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The Nomad From Morwood

little maggie

Well-Known Member
I think I'm going to go with the one I posted. But I did ask Dan to make a mockup so I can see what it will look like with wood. Otherwise I'm going to go with the standard model with maybe a different color for the collar. It depends what the mockup looks like.
 

Kalessin

Well-Known Member
Apparently this past week there has been a record ice storm in Southern Ontario. There are tens of thousands still without power. So Dan may be off the grid for some time yet, at least until power is restored. Hopefully he can heat with wood up there!
Yeah, I just hope he's okay. He's used to it so I'm sure he stocked up, but I can't imagine dealing with something like that
 

Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
Hey everyone! Thanks for the kind words and lookin' out for my well being, I am safe and sound and with power! It's been icy and snowy, but the shop is in full swing.

I thought I would share what I've been doing the last two weeks.

I was happy with the last heater module I shared, it looked pretty great at first! But after some serious testing I knew that the the design could be improved.

With my prototype heater, and this new one, the spacing between the coils has never been absolutely perfect. By using a more aggressive crimp pattern, as I did here, It helps to space the coils evenly... but I found that came at a cost.

Here is a close up of the last coil I posted a couple weeks ago,

FZPLzUH.jpg


Looks fairly even, more even than my prototype heater I've been using for over a year. But you can see that because of the more aggressive crimp pattern, the coils touch in many of the high spots.

This heater functioned nicely, but after more testing it wasn't quite as nice as my prototype heater. I found that the points of contact were creating random hot spots where the coils were all touchy-touchy and bunched up. These were not electrical shorts, but areas where heat could jump between coils and start to build up in one area.

You could see the hot spots develop in my testing rig... it was a very slight effect... but enough to negatively impact the performance. (note: in my testing rig, I can power the heater to glowing red, and thus see the hot spots. In the Nomad the coils do not glow under normal operation)

I could go back to the mild crimp pattern of my prototype heater... but I was never truly satisfied by the uneven spacing of the coils.

So, I started to develop a heater that could have a more mild crimp pattern, so the coils would not touch and create hot spots, but also, and here is the hard part, make it so that the spiral was evenly spaced.

I eventually found out, after much toiling, the keys to winding the perfect coil.

First was to control the departure angle of the start of the ribbon, where it attaches to the center pin. I made a jig to hold the center pin and ribbon in very precise alignment for the silver brazing phase. The amount of silver braze in the joint must be exact or excess braze will run up the ribbon and stiffen it, making it impossible to begin the perfect spiral.

After brazing and cleaning the whole thing is loaded into a winding jig. The coil is wound with a flat spacer ribbon wound into the spiral as well. This spacer ribbon evenly spaces each wrap. Once wound tight, the coil is mounted into a stainless steel holder. This binds the coil tightly into shape.

The whole assembly is heat treated at just under the annealing temperature of Nichrome. This relieves the stresses built up in the ribbon and locks it into shape without destroying its springyness.

After heat treating, the coil is removed from the holder and separated from the spacer ribbon.


Below are two test ribbons in a different size (I used a wider ribbon for my standard heater modules)

This one was wound tight with a spacer ribbon. No heat treatment.

Notice how much spring back it has. The coil is evenly spaced at rest, but the tension in the ribbon is all over the place. Once tightened back up and put into a heater module, the slight variations will reveal themselves as uneven gaps between the windings.

NB1i6Ji.jpg


This was wound the same as the one above, but with a heat treatment to relieve stress. Not nearly as much spring back, and more even.

o6UkuYb.jpg


And here is a new and improved heater module. Perfectly spaced, no hot spots. Performance is the best yet, I am completely satisfied now!

ruiDjw4.jpg


Also notice the brazed joints in silver, absolutely tiny, yet stronger than the ribbon itself. These joints just can't be broken, the ribbon always breaks before the joint. Super happy with them!

p.s. - For those waiting on mock-ups, I've been putting all my time into finishing the modules before tackling anything related to the second batch. I am putting in 12 hour days in the shop and don't have time for emails at the moment so bare with me!

So that's all, I'm just going hard in the paint till' the first batch is out.
 

Fat Freddy

FUCK CANCER TOO !
So that's all, I'm just going hard in the paint till' the first batch is out.

