Hex-Nail (HN-01) - RIP

[damm]

Great stuff man! I was not actually the one to raise that point about the 20mm coil btw bro, I don't use barrel coils at all and don't own any

I will definitely be looking to buy myself a hex-nail unless d-nail come out with a better option before the hex-nail is available to order and ship lol

I won't be pre-ordering, as my days of pre-ordering anything are well and truly done. I will only buy products that ship when I pay for them these days, and any delay beyond a day or two to ship out of the warehouse will result in my prompt screaming for a refund. I have recently been fucked in an uncomfortable place by too many popular vendors around here (without naming names and obviously not Hex-nail lol) who took far too long to give me what I paid for and I am firmly decided that this will not happen again

I am also likely to hold off on the hex-nail until it works with all of my high end nails (sapphire and SiC halo presets are required for my purposes!).

With all of this being said, I have so far been impressed by the communication and customer service ethic I've seen from the Hex-nail folks and I would love to give them my money when the time comes

I think either Hex-nail will have to dominate the market and starve everyone of sales for D-Nail to come out with something innovative. I say that because High5 has had a touch screen for awhile and yet D-Nail really hasn't changed much.

The motto is likely there's a sucker born every day. Afaik high5 has their own pinout but Auber has a pretty good setup that a lot of people use on FC.

I've seen more portable dab stations lately as far as innovation than making the controller different. More than 1 wan to use concentrates I guess and nail rigs are pretty much not really moving; few things here and there drop but not a lot of new products everyday.

 

[Monsoon]

So here is where I settled in for each coil at what I felt was the happy lowest temp for flavor and size of hit. I cannot tell you how many dabs I did to settle in on these temps. I started up where I had been on my old controllers and in the end after many dabs. I came up with the below as my current proffered temps.

I have not tried my SiC inserts yet, but promise to break them out and see where their gravy zone is and promise to report back once I have completed many rounds of testing (Sounds better than saying I am gonna get really baked in the name of testing)

20mm with Sapphire insert:
Unit was setup with the presets and then I set the coil to 480
Coil set temp: 480
Temp shown as actual temp of coil: 512 (This was an average that moved a few degrees up and down regularly)
Nail temp shown: 418 (Same as the above. This was the average temp shown)

30mm with sapphire insert:
Unit was setup with the presets and then I set the coil to 450
Coil set temp: 450
Temp shown as actual temp of coil: 473 (This was an average that moved a few degrees up and down regularly)
Nail temp shown: 343 (Same as the above. This was the average temp shown)

I also noticed it took some time for the unit to properly saturate the nail and once this was reached. The above worked as expected.

For the 20mm coil. @herbivore21 had called out about setting the coil with arm at the top instead of the bottom. I did this and also made sure I had a solid fit with the coil to achieve the above temps on the 20mm. If you have a working 20mm coil already setup on your Liger. Give it a try and compare against the new coil you get with the Hex Nail. initially I thought my coil was not working correctly. But in the end it was a matter of adjusting the above and once done. The temps worked and held as expected. The other coil I used to compare against was a Dnail Extended life 20mm coil.

For the 30mm coil. It is as it always has been. Make sure the coil is good and snug and you should be set. Also the 30mm worked much much better than I could of ever expected. I think this is due to @HexNailAva favoring the 30mm and so it really does shine with the Hex nail and as you can see. The temps worked much better and so I was able to achieve some really nice dabs at a 30 degree lower difference than the 20mm. But I know this will also get tuned and patched in future updates, so it also works as good as the 30mm now does.

If you recall I was one of the first to state I ended up preferring the 20 over the 30. Now the tables have turned and I am a loving the 30mm when paired with the Hex Nail. I just want to do dabs in the big sexy dish. Is that bad that I am honest?

For the few getting these tomorrow. Make sure to use the pre sets for the Liger and remember it takes a few to properly saturate the nail with the selected temp.

