 5° like I'd grown accustomed to

 

[FearAndLawyering]

Yes but the TCR is the rate of change soooo if you then increase or decrease the temp by 10 degrees and judge if it's actually gone up or down 10 degrees. the temp will change by more than 10 degrees if the TCR is too high and less than 10 degrees if the TCR is too low.
I like to set the TCR a little on the high side as it's less button presses to temp step

oh this is an interesting point. I guess I just never adjust mine but I can see that being easier to manage the fuzzy numbers

 

[4everpushingaboulder]

I was part of a BBQ forum for a few years, and a Harley forum a few years before that.

It never ceases to amaze me the level of combined knowledge you can get from a bunch of strangers on the internet. Appreciate the learnin folks. Makes a ton more sense and I appreciate the investment of time.

 

[KeroZen]

Yes but the TCR is the rate of change soooo if you then increase or decrease the temp by 10 degrees and judge if it's actually gone up or down 10 degrees. the temp will change by more than 10 degrees if the TCR is too high and less than 10 degrees if the TCR is too low.
I like to set the TCR a little on the high side as it's less button presses to temp step

Yes and alternatively, if your TCR is way off you can get into situations where the mod temp increment yields a real-world temperature change that is much too large to be practical. You think you got it right because you managed to match more or less one temp setting to a working air temperature, but as soon as you change the set point it diverges rapidly.

This is not an issue when the mod allows 1° increments but many only allow 5° increments and if that translates to over 30° of real temperature change it becomes an issue. I tend to favor having a working range of temperature settings vs having an accurate displayed temperature on screen for that reason.

 

[pakalolo]

Yes and alternatively, if your TCR is way off you can get into situations where the mod temp increment yields a real-world temperature change that is much too large to be practical. You think you got it right because you managed to match more or less one temp setting to a working air temperature, but as soon as you change the set point it diverges rapidly.

This is not an issue when the mod allows 1° increments but many only allow 5° increments and if that translates to over 30° of real temperature change it becomes an issue. I tend to favor having a working range of temperature settings vs having an accurate displayed temperature on screen for that reason.

Or you could just use wattage mode, the way the Splinter was meant to be used.

 

[FearAndLawyering]

Or you could just use wattage mode, the way the Splinter was meant to be used.

can you elaborate on this? TCR mode is clearly better and i always had the impression wattage was the only official supported mode to cut down on customer service requests and repair issues because improper TCR settings are basically the only way to kill the atty

 

[KeroZen]

Pak' is oldschool you know...

But Power Mode is more predictable and you don't have to mess with custom firmware, cryptic settings and mod intricacies, it just works... you can even combust both your bowl then your Splinter with it, nothing beats that!

 

[4everpushingaboulder]

I mentioned to Fear yesterday that even on wattage mode it’s more regulated than the Milaana because you can set a wattage cap.

Running in wattage at 42w is still considerably regulated compared to a 3.7v20a battery driving over 70w.

Probably why old Milaana users are so happy with wattage on the Splinter.

 

[pakalolo]

TCR mode is clearly better

Assertion without proof. Show me why TCR is clearly better. If you are stating an opinion (it's clearly better for you) then that's all I need to know.

I was involved in the Splinter design from the beginning. Before there was even a beat team, Ryan sent me the first Splinter ever made. (Actually there were three.) The concept was to produce a device that could be powered by a mod box in wattage mode. Ryan always shied away from anything that smacked of TCR. He felt that TCR algortithms were unreliable, and user tinkering would give erratic results with possible damage to the heater, as you said.

 

[Shit Snacks]

But once you have good TCR setup, it is really hard to go back, in my experience at least! The freedom and the capability

 

[LooseCucumber]

About 8 bowls in using wattage and this device really medicates well. Once my new mods come in I'm gonna give arctic fox a try. More people should be in on his IG sales!

 

[4everpushingaboulder]

Assertion without proof. Show me why TCR is clearly better. If you are stating an opinion (it's clearly better for you) then that's all I need to know.

I was involved in the Splinter design from the beginning. Before there was even a beat team, Ryan sent me the first Splinter ever made. (Actually there were three.) The concept was to produce a device that could be powered by a mod box in wattage mode. Ryan always shied away from anything that smacked of TCR. He felt that TCR algortithms were unreliable, and user tinkering would give erratic results with possible damage to the heater, as you said.

