A noob's first impressions of the Dovpo TC-50

Hardware Reviews
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Continuing the discussion from Vape Mail!:

In short: I love this thing and I haven’t tried the temp control yet. I’ll report back when I do.

In long: I’m not a reviewer or an expert by any means, but I’ll do my best. This is my first mod and I’ve only had it a couple days. I’ve never used anything else so I have literally nothing else to compare it to. Except for the temp control and maybe a couple minor changes, I think it is identical to the Dovpo Mini 50w that @Ken_O_Where has, and his experience with his is what convinced me to go for this one. Pretty much everything he said in his review is the same for this one. The temp control wasn’t much more than the Mini, so I figured I’d get it and if I wanted to use TC I could.

“Hardware” — It’s small and light enough that I don’t feel like I’m lugging around a brick, but it still feels solid and well made. The (three) buttons are nice and clicky. I have noticed a couple times that if I hit the fire button on the very left edge instead of in the middle, even though it clicks it doesn’t fire. The battery cover slides off and has magnets to keep it in place. No rattle or movement on buttons or battery cover. The 510 pin is spring loaded. I’m guessing that’s important? The bottom has a vent and a mini usb plug for onboard charging. No passthrough, but I wouldn’t even if there was. I’ll also probably never charge it with the usb since I have a Nitecore charger. I’ve been using it at about 15-20 watts and I don’t really chain vape, so one battery lasts me about a day and a half or so.

The display is bright and easy to read inside. I haven’t had it out in the sun, but Ken said that it was kinda hard to see in bright light. I don’t know what’s standard with a display, but I’m guessing it has everything it needs—battery, resistance, temp in TC mode or volts if TC is off, and watts. I didn’t notice until I re-read Ken’s review, but the display and buttons are slightly off center on this one as well. You’d think being the OCD personality type I am that it’d bother me, but it doesn’t at all. Like I said, I didn’t even notice. I did notice that it looks like the 510 connector is a hair unbalanced. Everything leans just a teensy bit to the right. Oh, and nothing sits flush, but I’m ok with that.

“Software” — The one thing that people might not like is the auto shutoff. Leave it alone for about five minutes and it powers down. It takes about 2 seconds to come back up once you click the button and it remembers the settings, so it hasn’t bothered me much. I’ve gotten into the habit of pushing the button as I’m picking it up, and usually it’s back up and ready to go by the time I get it to my mouth. I have forgotten a couple of times, picked it up and fired expecting to get something and gotten a lil freaked out when nothing happened for a sec. LoL.

The instructions for using it were nearly useless, but I think I figured it out for the most part. It has two kinds of locks—one will keep it from doing anything until it is unlocked and the other just locks the power settings. I haven’t used either, but I like knowing they’re there. It’s got a stealth mode, whatever the purpose of that is. You can flip the display, change the temp control from F to C, raise/lower/turn off the temp control, and obviously adjust the power up or down. When you put something on it, it (sort of) asks you if it is a new coil or the same one you had before. Press the up button for new and the down for the same. I guess it remembers the resistance from before if you press ‘same’ but I don’t know the point of this either. Other than letting it sit for five minutes or taking out the battery, I don’t think there’s a way to shut it off. At least, not one I’ve been able to figure out.

Temp Control — The most important thing about this model, and I haven’t even used it yet. :stuck_out_tongue: Some Ni coils for the Subtank are next on my list to get. I’ll keep you updated on that end once I get them.

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ROFL! Aint that the truth… They would have been more useful if they had been in Chinese. If you click it 5 times real fast it will shut off.

Im glad you like it, i still love my 50w mini and use it constantly now. I almost never take a mech with me anymore and honestly i dont use them that much since i got it.

Did you get the carrying case? If it were me i would just get some of what ever wire @NewDrip recommends and rebuild the OCC coils you get as the Ni coils are more expensive but im kind of a cheap bastard.

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Oh yeah!! That’s why I didn’t buy them. I knew there was a good reason. LoL. I figured I’d just rebuild the ones I got.

5 click on mine locks it. :confused: Now that I have the STM, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to put it down. I could see myself happy with this for quite awhile. I can’t wait to go visit my mum and show it off to her and my sister. LoL.

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Oh, how odd. I guess since they had to rewrite the software they made some changes, 5 clicks gives me the “System Off” screen. You liking the STM? I find it to be a very respectable tank especially after rewicking with less cotton. I actually got the wife to use them by taking away her PV’s and hiding them for a couple days. She spends 2 hours on the road everyday for work and now she loves the STM.

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ROFL Nice! Yeah, I can’t imagine using a dripper while trying to drive unless the PV has a huge well. Still though, 2 hours is a long time. I’m loving mine…I haven’t put it down. I’m really excited for the bell caps, too. I love the look of the glass and metal, but the glass gets smeary really quickly. I find myself compulsively cleaning it.

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For someone who is not so good at reviews, that was excellent. I look forward to you getting the Ni coils for your subtank…

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Aw, thanks! :blush: Think I could start getting some free stuff to review? LOL I’m looking forward to trying out the temp control and seeing what all the fuss is about. Probably just new-vape syndrome, but I can’t imagine anything being better than this. Of course, that’s what I said when I went from a 901 to an Ego, an Ego to a VV Ego, from a carto to a clearomizer, from hangsen liquid to DIY, the list goes on…

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You got my vote!!!

