Extreme THC Efficiency

[AceTK]

Hi all this is my first post here. I came across this website shortly after I decided my lungs had endured enough and I should either quit my beloved herb or find another solution.... a vape. Now i'd had a low quality vape before in the past (blue meanie) and didn't get on with at all. But then at the time I was still smoking tobacco too, but also the only time I found it worked was when it got too hot and burned the herb but then that's what the bong was for. In the end I left it round a friends house and forgot about it.

Anyhoo some time later about a month ago I got my first real working vape. Now I know i'm going to get told off for this but I got a really cheap chinese one from ebay. Now to be honest there were a few things I noticed about it that were questionable but being a very technical person I checked all the electronics, construction, operational efficiency and found everything to be fine with only a few tweaks needed. Firstly I cut out some holes at the bottom as the only way for the air to get in seemed to be through the excess hole space from the power chord, then I also noticed that the top got too hot so to fix that I fitted a zalman heatpipe hard drive cooler to the top and now it just dissipates the heat in a controlled manner. Lastly the angle of the unit meant every time i stopped sucking the whip pipe the herb would fall onto the element. This was easily fixed by raising the back side up so that it was totally level. In this state i've found it to be most reliable and i've enjoyed many many days of good vaping so far. Which brings me to the reason I posted here lol.

Now given herbage is very hard to come by round here I want to be as efficient as I can when vaping. Now at the moment i'm switching between two methods.

1. I load the ground herb in whip, press down slightly into disc then place against element and toke at 180c for 3 seconds then remove from element follow the 3 second toke through with cool air to cool the herb and whip head just as you run out of breath to inhale. Then place whip down ready for next hit.

2. I load the ground herb in whip, press down slightly into disc then place on element at 132c and leave it there while I toke tokes as needed. Then when even slow tokes wont gimme any I just turn up to 180c and finish off.


Now so far i've noticed that option 1 seems to be best as i'm concerned option 2 somehow wastes herb. Sometimes il go downstairs to do something then come back 20 mins later to find that nearly all the vapor is gone. Im not sure how it could be leaking though as I seal the mouthpiece nossle with little rubber bung. Inside the whip i imagine the thc staying above the heat of the element but perhaps the vapor is somehow getting back down through the element somehow. So yeah has anyone got any ideas how I can improve efficiency? Also if you could share your experiences with whip leakage if any that would be great too.

 

[max]

First of all, your temp readings on a cheap unit like this won't be accurate, and you've modified it as well, so you're better off just thinking of the display numbers as reference points. A true 132 C probably isn't going to get you any useful compounds at all. IMO it's always a good idea, to get the maxiumum vapor production, to start low temp and move the temp up gradually when vapor output tapers off at a particular setting.

Removing the bowl/whip between hits isn't really necessary. I'd say it's more important to take hits you can hold, and limit the amount of vapor you exhale. Leaving the whip attached for extended periods though, especially at higher temps, can heat up the glass and ambient air temp as well. So I'd remove the whip if you're gonna stop for a few. Whip leakage though, isn't really an issue. If you're losing vapor to ambient heating it doesn't matter whether the mouthpiece is sealed or not. Vapor's gonna condense on anything. Visible vapor itself is condensation.

Here's a good starter video you might get some helpful info from. Plenty of other vape vids on youtube as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9luNVYlT_E

 

[AceTK]

Ah yeah true I didn't factor in much idle condensate. Yes the whip has turned brown over time perhaps this is where the lost vapor went while sat idle. Id seen a video of some old guy introducing vaporizers (maybe you know the one) where he says you can just leave it on all day and itl be there waiting for you, well it would appear it wont lol. Also yeah agreed the temp gauge is more of a reference. From what i gather from the microelectronics the temp merely modifies the duty cycle of the element and has to be calibrated so that each temp gauge reading scales the correct duty cycle to produce the correct temp. Using a infrared thermometer tho i've found it to be not that far off once the temp settles with my design modifications. The only thing I can say is that this device has no mains filtering so any mains spikes or harmonics can cause temperature deviations at random. Interestingly tho I wonder if other vaporizers suffer this same issue. Also I think this issue could be solved with a UPS (uninterpretable power supply) which should be able to not only smooth out the bad voltage spike but reduce mains noise considerably due to the dc isolation. To be totally honest im even thinking of totally rebuilding the item and perhaps adding a small thermostat circuit so that it actually senses the temp rather than relying on a pre-calculated duty cycle which loses calibration in different temps or electrical situations. Ideally id like to get a sensor inside the whip near the herb as well as inside the element so i can get a good idea of the real temp of the vaping and use it to make the realtime optimal vapage calibrations.

 

[WatTyler]

I leave my SSV ground glass wand in pretty much all day, and it doesn't seem to deteriorate too bad (if i can ever leave it that long ) I have noticed condensate on the heater cover though. Slightly diff design to your vape though in that the herb sits below the element. But I think in my case that it's just the last of the vapor still working from the heat transferred during the draw rather than radiant heat from the heater- I figured that it wouldn't condense on the glass heater cover if the heater cover was above the vaporisation temp (which it would have to be if the herb were vaporizing passively, so to speak, in the bowl)

Incidently regarding fiddling with the temp control on your chinese vape, AceTK, you might want to look at this; Vapenotes who dissects and test and easy vape. Seems to be a pretty basic control that gives a stepped output control, rather than linear (i don't know the electronic jargon).

PS we should have a sticky thread just for useful external reference links. I was looking for this again a little while ago- knew I'd seen it, but it took me a while to find it on google again with random search terms.

 

[AceTK]

Ah yeah nice link thanks. Yes agreed a sticky would be good. Yeah if I redesigned it I would find a way to reduce wastage. Perhaps if I redesigned the case and placed the element and the tube receptacle at different points combined with an air gate system so that while you are not drawing the vapor cannot escape the vape chamber. So even if the vape re condenses on the inside of the chamber, once the chamber heats up it will instantly be evaporated. Also the heat could not enter the chamber unless you were drawing. Also I would put a small one way valve on the mouth piece so that any vapor (no matter how insignificant) in the tube does not vent out when you take your lips away from the tube.

 

[weedemon]

Welcome aboard man! sounds like a good FC member from the get go. look into the mflb(or others) for your portable needs bud!

congrats on joining the vape nation I am in the process of converting/at least introducing my friends to vapor too.

 

[AceTK]

Thanks dude I see many random and fun herbal posts ahead. Yeah i've been trying to show my friends too lol. Its just so much better, at some point i'm going to design a battery powered device and maybe upload a poormans guide or something. But yeah lots of fun stuff to follow.