That is all I have for you all and I hope it helps shorten the learning curve for the others getting baptized into the Hex Nail family (Come to the dark side, you know you want to)

I've just been using the 30mm SiC lately at 640F (Omron with SSR) so I'll be doing my comparisons based on that starting point. Just finished doing a complete cleaning of both my rig and Liger so it's all ready for when the Hex-Nail arrives. The sucky part is I'll be home when it comes but can't really play with it until I'm done work for the day. I do medicate during the day but I need to stay sharp so it'll be limited. I'll try to post first impressions by the evening unless I knock myself out.

 

[mutten840]

@Monsoon If your existing coil works good. Leave it in place and see how the temps go. Part of my confusion initially was due to me adding in the new coil at the same time and not having the coil properly fitted.

 

[invertedisdead]

As someone in the market for an enail, I'm hoping to see a smaller controller with the beautiful wood enclosure and no touch screen or anything like that. Just an MP3 player sized OLED (maybe like the MaxVapor unit). Something similar to your typical enail controller, tuned to specific nails like this so you get the performance functionality without the fluff. I honestly don't see the point of a touch screen, provided the nails are as tuned as claimed I dont have a reason to see direct realtime feedback. Maybe someone could explain if I'm missing something with the large display? I like the glob mode and other features, I'm just thinking of something very compact. This is meant in no way to take away from Hexnail, just suggestions for possibly a future device! Take care all! Some really good info in this thread!

 

[mutten840]

@invertedisdead The unit is pretty small and the touch screen is just big enough to accommodate the info for pre sets and such. But I also know @HexNailAva mentioned they have plans for future development into different flavors and sizes of units. So if you don't like the extra info/features. Make sure to let them know what your ideal setup would be and I am sure at a later date. They might be able to hook you up with the perfectly fitted controller

Currently all features they have are things I am actually liking
Duty cycle: Love being able to see when my coil is drawing juice and how much
Pre sets: I cannot tell you how much I appreciate having a place for pre set temps and such that are all user configurable
Coil temp and nail temp: If you go over this and other threads. The big hunt is to figure out what the temp of your nail is in comparison to what you have the controller set to. This just took all that out of the mix, since you can look down and see in real time what the 2 temps are actually at
Coil on/off button: Love this!!!! I can leave the unit on and just turn the coil off. Makes it nice when I don't want to turn the unit off. But want the coil to not be on

Those features pretty much fill the whole tiny touch screen they come with

 

[Baron23]

@mutten840 - thank you so very, very much for your feedback and reports. Truly outstanding info as always from you.

One thing I didn't understand, perhaps I'm just mistaken. But when you listed your temps you had three temps you defined; set point, actual thermocouple reported coil temp, and the calculated dab surface temp based on Hex's tuning of different enails.

What I didn't understand is why the unit is reporting lower coil temp from the TC's than the set point. I mean, the basic purpose of a controller is to maintain coil temp to set point.

What am I missing here (and I'm sure its just my lack of understanding).

Cheers

 

[mutten840]

Heya @Baron23

I know that with my Auber and my home brew setups. The set temp was always much lower at the dab surface than what I had the controller set at. I think this is just helping you see the dab surface temp so you know without using something to measure the dab surface temp. Not sure why it is not a 1 to 1. That actually never dawned on me until you mentioned it. @HexNailAva, can you give more insight into this question from Baron23

 

[invertedisdead]

Thanks @mutten840
@HexNailAva are the dimensions posted on your site somewhere I'm not seeing? Forgive me because I tend to be buzzed when posting here.

What I'm picturing is something like this with the Hex Nail software and tunings. The option to switch from temp mode to preset mode and just navigate with the rotary dial. Like I said, provided the software is doing its job and everything is properly tuned and calibrated, I don't think a lot need live feedback if you do come out with a diet version. I'm not sure I would even notice it while I was holding a rig and spinning a carb cap. I just need to know its at the temp I set it to and it says it is with whichever nail configuration or insert I'm running.

Bonus points if you could still control / configure it with your phone if the person wanted since everyone reading this probably has one of those touchscreens.

