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Discontinued The Venus Apollo

Copacetic

Somewhere North of The Wall
If the Pp is going to be powerful enough to use through water (I hope so!?) then I'd like a short 18mm male GONG stem to fit into my DO20.

I'm unsure about the 'window' idea too.
Maybe a drawing or mockup would help to explain /sell the idea?
 
Copacetic,

tepictoton

Well-Known Member
Allow me to try and see if I understand the idea...

A viewing window in the section where you insert the glass stem and your load. The viewing glass/window would be protected from vapor and sticky resin because the glass tube with your load slides right in. The vapor only travels through the inner glass path and as such cannot become filed with resin.

How about a sliding door /panel giving the use the option to keep it closed of our to open the viewing window?

I guess the idea of turning off the light is not going to work because if I understand it correctly the light would come from the hearing source...
 

vapen00b

Many vapes & accessories. Always happy to help
I guess the idea of turning off the light is not going to work because if I understand it correctly the light would come from the hearing source...

Nope, heating element is a halogen bulb. The lighting is LED
 
vapen00b,

tepictoton

Well-Known Member
Sorry, I meant heating source...

And yes, I am aware a halogen bulb is used for that. I was trying to say exactly that, but guess my wording was a bit funky :p

If I remember correctly @villekille2 mentioned the light for the viewing window option would not be a led, but would be comming from the heating element? The second option would involve a LED.

Dunno if I am mixing up stuff lol. Correct me if I am wrong ;)
 
tepictoton,

villekille2

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
I have added a couple of new features:

Haptic vibration feedback: Now it is easy to control even without looking at it, and it feels very nice. The vaporizer gives signals when it wakes up, starts, the set power level and boost and shut down. Different vibration signals make it intuitive to understand always what is going on.

Stealth mode: there is an easy way to change quickly between full stealth mode ON and OFF, which disables the lights and the haptic motor. The user can also choose to turn just the lights off, or just the motor. Works nicely.

Boost Power Level: There is an easy way to change the power level which is delivered when Boosting. The three options are 85%, 100%(default) and 115%, which might sound funny that it is over 100% but it just means that the bulb is driven with overvoltage to get higher power.

Temperature sensor: There is now a temperature sensor measuring the temperature of the heating element construction. It is glass encapsulated and the purpose is to get repeatable temperatures when the vape heats up. So this feature replaces the old time based heating.

3 warm up temperature presets: There is now easy way to save 3 different start up temperatures for vaping sessions and to choose between them. The default one is chosen always unless the user presses either of the two buttons below the boost button within 3 seconds of turning the vape on. This works very nicely and gives a lot of new possibilities for having different vaping sessions, either for different herbs or for different effects.

Custom power level maps: The power level system has been updated. Now it is more easy to understand, no more negative powers, just from 1 - 10. There is now an easy way to choose a different scaling of power levels. The standard power map is as it used to be, giving the full range from 10-100% power with 10% steps. But now there is also Low temperature map and a high temperature one, these can be chosen if the user wants more precise control over a smaller range of temperatures.

Bright white light to illuminate the vapors inside the glass. Active when boosting. Can be turned on/off.

Fool proof electronics:
There is now protection in case someone manages to insert batteries wrong way. Won't cause any problems.

High power and connoisseur bulbs
: Our standard bulb for the 2nd generation heating element is the default choice. But now the vaporizer also accepts a physically smaller bulb which the user can easily choose to use. The standard bulb creates very thick vapors and strong vapor output. The smaller bulb is good for those who don't care if the vapor output is reduced as it helps to get the smoothest possible taste.

New Halogen driving method to extend the lifetime of the bulb. Now it should be a very rare case for the bulb to need a replacement, I expect most units to never need a replacement.

That's all I can think of now. And I have gotten all the parts from metal manufacturing company. The heat shield is stainless steel and looks very cool. It completely covers the wooden channel from bottom to top, so that there is no more bare wood exposed. Very nice looking combination with the stainless steel heating element + herb chamber combination and the glass. And the mirror like surface of the stainless steel shield surrounding the glass tube helps to spread the white light making the vapors more visible.

I have found a new supplier for the production of the wood frames. Really professional Finnish company with lots of capacity. The serve many popular Finnish design manufacturers and loved the design of this vaporizer very much. I asked the possibility of having more exotic wood once in a while and it is all ok for them.
 
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Shit Snacks

Milaana. Lana. LANA. LANAAAA! (TM2/TP80/BAK/FW9)
I have added a couple of new features:

Haptic vibration feedback: Now it is easy to control even without looking at it, and it feels very nice. The vaporizer gives signals when it wakes up, starts, the set power level and boost and shut down. Different vibration signals make it intuitive to understand always what is going on.

