The Nomad From Morwood

Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
@Hippie Dickie , I should have clarified that the a123 26650 starts to look a hell of a lot more attractive when you're running a dual battery setup. I was only talking about my battery choices in the context of a single battery.

I think that for the bud toaster it definitely makes sense. Especially when you consider the life span of the cells and fast charge rate, which I did no know about.

That sounds like excellent battery life. There is some magic in that little toaster I'll tell you. :bowdown:

Keep in mind I am playing catch up, I'm not an expert in electronics by any means... So over the process of making this vaporizer I'll probably have to stubbornly try things that you and other makers have already proven not worth while. I'm like a little fawn in the woods, tryin' to figure out what plants to eat. I just gutta nibble a few to find out.

@KeroZen, Don't think I didn't notice you reading through this entire thread this evening. Nice to have you following along!

Here's a little update. I like the look of the glass stem, but a steel stem with wood mouthpiece might also be nice... I was thinking that if I draw the incoming air stream directly over the steel stem, it would allow for more efficient cooling, and a shorter stem length possibly.

H4uR7Eg.jpg
 
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Zangano Cruel

IG zan.cru (code) zancru (5% NV checkout discount)
@Dan Morrison
That looks really beautiful. I don't know about stealth ;) , but for sure is an eye catcher and a head turner indeed. I'm seeing already, crowds coming to ask me, what kind of "vintage" gadget is that. Imagine when they approach, and I spray/fumigate/pest them away with a big cloud of vapor ;) jajajaja. I'm daydreaming already. Hurry up, I believe we want to see it alive before end of the summer.
The northern you go, the more hours daylight you have, right??? :whip:
Stay vaped my friends...
 
@Hippie Dickie , I should have clarified that the a123 26650 starts to look a hell of a lot more attractive when you're running a dual battery setup. I was only talking about my battery choices in the context of a single battery.

I think that for the bud toaster it definitely makes sense. Especially when you consider the life span of the cells and fast charge rate, which I did no know about.

That sounds like excellent battery life. There is some magic in that little toaster I'll tell you. :bowdown:

Keep in mind I am playing catch up, I'm not an expert in electronics by any means... So over the process of making this vaporizer I'll probably have to stubbornly try things that you and other makers have already proven not worth while. I'm like a little fawn in the woods, tryin' to figure out what plants to eat. I just gutta nibble a few to find out.

@KeroZen, Don't think I didn't notice you reading through this entire thread this evening. Nice to have you following along!

Here's a little update. I like the look of the glass stem, but a steel stem with wood mouthpiece might also be nice... I was thinking that if I draw the incoming air stream directly over the steel stem, it would allow for more efficient cooling, and a shorter stem length possibly.

H4uR7Eg.jpg
I like the way ss condenses and cools vapor, better than glass. If it connects too close to the heater, though, it will conduct heat, which will end up in the mouthpiece. You would likely want a spacer, or perhaps a 2-part system, where the SS is somehow suspended inside a larger tube (likely with high temp o-rings, similar to the vapcap).
 

KeroZen

Chronic vapaholic
Yeah curse you @Dan Morrison! :rofl: I unsubscribed from your thread when you said it would probably be flame powered, as I have strictly no interest in that. But then I heard rumors about a 18650 unregulated vape by Dan, came back here and saw that you summoned @Pipes and @Hippie Dickie to the game, and here I am after a couple hours of backlog reading...

I'm just a bit gutted to have missed a lot of the action!

This is essentially how the Herbalizer heats, so there may be a patent issue.

I think that would be the first thing to clear no? But the Herbie is not the only halogen vape around, I can think of the Venus Appollo and that french glass vape too... So who got the patent and on what exactly? If we need to rule halogen out completely we better know first-hand before it's too late...

On the same patent topic, I'm afraid we will have to summon @RastaBuddhaTao too (unsure if he still reads FC or not) as during my reading I was wondering "at what point will they step on Ryan's toes?". In fact right from your early posts in the BULLI thread I knew you were going the high surface area route... But 1) I'm under NDA and 2) I don't know the status of RBT patent and its exact scope and extent, so I think it would be best to chat directly with Ryan to see what's possible or not?

