Alternative to traditional vapes

[Pi_Squared]

I am new to the whole vaporizer thing (and even to the MJ thing). I don't currently own a vape but I have several homemade devices and am planning on building a vape. I'm a Mechanical Engineer and so I wanted to design my own vaporizer from the ground up. As I was doing this I got to wondering why most vaporizers use fans? If you had a closed chamber could you not just raise the temp inside the chamber to the correct temp (about 390F) and leave it at that temp for a few minutes so that you get good vaporization then remove the MJ and heater from the chamber and inhale the vapor? It seems like you'd be able to get more complete vaporization and have more control over the density of the smoke (by controlling the amount of MJ you put in). Is there some sort of oxidation or chemical reaction that requires airflow? Would this work? As I said, I'm new to this whole thing so if this is already a common approach I apologize.

 

[Purple-Days]

Maybe you could try using vapor from a couple of devices before you try to re-invent the wheel.

Being a Mechanical Engineer is great, but if you are trying to improve the bicycle, it might help to try riding one first (or preferably several). Find out what works and doesn't need improvement. Ride (some more) before you decide that a 'better bicycle' needs four wheels or could get by just as well with one.

Reading about sex or being a celibate expert isn't the same as the real world. Until you get some real world experience . . . how can you know how to improve on other's previous efforts?

This forum is full of info on many types and brands of products. From Butane Lighter based vapor pipes (vapor Genie) to Butane/Catalyst types (Iolite), to Pump/Fan based bag fillers (Volcano) and non fan and fan based whip vapes (Silver Surfer / Vapor Bros. and Vapezilla), there are Halogen Light based units like the Aromed and many other styles like the Launch Box (portable) and Purple-Days (always on) to Heat Guns (Steinel)and Heat Wands (VapeXhale) for use with water bongs etc.

IMO: You have a lot of reading, then a lot of practical experience to gain, before you can make much progress on a " design my own vaporizer from the ground up" product. Good luck.

ps.
Sounds like you are trying to re-invent the BC Vape after re-reading your post. Good luck with that too.

Edit:
pps. Didn't expect you to understand... but that's OK. You say, "it turns out the BC Vaporizer does essentially what I was thinking..." Sorry, but . . . That's what, not paying attention in Vaporizer class, will get you. I suggested reading about other vapes... but, you are right, that's gonna cloud your mind, to marvelous new ideas, so, as you were sailor, carry on . . .

 

[Pi_Squared]

I wouldn't really say that I'm trying to reinvent the bicycle. I'm just trying to build my own bike because I enjoy the process. Building things is a hobby and I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes. I may eventually buy a vaporizer but probably not until I build a few to get a sense of what works well. It's highly unlikely that I'd build anything that is superior to some commercially available products but I'd be better informed when I do make a purchase and I'd have fun along the way. I'm not the type of person who goes to a store to buy something just because I'm interested in it, I do lots of research and make informed decisions once I feel I know enough about what I'm buying. Also, by building my own I am not constrained by other people's ideas and I also gain an appreciation for designs that other people have came up with.

As it turns out the BC Vaporizer does essentially what I was thinking, although I'm not 100% clear on how the chamber gets heated. If the bowl heats it then that's different from what I was thinking but still similar.

 

[Alan]

Nice to see another Mechanical Engineer on the forum.

Remember your thermodynamics class in school? Energy must somehow be added to the herb to make it vaporize. The energy should be added as evenly and uniformly as possible. Mass flow rate and temperature will dictate the energy addition rate. It is much easier to transfer the energy with a flow of air. The exact temperature and flow rate to achieve the optimum energy transfer is the real trick. I think that is why many vaporizers have fans. For those that don't have fans, there is a lot of discussion on this forum of airflow techniques for the various draw through vaporizers. I'm not sure there is one perfect vaporizer. All have some learning curve.

Having some experience with commercial vaporizers would help, but sometimes I find that not having experience can help too. You have no preconceived ideas about how to design them and you discover something new. I'm sure you will design a great vaporizer if you stick with it.

 

[Egzoset]

Dear mister Squared, it will be a pleasure to witness new vaporization concepts being born. Since your project(s) got no shape yet please allow me to make a suggestion... My advice would be to define some objectives, for example one might want his vaporizer to meet these criterias:

No brainer learning curve through automation
Obvious (visible) air/vapor path optimized purity
Versatility, using a removable crucible, etc., etc.
Convenience (size, maintenance, silent operation, stealthy look)

Briefly put, sort out some of your priorities! Have fun! Good luck!

 

[Hippie Dickie]

@pi^2 - for a detailed description of designing a vaporizer you can read the thread on the Bud Toaster which documents the last two years of my 10 year effort to design, manufacture and market a new type of vaporizer.

 

[Egzoset]

The BudToaster may appear to meet criterias like those i've enumerated previously but i was hoping the initial poster would avoid contamination from old ideas and really explore new vaporization concepts all by himself. That's certainly a great thread Hippie Dickie but i would have waited at least a day or two before mentioning it...