Stealth mode: there is an easy way to change quickly between full stealth mode ON and OFF, which disables the lights and the haptic motor. The user can also choose to turn just the lights off, or just the motor. Works nicely.

Boost Power Level: There is an easy way to change the power level which is delivered when Boosting. The three options are 85%, 100%(default) and 115%, which might sound funny that it is over 100% but it just means that the bulb is driven with overvoltage to get higher power.

Temperature sensor: There is now a temperature sensor measuring the temperature of the heating element construction. It is glass encapsulated and the purpose is to get repeatable temperatures when the vape heats up. So this feature replaces the old time based heating.

3 warm up temperature presets: There is now easy way to save 3 different start up temperatures for vaping sessions and to choose between them. The default one is chosen always unless the user presses either of the two buttons below the boost withing 3 seconds of turning the vape on. This works very nicely and makes gives a lot of new possibilities for having different vaping sessions, either for different herbs or for different effects.

Custom power level maps: The power level system has been updated. Now it is more easy to understand, no more negative powers, just from 1 - 10. There is now an easy way to choose a different scaling of power levels. The standard power map is as it used to be, giving the full range from 10-100% power with 10% steps. But now there is also Low temperature map and a high temperature one, these can be chosen if the user wants more precise control over a smaller range of temperatures.

Bright white light to illuminate the vapors inside the glass. Active when boosting. Can be turned on/off.

Fool proof electronics:
There is now protection in case someone manages to insert batteries wrong way. Won't cause any problems.

High power and connoisseur bulbs
: Our standard bulb for the 2nd generation heating element is the default choice. But now the vaporizer also accepts a physically smaller bulb which the user can easily choose to use. The standard bulb creates very thick vapors and strong vapor output. The smaller bulb is good for those who don't care if the vapor output is reduced as it helps to get the smoothest possible taste.

New Halogen driving method to extend the lifetime of the bulb. Now it should be a very rare case for the bulb to need a replacement, I expect most units to never need a replacement.

That's all I can think of now. And I have gotten all the parts from metal manufacturing company. The heat shield is stainless steel and looks very cool. It completely covers the wooden channel from bottom to top, so that there is no more bare wood exposed. Very nice looking combination with the stainless steel heating element + herb chamber combination and the glass. And the mirror like surface of the stainless steel shield surrounding the glass tube helps to spread the white light making the vapors more visible.

I have found a new supplier for the production of the wood frames. Really professional Finnish company with lots of capacity. The serve many popular Finnish design manufacturers and loved the design of this vaporizer very much. I asked the possibility of having more exotic wood once in a while and it is all ok for them.

That all sounds great man!

Been a while since we've heard from you here but seems there has been a lot of steady progress nevertheless! Can't wait to hear and see more about this as it gets closer!

So you have 10 temp settings, which you can set to 3 quick setting if you want? But still have the full range available regardless? And there's different ranges depending if on high heat or low heat profile? Aaaaaand the. There are the 3 boost options (which I think are well chosen btw)? Digging the versatility...
 

Mister G

Deceptively Old Fart
Wow, you've been busy, this is one to watch, especially for the uniqueness of Halogen heating in a portable.

User-replaceable batteries? And can you comment on how long will last on a charge?
 

villekille2

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
So you have 10 temp settings, which you can set to 3 quick setting if you want? But still have the full range available regardless? And there's different ranges depending if on high heat or low heat profile? Aaaaaand the. There are the 3 boost options (which I think are well chosen btw)? Digging the versatility...

Yes it is very versatile now, I cannot think of much more options anymore :D The secret is the touch sense control, the different start up gestures get you to the adjustment menus easily.

I think you misunderstood the controls.

The warm up temp setting, is only for the vape to finish the warm up. So the temperature sensor senses how hot the heating element is, and when the set temperature is reached, warm up ends.

And it is possible to change this temperature by entering a setup menu, and stopping the warm up by pressing any of the three buttons, depending if you want to save it as a default or as an extra one to be called on start up. This is also helpful, if you wish to try different setting before saving it as a default.

But back to the session. After the set warm up temp is reached, the control is handed over to the 10-step power control. What it means, is that there is possibility to choose now a power level, which either keep the vape in the same temperature as it was set, or choose a lower or higher power to choose which way the temperature develops. Of course it doesn't need to be changed, as it remembers the value that was used in the previous session. But it can be changed anytime with a swipe down or upwards. And each step changes the power level 10% in default power mapping, and 5% in the accurate power maps.

And then there is the immediate boost, which you can use to get immediately the 100% (or 85 or 115%) power. This can be used to give extra energy to the vape when the user fills his /her lungs quickly, it can be used to quickly warm the vape to a higher temperature to enjoy different effect, etc.