 

[Baron23]

Heya @Baron23

I know that with my Auber and my home brew setups. The set temp was always much lower at the dab surface than what I had the controller set at. I think this is just helping you see the dab surface temp so you know without using something to measure the dab surface temp. Not sure why it is not a 1 to 1. That actually never dawned on me until you mentioned it. @HexNailAva, can you give more insight into this question from Baron23

@mutten840 - just to be clear, I'm not questioning anything about dab surface temp, just set point temp (the temperature the operator sets) and the coil temp (temp that the coil TC is sending back to the controller). Unless HexNail has redefined these terms, these two temps should be very, very close to each other with actual TC temp hovering very closely around the set point as the controller attempts to maintain the desired coil temp.

I'm sure this has something to do with their nail profiles and offsets but would be very interested in what Hex has to say.

Cheers and thanks again, my friend, for the great feedback.

 

[mutten840]

@invertedisdead Here is what I measures my unit at: It is roughly 6.5 x 4.5 x 2 inches big

@Baron23 I am curious also and am awaiting Avas response =)

 

[invertedisdead]

That doesn't seem bad, I was thinking it was a bit larger from your picture - must have just been a small rig by comparison.

 

[damm]

As someone in the market for an enail, I'm hoping to see a smaller controller with the beautiful wood enclosure and no touch screen or anything like that. Just an MP3 player sized OLED (maybe like the MaxVapor unit). Something similar to your typical enail controller, tuned to specific nails like this so you get the performance functionality without the fluff. I honestly don't see the point of a touch screen, provided the nails are as tuned as claimed I dont have a reason to see direct realtime feedback. Maybe someone could explain if I'm missing something with the large display? I like the glob mode and other features, I'm just thinking of something very compact. This is meant in no way to take away from Hexnail, just suggestions for possibly a future device! Take care all! Some really good info in this thread!

The touchscreen is a bit much; the High5 touchscreen has Bluetooth speakers so you can connect your iphone over BT and have it play music. Weird feature imo

Be aware the pictures in the UI you are seeing are still fresh; i'm hoping over time those get fleshed out and cleaned up so it's easier for the eyes when they're drooping

 

[HexNailAva]

@invertedisdead Here is what I measures my unit at: It is roughly 6.5 x 4.5 x 2 inches big

@Baron23 I am curious also and am awaiting Avas response =)

That's about right. We're compiling actual final specs right now and restructuring our wholesale pricing but the exact size of the units will be different for each one.

While they are all milled to spec these are still 100% hand-finished so the actual specs will vary slightly (concerning size & placement of the jacks, occasionally).

The touchscreen is a bit much; the High5 touchscreen has Bluetooth speakers so you can connect your iphone over BT and have it play music. Weird feature imo

Be aware the pictures in the UI you are seeing are still fresh; i'm hoping over time those get fleshed out and cleaned up so it's easier for the eyes when they're drooping

The touchscreen seems like a bit much now, but there are quite a few features that will utilize it a lot more on the way. The HN-01 is our current flagship model and while we do plan to expand the line in the future it has to stay our focus for now. We're not really a 'frills for the sake of frills' company...Though the Hardwood...maybe a little...

As long as we can get all these orders out to you folks (finally) we have a lot of fairly big plans for the Hex-Nail (as more of a whole platform) that we want to explore. Including actually designing and making our own heaters and looking into other model options.

And another thing to note is that we actually looked into more 'hardware' features on the tech side of things when designing the unit. We originally planned to have USB charging ports, but even that introduced noise into the signal. We decided to remove the feature for the good of the dabs, basically. Haha.

Coming from an audio background and knowing how bad some folks power already is we didn't want to introduce more 'noise' (no pun intended) with something like speakers.

Running your HN-01 on a decent power conditioner actually cleans up the signal a surprising amount. Steady power matters for stuff like this. Our test bed is run on an isolated 20 amp circuit and run through a line conditioner. When you're measuring down to .002 °C you gotta be sure it's right.

EDIT: Oh, and we'll have a more technical post coming later today. We'll sit down and actually drop some science on the table.