Something like the arizer air or solo have a pretty small ceramic heater that surrounds and heats the glass stem which carries the herb. It gets to temp, it holds the temp, but any owner will tell you that if you pull even slightly too hard, the heater can't keep up. While the purpose of the unit isn't to pull hard, and we know that, it still helps get across what I'm trying to say.

I'm quoting you here for the ceramic heater/bowl idea. I'm not ruling out ceramic, it's a good insulator and if sourced properly (easier said than done with china) it's really inert and safe (I prefer glass above everything, it's the purest material for our use, a good insulator too, but it breaks easily and we have our share of clumsy FC members hehe! it also has issues with manufacturing tolerances...)

I just wanted to share my story doing alpha testing for the FlowerMate 8 here: let's disregard the bad outcome and the other problems the device had and focus on what I thought was its best aspect. It's using a 3S Li-Po pack and has a crazy peak power output of 120W! (for reference Mighty is 30W) It gets to temp from cold in just a few seconds, the best I've seen so far from any conduction portable vape. But then I expected it to be a fog machine, where in fact it's better than most other ceramic oven conduction vapes indeed, but not as good as convection designs.

I think the lesson to learn here is that ceramic and glass are really insulators and have a limited heat exchange capacity. They do have a heatsink effect and are able to transfer heat via conduction/radiation but you can overhwelm their exchange capacity easily, and no matter how much power you have behind it will create a lag where the load cool downs a lot before the temperature sensor can see the drop and counter it effectively, and then it will still be lagging (at least with small surface area resistive wire heaters)

But the heatsink effect is not negligible either: initially I thought that the FlowerMate 5-Pro had higher discharge cells and a more powerful heater than the FlowerMate 5-S, because it gets to temperature in less than half the time. But my Smiss contact told me they have exactly the same peak power output, the difference resides in the ceramic oven width. So far so good? But nope, the FM5-Pro can be more easily overwhelmed than the FM5-S when set at the same temperature! Meaning the lag is detrimental in one direction (heating up and heating back to temp) but beneficial in the other (slower cooling down due to more mass/heatsink effect) Food for thoughts...

I believe the Apollo operates by simply passing air over the bulb, and past some relatively small surfaces that the bulb has heated through proximity.
I think this is why Ville is seeing the heat-up times the Apollo currently has.
The more mass the slower the results will be, so the less thermal mass used in the design of the heater/bowl area the better.

Hm are you sure about that? I thought there was a SS heatsink in the Appollo no? I'm pretty sure there are some metal parts inside that get pretty hot as users report burning themselves when loading/unloading after a session. @GTAVaper what's your take on that?

But then again you could go the middle path with an OKR chip and get some regulation, but non of the cutting edge temperature control stuff...

Or you could hire @Hippie Dickie and/or me to handle the electronics part! :cool: I've been toying with the ATTINY85 recently around a temp-controlled convection design and it's a good candidate. But RBT wasn't interested by the idea as he's all about KISS. I agree with the principle too, and you seem to do as well, but I think we could have something in-between, still retaining that manual operation state of mind, but with an added digital safety belt if you will, to make the device even more idiot-proof, upgradeable/tweakeable/serviceable (open source FC firmware anyone?), and combustion-free (or at least optional for those who really need high temps) with or without using a sensor/probe.

The heater management part is fun but the battery management one sounds trickier (and the liability aspect must be taken into account, those cells are dangerous, unless you switch to LiFePo4... hint hint) Maybe there are some 3rd party IC's available, the ones I found so far had really low amps support, nowhere near what we need, but I don't follow the ecig universe closely enough. Maybe someone knowledgeable could chime in?

Also Halogen is still appealing! If only for the fact that the heater would be so consistent, and easy to source and replace... the only thing it would require is a bulb housing to most efficiently direct airflow and collect/transfer heat.

Well you self answered that part later in the thread: indeed consistency is to take with a grain of salt. Not only will you have variation from bulb to bulb, from manufacturer to another, but the output vs service life is not constant and worse not linear... That would require either a closed loop system or a way to compensate for the loss (some kind of offset idea like in the Firewood3 or Appollo, note tha the former is not halogen based but the concept can be used to adjust for any heater type variation either due to manufacturing or aging, something the Milaana is lacking contrary to the Zion)

I'm looking at over-driving a 6v 20w bulb to give almost 40w (at full 8.4v) with a dual Li-ion unregulated setup.

