• Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    As a manufacturer/seller of disposable vapes, literally everyone wants refillable tanks.

    Obviously the customer does too but we’re vertically integrated. We grow, extract, flavor, fill, and sell. Managing the logistics from China sucks and requires a decent amount of overbuying to ensure we have a steady stream. You never know when some orange retard will close up the border to x country that makes your stuff.

    I’d love to just have a CoA of the distillate, flavor mixer like a coke machine, and a fill nozzle for the customer to hand to the cashier to fill.

    • kevinsky@feddit.nl
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      1 hour ago

      What happened to vaping?

      I specifically remember refillable vaping was exactly what you had when you vaped. You had the battery unit or a “mod” as it was called, on top of that you screwed a tank that had the coils, cotton and liquid, all that shit could be individually replaced and everybody had their own frankensteins combination of mod tank and other peripherals they liked to use.

      Why did that stop being a thing in favor of these absurdly wasteful disposable pens?

      • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        59 minutes ago

        Not sure what they’re implying about being forced to sell non refillable vapes. I bought a Centaurus kit (refillable) two years ago and they’re still selling. Though the same brand also has lines of disposables…

        In reality the people buying disposables don’t want to deal with the hassle that is e-juice (and changing coils). But the modern refillables are pretty good at not leaking every time you look at them wrong, though in my experience the big ones still don’t like being upside down.

    • 7101334@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      …commodified cannabis is garbage and distillate is hotdog water, though

  • onnekas@sopuli.xyz
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    20 hours ago

    Reusing them, even in small experimental projects, underscores a broader sustainability opportunity.

    Bigger opportunity would be banning this shit.

    • queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works
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      19 hours ago

      outright bans just allow black markets to flourish. harm reduction and public safety campaigns would go much further

        • new_world_odor@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          As someone who vapes quite a bit, I would genuinely love to see this. Disposables are an absolute shitshow and never should have existed in the first place.

          • YeahToast@aussie.zone
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            1 hour ago

            Vapes should never have existed? Smoking rates and nicotine addiction were finally going down… Then the good old invention of the vape brings it rocketing back again.

          • Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            17 hours ago

            Seriously. I struggle to fathom how running out for disposables is even slightly more convenient than refilling a proper tank every so often and replacing the coil. It tastes better, lasts longer and makes much less waste.

            • new_world_odor@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              I think it’s the marketing of it. A decent amount of people I’ve talked to genuinely don’t know that there’s a reusable option. This also changed when the tobacco industry got involved. Vaping used to have more of a culture of cessation. It was talked about how you could transition from cigs at a higher nicotine level, then bring it down until you’re vaping zero nic, then quit that. I barely hear anyone talk about the quitting pipeline anymore. I don’t think it’s an accident, I think it’s intentional.

              Edit: I also think it’s the fact that you only have to buy one thing, and the 3 things (device, coils, juice) aren’t available in every gas station like disposables are. And the user experience - open the box and it starts right up, no refills, all it needs is a charge once in a while. People are really fucking lazy, by nature. But the cost of all those conveniences is indebted tenfold upon the environment, as destruction and waste.

              • Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                9 hours ago

                I can’t argue with that. I started to preemptively keep myself OFF of cigs (entire family smokes and I knew I would eventually pick up the habit). For a while now, most of the talk around it I’ve heard is just whether or not it’s cool or cringe rather than how it can be used to quit smoking.

                Maybe the disposables wouldn’t be so egregious if you could keep the battery like you used to be able to and just replace the disposable tanks. I think that’s what bothers me the most. We had an okay system before that wasn’t really complicated and wasn’t NEARLY as wasteful.

          • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            It makes you feel dirty, but the question is do you still do it anyway - and if the answer is yes, that’s the problem. because that’s what drives the whole industry.

          • new_world_odor@lemmy.world
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            16 hours ago

            There are some shops that will actually collect the vapes and send them back to the manufacturer for recycling. But it’s less common than it used to be, which frustrates me to no end, it should be the reverse if anything.

