Smok Alien – Ohm too low

Preamble

I’ve had my mod (Smok Alien 220W) for a year and it was fine, then suddenly, during one vape session, mid vape it stopped and I got the Ohm too low message. I tried removing the tank, still got the Ohm too low message, instead of No coil message. Rebooted (i.e. power down, batteries out and in, and power on), still the same Ohm too low message.

See also

I have had a number of problems with the Smok Alien. I have five and three have died!

• Smok Alien 220W will not turn on
• Smok Alien 220W – No coil
• Oh no! Yet another Smok Alien 220W problem..?!
• Smok Alien 220W – Not charging

The problem

Possible solutions

Looked at this thread, Smok Alien Mod problem. There are loads of suggestions:

1. Unscrewing half a turn and retying, ad-infinitum (post). I can’t see why this would work, or is even applicable in these exact circumstances (when unscrewing the tank completely the mod still sees a short, so a half turn would not have any greater effect – ”

   Try unscrewing the tank half a turn and pressing the fire button. If that doesn’t work, unscrew another half turn and try again. Repeat until it works.

   You just need the mod to register the ohms and once it does you can adjust the ohms to the correct value for the coil and screw it back down again.

   This is a temporary fix, a permanent solution is to put an o-ring between the mod and the tank as some tanks seem to screw down too far which stops the mod registering the resistance.

   “

2. This is totally pointless, as it has already been stated that this was the first check and did not work – “Remove tank. Press fire button. Watch it say check or no atomizer. Reinstall tank. Press and hold fire button. Should ask for new or old coil. Press new. Vape.”
3. Been dropped, Open mod and see if something became detached from 510 connector. However, I hadn’t dropped mine at all.
4. Firmware update – pointless
5. Open up and re-seat the spring – “Had this happen to me. Took the top apart and the gold pin from the 510 connected to the white wire was offset from the spring, happened after I cranked an atty on too tight. reseated it on the spring and it worked again.”
6. Go to set “Initial Coil Resistance“. Three clicks of firebar, right button x 2, fire button hold, right button x 3 to “Adj Ohm“, fire button hold. However, this method did not allow me to change any values, clicking the left or right values flashed the on screen arrows, but did not change value. Holding fire bar, just brought up the Ohm too low message.
7. Give it a slap. Tried this, no joy.
8. Clean 510 connector. Obviously this was one of the first things I tried (after disconnecting the tank (to try to get the No Coil message and reseating)
9. Externally, check that the pin is not caught under the rim, from screwing tank too far down, remove batteries first. Similar to 7. Seems unlikely as I’ve been using the tank for a few months. I tried pushing the pin down, but no joy – “Just had this happen to me and checked the forums saw that people said to check the 510 pins so I checked the contact on my MOD and it turned out to be pushed too far down and got stuck under the edge of its setting causing it to think there was an atty in it and reading ohms too low. Simple fix just take out the batteries (to insure no misfiring or electrical shortages ) and push the contact back into place should read just fine.”
10. What fixed it for me was to take the coil out and look through the bottom. There are three wires that are supposed to go between the black rubber grommet thing, and the metal housing. One of the wires were sticking out. The bottom metal piece (that makes connection with battery) can be pulled off, and then the rubber piece. Fix wires, put it back together.
11. Had the same problem, the only fix I could do was to switch between watt mode and temp control. The watt mode doesn’t detect the ohms but the temp control does. Once it detects the ohms in temp control then use settings to adj ohms as most of the time it doesn’t detect the correct ohms. Now you can switch back to watt mode. I think the problem is due to faulty ohm reader on the mod and the problem usually happens on low ohm coils(.15) where the watt mode can only read up to .1 ohm but the temp control can read up to .06 ohm. A warning don’t puff kanthal coils on temp control.

It seems like there is either:

• An internal short somewhere near the bottom of the 510 connector, or;
• the software is fried

From Smok alien “ohms too low”

Hard reset. Insert batteries while holding the two front buttons, and keep holding them until the prompt. Then at the prompt “Restore Factory Default Settings” hit the left button. Video YouTube – Hardreset smok alien 220w wiederbeleben.

From Solution for Ohms too low. Smok Alien 220 TC, this comment:

I fixed mine and all I did was take the 4 T6 torx screws out of the top, pulled the top off and stretched the spring under the fire pin. I put it back together and it has worked perfectly ever since.

I did take the top off initially (removing the four T5 screws), and had the grounded ring well held apart from the 510 pin (what they refer to as the firing pin), so that there was no possibility of a short, but still had the same error message. Will try the spring stretching method later. Maybe clean the underside with isopropyl alcohol.

After a second removal of the four Torx screws and the top, I had a poke around with a multimeter.

There is a definite short between the 510 pin and the ring. Tracing the black (ring) and white (pin) leads to the PCB, one can see that the contacts are rather ridiculously close to each other. I can only assume that the short is between the two contacts, on the PCB. Maybe cleaning these with a cotton bud and alcohol would fix this. Or maybe the solder has melted and created a short between the two.

As a note, I tested for a short between the spring and the ring, with the 510 pin out of the way, and it was not shorted.

A bath

In the end, I gave the Alien a bath and long soak in Iso-propyl alcohol, overnight. This unfortunately did not help.

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Maybe the only answer is as this YouTuber states:

SMOK ALIEN (OHM TOO LOW) FIX!