So there are a lot of ways to control the vape. It might sound complicated, but I feel it is very easy to enjoy nice vapors, and this is what I hear from the customers of the Venus vaporizer (which has a similar control philosophy) very often: It is so easy and simple to use. Just turn it on with default settings, boost when inhaling and that's all that is needed. But there is the aspect of creating many varioations in the way of using it and enjoying herbs and vapors. And the beauty of this control is that you get very quickly a sense of how all affects all, "ok, I want to end this session with near combustion vapor effects, so I'll hold boost for a moment first.." and so on.

I will create a document with some charts and tables with approximate values of different temperatures in relation to warm up and the power levels for those who enjoy details and data.
 
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villekille2

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
Wow, you've been busy, this is one to watch, especially for the uniqueness of Halogen heating in a portable.

User-replaceable batteries? And can you comment on how long will last on a charge?

Yes, replacing them takes less than 10 seconds total. they last a good time. One guy said the batteries never seem to need charging as he had been out many times with a group of many people enjoying vapors and still had not charged once. I don't have any exact details, but I don't think there is need for anyone to worry about battery life, especially when they can be changed to fully charged ones anytime.

Naturally, since it is a high energy vape with a halogen heating and a relatively large heated mass, big herb chambers etc. it spends energy but it has a lot of battery energy available in the 2 cells it uses. I think in theory, there is about 1 hour of full power used, but nobody would want to do that, for example in my personal use I have had it at 40%, but you have to remember that warming it up takes big portion of the energy as it is done with maximum power and the strong vapor production forces the sessions to end quite soon :D
 
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villekille2

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
On average, how long does this one take to get low temp visible vapor from a cold start?
I am not sure if I understood the question. But from 90 seconds to 140 seconds is the region people seem to use for the warm up for the most common herb to get the vapors of their taste.

There is actually more power in the reserve which could be used to speed up the warm up, but earlier the warm up used to be controlled without a temperature sensor, based only on the time, and that's why it was important to never use higher power than what is available in nearly empty batteries, to keep results accurate. Now when there is a sensor, it would not matter if the heat up was quicker with fully charger batteries, but I had not thought of that until now. I can try if it makes a difference, I think it can lessen the time to near 60 seconds. and then have option to enable quick heating, which stresses the bulb more.
 

Shit Snacks

Milaana. Lana. LANA. LANAAAA! (TM2/TP80/BAK/FW9)
Yes it is very versatile now, I cannot think of much more options anymore :D The secret is the touch sense control, the different start up gestures get you to the adjustment menus easily.

I think you misunderstood the controls.

The warm up temp setting, is only for the vape to finish the warm up. So the temperature sensor senses how hot the heating element is, and when the set temperature is reached, warm up ends.

And it is possible to change this temperature by entering a setup menu, and stopping the warm up by pressing any of the three buttons, depending if you want to save it as a default or as an extra one to be called on start up. This is also helpful, if you wish to try different setting before saving it as a default.

But back to the session. After the set warm up temp is reached, the control is handed over to the 10-step power control. What it means, is that there is possibility to choose now a power level, which either keep the vape in the same temperature as it was set, or choose a lower or higher power to choose which way the temperature develops. Of course it doesn't need to be changed, as it remembers the value that was used in the previous session. But it can be changed anytime with a swipe down or upwards. And each step changes the power level 10% in default power mapping, and 5% in the accurate power maps.

And then there is the immediate boost, which you can use to get immediately the 100% (or 85 or 115%) power. This can be used to give extra energy to the vape when the user fills his /her lungs quickly, it can be used to quickly warm the vape to a higher temperature to enjoy different effect, etc.

So there are a lot of ways to control the vape. It might sound complicated, but I feel it is very easy to enjoy nice vapors, and this is what I hear from the customers of the Venus vaporizer (which has a similar control philosophy) very often: It is so easy and simple to use. Just turn it on with default settings, boost when inhaling and that's all that is needed. But there is the aspect of creating many varioations in the way of using it and enjoying herbs and vapors. And the beauty of this control is that you get very quickly a sense of how all affects all, "ok, I want to end this session with near combustion vapor effects, so I'll hold boost for a moment first.." and so on.

I will create a document with some charts and tables with approximate values of different temperatures in relation to warm up and the power levels for those who enjoy details and data.

Ah ok, thats a bit clearer. Yes temp control is tricky with pure convection, this method makes sense. You have the basic heat up temp you can adjust, then the session temps to adjust 1-10 (can adjust by 10s or 5s), and then 3 boost options for during a hit. It only seems complicated bc its in total a lot of settings, but I'm sure it's intuitive when you get set up and probably don't even need to adjust that finely too often. Charts will ofcourse only help, but since convection can be so user dependent its just great to see so many settings.