"Going hard in the paint", you say? LOL

Was that a basketball reference you were making? I thought you mentioned once upon a time that you weren't a fan? :clap::clap::clap:

Good to hear you're surviving well, btw! :clap:
 
Fat Freddy,

sixstringsmash

Well-Known Member
Looks wonderful and I'm sure it performs wonderfully too! Out of curiosity is the resistance of these new heater modules going to be around the same as the old ones?
 
sixstringsmash,
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Kalessin

Well-Known Member
Looks wonderful and I'm sure it performs wonderfully too! Out of curiosity is the resistance of these new heater modules going to be around the same as the old ones?
adding on to this, will the restriction still be adjustable? I'm very intrigued by that idea...I've never had a vape that you could adjust that on. Besides I guess my Vapcap which I can do manually with the airport but it's different
 

sixstringsmash

Well-Known Member
adding on to this, will the restriction still be adjustable? I'm very intrigued by that idea...I've never had a vape that you could adjust that on. Besides I guess my Vapcap which I can do manually with the airport but it's different
Resistance not restriction. I'm talking about the electrical resistance of the heater module and how many ohms it is going to read at. What it ohms out at is what will determine how much power the heater module draws from the battery.
 

Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
Looks wonderful and I'm sure it performs wonderfully too! Out of curiosity is the resistance of these new heater modules going to be around the same as the old ones?

Yep, it'll be the same.

And thanks everyone!

@Kalessin , The adjustment is still there, but it's not so much an air restriction adjustment. It more or less just tweaks the looseness of tightness of the spiral for the perfect adjustment where the coils are all equally spaced.
 

Fat Freddy

FUCK CANCER TOO !
Yep, it'll be the same.

And thanks everyone!

@Kalessin , The adjustment is still there, but it's not so much an air restriction adjustment. It more or less just tweaks the looseness of tightness of the spiral for the perfect adjustment where the coils are all equally spaced.

Wondering if loosening and tightening will , over time, create uneven tension in the spiral and thereby gaps?

.
 
Fat Freddy,
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Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
Wondering if loosening and tightening will , over time, create uneven tension in the spiral and thereby gaps?

Good question, I am not sure. I think that the best possible setting is to just evenly space each spiral and leave it, this is how it'll come in the mail. Time will tell if adjusting the coil a bit in either direction has any usefulness.

I did notice that if you go too far in either direction, applying force and tension on the ribbon by either winding it too tight or too loose, and then fire the coil with no airflow, and hold it until it reaches red hot, it will stress relieve the coil again, and somewhat lock in the new shape. Aesthetically your coil will never be perfectly even again if you try to adjust it back to default... but it's pretty close, performance seems the same even if the coil doesn't look perfect anymore. Could just be an aesthetic issue.
 

Evilevile

Well-Known Member
So how do I get one of these? I'm positive that I reached out to Dan to be put on the wait list when this thread was only 5 pages long.

Now I'm reading about people not only getting responses but putting in their orders with paper choices as well; and I'm left here wondering what happened,

I know I did for the Splinter, twice, and never got a response.

I'm a little frustated honestly. I just want to be sure that I'm asking for these the right way like everyone else.
 

Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
So how do I get one of these? I'm positive that I reached out to Dan to be put on the wait list when this thread was only 5 pages long.

Now I'm reading about people not only getting responses but putting in their orders with paper choices as well; and I'm left here wondering what happened,

I know I did for the Splinter, twice, and never got a response.

I'm a little frustated honestly. I just want to be sure that I'm asking for these the right way like everyone else.

Sorry about the confusion. I double checked my PM's and couldn't find your original request, did you ask via PM or in the thread itself? I do have a PM from you sent in March this year, that, I had forgotten to reply to.

But I'll reply now and we can make things right!
 

Evilevile

Well-Known Member
Thanks Dan. I think I also sent an email a while back.

I can't remember now, how much are these going for and is it CAD or USD?
 
Evilevile,

Vaporware

Well-Known Member
And here is a new and improved heater module. Perfectly spaced, no hot spots. Performance is the best yet, I am completely satisfied now!

ruiDjw4.jpg

The new heater looks and sounds great! I don’t want to cause you more stress knowing you want this to be perfect, but if it’s possible to shorten the coil by half a wrap or so without hurting anything, would that keep the coils from touching at the bottom of the picture? Is what we see there even enough to cause a hotspot?

I’m guessing it’s less of an issue at the edge vs the middle, but I thought it was worth asking. I’m sure they’ll be some of the best heaters around either way! :)
 
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