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In series or parallel

jsr27

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Hi is the wismec rx200 batteries is series or in parallel? Which is better? Can someone explain what this means? I don't understand!
 

JERUS

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Quite sure they are in series.

Basically Series means you add up voltages
Parallel you add up mAH (battery life) and amps add but in general best to follow the 50% rule (so 3 batteries would be like 2X the amps of one battery).

As far as better or worse, well it depends. Box mods go with Parallel usually as it allows you to push the resistance lower, 3 batteries in parallel would allow 4.2v and 40 amps, which would give you the capability of going down to .1Ω safely.

If they went series you'd be at 11v+ and with the limitation of 20amps or so you'd only be able to do .55Ω or above safely, though you'd have 220w going out, which is unlikely to be a pleasurable vaping experience.

Regulated mods are different however, they will adjust your voltage as needed and balance out the amp and voltage pull. If you were limited to 4v even with 3 batteries(40amps) you'd be limited to 160w (Amp*Volt=watts) where in series with 11v and 20amps you can hit 220watts.

So just depends on the setup as to what fits it better, but there's a reason mech mods are typically parallel (I know of at least one out there that is 4 batteries with 2 sets of series in parallel) and why regulated mods are typically series.
 

Bucky205

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RX200 is series. Most multiple 18650 MODS are. As an easy example lets consider 2 18650's and how we could connect them. For the example we are going to say they are fully charged at 4.2 volts, and are 2500 mah batteries. In series the voltages add together 4.2+4.2 = 8.4 volts, and they would have 2500 mah of power before depleted. In parallel the voltage remains the same and the mah's add. So in parallel you would still have 4.2 volts, but 5000 mah before depleted. Both regulate the voltage to control how many watts your putting out. The series MOD obviously has more volts to work with. Parallel more mah storage. Arguments can be bade for both, depends on what your wanting to do with it. For most, series is the way to go.
 

jsr27

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Great replies!! I appreciate the fast response!
 

Jon@LiionWholesale

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When the mod is regulated you don't have to worry about it so much, but it will be series. When you really have to pay attention is in a mechanical mod, then it makes an enormous difference whether it's series or parallel (we don't recommend using series mechanical mods at all unless you really know what you're doing).
 

jsr27

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Thanks Jon! I buy all my batteries from you! Ill be buying some batteries soon. What's the best to use in the wismec rx 200 if I want to go up to 200 watts?
 

Number3124

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A strictly 20 amp battery would be pushing it just a bit if you wanted to go all the way to 200 watts with nearly dead batteries.

Some quick math assuming a conservative 10% inefficiency at nominal voltage:

((3.6v*3)*20a)-(((3.6v*3)*20a)*10%)=194.4 watts

And a slightly more optimistic 5% inefficiency at nominal voltage:

((3.6v*3)*20a)-(((3.6v*3)*20a)*5%)=205.2watts

So, assuming that the RX200 is 10% inefficient, yes, you'd be riding the LG HG2s a bit hard at 200 watts when you get down to the end. You'd be pulling ~21.83 amps at nominal voltage (again, assuming 10% inefficency). That's not a terribly large overage, and again, will only occur at the end of the cycle.

The 25r lets you get away with pushing them a little bit harder, especially when the load is spread across three cells.
 
I know this is an old thread but, I just bought the RX200 and thought that since it has 3 18650 batteries instead of two like the istick 100w, that I would get more puffs/mahs of use from it. But, if it is in series config like I am reading above, than I am basically only getting the puffs/mahs of a single 18650 is that correct? I don't do sub ohm vaping, and I simply wanted a larger regulated device that would give me more time before needing to pop the batteries out to charge them. Currently a single 18650 reg mod only lasts me 1/2 a day.
 

AmandaD

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I know this is an old thread but, I just bought the RX200 and thought that since it has 3 18650 batteries instead of two like the istick 100w, that I would get more puffs/mahs of use from it. But, if it is in series config like I am reading above, than I am basically only getting the puffs/mahs of a single 18650 is that correct? I don't do sub ohm vaping, and I simply wanted a larger regulated device that would give me more time before needing to pop the batteries out to charge them. Currently a single 18650 reg mod only lasts me 1/2 a day.
Nope! I get about 3 times as long battery life out of the RX200 than I do out of a single 18650 box.

And welcome to the VU!
 

