Hello All!,
Off Topic: Just finished an environmental research project on Thursday that had taken up allll my time for the past couple months but that is all said and done. Unfortunately, I'm been sick for about 3 weeks and finally had time yesterday to go to the doctors, and what do ya know? there closed, irony.... anyway, I hope I don't sound grumpy or anything, but I'll get over it soon enough.
On Topic: The heaters have been fully built at the factory, I received a test batch for fitting purposes as I mentioned before and they seem to fit and work fine, The prototype was set up and the earthenware insulator but the samples that were sent were only testing at 22.5 watts, I believe we will need 30 watts for the final heating element but the good news is that the heating element is a done deal, The samples I received were great and should work great with the new design.
A little more on the new design; the new changes made to the diffuser might entail an external heating element encased in glass. So what does that mean for air flow? The new heating element that was designed actually allows the air to travel through the heating element. The ambient air will pass through an orifice in the tubing that covers the heating element and will travel through the top of the heating element, traveling down towards the base of the heater and into the ceramic insulator, and out through the side of the OCD. This air flow pattern allows the air to come into contact with more surface area of the heating element rather the just let the air travel over the exterior of the tubular heating element. I will post some pictures up as I tweak the designs this weekend. I'm really going to be hammering down on the design this week as I continue to wait for the manufacturer of the insulator to get back to me.
The wait: Unfortunately a design change that entails a completely custom ceramic insulator to be built was going to take lead time for me to design, lead time for them to set up molds and then have them built. The problem I ran into with the engineers is that I want the wires that lead to the heating element to be isolated from the airflow, Now these are ROHS compliant heaters per factory specifications but I wanted the safety in knowing that the wires wouldn't touch each other and they would be out of the air path, pretty much a safety precaution. The engineers are deciding (from what they told me) what would be the best way to tackle this job, because of the complexity of the design, it will be slightly difficult to make those 1mm holes all the way through the ceramic heater, while keeping costs down. I will keep you updated as I hear back and we should see some progress now that I can re-devote my time to OCD, but the waiting on the factory was inevitable this last months. Hopefully they'll have those problems figured out, because it is out of my hands for the time being, and this waiting is making me anxious, as it is to all of you I'm sure. But you guys & gals have been extremely patient and I thank you for that!
I'll be focusing on things that I can change while waiting on those factory parts, I know this design has the ceramic heater which I love, I just personally hate relying on someone to do the work for me and do it in a punctual fashion. I promise that if sometime down the line I can do this type of work in-house, I will. I would love to be a self-sufficient business (at least in relative terms), It would be nice to have everything done under my roof but certian technologies like electronics and ceramic forming is just out of my hands, and I'm sorry for that.
I'll be working on Muslin bags, adapters, catch-cans, I even have a screen printing area set up and some funny designs - I'm sure I'll throw in some T's when the new vaporizers go out. I don't want you guys/gals to think I'm focusing on the ancillaries, but when a major part of the OCD unit is out of my hands at the moment, it would be folly not to focus on these types of refinements, and there is small satisfaction because I'll be working on the things you all suggested, other then the T-shirts, that's probably just the ego of the business shining through lol.
Well be back more frequently now that the research project is over and sent away (no more soil tests!). I am always quicker to get a hold of through my email and usually always respond, even on the go. But will try to come back here more often. If somehow I make some drastic change, which I hope not to do because of the expense of this ceramic insulator design, I will let you all know. I'm trying to be as transparent as possible in designing and letting you guys know what's going on because in the end we will hopefully all benefit, with a healthy diffuser / vaporizer and a long lasting "green" business....
You can see that there is a hole all the way through the heating element, this hole is completely sealed in ceramic and this is where the air path will travel through. I designed the heater to minimize the heating zone to the latter half of the heating element, so the base of it will not experience high temperatures because it will be attached to the base of the ceramic insulator, which will reduce the heat dispersion and keep the entire body of the OCD from experiencing any heat issues. The heater itself is only about 40mm long and the opening for air travel is just over 2.5mm, If all goes well the size of the heating element and the hole allowed for air travel should be the right size for the OCD vapor tube herb capacity. I will post any changes or add-on's that is deemed necessary for sufficient vaporizing
). Thanks for the laugh. 
