Discontinued Purple-Days Vaporizer

[OF]

my first unit stopped working once. Turns out a solder joint was missed and eventually the wire came loose. It just needed to be soldered. Every other failure was related to the power supply.

Ah, so! So you were the culprit, I shoulda guessed. Makes more sense it was missed than melted for sure. Anyway, the common problem is power supply or connector related. That's where I'd start (like test it in the car with the auto cord......).

OF

 

[Qbit]

The insides came loose, and I guess so has the wiring. Now it's dead, and I can't get inside, because I don't know how to either take the bottom off or put it back on after.

 

[djonkoman]

the bottom is just a piece of leather and some wood(in dutch we call it multiplex but english name is maybe different)
maybe the english name is plywood?

to open it up you'll probably destroy the wood(just that round piece of wood that seals the hole I mean, not the main wooden body), but the leather can be taken off intact, and the wood is easy to replace. and woodglue works to put it all together again once you're done
maybe you need to open the top up too, but that's even easier, you can easily remove the clip by putting the points of some nailscissors in the holes, closing the scissr a bit so the clip gets a bit smaller and it will slide up a bit on one side easily, then you can just take it out completely by putting something under the ringclip and push it up further
the electrical things inside are pretty simple, it's basically just one resistor
if a connection is loose, use leadfree solder to reattach it.

 

[stickstones]

If you really want to know what to do with it, check out the pandora's box thread. Probably some pics in there. i remember Tom saying all the assembly is from the bottom, so dont fuck with the top. I think he said he took the leather off and sawed off the bottom just a little bit. He didn't have to saw much off to get inside because I didn't notice it being any shorter when I got it back.

On another note, anyone claiming Tom shut the company down due to anything business related doesn't know what they are talking about and should keep their uninformed opinions to themselves.

 

[djonkoman]

most(I think it's more likely something is loose at the bottom then what you can reach from the upside) probably could be done from the bottom indeed, but you can only reach the actual resistor from the top.
and if you have to resolder one of the connections of the wire with the resistor you'll also have to do it from the top. and it's really easy to open up the top, easier as the bottom, you can't really screw much up. only pay attention that when you put ity back together you don't twist the heat exchanger before the clip is in place, that way you could twist the resistor too and get the wires to get in contact, creating a short circuit.
the thing I can't say anything about tough is the connection of the wire with the plugthing(the thing the adaptor plugs into), since I have an incomplete(2ndhand) pandorakit, and instead of that plug I just directly connected it to the cord of the adaptor, skipping the plug and thing it plugs into.

I wouldn't saw the bottom off, I don't know how well tom glued it together but with mine(wich I glued myself) I was able to remove the leather (find a little loose spot and make it bigger by sticking a knife or so underneath, without puncturin the leather ofcourse, then you can pull the leather off)
in my case I could remove the wood by putting something(I think I used the back of a hammer, that nailremovingthing) between the plywood circle and the wood body, and use it as a lever to remove the plywood(wich cracked, so I removed it in pieces)
the wooden body as it is has a nice room wich the plywood circle fits into, with narrower hole above so the plywoodcircle is against the wooden body on the upside(hope I explained that well enough...)
so if you saw of a part of the bottom, you'll remove that shape, so you can't easily put a new piece of plywood in.
I suspect, not sure ofcourse, that tom just put that shape back in in your case, wich he could easily do having access to all his woodworking tools. but for us who don't have those tools that's not so easy

 

[OhTheAgony]

The insides came loose, and I guess so has the wiring. Now it's dead, and I can't get inside, because I don't know how to either take the bottom off or put it back on after.

I think Djonko wrote up a pretty good guide to work with there ^^

But if you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself you can always check with Underdog Dave to see if has time to have a look at her for you.

 

[Qbit]

Yeah thanks everyone - I'll get to it eventually. I don't have the tools for all this, but one of my oldest friends has a very well-equipped workshop (good enough to make vapes from scratch, if he were inclined to). I'll give it a shot next time I visit him. Could be a while though - we talk on Skype a lot, but he lives a couple of hours away and I don't see him often IRL. Not that I'm in desperate need of the PD anyway - my SSV is more than adequate.

My main concern was what glue to use to reattach the bottom - I'm sure the rest is fairly straightforward). Is ordinary wood glue non-toxic though? I certainly don't want fumes.

And BTW since I'm in Australia, sending the unit somewhere for repairs isn't a great option.

 

[HoneyAir]

Hello! It has been ages since I've been here!

My PD just died recently, too.

