- Date: 2012 – 2013.
- Company owner: Janty, Ltd..
- Developed by Janty, Ltd. and Cisium, Inc.
- Customers: general public.
- Creators: Raúl Bartolomé Castro and many others.
- Raúl’s contribution: inventor, engineering manager and chief engineering of the complete system (electronic cigarette, PC application and web application). Additionally, senior engineer for electronic design and firmware development.
- Market: consumer electronics.
- Product category: electronic cigarette.
Janty MiD (Modular Intelligent Design) was an electronic cigarette that gave the user total freedom in the creation of their individual vaping experiences. It was the first of his kind in 2014 and rapidly copied by competitors in China. The novelty of the invention is protected by a US and EU patent office.
This device introduced the vaping profiles: a visual, editable representation of the dynamics in a puff. The way the MiD implemented the vaping profiles was through an arbitrary waveform of voltage or power (Watts) on an editable timeline of 0-12 seconds. The MiD editable timeline allowed the user full control every 1/10 second of the puff.
The project involved the development of 3 different products. electronic cigarette, PC application and website.
Product Presentation
Electronic Cigarette
The electronic cigarette required complete electronic product development, including hardware, firmware and mechanical design.
The core of the product was a PCBA that was powered by a NXP Cortex-M3 microcontroller. Some additional peripherals were external SPI FLASH memory, high power MOS-FETs, shunt amplifiers, voltage regulators, RGB LED among other electronic blocks. Everything supplied with 2 Ion-Li 1634 batteries.
The firmware was developed using the IDE and MDK from Keil, a tool from Arm. The real time operation system was Keil RTOS and other middleware from Keil and NXP such as, USB stack and CMSIS libraries. Due to the memory footprint restrictions, the team developed a proprietary file system and state machine.
The mechanical design was conducted with SOLIDWORKS. The design took into account stack up analysis and dynamic simulation to guarantee proper assembly.
Technical Specifications
| 1.1. Body | |
| Material | High grade metal alloy |
| 1.2. Dimensions and Weight | |
| Length | 116.6 mm |
| Diameter | 19.4 mm |
| Device Weight | 40 gr |
| 1.3. Vaping Profiles | |
| Select between profiles | Yes |
| Number of Vaping Profiles | 4 |
| Execution of Vaping Profiles defined in Voltage | Yes |
| Execution of Vaping Profiles defined in Wattage | Yes |
| Vaping profile Voltage range | 0 to 8 V |
| Vaping profile Wattage range | 0 to 25 W |
| Vaping profile Current range | 0 to 4 A |
| Execution of arbitrary vaping profiles in amplitude | Yes |
| Execution of arbitrary vaping profiles in RGB LED color | Yes |
| Execution of arbitrary vaping profiles in HSL (hue, saturation, luminosity) | Yes |
| Cutoff time | 12 or less (user defined) |
| 1.4. Supply | |
| Single battery cutoff voltage | 3.7 V |
| Dual battery cutoff voltage | 6.0V |
| 1.4.1 Dual Battery Configuration | |
| Number of Batteries | 2 |
| Battery type | 16340 |
| Diameter | 14.5mm to 16.7mm |
| Height | 33.25mm to 34.75mm |
| Maximum discharge current | 4.0A or more |
| Chemistry | Any, as far the maximum discharge current is fulfilled |
| Protected | Protected or unprotected, as far the maximum discharge current is fulfilled |
| Maximum voltage | 4.2V or less |
| Maximum cut off voltage | 3.0V or more |
| 1.4.2 Single Battery Configuration | |
| Number of Batteries | 1 |
| Battery type | 16650 |
| Diameter | 14.5mm to 16.7mm |
| Height | 66.5mm to 69.5mm |
| Maximum discharge current | 4.0A or more |
| Chemistry | Any, as far the maximum discharge current is fulfilled |
| Protected | Protected or unprotected, as far the maximum discharge current is fulfilled |
| Maximum voltage | 4.2V or less |
| Maximum cut off voltage | 3.0V or more |
| 1.5. User Interface | |
| Activation | Joystick |
| LED | RGB LED |
| 1.6. Performance | |
