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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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
An RC circuit charging up to some threshold voltage. You can even make it adjustable with a variable resistor.
555 timer and a transistor or two, I think?
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.
Economies of scale have been doing really funky things to chip prices, then. Yet another demonstration that the universe Does Not Make Sense.
They also do some BMS stuff, and some support limited graphics and UI. Depedns on the moddle
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!