I had long been taking care of the power supply issues [the solder connections tend to break near where it plugs into the PD] so I open it up and solder it back on properly and then create my own temporary strain relief using hot gun glue [and using electrical tape to protect the wire from being corroded green by the glue]. Ghetto, but it works without having to buy a new power supply.

My PD has been slowly getting looser, and looser, and LOOSER and LOOSER, rattling around inside as the hole gets bigger due to the charring. I had tried to insert cardboard pieces to prevent the rattling but it overinsulated it, making it run too hot [which combusted my herbs] so I removed the cardboard and lived with the the looseness.

I started running into the PD being completely cold unexpectedly and repeatedly in the last few days, and after checking my two powersupplies carefully and verifying they were not the cause, I tried to open my PD to investigate to find out what may be happening inside.

The PD can be opened from the top, but I presume that age made the top circle become smaller than the PD unit itself, so I had to scrape the wood along the inner sides to be able to slide it out [so if preserving the way it looks on top is important to you, skip this step or find a very gentle way to widen the hole]. Use snap-ring pliers [buy some if you need to] to remove the snap ring on top and slide the PD unit out, being very careful to look at the resistor inside the tube to make sure its not also being tugged outwards as you remove it.

The reason why I say this is because when I removed my unit, I found the resistor broken in half. Was it already starting to break and causing my problems, or did my removal break it? I'm not sure-- I can't clearly tell what would have pulled on the resistor enough to break it. It is an OHMITE 25J20RE - 20 ohms of resistance at 5 watts. If you wish to buy some, here is where to get them; http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=70023233

If you wish to open it from the bottom, after you remove the felt bottom, the wood piece you find is glued very securely-- a little too securely. There is flat cylindrical piece of wood and takes quite a bit of hacking to remove this piece [I used a thin screwdriver and hammer and went around the circle, be careful it is extra thin because anything thicker will cause cracks]. It wasn't until I accidentally broke off the wood below the part where you plug into the PD that I had the opportunity to use a small flat screwdriver to separate this piece from the unit [In the second picture you can see where I got the leverage to pry it off]. So from the pictures below you'll have an idea of the work ahead of you if you wish to do this without damaging the externals of the PD.

So, how does the PD look inside with the mechanism removed? How charred did mine look? Here it is, and you can also see the hacking I did [not a careful job obviously] to make the hole bigger to remove the unit.

The resistor stands upright through the hole in the wood you see in the middle, and then through the tube on the unit. It is not attached to the tube in the unit, so the unit is supposed to be able to slide right upwards without damaging the resistor.

So, what of the unit, resistor and everything? The unit has a metal cylinder on the outside that is not permanently attached, and the pictures also show it disassembled to show how it works;

As you can see in the resistor picture, the wire broke off on one part-- this may have been my problem-- as it was moving around a lot it may have slowly strained the wire until it was getting to the point where it was about to break [or was broken and was intermittently contacting/not contacting].

The unit is so very simple. Washers as heat sinks, the tube, those fins as separators to increase surface area, and the cross bar to allow the stem to be in the perfect position and also to tightly lock the entire assembly together. I couldn't remove the last fin from the tube because my tube was a little flattened on that end making it difficult to slide it off, so I left it there.



So how do I plan to fix my PD?

I don't want to add anything toxic. Adding more wood to stabilize it and prevent the unit from moving around so much would probably lead to it drying out and failing just the same.

So, what I plan to do is to use small screws and screw them into 8 spots on the interior of the wooden PD, to cover the two axes (X and Y) on the bottom and on the top, then slide the external cylinder in to see how well it fits, adjusting the screws as necessary to improve on a tight fit before putting the unit in and closing everything up. The screws won't wear out due to the heat, and I presume that the wood inside has charred long enough in the few years I've had the unit where it won't deteriorate and make the screws fall out.

We'll see. I haven't gotten to this part yet-- the resistors are on their way [got several in case I break another or have to repair this again in the future, they're cheap anyways] and have to arrive first.

As for my opinion on Tom and Pammy?

They never hid what their situation was and who they were-- a mom and pop type of business. I knew what I was getting into when I bought this unit, and I certainly don't expect them to pull money out of their hat to fix my unit. They certainly didn't seem to be in the business for outrageous profit either-- I felt their price was always fair.

Their customer service was STELLAR the whole time I was with them. So, I feel zero bitterness about this issue and wish them both the best.

Let me know if any of you want other pictures or questions answered.