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I wrap single coils on it and so does she. Also i run the cotton to the back well, they are separate, so you can put a full dropper of juice into it, even a little more with a slight tilt. It doesnt hold as much as the Tugboat V1/2 but it does have better flavor, not by a lot tho.

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You’re saying you make the wick long, right? I haven’t gotten the PV yet so I can’t quite visualize what you’re saying. I’m sure it will make sense once I have it in front of me.

I’m in heaven. Watching Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and puffing away on coconut custard cookie. Life is grand. :relaxed:

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Ive never heard of that, ill grab it and check it out. I was looking for something to watch and couldnt find anything despite have 4-5000 movies on the network as well as a few thousands TV shows/cartoons. I ended up going with Parks and Recreation again.

Ill go down and wick up one of my PV and post a pic.

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It just started on BBC. I loved the book and they’ve done quite a passable job with the show, all things considered. I’m quite impressed. :smile: Tonight was the second episode. I think the first is on YouTube.

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Ok, so please forgive the awful picture as i still have no idea how to use this camera. The coil isnt so pretty either, i wrapped it right after my accident with broken fingers and instead of wrapping a new one, tonight, i just burned it and cleaned it with alcohol and a tooth brush. Continued after pic.

20 minutes into the first ep and it is quite good. I love some Britt TV, most of the shows we Americans watch were originally Britt show. BTW there are 5 episodes, i downloaded them all from a private torrent tracker, if you know what that is.

As you can see the wick runs through the coil and sits down inside the channel between the Pos block and neg posts. What this does is help to prevent juice leaking through the neg post air holes, which some would say are useless. It goes back to the other juice reservoir, this allows me to add a lot more juice than i normally could. Also i use those wide bore top caps that i showed you so it is easy to see when it needs more liquid which is a bit difficult when using the stock top cap.

Hope that helps! As always feel free to ask me anything you need.

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Ahh I see. I’ll have to try that. And you know I will. Lol

I love British TV. I’m guessing this was released in the UK a while back. If I were really far behind I’d find ‘alternate means’ of watching it, but I kinda like watching it on tv as crazy as that is. I usually have one or two shows that I watch every week. It gives me something to look forward to. Lol. At least it will keep me busy till Doctor Who is back.

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Sounds like Vaporgasms!

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NERD ALERT!!! ROFL. Ive watched Doctor Who much of my life. When they did the Americanized version i got the wife into and she loved it. That is until the whole Rose thing. My wife cried for weeks, literally. I thought i was going to have to put the poor girl down…

She hasnt been able to watch it since.

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LOL I figured that was WELL established by now. Hehe. Yeah, Rose was pretty rough. I have mixed feelings about Rose, but I’m guessing it’s just jealousy issues. :stuck_out_tongue: There are times when I loved her and times when I just couldn’t stand her. My favorite companion from New Who is definitely Donna. I wish she had been around longer. I’ve started watching some of the old ones. I hate that so many were lost, but some of the reconstructions were good enough that I can’t remember which ones had actual acting in them and which ones were stills. I also haven’t made it very far into Old Who yet…I’m only on Two. I have a throw, two t-shirts, and the 50th anniversary monopoly game (all gifts, mind you).

K…I’ll stop geeking out now.

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I forget things from time to time. Spent too many years intentionally suppressing my short term memory, hehe.

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OK, so updates on the TC…

The short: If you really care about TC and that’s why you’re buying, skip this one and get something else.

The long: The temp control is known to have a few issues. The temp control works, it just doesn’t work great. Basically, if it goes to sleep in temp mode with an atty on it, when it wakes up it doesn’t read the resistance right and immediately goes into temp protection. The fix is to unscrew the atty and screw it back in to force it to read the resistance again. From what I understand, doing this over and over gradually increases the resistance that it’s reading because of residual heat. Get it where you think it should be and don’t let it go to sleep.

I put a 28g, Ni200, 3mm ID coil on my magma and screwed it on. It initially read at 0.15 ohms. I set the thing to 450F and 21w. Vaped okay, a little cool and not great vapor production, but being the noob I am, no clue if this is normal or not. It went to sleep while I was reading through the thread I linked up there; when it came back up, the resistance read 0.13 and it did what they complained about—immediately went to temp protect and wouldn’t vape. I unscrewed it, screwed it back on, and it read at 0.16. I set the temp to 480 and the power to 21 and it worked like a charm. A little too warm and foggy so I dropped it back down to 430. Seems to be working fine for now. I vaped it dry and the vapor dropped off but no burning, horrible dry hit. So, there’s that.

I’m glad I didn’t spend the money on the Ni200 coils for the Subtank. I may recoil a couple with the Ni200 wire I bought, I may try some twisted builds, I may just fiddle with it when I feel like it and stick to the Kanthal when I don’t. I still love it, I’m still very happy with the purchase, and I’m okay with the finicky TC, as it was icing on the cake for me and not a requirement. If you’re really wanting TC that performs flawlessly, look elsewhere. Otherwise, as long as you know what you’re getting and getting into, this thing is great.

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Thank you again for your update, it was wonderful. I also have a update on the Dovpo line. In July they are suppose to release a new line of Temp Control Mods. Don’t know much more than that unfortunately. Hopefully this line will be better. Also to release very soon is the Segelei 75w Temp control. Preorders are being taken as we speak…

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