Jon@LiionWholesale

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I know this is an old thread but, I just bought the RX200 and thought that since it has 3 18650 batteries instead of two like the istick 100w, that I would get more puffs/mahs of use from it. But, if it is in series config like I am reading above, than I am basically only getting the puffs/mahs of a single 18650 is that correct? I don't do sub ohm vaping, and I simply wanted a larger regulated device that would give me more time before needing to pop the batteries out to charge them. Currently a single 18650 reg mod only lasts me 1/2 a day.

In a regulated mod like the RX200 it doesn't matter whether they're in series or parallel in terms of battery life. If you're vaping at a similar power to before then you should get 3x the life.
 

JERUS

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In a regulated mod like the RX200 it doesn't matter whether they're in series or parallel in terms of battery life. If you're vaping at a similar power to before then you should get 3x the life.
I've always been a little confused on this. Could you elaborate further or show me some further data on life? I know watt/hour is a pretty standard measurement but why do we use mAH? Anyways, I'd love to expand my knowledge if you could provide some insight. Either way I find myself killing my RX200 far faster than my triple parallel mech using lower resistance (getting me higher wattage than I use on the RX200). So again, just a bit confused. My Pico is probably one of my highest lasting battery life mods, though I do run a 1.11Ω coil at 45w, so that explains some things, but I just know I don't grasp the full concept of why. When I was using my RX200 mainly at ~120-130w it was lasting me most of a day. My Tres Equis 3X parallel mech lasts me over a day before it hits around 3.6-3.8v and I recharge. No doubt that the RX200 lives longer at equivalent wattage compared to my other regulated mods, but again, I'm curious as to the reasons why.
 

Jon@LiionWholesale

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I've always been a little confused on this. Could you elaborate further or show me some further data on life? I know watt/hour is a pretty standard measurement but why do we use mAH? Anyways, I'd love to expand my knowledge if you could provide some insight. Either way I find myself killing my RX200 far faster than my triple parallel mech using lower resistance (getting me higher wattage than I use on the RX200). So again, just a bit confused. My Pico is probably one of my highest lasting battery life mods, though I do run a 1.11Ω coil at 45w, so that explains some things, but I just know I don't grasp the full concept of why. When I was using my RX200 mainly at ~120-130w it was lasting me most of a day. My Tres Equis 3X parallel mech lasts me over a day before it hits around 3.6-3.8v and I recharge. No doubt that the RX200 lives longer at equivalent wattage compared to my other regulated mods, but again, I'm curious as to the reasons why.

What exactly is the resistance of the triple parallel mod? And what watts setting on the RX200 are you comparing it to?
 

JERUS

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What exactly is the resistance of the triple parallel mod? And what watts setting on the RX200 are you comparing it to?
I'm not sure, but when you bring that up, I guess that could make sense.
 

Mikhail Naumov

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If you run three cells in series at their full charge potential (the total charge of all three cells, for example 12.6V would be maximum power at full charge) then you'll get the same battery life you would running one 4.2V battery of the same kind and full power, x,xxx mah.

There's a lot of, shit, that goes into this. Boost/buck conversion being one of them, the RX200 is like the DNA200, it only bucks, so that's going to lead to a higher efficiency of power use. Efficiency, the next factor, how efficiently a DC-DC converter board (the 'chip' in your mod) uses power.

Then there's wiring, if the wiring is too small for the amount of power being pushed through it, in layman your batteries are going be strained a hell of a lot harder, and the wire could potentially melt something inside the mod.

The RX200 has two wires that are a bit too small to be in a high wattage mod, but they're not so small it's dangerous or you'll notice a big hit in battery life due to it already being a reverse engineered DNA200 in all actuality.

If you run 12.6V bucked down to 4.2V, the battery life say being 3,000mah per cell, you'd be have 9,000mah. 9,000mah at 4.2V, 3,000mah at 12.6V. Hope that helps.
 

Ryedan

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If you run three cells in series at their full charge potential (the total charge of all three cells, for example 12.6V would be maximum power at full charge) then you'll get the same battery life you would running one 4.2V battery of the same kind and full power, x,xxx mah.

The RX200 is a regulated mod. Its voltage regulator will convert battery voltage to whatever mod output voltage is needed to make the wattage set on the mod at the resistance you're using. Battery voltage does not equal power, amps are involved too. Battery voltage does indicate state of battery charge and as that decreases battery amp draw will increase to keep the mod's wattage at set point.

Yes, there are efficiency differences between buck and boost and also between how much buck and boost the regulator is doing, but that is generally pretty minor, say around 10%.

With a regulated mod it doesn't make much difference if the batteries are in series or parallel. We really should be talking about battery pack watt hours, not cell mAh, but that's probably better left for another thread :)

Putting out the same watts, 3 batts in series will run just about the same length of time as 3 in parallel.
 