HoneyAir

 

[djonkoman]

good pics. in my case I had to improvise for the heatexchangercover/sleeve(since thay was also one of thr missing parts), so in my case when I open up the top I remove only the heat exchanger itself and leave the sleeve behind, also mine hasn't been used as much so maybe that's why for me opening up the top is so easy.
I also needed a new resistor, but living in europe that was kind of a problem since I could only get it with shippingcosts of 20 euro, but when I bought my UD I asked dave if he used the same resistors and of he could sell me some, so that's how I got my new resistor and now I have 2 working logvapes

@qbit: I don't think woodglue is a problem, as you see at honeyair's pics, the bottom compartment is seperate from the top
also only a little woodglue will be in contact with the insides of the bottom compartment, most will just be between the wood, and between the wood and leather
and to be eve more sure you could let it dry propery then plug it in and let it sit on temp for a while too.

if you want it as RoHS as it's supposed to be, use leadfree solder and RoHS wire

 

[ioright]

I have had some similar issues with my girlfriend's PD recently, I hope she doesn't have these same problems with hers. We have come upon it a few times to find the beloved PD cold. Usually a few smacks of the heat port with the wooden dowel provided and the unit will start to heat up again. Is there anything I can do to keep the heat port in place and keep the PD running consistently?

 

[djonkoman]

sounds like you have a loose connection somewhere that either is pushed in contact by the heatport or because of the shock you create by smacking it makes it get in contact again.
to keep the heatport in place, I reme,ber some people placed a second ringclip(or however it's called) above the first.
but, I don't think that's your actual problem, to really fix it you'll have to find the loose connection and repair it

 

[Old Fart 024]

Its been quite a while since Ive been on this site. I was very saddened to read the news. I broke my pd recently by misdiagnosis. The darn plug had a broken wire that made contact whenever I would read voltage but when plugged in would break contact. It led me to assume something inside had gone wrong. I opened it up on the bottom to find nothing wrong and realized I could have taken an ohm reading from the plug but forgot to before proceeding. Well in the process of removing the heating element I broke a wire. I resoldered it and put everything back together and it worked great, but a few days later it quit again. The wire on the resister had broken where it exits the ceramic. I wanted to thank Honeyair for the nice pics and info, I could not read some of the part number on my resistor, but with your info I just ordered some replacements.

Also I wanted to thank all of the people in this thread who like me have always believed that Tom and Pammy are some of the most stand up people on the planet. I read how you all have defended them over the last few months and felt it should be recognized.

I will fix my PD as often as necessary until the day I die. Mine was a gift and it means even so much more now.

 

[WatTyler]

I also recall some fellow that managed to melt the solder in his??? But IIRC it still ran?

OF

I melted the solder in my PD Pandora. I over volted it- one of those adaptors that you can plug a car lighter plug into and then plug into the wall. It was meant to run at 12v. I measured it with an analogue meter at almost 16v. Before I realised this I was getting great clouds, but with a horrid acrid taste. I tipped the PD upside down and a big drop of solder fell out and made a big splat on the floor. So there you go. Much over 15v and you're getting up to the solder melting temps.

 

[HoneyAir]

I have had some similar issues with my girlfriend's PD recently, I hope she doesn't have these same problems with hers. We have come upon it a few times to find the beloved PD cold. Usually a few smacks of the heat port with the wooden dowel provided and the unit will start to heat up again. Is there anything I can do to keep the heat port in place and keep the PD running consistently?

Have you checked the power supply to eliminate it as the cause? With a multimeter I was able to move the wire around and if it was very clear that moving it in one direction made it shut off it tended to indicate the wire needed soldering.

It was when I wasn't able to replicate this problem with the power supply that I investigated my PD.

 

[ioright]

I have eliminated the power supply as best I can (given no understanding of electrical engineering as it seems many people here have). I have a PD myself and it works perfectly on her power supply. Also, we keep a backup power adapter in case either of our's breaks; my PD works perfectly with it, hers is sketchy still.

 

[HoneyAir]

Ioright, guess its time to investigate the PD. Good luck.

I broke the bottom part of my PD because I switched from my thin screwdriver to a thicker one to try and pry the cylindrical plug off, and in hammering it into place it cracked that part off [and gave me the access to the plug to pry it off easier]. I'll be woodgluing the broken pieces back together later on.

There is a hole in the center of the cylindrical plug on the bottom that can be used to get leverage to pull out the plug instead of going the breaking/prying route like I did. Hopefully if you break the glue seal around the circumference it'll be able to come off using that hole without too much work, just got to find a tool that curves 90 degrees to get inside that hole and get leverage to pull on it.

