zenmasterofzinfandel said:
... Vaporpedia ... So much of it is just plain playing on the ignorance of FC membership's lack of basic knowledge on electronics and such. ... a sales pitch that includes completely unverified and unsubstantiated by scientific and/or independent laboratory testing like this gem:
the Box is easily one of the worlds most energy-efficient vaporizers
"easily" compared to what, and by how much, what measure? ... can't be verified by any standardized means of testing procedure. ... as tested and verified by what recognized testing authority cited?
Hi,
Actually, that claim can be substantiated, and on the basis of pure physical fact and calculation. The info presented below are the basic kinds of common knowledge available to any real physicist or engineer and can be checked against standard sources -- by any recognized authority you wish, or measured directly yourself if you have the means.
At the moment there are really only two kinds of energy sources used for vaporization: electric inits and flame based units. Each will be considered in turn.
A very conservative and generous review of the energy demands of the very best electric vaporizers (regardless of whether they are portable or desktop units) places them at about 30 watts (per second) minimum. Most desktop units will require somewhat more than that. However, to be operable at all, all of these units require about 2 minutes (minimum) of warmup time. Therefore, the energy used to achieve operations temperature is therefore on the order of at least 3600 watt seconds.
Please note that this warmup energy does *not* itself contribute to the vaporization -- it merely provides the conditions necessary to achieve the _possibility_ of vaporization. Actual vaporization itself is only achieved after this initial investment of energy has already been made. In all existing electric units, actual operation requires more energy getting added, both to "do" the vaporization and also as needed to maintain the minimum viable temperatures. But for the sake of clarity, lets discount completely these additional energy requirements and assume that the first hit is achieved at exactly the end of the warmup period.
Alternatively to the electric models, there are the lighter and torch based vaporizers, of which the Vapor Genie is the prototypical example. To assess the energy requirements of these types of units, it is necessary to calculate the energy output of a lighter flame and convert to a common measure.
A common lighter contains approximately 5.7 cc of butane. The density of liquid butane is approximately 0.58 gram per cubic centimeter. The molar mass of butane is 58.12 grams per mol and the enthalpy of butane combustion is approximately 2877.5 kJ/mol. Therefore, there is about 0.057 mole of gas, or approximately 1.3 liter at STP.
A lighter that produces a 1" flame will deliver about 1cc/second at STP. Therefore, the burning 4.37E-5 mole of butane per second results in 0.126 kJ per second of energy. Converting units and assuming that it takes 10 seconds of burn time to produce the first hit, this means that your typical Vapor Genie will require about 1260 watt seconds of energy to start.
Please note that the burn rate of a torch lighter is considerably faster, which implies even higher energy usage. Consider, for example, the Iolite which is a flame based unit (the "fire" is in the catalytic combustion). Insofar as it also takes 2 minutes to warmup and given that it will have a similar combustion rate as a fairly large torch lighter, there is zero chance that its energy consumption is less than about 15000 watt seconds to start -- ie the minimum energy necessary to achieve the 1st hit.
Compare all of this to the energy needs to produce the first hit with a Launch Box: 12 watts per second to run and 4 seconds to start. Assuming that it takes 15 seconds to get your first hit, the total energy per hit is 180 watt seconds total. The Launch Box is therefore nearly 7X more energy efficient as the Vapor Genie, 20X more efficient than the best electric models, and nearly 100X more energy efficient than the Iolite. Independently of category, there simply is no other vaporizer product that is even in this range.
In conclusion, the claim of 'most energy efficient vaporizer' is rather well supported by real physical fact, and is if anything, a rather conservative reflection of the truth. Our mentioning of it had absolutely nothing to do with marketing or sales. Rather, it had everything to do with our pride of achievement as engineers. Achieving this level of process efficiency in a commercial product was basically unthinkable even just a few years ago. To have it achieved even now is something of a wonder, but it is hardly a selling point. What most people really care about is "does it work?" and "can I use it easily?". Technical stuff like this is usually of interest only to the geeks -- which is kind of why we post here. What people really ask about is how useful it is for efficient medicinal extraction, not how efficient it is in energy. In the greater scheme of things, the tiny amount of energy that we save is rather insignificant and is certainly unimportant.
In the FC forum, Magic-Flight has found the right sort of community to post this sort of esoterica, which is really the only reason we even mentioned it (and are even bothering with this rebuttal). Its inclusion in the Vaporpedia is due to the general interest of the membership here -- as decided by the members -- not because we requested it get added on our behalf. This also is a matter of public record if you happen to care enough to check.
-- Magic-Flight
PS: for those who are asking about the Beta units, yes, we have been making a number of product quality and build process improvements. We will very shortly be converting over to "official" release versions, which are basically the same as the most recent Beta units, aside from a few minor details. Peoples speculations as to the electrical details are largely correct and require no additional comments from me.
??? LOL
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