    • pirat@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Ok here’s my trillion dollar idea:

      SmartVape CloudBar. A range of premium smart home vaping devices that connect to (and depend on) the cloud so you can smartvape remotely (e.g. in the bed, on the job, or even when travelling).

      Vaping, even locally, always works, unless your subscription has expired, there’s no internet connection available, or any of the necessary cloud service are down.

      • YeahToast@aussie.zone
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        1 hour ago

        I’m curious who your sole downvoter was. Was it a potato producer that dislikes gaming ? Perhaps a lemon farmer who feels their fruit could run doom on 4k. Was it someone who purchased a $5000 dollar rig only to find out they could have bought a singular potato? I guess we’ll never know

        • lechekaflan@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          That’s being changed, however, as a bunch of determined devs are using raycasting to go around the console’s limitations, being heavily optimized to run SNK’s arcade titles.

            • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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              7 hours ago

              He updated the video a few hours ago saying that some genius accomplished that

              Disclaimer: I didn’t actually watch the video, only saw the thumbnail on my feed

  • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    “it was actually a PY32F002B, powered by a 24 MHz Arm Cortex M0+ processor. The chip also carried 24KB of flash storage and 3KB of static RAM”

    To process a single button.

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Yes, where “process” means measuring instantaneous changes in airflow as the user inhales (or doesn’t), and regulating a heating coil accordingly by running actual program code - which requires a controller to run it and memory to store it in. I mean when you click “Reply” on this page all it has to do is process one button, but that involves a lot.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        9 hours ago

        Some of them have games like snake you can play in class on them. I mean that’s what I assume its for, any adult would use their phone.

    • Melobol@lemmy.ml
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      11 hours ago

      There were couple series of: full lcd screen, bt connected to smartphone for notifications and a speaker versions. Plus the rechargeable battery and usb c charging port (obviously).
      It was selling about 35 bucks.
      Forgot the game one: had controller buttons and 3 games: pacman, tetris and a lying shooter inbuilt. With full lcd and speaker. (Thus wasnt bt connected tho) Price was similar.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      21 hours ago

      Well the PY32F002B (costing a few cents) even though it has a 32-bit (entry level) ARM core @ 24MHz is literally cheaper than older and less powerful microcontrollers.

      Granted, if you don’t do anything else than react to a push button it’s still cheaper to use discrete electronic components than a microcontroller, but given that this device has a LiPo battery (meaning there’s battery control involved) and judging by the picture a USB-C connector, there’s probably a bit more digital logic in it, by which point a 3 cent microcontroller plus a cheap SMD crystal and some caps is cheaper than using discrete components.

      The domain of embedded systems has evolved to the point that it’s the best option for almost everything in consumer electronics, mainly because at the lower end there are so many stupidly cheap and easy to use choices were you don’t run an OS in it but instead just a single block of single-threaded code directly on the bare metal accessing registers directly.

      • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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        13 hours ago

        It’s crazy to think that this is basically more powerful than the Apollo Guidance Computer that got people onto the moon. It costs 3 cents, and we use it for shit like this and then throw it away. What spectacular waste.

      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        19 hours ago

        Temperature control, likely something to keep track of how much is left in the device, and I’m betting I’m forgetting something.

        I doubt discreet electronics can cut it at that point.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          19 hours ago

          Yeah, as per the analysis I did in another post, even a 555 and a couple of transistors to just blink an LED is more expensive than putting a microcontroller like this one there.

    • StarDreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Because an existing SoC at scale is cheaper than a custom ASIC.

      You see this all the time, custom keyboard running ARM+Linux, SmartNICs using RISC-V cores/FPGAs instead of ASIC accelerators. Even Microsoft refuses to commit to ASICs for network processing in their DCs and use FPGAs instead.

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        1 day ago

        A vape is a battery connected to a button connected to a heating coil. You might want a single transistor. You don’t need a software platform.

        • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          Sure, if you weren’t competing with every other vape out there that has things like variable voltage settings (at least 3), a pre-heat feature, the ability to turn on/off with 5 presses, or to turn off automatically after 5-10 minutes without use, a low battery indicator, a charging indicator, a broken coil indicator…

          Hmm, seems like you need a lot more than a battery, heating coil, button, and single transistor.

          • QueriesQueried@sh.itjust.works
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            20 hours ago

            With the major caveat that dispos dont offer more than 2 of those features at best. Almost all those features you specify are on reusable devices. There are going to be some that do have those additional features, but at a price point that makes them nearly as or more costly than a reusable device.

            The only IC you need for a disposable really, is a BMS, and a temp sensor (technically a timer so it also doesnt over draw, but timer ICs are built into everything) so it doesn’t willfully light itself on fire in unusual circumstances.

            All that to say: there is effectively 0 difference between most disposables released today and reusables, with the sole exception that you cant refill or recharge them. There should be no device with a battery deliberately intended to be thrown away, for anything, save for medical uses.

          • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            20 hours ago

            You’re sooooo right, check my response to that guy. I was into vaping years ago and loved mechanical vaoes, which were legit just a battery, heating coil mounted to a platform, button, and conductive tube. Super simple devices, so easy!

            Except they’re INSANELY DANGEROUS! I loved them but I’ve had friends treat them carelessly and they WILL start on fire or even explode if not vented. You need a thorough understanding of Ohm’s law, batteries’ amperage limits, how to rewrap batteries with nicks in the wrap, and to never leave them unattended even with manual locking rings.

            The person you replied to mentions adding a transistor which would do nothing. Add some more bits and just like you said, you’re competing with fully functional vapes with all those features and they’re cheap as hell. The chips cost nearly nothing, so that’s the route they go. Those vapes aren’t impervious to blowing up, but they’re much safer than simple mechanical vapes.

        • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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          23 hours ago

          There is also a battery management system as well.

          M0 processors are dirt cheap, especially in bulk.

          They probably have a BMS library that takes a few Kb of flash.

          The time it would take to make the design cost effective wouldn’t be worth it.

          Slap a less than a dollar mcu and be done with it.

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          20 hours ago

          I used to be into vaping and a big mechanical vape fan. I still have all of my old mech vapes! Those were what you’re thinking of—a button, a conducive body, and a coil or two mounted to a post. You pop an 18650 in, no transistor or resistors needed. You adjust your wattage by changing the way you wrap your coils, and your wire gauge. Generally I’d like to run around .2 ohms, which pushes about 18-20 amps out of the 18650s.

          These are NOT devices you want in the hands of regular people lawl. I’ve had friends in years past love how my setup was and get similar vapes for themselves. I’ve seen a burned-down backpack (RIP, all of his adderall XR), a table almost catch fire, and burnt carpet. No explosions because I told people “don’t get one of these, but if you’re not going to listen to me, for the love of glob make sure it’s vented.”

          Anyway, yeah no way anyone should have these except electronics enthusiasts. Even with locking rings, they can just start firing if the person using it isn’t super careful. Nice batteries rated for 30a pulse are 2USD more than the garbage batteries that love to vent or explode.

          You add in a transistor, that’s not gonna do anything. You add in a couple more things for protection and your cost is higher than it would have been by getting one of the chips in OP’s article, and you don’t have a nice interface for adjusting wattage and checking battery level and charging via USB and all that fun shit.

        • StarDreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          24 hours ago

          Disclaimer: I don’t smoke anything, so I don’t know any details.

          Wouldn’t a button connected to a heating coil be a fire hazard? Is there no automatic shut-off based on temperature? If you add enough safety features, it might end up costing about the same as an embedded SoC.

          • lyralycan@sh.itjust.works
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            24 hours ago

            All it would need is a thermal fuse/cutoff, like those in portable heating appliances (air fryers, grills etc.). I wonder what’s needed to include a 10 second on & 30 seconds disabled timer, maybe it’s cheaper

            • nyan@lemmy.cafe
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              23 hours ago

              I wonder what’s needed to include a 10 second on & 30 seconds disabled timer, maybe it’s cheaper

              555 timer and a transistor or two, I think?

              • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                20 hours ago

                Digipart is showing me price for PY32F002B with a minimum purchase of 5000 as less that $0.10 (not the factory price, just the cheapest store).

                The price for the cheapest NE555 (random manufacturer implementation of a 555) variant in Digipart is $0.13

                (Granted, you also need at least a crystal and 2 caps, plus 1 power filtering cap per power line for the microcontroller, but those are all cheap)

                It’s ridiculous how modern microcontrollers are so stupidly cheap that even though they can run a lot more digital logic (in the form of software running in them) they almost always beat using older and much simpler digital parts even for something as simple as this.

                Even microprocessors are getting stupidly cheap: somebody recently pointed me out the Allwinner F1C100s, which is about the smallest microprocessor that can run Linux, and it costs $2 in bulk to the point that some embedded engineer has made a business card with one running Linux which he just gives away.

                • nyan@lemmy.cafe
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                  14 hours ago

                  Economies of scale have been doing really funky things to chip prices, then. Yet another demonstration that the universe Does Not Make Sense.

            • Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              23 hours ago

              They also do some BMS stuff, and some support limited graphics and UI. Depedns on the moddle

          • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            20 hours ago

            You’re 100% correct. I have mechanical vapes—no safety cutoff, just an 18650 in a conductive tube with wire coils attached to posts. They’re amazing, and they’re extremely dangerous. Turning one into a protected vape with basic features like wattage adjustment? Way cheaper and easier to go SoC!

        • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          i disagree with the single transistor. overcharge prevention requires something more (i am not a batteriologist don’t ask me what. i’d do it with a tesla coil because that’d look cooler)

          • wewbull@feddit.uk
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            15 hours ago

            I was assuming it was disposable (as so many are) and therefore no charging circuit.

            • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              Huh. The disposables I am occasionally “forced” to get (put it in a 510 thread gramma) have charging ports. I usually have to charge once or twice to get through the full gram.

              That being said, the good local dispo just rebranded and gave me a bunch of 510 batteries with the old name on them. These batteries are fantastic and look about the same size as the server in the article

        • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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          20 hours ago

          There is a little more to it, pressing the button 5 times turns it on and off. Three times often lets one cycle through power settings. But yeah, anything more than a very minimal programming is frankly suspicious.

          It could be a lot is used to get the charge right idk.

  • amelia@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    This further illustrates how absolutely crazy it is to produce these devices for a single use and then just throw them away, not even making sure they can be recycled properly. It’s complete madness. I hope they’ll be banned soon, I think the EU is working on it.

    • terranoid@lemmy.cafe
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      1 day ago

      They should absolutely ban disposable but as long as they’re smart about it and don’t try and make it a general vape ban. Anything with a microcontroller and OLED display should need regulation to be “disposable”. So fucking wasteful.

      Vapes can and have always been something you can pop a battery and cartridge and custom juice in. There’s zero reason to make it disposable. Make the coil/cotton/juice cartridge disposable… Like a juul was last I checked? That’s reasonable.

      And then next regulate how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml is fucking insane. That is heart issue level of nicotine. I got buzzed off 12 mg/ml, used 3 or 6mg/ml regularly, and quit at 1.5mg/ml. There’s no fucking reason other than harm and addiction to provide 60mg/ml.

      • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
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        1 day ago

        OLED maybe but small micros are now so cheap and so small that they’re negligible.

        Battery is probably still the biggest environmental impact.

        • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 day ago

          One of those 3 cent one time programmable microcontrollers would be sufficient. Something with enough power to run a web server is just wasteful.

          • bacon_pdp@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            You do realize that a 1 cent microcontroller has enough RAM, Flash and processing power to be a web server, correct?

      • michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 day ago

        don’t try and make it a general vape ban. In some EU contries 10ml liquid costs more than pack of cigarettes, so they defacto banned vaping. how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml 20 mg/ml is EU wide limit since 2025

      • Dremor@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Disposable vapes are already forbidden, at least in France, idk if it is union wide.