The top part unit can slide off and you can leave the metal cylinder inside if you don't want to widen the hole some more to get it out too [although you may want to consider whatever method you could use to prevent that metal cylinder from rattling around so much].

Let me know if there are any pictures I can provide that can help.

 

[OF]

I melted the solder in my PD Pandora.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad to know I didn't make it up in what's left of my memory.....

OF

 

[friedricey]

I have a question on the charring. Which wood is likely to char and which wood is unlikely?

 

[HoneyAir]

When I think of the word "charring", I think of a heat source so intense it incinerates the surface of a piece of wood. This isn't what is happening inside the log vapes.

What is really occurring here is that the heat is drying out the wood inside, so it shrinks and cracks. The unit which fit perfectly before now starts rattling around, and wires that were expected to never move are repeatedly strained until they break.

Unless an expert on wood can chime in here and correct me, I unfortunately think all log vapes that have as much heat radiating to them as the PD does are suffering from this problem.

Newer log vapes such as the CRZ, UD, or HI do not radiate so much heat into the wood, so hopefully those are the ones that can last a lifetime.

 

[placetime]

I have a question on the charring. Which wood is likely to char and which wood is unlikely?

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that (in general) softer woods char more quickly than harder woods.

 

[HoneyAir]

Okay, got the resistor, installed it and it appears to be working perfectly. I'll return to this thread and update this if there are any problems.

The packing list verified that the resistor is indeed RoHS.

After contemplating how I was going to repair the PD so it would not rattle anymore, I thought that my idea of eight screws was too much. For now, I just wanted a quick and simple solution [and move to something more if this was not enough].

So, this is what I ended up using-- a short screw holding it in one place and against the side, and not using the snap ring anymore because it can't help. Hopefully the side the unit is now propped against on won't start drying significantly more now that its got contact. At this point it really doesn't seem to matter anymore, it doesn't rattle at all anymore and thats the important thing in preventing stress and strain [which all engineers are taught from the beginning always leads to mechanical failure].

25 more minutes and I find out how well its working. So far the heat I feel seems to be perfectly on track.

This vape is for functionality as my emergency backup vape, looks be damned. I've decided to move on to the HI as my next vape [and really, the UD, CRZ and HI are all good from what I could see].

If you don't see anything more posted in this post after a long while, it means this repaired PD is working perfectly and I didn't need to return to this post to update it.

***NOTE*** If anyone has not opened their PD yet and are wondering about removing the bottom cylindrical plug, I decided to check if the plug was glued in two places or just one-- and the good news is that it is only glued on the circumference of the plug. So all you have to do is break the glue seal all around the plug and if you do it well enough the plug should easily be pulled out. ***NOTE***

 

[OF]

Cool. Or rather 'warm on it's way to hot'. Good luck.

Thinking a bit on the end plug issue, how about if you threaded your handy 'dent puller' slide hammer in the bottom, held the PD in one hand and gave it a few stout whacks with the slide? Do you think the ply or glue would fail or would it pull the rim off the PD?

OF

 

[HoneyAir]

The wood is half a cm thick, so I think it would fail and make the hole bigger. Using a very thin screwdriver or something else along those lines to sever the glue seems the best approach, then that tool would be great for the leverage in removing it.

Update on my PD: It appears to be running hotter than it was before it failed. It isn't combusting though, and if memory serves me right the warmth I'm feeling in the wood now is the same as when I first got the PD. I'm going to continue evaluating this, if I find its too hot I'll use a second screw so it isn't contacted with the wood on one side too much. For now, its working just great and it is AWESOME to not be combusting again

 

[photokographer]

Hey!
Hate to add on the list of PD problems, but I believe mine might just be the power chord. When plugged into the wall and the PD, the big wall charger area gets warm but the PD does not. Is this what happens when the power source is broken? does anyone have the link to a power source seller on hand?

 

[djonkoman]

you can easily test if it's a problem in the cord of the adaptor if you have a second adaptor, do you have another adaptor somewhere that outputs 12 volt(and at least 1000 mA)? for example I have a lavalamp that also uses a 12volt adaptor
or do yopu have a cardadaptor?

if it does heat up with another adaptor than that's the problem
you can find those adaptors at electronicstores, I've heard/read that a store called 'radioshack' in the US carries them
there are also some laptop-powersuplies that output 12 volt, so you could also look at stores that sell those if they have one with the right output
you can also find them at various places online, ebay for example

the output needs to be:
DC
12 volt
1000mA / 1A (or higher)

if you want to save out money, you could also see if you can find where in the cord the break is, and just remove that piece and reconnect the 2 parts