Mikhail Naumov

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It's a DC-DC converter powered mod, no shit it's regulated. 10% is a huge hit in efficiency, that's the kind of losses that would get an engineer thrown off the team where I work. In all my years both in education and in my job as an electrical engineer, never have I heard a 10% loss in efficiency is minor.

It means everything, the point is if you have three batteries in parallel you're going to have to boost the shit out of them and draw an unsafe amount of current to get to 8V plus. If series or parallel didn't matter in regulated mods, regulated mods drawing over 80W wouldn't universally be in series. When you boost voltage, the amount of amperage you're drawing off the cells rises. Don't tell me paralleling cells doubles the amperage limit either, that's that google degree shit I hear a lot, it's closer to a 50% increase in reality. So that's unsafe as hell to boost 4.2V to over 8V unless you have 4+ cells in parallel.

I already explained the battery life thing. 12.6V achieved with three 4.2V 3,000mah cells would be 3,000mah, though bucked down to 4.2V it's 9,000mah, a far more energy efficient 9,000mah.

Also, efficiency aside, buck is also a hell of a lot safer than boost is, given you can output more current than you draw with buck.

Evolv, one of the best in the game, when they released the DNA75, a boost/buck converter powered chip, took a 12% hit in efficiency over the 97% efficient DNA200. Most companies would get hit with 15%+.

#Misinformation city.

Yeah that's a bit harsh, but people in the vaping community tend to take things they see at face value, especially when it comes to safety. Punctuate your sentences and spell correctly, suddenly you're trustworthy to a lot of people. They then see shit like this and think things work one way, when in reality they don't. The most dangerous area to be misinformed in is the realm of electronics when it comes to vaping, saying things like series or parallel doesn't matter because you have a DC-DC converter in the mod or that a 10% loss in power efficiency is minor isn't just misinformation, it's fucking borderline lunacy.
 
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JERUS

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It's a DC-DC converter powered mod, no shit it's regulated. 10% is a huge hit in efficiency, that's the kind of losses that would get an engineer thrown off the team where I work. In all my years both in education and in my job as an electrical engineer, never have I heard a 10% loss in efficiency is minor.

It means everything, the point is if you have three batteries in parallel you're going to have to boost the shit out of them and draw an unsafe amount of current to get to 8V plus. If series or parallel didn't matter in regulated mods, regulated mods drawing over 80W wouldn't universally be in series. When you boost voltage, the amount of amperage you're drawing off the cells rises. Don't tell me paralleling cells doubles the amperage limit either, that's that google degree shit I hear a lot, it's closer to a 50% increase in reality. So that's unsafe as hell to boost 4.2V to over 8V unless you have 4+ cells in parallel.

I already explained the battery life thing. 12.6V achieved with three 4.2V 3,000mah cells would be 3,000mah, though bucked down to 4.2V it's 9,000mah, a far more energy efficient 9,000mah.

Also, efficiency aside, buck is also a hell of a lot safer than boost is, given you can output more current than you draw with buck.

Also, Evolv, one of the best in the game, when they released the DNA75, a boost/buck converter powered chip, they took a 12% hit in efficiency over the 97% efficient DNA200. Most companies would get hit with 15%+.

#Misinformation city.
I just want to clear it up for myself, I've been mistaken on things before, but pretty sure that Parallel is supposed to double the amps, it's just that theoretical doesn't really mean jack shit when it comes to reality and there is quite a bit of loss in the system when you're talking about actual application. Is that wrong?
 

Mikhail Naumov

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Parallel does not double the amperage. It's splitting the load between multiple cells. In a perfect world, this would mean two 20A continuous batteries could safely handle 40A continuous, but this is not a perfect world. One cell is going to get strained harder, be it in series or parallel, this is just the nature of things. Then on top of that, the internal resistance of the cells is not going to be the EXACT same across the sled. So, certain cells will get pushed harder, and through the nature of a converter drawing power, the gain in amperage IN ALL REALITY ranges from 45-65%, not 100% (double).

There are a TON of variables that effect this number, but it would have to be some DAMNED FINE technology to get anywhere close to a 100% amperage safety split gain.

If you pair two 20A continuous batteries together, expect a safe range of 28-32A in reality just to be safe, not 40A.

If it doubled the amount of amperage the cells could safely draw, you wouldn't see so many people venting VTC4's in a parallel box with 0.06 builds, because you'd have around 55-60A continuous to be in your range of safety, and even more in terms of pulse/burst.