I think the Appollo offers a possibility to overdrive the bulb some, yes. But even if you stay open-loop (ie sensorless) I would prefer a dual cell regulated setup like in the Zion. It simply removes the battery voltage variable from the equation meaning you get the same result from fresh to depleted, it's more comfortable. Sidenote: with the voltage sag at such a high load, this variation is less important in the Milaana than one could imagine, the voltage stays in a rather narrow band, but still, you need to hold the trigger longer and longer as the voltage goes down.

Also, on the topic of consistency. Through my research I've discovered that bulbs from major manufacturers can and do have inconsistencies between batches, both in performance, life span, and physical size. I see a lot of references to this in the flashlight community.

Right, voila. But it should be noted that a lof of earlier vapes also had variations in their heater power. I recall reading many times users reporting "I have a cold-running XXX" or a hot running one. Even if you use a coil you will need to be very careful to have an acceptable consistency (and coil resistance also change with time, temperature, oxydation, high currents...)

Obviously not suggesting to copy the designs, exactly, but grasping what they get right (quick heat up, convective properties) vs what they get wrong (ceramic & conductive bowl for CFX, etx.) could be a great help to designing yours.

Right, but again, careful with the patents issue here.

For what it's worth, the first (to my knowlege?) mostly convection vape coming from China was the Elo (correct me if I'm wrong, but what matters is that it's mostly conection not if it's really the first or not) and the heater is made of parallel ceramic plates with embedded resistive wire. Heat-up is not super fast (despite a 3S Li-Po power here again) and judging from the blinking light as soon as you hit it, you can overwhelm it easily (it struggles to keep temp and lags to get back to set-point)

(continued below)
 

KeroZen

Chronic vapaholic
A resistance wire in direct contact with the airpath should be much more efficient than one that's surrounded by insulation.

I agree with that but with one caveat: it opens the health safety can of worms. Does your metal wire off-gas? Even a little? Does it give off a taste or not? Those issues are completely eliminated when encapsulating in glass. This is one advantage of the bud toaster (same as Vapolution 2) for example, and the Appollo.

In the Mi/Zi the heater is directly in the air path, same in the Project (and many others in fact)

Generally the resistance wire is just a small obstacle in the airpath. A turbulating heater that forces air to contact it for an extended time should work better than a smaller, hotter, coil.

Yeah down to high surface area heater... and RBT patent... :worms:

Gas and glass are good thermal insulators. They won't eliminate any of the heat that's generated, but will increase the heat ramp up time, and the total power usage as a result.

Yeah good points, always a matter of trade offs with engineering...

That's my preference too ('instant' convection) which is why I've been suggesting a very low mass halogen heat exchanger to avoid long heat up times.

Plus +10 for instant convection. As of today for me the winner here is the Project. Vapor in 1 to 2 seconds from cold, practically no heat build-up, no scorching hot outter shell... Very efficient on the battery. But yeah, low surface area given the current coil design.

There are no 50w 6v bulbs on the market for a reason...

Firstly @villekille2 did mention the availability of a 50W bulb for the Appollo. Then secondly, he's offering two kinds of bulbs. The new generation ones are optimized for heat production, not for light generation. This is of prime importance if going this route.

You can read on his blog that the a123 systems 26650 battery pretty much only has one advantage, safety. But it's just not nearly enough of an advantage to consider using that battery over what else is currently available.

Well I prefered to let @Hippie Dickie answer here, and he did: the advantages are more numerous.

--

Sorry for the long post, had a lot to catch up! :borg:

On a funny note: @Hippie Dickie had a heater concept and designed his vape around that, where you try to design a vape concept and will have to fit a heater inside... about as opposite ways of working as one could imagine: top-down vs bottom-up? ;)
 

Copacetic

Somewhere North of The Wall
.......
.......
Hm are you sure about that? I thought there was a SS heatsink in the Appollo no? I'm pretty sure there are some metal parts inside that get pretty hot as users report burning themselves when loading/unloading after a session. @GTAVaper what's your take on that?