I'm sure the guy is not ready to leave us, after all!

 

[max]

As I was doing this I got to wondering why most vaporizers use fans?

Most don't. There are some higher priced forced air whip vapes out there, but they're not really designed that way in order to blow a stream of vapor out for the user. It's more about helping to maintain a constant temp and stabilize the circuitry. The handful of dual mode vapes (and the bag only Volcano) have fans or pumps primarily for the purpose of filling bags.

As it turns out the BC Vaporizer does essentially what I was thinking, although I'm not 100% clear on how the chamber gets heated.

The BC vape is an old conduction design. It works like a hot plate/frying pan and only the part of the herb that's in contact with the hot metal gets vaporized. This model was my first vaporizer years ago, and if I'd done enough research before buying, I wouldn't have bought it. It's an inefficient design, like all conduction dome vapes. Your herb has to be ground very fine and even then, you suck on it until you get a headache, trying to get a good vapor hit.

 

[Pi_Squared]

I did actually order my first vaporizer yesterday. I got a Magic-Flight Launch Box that should be arriving tomorrow. I can already tell that it is far from what I am looking to build but it should be interesting to see how it works and it'd be handy to have when traveling and camping.

After my post I found out how the BC works and I agree that the heating element is far from optimal. I work in an area of engineering called controls and I'd love to build a vape that controls the temperature based on the vapor that is coming off of the "substance" but I don't know how to measure that contents of the vapor. I'd need some sort of instrument similar to an oxygen sensor of spectrum analyzer and I'm guessing that I would not be able to afford such an instrument. There are analyzers that would do that but I'm looking at more of an open-source approach. There is a way to relatively easily measure the amount of vapor coming off the "substance" but telling what is contained in that vapor is a lot more difficult. I may try to build an "uncontrolled" prototype and see if it would be worth the trouble to try and build a controlled system. I have some ideas of how to get around not being able to analyze the content of the vapor but the quality of that design would depend on the reliability of the table that tdavie made, which I'm guessing may vary depending on the particular strain of the "substance".

This is the table by tdavie that I was referring to:
http://www.vaporpedia.com/wiki/Vaporizing_Effects_by_Temperature

 

[Egzoset]

Maybe you don't need a spectrum analyzer to explore new avenues. Lets take water vs energy, for example... I believe a simple thermometer will inform you about the phase changes in water as more energy is being applied. Similarily, i'd expect THC to exhibit some transition characteristics while it vaporizes. I may be wrong but i'm under the impression that adequate energy control combined to adequate temperature monitoring should reveal interesting information once plotted on a nice spreadsheet graphic.

 

[Hippie Dickie]

While i agree that temperature monitoring is adequate, the phase change is not accurately indicated by temperature alone -- for example, it takes one calorie of heat to raise the temperature of 1cc of h2o by 1C, until it gets to 100C, then it takes like 150 additional calories (heat of vaporization) to turn the liquid to vapor. But it is still at 100C, so temperature alone doesn't indicate phase change.

 

[Egzoset]

Recording temperature, energy and time would be a start and that's what i'm saying.

In principle i'm not against adding more dimensions if you can do it economically...

 

[Pi_Squared]

I like where this is going. I was thinking about having a small, externally heated vaporization chamber with a small internal volume. The chamber would have an inlet and an outlet. As the temperature in the chamber rises there should be a natural convection current causing air to flow in to the inlet (located at the bottom of the chamber) and out the outlet (at the top of the chamber). I could measure the particle density (just like smoke detectors do) at the outlet for a constant vaporization chamber temperature and should be able to plot how quicky the vaporization takes place. If tdavie's table is correct, I could choose the temperature so that I could achieve a particular characteristic for the resulting vapor. Once the rate of vaporization dropped below a certain point the heat would be turned off so that no (or at least minimal) vaporization of unwanted substances would take place. I could fairly easily track and record temperature, time, and vapor density but energy is a whole other story. I think you'd need to know the efficiency of your heating element, how much energy is going to heating air, phase change properties of the substance, properties regarding the energy transfer from air to the substance, and probably a lot more unless I am unaware of an established technique for measuring energy transfer (which is completely possible). I think I may try to just plot the temperature and vapor density vs time and see what I get. It would be awesome if it were possible to semi-reliably produce vapor with a particular set properties.

Of course, I've got to build some sort of prototype to do this work with first.

 

[Egzoset]

Lets suppose the desired vapor has physical characteristics identical to those of pure water for a second, i'd expect one of your spreadsheet graphics to look like this one (at least a part of it):

In my opinion it would be utterly ambitious if not futile to focus on static/absolute values alone, out of their dynamic context, hoping to draw any creative conclusion from it. I suspect the really stimulating information would be contained in behaviour changes, similarily to acceleration vs speed for example... I'm only guessing (you could almost say "fishing"!) here since i yet have to see one single curve sample so far.