A lot of electronics shit looks dandy on paper and it all seems like a simple math problem you can work out in your head, but people (even I do it sometimes, the experts of my field are even guilty, it's the nature of things) tend to forget to add in every single variable that's in play. When you press the fire button on a tube mod with a fully charged battery with a .1 build, people do their ohm's law calculations on 4.2V by .1. Wrong, because A. That battery is going to sag like a motherfucker internally, likely down to 3.4-3.6V and B. There's also going to be voltage lost in transit. The end number is likely 3.2-3.4V, not 4.2V.
 
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Ryedan

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If you run three cells in series at their full charge potential (the total charge of all three cells, for example 12.6V would be maximum power at full charge) then you'll get the same battery life you would running one 4.2V battery of the same kind and full power, x,xxx mah.

I read your words above Mikhail as meaning that three fully charged cells in series at a given max power would run as long as a single identical fully charged cell at the same power. I've found a lot of folks think that way because with battery packs in series the total mAh of the pack is the same as each cell's mAh.

If I misunderstood your words, please correct me :)

10% is a huge hit in efficiency, that's the kind of losses that would get an engineer thrown off the team where I work. In all my years both in education and in my job as an electrical engineer, never have I heard a 10% loss in efficiency is minor.

I totally agree with you in that situation. I was however under the impression you were saying that a single battery would run as long as 3 batts in series at the same power. 10% difference is pretty minor compared to 300%.
 

Mikhail Naumov

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I read your words above Mikhail as meaning that three fully charged cells in series at a given max power would run as long as a single identical fully charged cell at the same power. I've found a lot of folks think that way because with battery packs in series the total mAh of the pack is the same as each cell's mAh.

If I misunderstood your words, please correct me :)



I totally agree with you in that situation. I was however under the impression you were saying that a single battery would run as long as 3 batts in series at the same power. 10% difference is pretty minor compared to 300%.

God no. I was stating if you have 12.6V, rather it be a 3,000mah 3S lipo at full charge or three fully charged 18650's in series, all 3,000mah, AND YOU BUCK IT DOWN, to 4.2V, it will have the runtime of a 9,000mah 4.2V battery. Take 12.6V/3,000mah, run it through a buck converter to 4.2V and it'll be AS IF it's a 9,000mah cell. Though, again, not a perfect world, so it will likely be closer to 8,000mah, but you get my point.

10% isn't minor to me, I'm an EE, we're loomed over by impossible standards every day, 5% to me is huge. The point is 10% is 1/10 of 100%, if you had a battery that could run ten hours, that's losing an entire hour. To me that's not minor.
 

Ryedan

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God no. I was stating if you have 12.6V, rather it be a 3,000mah 3S lipo at full charge or three fully charged 18650's in series, all 3,000mah, AND YOU BUCK IT DOWN, to 4.2V, it will have the runtime of a 9,000mah 4.2V battery. Take 12.6V/3,000mah, run it through a buck converter to 4.2V and it'll be AS IF it's a 9,000mah cell. Though, again, not a perfect world, so it will likely be closer to 8,000mah, but you get my point.

Thanks for the clarification Mikhail and my bad for misunderstanding. I think I'm so used to seeing the other version of 'how it works', I jumped to the conclusion I did without giving your words enough thought.

Vape on :)
 

Mikhail Naumov

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No worries man.

Look I worry, over every last electronics detail. I also come off as an ass a lot of the time when I'm genuinely not trying to. I just have a certain demeanor, I guess. Electronics is one of the few things I'm passionate about, it's which I became an electrical engineer, and there's a TON of misinformation in the vaping community about safety, the how/why, etc. and I feel that the more of it I can correct the better this community will be. I've seen too many news reports of 'e cigs explode' because some idiot thought he had 40A continuous batteries that were just B-Bin rewrapped LG's.
 

CraigVM62

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Mikhail,
Sorry if this is slightly off topic but as an electrician I have learned if you come upon a question that you do not have an answer for and you have a EE's attention, take advantage of it and ask...
I have noticed that the Cuboid can provide individual battery status and even the RX200 will give you the option to see the current voltage of each battery.
If they can monitor each cell individually, would it be that hard for them to engineer the board so it could charge each individually via it's USB port. Perhaps change one to it's set voltage before moving on to the next as needed before giving indication charging is complete. Essentially balance charging ?
Perhaps I am too lazy as the idea of balance charging my batteries without removing them from the mod on multi battery devices would be ideal.

Thanks
 

NickIsANoob

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The rx200 displays individual battery voltages but it isn't accurate at all it can't actually tell what voltage the batteries are you can swap them around and the values don't change.
 