I'm failrly certain, yes.
But I don't own one, and am therefore even more likely than usual to be wrong!

But I got the distinct impression that it is the bowl itself (SS) that folk have burned themselves on.
I think the bowl is heating up, and the mass of the bowl is effectively the heatsink who's mass is slowing down the process.

Of course, the bowl's mass might also be Apollo's 'secret sauce', and the very reason it's getting the good reports we all can see.

It must be harder to overcome a heat soaked high mass vape, than a lightweight vape of the same 'power'.
 

Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
@KeroZen , Okay where do i start!? haha.

Firstly, the halogen route has pretty much been shifted further and further back in my mind...

Second, the issue of patents. I have no idea what my design will end up as, I can only try my best to come up with something that does not infringe on patents that I have been able to find.

And I am on the KISS train as well, sorry, haha. I am a simple man.

Anyhow... I really feel like the next step is heater experimentation in the shop, I've pretty much exhuasted my research.

I am quite busy with the Okins this week, and will be moving shop in June.. This project may slow down for a little bit while I gather equipment/supplies to do some testing.
 

StormyPinkness

Rhymenocerous ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
Dang, as much as I love the glass, wood on the design looks really nice. Really fits with the look better. I'd love to be greedy and be able to use both, being able to see the vapor can come in handy.
 

jojo monkey

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
This thread is like a vape heater TED talk!

I'd like to add +1 for the tried and true cartridge heater. The coil is packed safe. The ends are capped and sealed. They come in all kinds of sizes. They are also good enough for Storz and Bickel portables. Haakkon said it right a couple of pages back, you will prob have to order a custom heater. But custom could be good for you.

So many choices! Good luck!
 

Shannock

Well-Known Member
@KeroZen , Okay where do i start!? haha.

Firstly, the halogen route has pretty much been shifted further and further back in my mind...

Second, the issue of patents. I have no idea what my design will end up as, I can only try my best to come up with something that does not infringe on patents that I have been able to find.

And I am on the KISS train as well, sorry, haha. I am a simple man.

Anyhow... I really feel like the next step is heater experimentation in the shop, I've pretty much exhuasted my research.

I am quite busy with the Okins this week, and will be moving shop in June.. This project may slow down for a little bit while I gather equipment/supplies to do some testing.

Wanted to chip in on here if only to say wow!
Dan your work is incredible I've been lurking on your threads for a while and I like the way your mind works!

From what I can tell your mind seems settled on design and now needs to focus on the insides, there are definitely folk here who can offer more guidance than I, but take your time and find your own way- who would have predicted the Okin before you brought the concept to reality.

:peace:
 

Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
@StormyPinkness , Since the inner diameter will be a straight tube with fitted o-rings, the only design requirements for a custom stem would be outside diameter to match the stock stem, and surface finish to be smooth enough to allow a sliding fit with the o-rings. I will be picking a diameter that is common so that you can easily source or order custom stems to your hearts content.

I would possibly make the inside diameter of the tube compatable with drip tips, for endless mouthpiece choices.

@jojo monkey , I've seen Storz and Bickel heater, seems so simple to me, but definitely works! I couldn't find any patent information on it.

I really love the way that the e-cig community is all into building their own coils. I would love to come up with a way to make that happen with dry herb vaporizers.

You would need to design a build deck with wire terminals, that's easy enough.

Then you have the air inlets properly situated.

But most importantly.. I am picturing "airway geometry furniture". Imagine little building blocks and tubes made from different materials such as mica composites, ceramic, glass.. anodized aluminum...

You build your coil onto a support structure, heat sink, or free standing, then you have the option of using that coil as is, allowing the air to freely flow over the coil and into the herb chamber... or you can encase the coil within an airway customizer, like an outer tube, series of tubes, discs, finned tube, whatever.

The e-cig community plays with coils and wicks. The wicks are the fluid movement customizers, allowing for the flow of liquid over the coil structure. For our purposes, we want air movement customizers, allowing for the flow of air over the coil structure....

The trick is coming up with a material that can be used much like a wick... that you can shape, mould, set in place, and safely use, without specialized tools.

Micro sized ceramic/mica composite Lego blocks seems insane, hahaha, so that's out.