I don’t doubt any of that.

However I do know that unklmark uses TCR as his preference for his mods. Every pic and video he posts he’s using auto fire with the temps set to 390-410.

 

[FearAndLawyering]

he may feel they’re unreliable but i think as a community we’ve found optimal values that work extremely well and consistent with no damage to the devices. if that’s not better than i don’t know what is. it’s brain dead simple to tap the fire button twice and have it spit out clouds without worrying about inhale technique or feathering the fire button.

you may have found adequate performance in wattage mode but i think you have a sunk cost fallacy against trying TCR. you spent time developing a technique with practice why throw that away for an automatic solution.

wattage mode may have been ‘the way it was supposed to be’, 5 years ago but things change and improve. 5 years ago none of these badass mods we use even existed, he was probably right to worry about the technology from before

 

[pakalolo]

he may feel they’re unreliable but i think as a community we’ve found optimal values that work extremely well and consistent with no damage to the devices. if that’s not better than i don’t know what is. it’s brain dead simple to tap the fire button twice and have it spit out clouds without worrying about inhale technique or feathering the fire button.

you may have found adequate performance in wattage mode but i think you have a sunk cost fallacy against trying TCR. you spent time developing a technique with practice why throw that away for an automatic solution.

wattage mode may have been ‘the way it was supposed to be’, 5 years ago but things change and improve. 5 years ago none of these badass mods we use even existed, he was probably right to worry about the technology from before

You assume too much. I've done a lot of testing using TCR mode, and I've never found any appreciable benefit over wattage. I think that regardless of mode, anyone who does not develop good inhaling technique is missing out.

The fallacy here is that TCR mode provides some magic consistency that simply does not exist, and furthermore is completely unnecessary. It adds far too much complexity to what should be a simple thing. You only have to read this thread to see that. Nearly every page has someone asking what the "right" settings are or describing how the settings aren't working the same way that they did for someone else.

TCR mode introduces several more variables into a process that is already full of them, most of them uncontrollable with any precision. For example, the load size, the load density, the load dryness, the strain, whether the load has been hit already and if so how many times, the airflow, your inhale speed, your state of mind... there are probably more but I don't need to go on. Any one of these can overwhelm anything TCR can do for you.

The fact is that you don't need to control anything that carefully. You just have to get in the ballpark and it will work for you. You can't measure the difference introduced by changing these variables but you don't need to. TCR simply gives you a false sense of control.

 

[FearAndLawyering]

ok but this is like trying to argue automatic vs manual transmission. everyone has their preferences, i’ve explained why TCR is superior in a technical sense i just don’t think that you can claim the device should only be used a certain way when so many other people (everyone else?) are having fantastic results with a completely regulated device and the peace of mind each perfect hit brings without any threat of combustion

 

[vapviking]

What Pak said, I feel all of that, having tried several folks' suggestions and profiles, etc, I still have not found a true sweet spot in tcr mode. (Splinter V2 on Ravage230). I do ok, but I still have to monitor my draw, and I get hot spots if I don't rotate the stem between or during hits.
My rudimentary knowledge of electronics has been taxed beyond any understanding of what some of the shit means.
About the most important "feature" I've discovered is simply an auto puff shut-off, this is my fail-safe against combustion. I don't think this has anything to do with tcr or auto-fire, etc.!
So, I do use the tcr that I've become accustomed to, but I do believe straight power mode is easier, if one can regulate draw.

I also did not see where Pak said the device should only be used one way. He simply said, "Or you could just use wattage mode...". He also made a distinction between 'better' and 'better, for you'

 

[FearAndLawyering]

well for context,
i read ‘or you could use it the way it meant to be used’ implied that anyone using TCR was using it incorrectly or wrong and i was curious if there was a technical reason a person shouldn’t use TCR but it is just a personal preference and that’s ok. i don’t agree with the reasons provided.

now, one thing that’s not apparent but i think we’re all talking about different devices. you specifically mention a splinter v2 and i know pak uses a splinter v2. maybe it sucks on there. but on a Z there’s no comparison.

a dialed in splinter z in tcr is undeniably better and i challenge you both to try one