 

[PoopMachine]

My tracking is live! Unit should be in my hands on Wednesday. Cant wait to put it through it's paces! Thanks @HexNailAva and @HexNailLiz

 

[Monsoon]

So my unit arrived yesterday but it's looking like it may have slipped passed QA since I'm getting scorched dabs as low as 440F coil temp on SiC. I sent a full bug report to @HexNailAva and am waiting to hear back. @mutten840's unit seems to be working like gangbusters so it at least doesn't affect all units anyway. Suffice it to say my full review will have to wait until my box is working correctly.

I like the unit itself though, the wood is nice and smooth to the touch and it looks great on my table. Viewing angle for the screen is good so I could leave it screen facing up, place it to the side and still be able to view all the info okay. Touchscreen isn't the greatest in accuracy but it's only really a pain for entering the wifi password, I found everything else was big enough for just my fingers. It serves its purpose though, it's meant to press buttons not type out long emails.

 

[mutten840]

@Monsoon can you post a pic of your screen and confirm you selected the pre set for the 20mm with SiC insert. I am running mine at 450 on the coil temp and am seeing 353 on the nail temp. I had messed around with the settings and found you can set the unit to be set by either coil or nail temp. When I changed to nail it got really hot as it used the temp I had set for the coil. Once I switched it back to Coil. It worked as expected again. Wondering if yours might be set for nail and not coil.

let me know about the above and if you can post a pic =)

 

[Monsoon]

@Monsoon can you post a pic of your screen and confirm you selected the pre set for the 20mm with SiC insert. I am running mine at 450 on the coil temp and am seeing 353 on the nail temp. I had messed around with the settings and found you can set the unit to be set by either coil or nail temp. When I changed to nail it got really hot as it used the temp I had set for the coil. Once I switched it back to Coil. It worked as expected again. Wondering if yours might be set for nail and not coil.

let me know about the above and if you can post a pic =)

I double-checked everything yesterday, made sure it was set to F and not C, set to coil and not nail temp (though I tried both) and selected the Liger Flat coil 30mm SiC option in the settings. Also the temp readout in the centre spiked 100F everytime I touched the top of the box by the XLR port which seemed odd. I know they were dealing with a bad batch of temp sensors at one point so my thinking is maybe a bad one got through.

 

[Baron23]

I had messed around with the settings and found you can set the unit to be set by either coil or nail temp. When I changed to nail it got really hot as it used the temp I had set for the coil.

Hi @mutten840 - Perhaps this explains my confusion about why coil temp wasn't equal or very close to controller set point. Perhaps you were in measure the nail mode and the GUI wasn't clear on this? Perhaps? Just guessing! LOL

 

[mutten840]

@Baron23 yeah the lack of instruction has left me trying to fill in the blanks on some things

But it sounds like @Monsoon might have an electronics issue with his jack since he is seeing the spike when he touches the back of the controller. I can def agree that the UI is in need of more polish. But i also know they have plans for an update to address some of the issues reported so far.

Today I have the 20mm setup with the SiC insert and running it at 450 for the coil temp and getting large and tasty dabs

 

[HexNailAva]

To start, sorry for not getting back to your email yet @Monsoon . It's kind of a lengthy one but it's otw soon so we can try to nail down the specific problem.

We've only had 2 units with issues so far (spread across our Facebook customers, Insta, FC, etc.) out of all the ones in the field at the moment (including our old prototypes that are still going strong). The other one was our only order going further north than yours we had in Round One. We're worried it could be issues with reaching low temperatures during shipping but we can't know for sure yet. We didn't think to put it in the friggin' freezer for a stress test.

I'll send this email your way now and get info for something a little more immediate communication wise so we can try a few things live. It might just be something silly like a grounding issue we just have to find the source of.

(Oh, and that science post is still coming. We decided to actually try to get a few graphs together that made sense without giving too much of the secret sauce away for now for some of this overnight we just pulled.

------

ALSO. Those of you that ordered Bloodwood that haven't had an update about your temp sensors. We got our new order in yesterday and are happy to say that so far so good on burning the replacement sensors in.