        But yeah, those things make no sense. The only thing with a battery that should be disposable would be fire alarm. Not because of the battery, but because the main sensor has a 10 years lifespan due to its natural deterioration.

      • Farid@startrek.website
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        21 hours ago

        Compared to a vape pen AirPods have insane life span. It’s still bad, but not even in the same ballpark as something you usually throw away in a week or so.

        • LlilL@lemmy.zip
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          8 hours ago

          You can also have your dying AirPods replaced at the battery rate of $40 too. Still doesn’t strike the overall problem, especially since Apple doesn’t advertise that replacement.

        • cookiecoookie@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          That’s fine for airpods but as someone who worked retail, there’s just as many $15 earbuds that break near instantly that have to be thrown away and never fixed. Those things have 3 batteries in them.

          • Farid@startrek.website
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            11 hours ago

            Not sure what you mean. Are you implying that because on occasion some people will lose an AirPod they are somehow worse than vape pods that are designed to be disposed of within days after first use?

            • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              people who like the concept don’t give a fuck about the environment, it’s just convenient for them so fuck it.

              I’m sure you’ll justify it for yourself lol.

              you don’t need them, you just like them, and don’t care that it’s created an entire new class of ewaste.

              • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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                9 hours ago

                People lose phones more often, huge source of e-waste that we should ban first. In fact most people wouldn’t even have a reason to buy the earbuds if they didn’t have a phone in the first place.

                • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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                  7 hours ago

                  People lose phones more often

                  something tells me they don’t just evaporate, never to be used used again, but resold.

                  hard to resell a single earbud.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        It is interesting to see old tech having clever solutions for stuff like this, these days the answer is 98% of the time is to slap a CPU on it.

        It’s boring!

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        1 day ago

        Doesn’t that just need a voltage regulator? It’s disposable so you don’t never need to concern yourself with charging.

        • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          A lot of them have selectable voltage/power levels as a “feature”, which is easier to do via a mcu PWM controll than discrete electronics.

          • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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            1 day ago

            yeah it’s more efficient this way but all you need is ne555 + mosfet tho? still no need for it to be turing complete

            • raldone01@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              There are really cheap mcus that need maybe one capacitor if even that. It is cheaper, easier and more flexible than the multiple components required to configure an NE555.

            • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              19 hours ago

              Yes, but think about it like you’re a Chinese manufacturing engineer with only basic electronics education. You COULD do that design, build out the pcb, custom tool it to fit your plastic housing, etc etc… Or you could go to the manufacturer down the street who already makes pre designed voltage reg MCU’s on a board and spend like, 20 minutes in an IDE to code the specific voltage levels and button presses.

              When production volume and turnaround time is the only things that matter in this shovel waste crap, “wasting” silicon is less expensive financially than building out the optimal solution.

              • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                19 hours ago

                Designing a board to run a microcontroller like that is actually pretty simple.

                I’ve done it for fun with a couple similar microcontrollers, and whilst I’m an EE by training I don’t do it professionally plus my training is from before embedded system, so I count as a Junior EE for that.

                I’m pretty sure that even a freshly graduate Chinese EE can even on their own figure out the general recipe for integrating something this (following the datasheet, add crystal + load caps, plus about 1 caps each power pin for power filtering plus 1 global power filtering cap, plus possibly a pull-down/up resistor on the RESET pin) in a week or two and then for subsequent projects it will be feasible to do it in a few days.

                Really, there’s other shit in there (say, battery management) that’s more work to figure out than how to add and place the parts for an entry level ARM microcontroller to work.

              • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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                1 day ago

                my guess would be it’s a parts commonality thing, it’s not hard to make it the old way, there are datasheets for it too. sure you could probably make tiny and cheaper (30x10mm? maybe smaller) analog board with two chips and mosfet working as pwm controller and current limiter, but it’ll have different passives for different battery sizes and heater powers. or you could make one design with optional usb port that you might just not solder on, and depending on model you just put different firmware inside

                • Hitchie_Rawtin@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  The old way is actually the analog style you’ve mentioned, but that was the very early days of ecigs well before they became mass market, the cottage industry modding scene had no hope of creating sophisticated microcontrollers and the charger wasn’t even USB, it was a DC jack & plug. Lavatube was the first time we had that kind of microcontroller regulation & then the DNA15 and DNA20 came out, got cloned by China and that changed the game forever.

                  The problem with the older way is consumers understand watts alone as a relatively consistent measurement of power much better than they would the relation between voltage, resistance & current draw. They didn’t want to learn Ohm 's Law back then and wouldn’t want to know about it now. Microcontrollers simplified that massively.

            • terranoid@lemmy.cafe
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              1 day ago

              With the economy of scale, it is probably cheaper to just drop a microcontroller in products

            • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              20 hours ago

              A search in Digipart shows the cheapest price of this microcontroller as $0.10 whilst the cheapest price of the NE555 is $0.13

              It really is THAT ridiculous.

                • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  17 hours ago

                  Yeah, it doesn’t make much since if you think in terms of how many transistors are needed to implement each of them as the microcontroller probably uses hundreds of thousands more transistors than a 555.

                  That said, given reasonably recent processes die size for both are probably pretty close (I reckon most of the size of a modern 555 die would be the points to place the wires to the package) and with pretty similar yields (pretty close to 100%)

                  I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason has something to do with economies of scale since a cheap microcontroller can pretty much be used for the same things as a 555 and a whole lot more than that, so it makes sense more of the former are manufactured than of the latter, plus I bet the process generation used in making the microcontroller is probably more recent and hence one where there are more fabs operating. This latter reason would also explain why this more recent 32-bit microcontroller is actually cheaper than older 8-bit ones with less built-in memory and fewer peripherals (such as the ATTiny ones).

            • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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              1 day ago

              I was just thinking that yeah again all it needs is some basic components. Like how a light bulb or fan might have multiple power settings but I don’t expect them to be able to run doom.

            • tetris11@feddit.uk
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              1 day ago

              ne555

              Thanks for the interesting read. Real nifty little timing/switching circuit!

              • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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                1 day ago

                it’s kinda dogshit but for this application it (cmos version) would be good enough. or better than that, there are dedicated pwm signal generators. i meant this thing in terms of complexity needed

                • tetris11@feddit.uk
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                  1 day ago

                  It was a good insight into how the lightbulb dimming tech of the 80s/90s worked. Also why the dimmer switches back then were so dangerous with the capacitor likely just a few mm’s away from the light switch which might not have been properly wired because UK homes back then didn’t run a neutral back from the switch, but daisy-chained the switch and the bulb together and then ran the neutral back from the bulb

        • khannie@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Some of the larger disposables do have a charging port. I guess it allows them ship a smaller battery which is good

          • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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            1 day ago

            then you have to interface with charger anyway so ig this makes some more sophisticated chip make sense

      • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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        1 day ago

        ok fine i’d put there a current limiter which you can make with 2 transistors and a diode. no need for an entire microcontroller. it’s often included with batteries these days anyway

        • terranoid@lemmy.cafe
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          1 day ago

          I believe lithium ion batteries need custom chips just to charge and discharge smartly

          Shit, even connecting to modern USB c to negotiate voltage you need a controller

          • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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            1 day ago

            i think you can get away with resistors when you can work with 5V, up to 1.5A. lithium batteries need current limiter in series with voltage limiter, and this alone can be made in a very simple way, unless you want to know when battery is charged, or if you want extra efficiency that smps gives you, but this only makes sense for larger batteries (phone-sized and up) or when you want to handle everything to charger and connect battery to charger directly. then i think you need controller

    • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      It’s probably cheaper and simpler to modify (say you suddenly want it to turn on when you click 3 times) to use a 0.1€ chip than to figure out how to do it and build it with discrete components.