Yes like most who have been following this one from the beginning (still holding out hope for the Apollo name change! ;)) I will have to own one of these beauties... Love how it all remains quiet until you come in with updates every now and then, no complaining just steady excitement for this unique wonder you've created. Good luck with the next steps! :drool: waiting for more despite other new vapes
 
Ok so now that you have my attention, when will this little beauty be available for purchase and how much????? The funny part is one of the reasons I starting vaping was to save money on herbs and now that extra money saved seems to just be going to more vapes. Damn you VAS !!!!! :doh: But at least I feel healthier :lol:
 
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villekille2

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
Yes like most who have been following this one from the beginning (still holding out hope for the Apollo name change! ;)) I will have to own one of these beauties... Love how it all remains quiet until you come in with updates every now and then, no complaining just steady excitement for this unique wonder you've created. Good luck with the next steps! :drool: waiting for more despite other new vapes

That Apollo name has been on my mind many times, now should just find someone to create a nice logo for it :D

Now I'm just finishing things, getting instruction manuals ready, preparing a website, need to get studio quality photos, videos and so on. And once the wood parts for the first production batch arrive, hopefully by mid January, then I can start shipping quickly. All is tried and tested working so I feel confident now about this all.

About the pricing I am still trying to figure it out, what is the ideal price point for this.

I am really more of a vaporizer enthuasist than a businessman so all ideas are welcome on pricing, marketing sales etc.
 

Hippie Dickie

The Herbal Cube
Manufacturer
so all ideas are welcome on pricing, marketing sales etc.

this is my plan (happy to share) ... (1) don't try to compete on price, i don't think it is possible and the people who are looking for the cheapest price will never be satisfied with a price above $0.00, (2) you are selling into an infinite market, there are more than enough customers to buy at your price - so set the price so you get a good return for the effort, (3) focus on design and quality and reliability and build a rock solid brand, and, on the business operations end, (4) take care of (or hire somebody to do) the paperwork.
 

stark1

Lonesome Planet
@villekille2, what is your ballpark, mailed stateside for US woody vapor enthuists?

Options on exotic woods? Etched inlay. :2c:

Wunner-full way to start 2016....




PS you may want to have a name change, here in the US the mention of "pot" may be a deal killer; the dying old guard has demonized the name.
 
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Shit Snacks

Milaana. Lana. LANA. LANAAAA! (TM2/TP80/BAK/FW9)
That Apollo name has been on my mind many times, now should just find someone to create a nice logo for it :D

Now I'm just finishing things, getting instruction manuals ready, preparing a website, need to get studio quality photos, videos and so on. And once the wood parts for the first production batch arrive, hopefully by mid January, then I can start shipping quickly. All is tried and tested working so I feel confident now about this all.

About the pricing I am still trying to figure it out, what is the ideal price point for this.

I am really more of a vaporizer enthuasist than a businessman so all ideas are welcome on pricing, marketing sales etc.

Nice!

Yeah let me know about a logo, if you are serious I do actually have a bit of design experience there, happy to whip up some ideas for Apollo to send you, or another name as well. Are you planning to release under PocketPot though since its apparently so imminent?

I think your enthusiasm shows, hard to say without trying or seeing etc, but I could easily see this costing like $300, less would be great though, even a bit more would be reasonable, this is a very unique and high class device, I believe those interested would pay handsomely
 

villekille2

Well-Known Member
Manufacturer
I actually didn't consider the name PocketPot in a long time, after people started giving suggestions for a better name :)

And two of them I remembered all this time well, the Apollo and one suggestion was Lua which I liked as a name and also the meaning which was described in the beginning of this thread. But I think Apollo is more masculine since I have already one feminine sounding vaporizer.
 

Shit Snacks

Milaana. Lana. LANA. LANAAAA! (TM2/TP80/BAK/FW9)
I actually didn't consider the name PocketPot in a long time, after people started giving suggestions for a better name :)

And two of them I remembered all this time well, the Apollo and one suggestion was Lua which I liked as a name and also the meaning which was described in the beginning of this thread. But I think Apollo is more masculine since I have already one feminine sounding vaporizer.

And with it being my suggestion originally, I have to wholeheartedly agree ;) (Lua is nice)

Seriously I think Apollo is a great name for a vaporizer, especially this one with its unique enlightened approach to convection!
 

pakalolo

Toolbag v1.1 (candidate)
Staff member
I actually didn't consider the name PocketPot in a long time, after people started giving suggestions for a better name :)

And two of them I remembered all this time well, the Apollo and one suggestion was Lua which I liked as a name and also the meaning which was described in the beginning of this thread. But I think Apollo is more masculine since I have already one feminine sounding vaporizer.

When you settle on a name I will change the thread title. I like Apollo too, but there's an e-cig out there using that name and it is also the name used for one version of the Sublimator.
 
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