Our original source was located in northern California and they actually did really great work (we haven't had a single issue with his units and we've sourced parts from him for awhile) we just literally bought them out when we started Round One (and our original prototyping phase).

So naturally, these didn't even hit his shelf before we bought them out again! You should be seeing a little more movement on that front soon shipping wise.

------

EDIT: We admittedly jumped the gun a bit on documentation but we'll have the basic guide up today and are working on a full color annotated manual that will be available via our site for download as a PDF.

Once it's complete and some of the latest UI change logs are included we will be doing some nice full color prints for all of our Round One customers (and I have an idea for those of you excited to get your swag you are gonna love involving the manual...but that part's a surprise. )

 

[PoopMachine]

Ava, Ava, Ava!!!! and even tho she doesnt post.. Liz, Liz Liz!!!

 

[herbivore21]

To start, sorry for not getting back to your email yet @Monsoon . It's kind of a lengthy one but it's otw soon so we can try to nail down the specific problem.

We've only had 2 units with issues so far (spread across our Facebook customers, Insta, FC, etc.) out of all the ones in the field at the moment (including our old prototypes that are still going strong). The other one was our only order going further north than yours we had in Round One. We're worried it could be issues with reaching low temperatures during shipping but we can't know for sure yet. We didn't think to put it in the friggin' freezer for a stress test.

I'll send this email your way now and get info for something a little more immediate communication wise so we can try a few things live. It might just be something silly like a grounding issue we just have to find the source of.

(Oh, and that science post is still coming. We decided to actually try to get a few graphs together that made sense without giving too much of the secret sauce away for now for some of this overnight we just pulled.

------

ALSO. Those of you that ordered Bloodwood that haven't had an update about your temp sensors. We got our new order in yesterday and are happy to say that so far so good on burning the replacement sensors in.

Our original source was located in northern California and they actually did really great work (we haven't had a single issue with his units and we've sourced parts from him for awhile) we just literally bought them out when we started Round One (and our original prototyping phase).

So naturally, these didn't even hit his shelf before we bought them out again! You should be seeing a little more movement on that front soon shipping wise.

------

EDIT: We admittedly jumped the gun a bit on documentation but we'll have the basic guide up today and are working on a full color annotated manual that will be available via our site for download as a PDF.

Once it's complete and some of the latest UI change logs are included we will be doing some nice full color prints for all of our Round One customers (and I have an idea for those of you excited to get your swag you are gonna love involving the manual...but that part's a surprise. )

Ava,

Regarding the possible issues from cold temperatures, do you guys package these with some kind of dessicant/adsorbent (silica gel etc) or perhaps not due to the wooden components (this is problematic as IIRC wood is not meant to be kept in very dry conditions)? A radical change in temperature from moderate to freezing in transit is very likely to cause considerable condensation in anything that isn't water/airtight. I only mention this because I'd be concerned about computer hardware that wasn't packaged to resist this if I were shipping such components in such conditions

 

[HexNailAva]

Ava,

Regarding the possible issues from cold temperatures, do you guys package these with some kind of dessicant/adsorbent (silica gel etc) or perhaps not due to the wooden components (this is problematic as IIRC wood is not meant to be kept in very dry conditions)? A radical change in temperature from moderate to freezing in transit is very likely to cause considerable condensation in anything that isn't water/airtight. I only mention this because I'd be concerned about computer hardware that wasn't packaged to resist this if I were shipping such components in such conditions

...this has to be it. What hell I've shipped like 300 amps to Canada in my day with with desiccant and I've never understood it just 'seemed like a good idea at the time'. The worst part? I ORDERED A TON OF IT FREAKIN YESTERDAY FOR OUR WHOLESALE ORDERS.

SON. OF. A. BITCH. I used to built humidors all the time for my tobacco for god's sake. I feel so stupid right now. Dear lord.

...also thanks you for that wake up slap to the face because you mighta just saved us a lot more headaches in the future since we've skimmed by with only a couple of orders from the great white north much further down the line.

...but I kinda feel like a dick now, too.