Mikhail Naumov

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Mikhail,
Sorry if this is slightly off topic but as an electrician I have learned if you come upon a question that you do not have an answer for and you have a EE's attention, take advantage of it and ask...
I have noticed that the Cuboid can provide individual battery status and even the RX200 will give you the option to see the current voltage of each battery.
If they can monitor each cell individually, would it be that hard for them to engineer the board so it could charge each individually via it's USB port. Perhaps change one to it's set voltage before moving on to the next as needed before giving indication charging is complete. Essentially balance charging ?
Perhaps I am too lazy as the idea of balance charging my batteries without removing them from the mod on multi battery devices would be ideal.

Thanks

Internal board read-outs are EXTREMELY hit and miss, both the Cuboid and RX200 give inaccurate values, they're more ballpark. Both of these devices have boards that allow balance charging, which is far more effective than charging one cell at a time. This could be done, you would just need a mechanism that cuts off a charge at a certain voltage (like 4.2V) and then moves on to the next cell. This would require a mixture of diodes, resistors and positive channel mosfets to do.

That would be rather pointless though, as balance charging splits a charge between all the inputted cells, meaning they all charge at the same time. The balance charger on BOTH the Cuboid and RX200 is functional, but it DOES NOT work as good as a DNA200 onboard balancer or as good as charging the batteries externally because the same inaccurate read-outs the board shows you when you check the individual cell voltage are the same numbers the board uses to read the cells during charging.
 
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Droogbc

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Makes me scratch my head how they can make a board that can read resistance down to the hundredth, accurately enough to control temp based on tcr fluctuations, yet somehow it completely fails at reading voltage.

Stranger yet is how if you run the mod completely dead and toss the batteries in an external charger all 3 cells will be at the same voltage, despite the mod reporting a discrepancy between cells when queried.

I gave up on trying to figure it out. For me the RX works well as a beater work mod. Outside of work it's presently a dna Realeaux, but I'm eyeing the LV Triade.

I never understood the dna200 hype until I owned one, and I can say that I'm shopping for nothing but dna200 mods for the foreseeable future.
 

Robert B

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@Mikhail Naumov I find it quite refreshing to see someone post about electronics that actually knows what the hell they are talking about. Keep up the informative posts, it's quite valuable here on this forum and appreciated.
 

Mikhail Naumov

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I'm glad someone appreciates it. I appreciate the feedback man.
 
WHAT ? You mean to say thay ohms law is not something to do with the highway code ? ;)

As you say 10% is not great but these devices are built to a price and a lot use generic PWM controllers that are as cheap as possible. you get what you pay for so comparing the electronic design of an RX200 against a DNA board is like comparing a 1.6L smart car against a 1.6L high end BMW.

I think those in the know have to keep in mind that the average user just wants to switch it on and go, they have little interest in understanding the intricacies of a well designed buck/boost converter and how hard it is to get an accurate voltage reading without taking the cell out of circuit.

Your average user turns on a PC or smartphone and expects it to work, they don't understand the incredible level of engineering and design in the device and most are not able to. Sadly when you mix inexperienced people or worse those that think they know and do not with high current low internal resistance battery's its a recipe for disaster!

As you are well aware it is nearly impossible to explain the workings of even a simple resistive circuit to someone unless they understand the fundamental concepts of electronics. I personally think Mikhail has done the best that he can explaining the working of these devices. I see posts like this one all the time.

I wonder how many people would be interested in learning ohms law and basic electronic principles? If there is sufficient interest maybe we could join forces.... Thoughts?
 
When the mod is regulated you don't have to worry about it so much, but it will be series. When you really have to pay attention is in a mechanical mod, then it makes an enormous difference whether it's series or parallel (we don't recommend using series mechanical mods at all unless you really know what you're doing).
 
In my opinion parallel is better for better functioning of the batteries. Non stressful.
The cons. are most of the PWMs are modulated in voltage. So for this the serial configuration offers a better control with PWMs because it has a large voltage range that can play.
anyway... what I don't understand is this:
Let's say you have 2 batteries 4.2V,10A each in serial, or in parallel configuration. The power of this batteries is P=U*I meaning... serial (10*max8.4V= 84W) and parallel will be (20*max4.2V=84W). This are powerful batteries!.
Ok.. how can I obtain a 200W power on a MOD... since the battery power is lower than 200W? maybe replacement batteries with 20A? But then the power will be double... arround max170W. How can you obtain 220W or 200W ? is this just a commercial advertise of MODs?
 

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