Perhaps laser cut mica shapes that slot together. You could order building kits that come with a whole bag of mica sheet shapes to play around with.

If you look at the rise in laser cut paper sculpture kits, you can see that you can make some very complex shapes with flat paper and no glue!

Chances are, as a community, we would arrive at a standard build, just like the e-cig community has. A build that everyone can start with to get great performance. A build that comes stock with the vaporizer...

But when the wire gets old and worn, changes resistance, starts to cool down... you can rebuild!

If you are a pipe nerd, and you look into early patents in the tobacco pipe industry, there were thousands of them... everyone was trying to come up with novel ways to improve upon the basic concept. But now, more than a hundred years later, the best artisan pipe makers in the world have all pretty much settled on the same basic internal design characteristics. Chamber/airway geometry, and the physical materials used in the construction of said pipe.... these are the most important factors contributing to smoking performance. Stay within' the bounds of these accepted characteristics and you'll come out with a nice smoking pipe. The focus has shifted from performance, which is easy to achieve, to aesthetics, which is more unique to the artist.

I find it interesting how the tobacco smoker has completely control over the heat of his pipe, he can change the way it's packed, the way it's lit, his inhale rate...

The e-cig modding community has similar control over vapor production, you could compare packing a nice tobacco bowl with building a coil. A coil build is more complex, lasts longer than a single session, and gives you greater control... but the principle is very similar...

In the dry herb community, if we buy an electronic vaporizer, we must accept its performance. There is no changing the output, upgrading coils...

What about in 5 years when 18650's are more advanced, and coils can be built larger, with more surface area... wouldn't it be great to build new coils based on those advancements?

Anyhow, I think I'm rambling, those are my thoughts for today!
 
@StormyPinkness , Since the inner diameter will be a straight tube with fitted o-rings, the only design requirements for a custom stem would be outside diameter to match the stock stem, and surface finish to be smooth enough to allow a sliding fit with the o-rings. I will be picking a diameter that is common so that you can easily source or order custom stems to your hearts content.

I would possibly make the inside diameter of the tube compatable with drip tips, for endless mouthpiece choices.

@jojo monkey , I've seen Storz and Bickel heater, seems so simple to me, but definitely works! I couldn't find any patent information on it.

I really love the way that the e-cig community is all into building their own coils. I would love to come up with a way to make that happen with dry herb vaporizers.

You would need to design a build deck with wire terminals, that's easy enough.

Then you have the air inlets properly situated.

But most importantly.. I am picturing "airway geometry furniture". Imagine little building blocks and tubes made from different materials such as mica composites, ceramic, glass.. anodized aluminum...

You build your coil onto a support structure, heat sink, or free standing, then you have the option of using that coil as is, allowing the air to freely flow over the coil and into the herb chamber... or you can encase the coil within an airway customizer, like an outer tube, series of tubes, discs, finned tube, whatever.

The e-cig community plays with coils and wicks. The wicks are the fluid movement customizers, allowing for the flow of liquid over the coil structure. For our purposes, we want air movement customizers, allowing for the flow of air over the coil structure....

The trick is coming up with a material that can be used much like a wick... that you can shape, mould, set in place, and safely use, without specialized tools.

Micro sized ceramic/mica composite Lego blocks seems insane, hahaha, so that's out.

Perhaps laser cut mica shapes that slot together. You could order building kits that come with a whole bag of mica sheet shapes to play around with.

If you look at the rise in laser cut paper sculpture kits, you can see that you can make some very complex shapes with flat paper and no glue!

Chances are, as a community, we would arrive at a standard build, just like the e-cig community has. A build that everyone can start with to get great performance. A build that comes stock with the vaporizer...

But when the wire gets old and worn, changes resistance, starts to cool down... you can rebuild!

If you are a pipe nerd, and you look into early patents in the tobacco pipe industry, there were thousands of them... everyone was trying to come up with novel ways to improve upon the basic concept. But now, more than a hundred years later, the best artisan pipe makers in the world have all pretty much settled on the same basic internal design characteristics. Chamber/airway geometry, and the physical materials used in the construction of said pipe.... these are the most important factors contributing to smoking performance. Stay within' the bounds of these accepted characteristics and you'll come out with a nice smoking pipe. The focus has shifted from performance, which is easy to achieve, to aesthetics, which is more unique to the artist.