Then again, could be something else entirely. The weird (seemingly) grounding issue is what's throwing us off. Either way, we're going to try to get our remote access up and running to do some diag on the box after I actually send you this email...literally just now.

 

[Baron23]

Just a thought or two on the off chance it may be helpful.

I personally think that desiccant is just fine with wood....as long as the wood is well cured and dried. I'm a shotgunner (competitive clay target shooter...well, I was competitive LOL) and nobody pays for exhibition grade, highly figured, crotch wood (mostly varieties of walnut) like shotgunners putting together a new gun with a custom stock. This wood needs to be carefully dried over time down to about 10% to ensure it will not crack in the future (and ruin a $10K custom stock). I would presume that the wood that Hexnail is buying has been well dried. If not, there is still a chance of it cracking if in a very dry environment (up north in the winter, yeah?). So, assuming its well cured wood, covering the condensation risk (using desiccant when shipping) seems reasonable to me (but what do I know, I'm just a guy behind a keyboard haha).

But I would find it surprising that a bit of condensation during shipping, with the unit unpowered, would result in Monsoon's issues when he touches the screen. Not saying that its not, but is sure sounds like a possible ground issue .

Well, that's enough sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong for tonight.

Oh, P.S. Ava - if you do have customers looking for one off, very high end, exhibition wood, I have bought stock blanks from this fella (Cecil Fredi) before and been extremely satisfied. He has a great reputation among some very demanding clients and his wood has always been spot on. Not for the budget minded, though. However, this kind of wood gets way exponentially expensive the bigger the blank (for the obvious reason that only very small parts of the tree will yield this type of highly figured wood and its very hard to find large pieces). He may well have smaller pieces not suitable for stock making that may well fit as a HexNail enclosure.

http://www.gunstockblanks.com/

Picture of a custom Winchester shotgun with Cecil Fredi wood and a hand rubbed, in the wood, oil finish.

 

[herbivore21]

...this has to be it. What hell I've shipped like 300 amps to Canada in my day with with desiccant and I've never understood it just 'seemed like a good idea at the time'. The worst part? I ORDERED A TON OF IT FREAKIN YESTERDAY FOR OUR WHOLESALE ORDERS.

SON. OF. A. BITCH. I used to built humidors all the time for my tobacco for god's sake. I feel so stupid right now. Dear lord.

...also thanks you for that wake up slap to the face because you mighta just saved us a lot more headaches in the future since we've skimmed by with only a couple of orders from the great white north much further down the line.

...but I kinda feel like a dick now, too.

Then again, could be something else entirely. The weird (seemingly) grounding issue is what's throwing us off. Either way, we're going to try to get our remote access up and running to do some diag on the box after I actually send you this email...literally just now.

It was my pleasure to be able to assist. I have been very happy to see you guys doing what you do so far and look forward to a time when I can join your customers It is also beyond refreshing to see some women designing innovative products in the industry - may there be many, many more women joining us in the future!!! Also on FC too lol too many dudes around here

It dawns on me that if you guys are in Colorado (IIRC?), you guys have barometry that is does part of the work of a vacuum chamber compared to other locales (talk about a fortunate coincidence that Co. was first to legalize!). There are likely some major changes in barometric pressure in transit as well as temperature and hence RH as well (the variables are all intimately related as I am sure you understand , you strike me as very knowledgeable!). All of these could cause all kinds of funky behavior with moisture by the time the device arrives.

My buddy @Baron23 is definitely supported by the literature that I've read; that if we can cure/dry wood appropriately before shipping, then a dessicant should be no problem for the wood. Hell, I believe boveda provide humidity packs with RH% rated for this purpose - although reverse osmosis used in the boveda packs will probably not work in freezing conditions.

Actually now that I think of it, Co. has very dry conditions for much of the year IIRC and so the wood you have is probably already well dried or you guys would have seen cracking already? If so, it seems like silica should be good for your purposes

I admit my wood-related knowledge here is theoretical and my friend @Baron23 no doubt has first-hand knowledge to assist here