      20 years ago I was all “computer (chips) can do everything! We can use them everywhere! Replaceable, reprogrammable, fantastic!”

      And no one cared.

      Now they are everywhere and it’s just a fucking mess 😔

      Maybe 20 years from now the EU will have forced standards onto everything and you can (again) fix your dishwasher (and start it from work!!1!).

  • Turbodad@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    I don’t get those pieces of crap. There were these fancy electric cigarettes years ago, using those 3.7V rechargeable batteries. Custom designs (saw lightsaber designs), custom liquids, repairable, no e-waste. What is wrong with people to use those crapsticks? And why do those dumbnuts don’t get that these things are e-waste not residual waste?

    • Melobol@lemmy.ml
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      10 hours ago

      They are too lazy to refill a pod, and replace a pod - not even a coil.
      They dont want to bother, and that’s too complicated and they would just loose it anyway - better to buy those throwaway ones.
      These are the most common excuses.

    • cookiecoookie@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      Instead of asking why people are buying disposables, ask why nobody is buying those reusable vapes. These disposable companies must be doing quite a few things better if people are willing to throw away money and tech.

      • JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net
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        20 hours ago

        Price.

        That is what they do better.

        Many many MANY people would sooner buy something for 5 dollars 20 times then something for $100 once whether financial necessity or not feeling guilty for buying the super expensive thing.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          Not to mention people being too lazy to want to do even basic maintenance. Also companies that prefer to sell something people need to keep buying over and over might not offer a longer term version.

          Not vaping or even disposable, but my manscaped face trimmer, which is supposedly a higher end one, was the first electric trimmer I’ve gotten that didn’t come with a little bottle of lube and the instructions even said “you don’t need to lube this!” Knowing that they hadn’t changed the laws of physics, I lubed it anyways and I’m convinced that’s the only reason it hasn’t permanently seized up by now because even with the lube and a full charge, there have been times where it didn’t want to start going without a good tap after turning it on.

        • cookiecoookie@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          IMO it’s quality for the price more than just price, I’ve bought and used so many brands of refillable pods/tank mods and they always have quality problems that just don’t happen with the disposables. For anyone that’s experienced them, all I have to say is e-juice leakage.

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          Yeah, I think I had 2-4MB, but it was a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.

          It also had an FPU addon, which I don’t think the M0 has.

      • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        When I was a kid we had a 386-33MHz with 4MB RAM, it ran Doom at about 1-2FPS. Upgraded to a 486 DX (66MHz I think?) and 8MB RAM and it ran great on that. It’s possible that the 386 would have been fine if we put more RAM in though, I think the biggest issue was swapping.

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          Set it to low quality and hit Ctrl+Minus until the window is the size of a postage stamp and it’s buttery smooth.

    • Jason2357@lemmy.ca
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      19 hours ago

      Hardware isn’t the limitation, its willingness to fight locked down hardware and the power management of android. You might be able use ADB to control it, install termux and then with that, SSH server and then a server of some sort.

      In my experience, most phones don’t seem to boot sans battery, so its just a matter of time until the battery goes poof and your system goes down. Some manage it though - you do get a decent amount of hardware for the power consumption.

      • TimeNaan@lemmy.worldOP
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        18 hours ago

        Probably only replacing the screen would work at this point. Android is quite flexible but you need some touch input to operate it.

          • TimeNaan@lemmy.worldOP
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            2 hours ago

            You’re right, I haven’t thought of that. Maybe connecting it to a monitor through an hdmi USB-C hub could work.

      • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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        20 hours ago

        It just got dramatically worse, screen jumps up and down, unusable I won’t even be able to take phone calls. I can’t even restart it.

        • dandu3@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          If it’s an OLED and it’s cracked you have only a couple hours to get your shit off of it before it goes completely blank. LCDs are usually somewhat fine depending on how they’re broken. They don’t get worse

          • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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            18 hours ago

            It took a day to go from partially fucked to unusable, the entire screen is like seizuring. There was no actual crack though, must have hit a rock or something getting lobbed onto the ground.