| Average Smoking Losses (approx.) | 2% |
| Stand by current | 28.5 mA |
| Sleep current | 3.9mA |
| Shutdown current | 0.3 mA |
| 1.7. Stand Alone Monitoring | |
| Battery status feedback | Yes |
| Device temperature feedback | Yes |
| Atomizer resistance feedback | Yes |
| Vaping profile amplitude feedback | Yes |
| 1.8. Protections | |
| Reverse Battery Protection | Yes |
| Hardware short-circuit atomizer protection | Yes |
| Firmware short-circuit atomizer protection | Yes |
| Storing the numbers of atomizer short-circuits | Yes |
| Overpower/Over temperature protection in the atomizer driver | Yes |
| Storing the numbers of overpower/over temperature in the atomizer driver | Yes |
| Thermal Monitoring/over temperature protection | Yes |
| Storing the number of over temperatures of the device | Yes |
| Thermal Monitoring/under temperature protection | Yes |
| Storing the number of under temperatures of the device | Yes |
| Battery Monitoring/over voltage protection | Yes |
| Storing the number of battery overvoltage conditions | Yes |
| Battery Monitoring/Battery over-Discharge Protection | Yes |
| 1.9. Other Specifications | |
| On/Off Mode | Yes |
| Variable Voltage/Wattage Selector (Step up or down) | Yes |
| Enable/Disable auto sleep mode | Yes |
| Execute extended User Thresholds for vaping profiles | Yes |
| Real Time Variable Voltage/Wattage vaping, enable / disable | Yes |
| Fully configurable and programmable device | Yes |
PC application
The PC application was developed with Microsoft Visual Studio using C# programming language. The software architecture was implemented in Microsoft Visio using UML. It was a multi-thread application with a rich user interface. This application had multiple purposes:
- Communication with the electronic cigarette.
- Communication with the web servers.
- Configuration of the electronic cigarette.
- Operation of the cigarette in real time.
- Management of licenses.
- Access to the social community.
The user manual provides a comprehensive explanation of the PC application and the electronic cigarette. It explains the vaping profile concept, the license manager, vaping thresholds, statics and much more.
Technical Specifications
| 2. MiD – PC Interface Services |
| Retrieve the device information (firmware version, PCB version, product part number, serial number) |
| Software modules management |
| Device firmware update |
| 2.1. User defined settings |
| User defined product owner name |
| User defined product nick name |
| Define and program user thresholds for vaping profiles |
| Define and program extended user thresholds for vaping profiles |
| Enable/Disable auto sleep mode + user defined auto sleep time |
| Real Time Variable Voltage/Wattage vaping, enable / disable |
| Real Time Variable Voltage/Wattage vaping, user defined joystick reaction time |
| User defined State colors |
| User defined number of clicks per state |
| 2.2. Statistics |
| Retrieve the number of puffs |
| Retrieve the history of the latest puffs (duration, date, energy)- calendar function |
| Retrieve the amount of alarms and protection errors |
| 2.3. Vaping Profiles |
| Sending vaping profiles |
| Receiving vaping profiles |
| Storing vaping profiles in none volatile memory |
| 2.4. REAL TIME Monitoring |
| Sending device variables (RGB Led color, device temp, ato voltage, ato current, ato power, ato resistance, battery voltage, battery level , Joystick and protection alarms) |
| Control the joystick with your computer mouse |
Websites
This part of the project consisted in two websites:
- User interface with a website based on Joomla! CMS. This website supported the purchasing process of licenses and the social communication.
- Licenses management website based on CodeIgniter web framework. This website was connected to the Joomla! site providing customized services such as licenses files generation and licenses management. This application was also used during end of line testing of the electronic cigarette for storage of unique identifier numbers.