I find it interesting how the tobacco smoker has completely control over the heat of his pipe, he can change the way it's packed, the way it's lit, his inhale rate...

The e-cig modding community has similar control over vapor production, you could compare packing a nice tobacco bowl with building a coil. A coil build is more complex, lasts longer than a single session, and gives you greater control... but the principle is very similar...

In the dry herb community, if we buy an electronic vaporizer, we must accept its performance. There is no changing the output, upgrading coils...

What about in 5 years when 18650's are more advanced, and coils can be built larger, with more surface area... wouldn't it be great to build new coils based on those advancements?

Anyhow, I think I'm rambling, those are my thoughts for today!
A forward-thinking, future-proofed vape sounds nice to me.
 

GTAVaper

Well-Known Member
Hm are you sure about that? I thought there was a SS heatsink in the Appollo no? I'm pretty sure there are some metal parts inside that get pretty hot as users report burning themselves when loading/unloading after a session. @GTAVaper what's your take on that?

Sorry @KeroZen .....I don't have my account set to flag me whenever my username is used and just saw this now. I saw this thread and it piqued my interest but until it gains some direction and timelines I will probably just pop in once a month or so to see where things are at.

As for the Apollo, aside from the SS heater screen and herb chamber I'm not sure what else might be a heat sink in the Apollo.

I believe that I read that it had a ceramic receptacle in the earlier part of the Apollo thread and there is a 0.1mm SS heat shield through the mouthpiece tube hole that insulates the wood from direct heating .....but the wood still gets very hot over the bulb area.

The bulb just radiates a ton of heat that heat soaks the unit and turns the back end very hot and maintains its thermal mass extremely well.

I complain that it gets too hot.....but you do get used to it ....that is, being careful with the hot back end and herb chamber and I also suspect the thermal mass and heat soak as well as the radiation heating are all reasons that the Apollo performs so well......so I will live with the high heat and just enjoy the power of the vape.
 

AJS

Calm Consistency
I think the lesson to learn here is that ceramic and glass are really insulators and have a limited heat exchange capacity. They do have a heatsink effect and are able to transfer heat via conduction/radiation but you can overhwelm their exchange capacity easily, and no matter how much power you have behind it will create a lag where the load cool downs a lot before the temperature sensor can see the drop and counter it effectively, and then it will still be lagging (at least with small surface area resistive wire heaters)
I definitely feel that this holds truth. I think SS holds heat much better, yes? Supreme uses Aluminum...
 

Dan Morrison

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
Can't wait to see more of this, forgot about it for a bit. The thread was really hopping for awhile.

Still very much focused on this vape. Gathering what I need to get prototyping.

As of right now I am going with resistance wire heater over halogen. There will be no heat sink, just a direct transfer of heat from wire to air to chamber.
 

ZC

Well-Known Member
Really like the direction this thread is going. I think an SS mesh like the Milaana is a winning idea for sure. If you don't use Mica as an insulator it shouldn't infringe on their heater patent. I think this is preferred anyways, since mica is known to flake. I imagine with heavy use and movement the Mi's mica sheet will deteriorate over time. Mica laminated in glass would be nice.

I was thinking about something similar lately and my thought is you could cut a basket screen's sides so that it just has tabs on opposite ends in order to run a current through it.

You could chain several of these basket screens together for more heater surface area and to tune resistance, spaced out just enough to prevent shorts.

You could also design your own mesh. I was thinking about vapcaps CCD

IMG_20160714_223149269_zpslhcnrnyd.jpg


That thing is lasercut, and you could potentially design a similar screen with the electrical circuit in mind. But perhaps that's a bit much when a regular mesh will work just fine.
 

Shit Snacks

Milaana. Lana. LANA. LANAAAA! (TM2/TP80/BAK/FW9)
There isn't one and mica has been used in heating elements for decades, just saying.

Hopefully Dan hasn't forgotten about us!

It is in some stage of filing, so patent pending. In any case Dan said he wants to use something unique for his own designs... We'll see, no rush, he said this would be a lengthy project at the earliest of stages as I recall
 
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