Thermovape Alpha Ultralite

theoretically.... the 20/20/20 should still work even though my battery has a 10 second cutoff correct?? i would just have to cycle it differently to get around the cutoff right??

also..... just for my own knowledge... it is safe to run a dart that is semi-dry (if you are going to clean it i assume most of the material is used) for 20 seconds? if i ran any of my EGO-C atomizer heads dry for more than 8 seconds i am pretty sure it would burn out. i know i have burnt one or two atomizer heads that way... but i am not sure how long i did it for, i know it was less than 20 seconds though

Yes, both times I think. I've done it with a VV head before (with the time out) and just dropped power long enough to reset it twice per run (3 seven second shots, more or less). Another concern is the battery discharge (that's a lot of power....), when doing it with the Alpha I've swapped in a fresh battery about half way through to keep it as hot as possible.

Yes, scary as it is, you can run these guys dry. Unlike other systems. As Tim put it to me once 'we make tough heaters'. There's basically nothing there that isn't in the T1 and Evolution in different configuration, all ceramic and metal....nothing to melt or burn.

OF

Yep, I don't feel as worried running my AVA a little dry before I add some more juice to it. Going to the LHS to definitely get some juice, maybe get a new piece of glass, or maybe a new vaporizer even! Working that overtime the week before Christmas just paid off today

By the way, as far as an electronic cigarette goes, I did find the Ultra with AVA to be more than satisfactory. It doesn't give vapors off quite as fast as other units I've seen, but we're talking fractions of a second here and not really applicable. The taste is pretty damn good even after I ran some Sour D ISO hash through it and cleaned it. Plus, that battery life... Pretty much set for anything to happen in the day with the two charged batteries and the AVA/DART. I also mighta seen some Pure Gold materials showing up around me

awesome!! good to know. i will be honest... i have been using my Dart on my EGO battery and it has been working pretty damn well considering the crappy ABV QWISO i like to pre-heat my DART a lil bit before i draw from it, so i have been doing no more than 2 second power ups without hitting it. i was doing multiple 2 second taps because i was scared if i held the button for the full 10 seconds it would burn out the Dart. now i am guessing i don't have to worry and can do a longer pre-heat than 2 seconds

These black AW IC 14500 batteries don't seem to perform as well as the IMR in the Alpha Ultra. I don't have any basis for comparison other than the experiences you fine folks have shared - at least until my AW IMR 14500s get here.
My experience seems more in line with what people have reported with the 10440 batteries in the Alpha Ultralite. Certainly well under 20 hits on a fully charged battery. I know we don't like to measure in hits due to variances in materials used, technique etc. I can say I've followed the technique set out by those before me (engage battery for 15-20 seconds, test puff, inhale) and it works well while the battery keeps it's charge.

Can anyone with both batteries offer any insight?

Ace: I have three AW 14500 IMRs ("reds") and two AW protected IC LiPo "blacks" for use with my Ultra. I've been using the IMRs exclusively so far, thus I can't really give you a specific answer yet, but I'll put the "blacks" into the rotation and report back. A couple of thoughts though.

I never ever got 20 full hits out of one 10400 with my UltraLight. Maybe 10.

It's interesting how the Revo/DART seems to perform as the battery goes from fully charged to empty. I've been using three different "rigs" to enjoy Pure Gold the past few months. My (two RCR123a celled) T1 @ 6v with a 6v DART core, my UltraLight with one 10400 cell, and my Ultra with one 14500 cell. All three share one characteristic. The first third of the battery's capacity produces wonderful, powerful hits, with extremely rapid warmup from cold and huge clouds on exhale; the second third of the battery's capacity also produces wonderful hits, though not as powerful, with a substantial lengthening of the warmup time, and a noticeable reduction in exhaled cloud density. The final third of the battery's capacity produces very light hits, with an even longer warmup time. Note that I can get totally medicated even when the battery(s) are in their third mode (nearest depletion), but getting there takes way more hits. I think of this as three "modes" the DART works in.

The difference is how long each rig lasts (how many hits) before I have to change out the battery(s). The 6v T1 rig is by far the best of them all, as each of the three modes lasts a very long time. Days long. Many many reloads of PG long. The Ultra (14500) lasts pretty well too. Not days, but certainly good enough to vape a half gram or so of PG. The UltraLite (10440) is only good for two refills of the DART. For reference, I get a good half dozen or so huge hits from each drop of PG, and I typically load two or three drops (no more) when reloading.

Why does the DART produce less vapor, and require a longer warmup-from-cold time as the battery is being depleted? Because the power available goes down. The voltage starts out at one value (say 3.7v under load) when the battery is freshly charged, and decreases (to ~ 3v) by the time you need to recharge it. So the battery is delivering 33% less power at the end*, and that's enough to make a difference in warm-up time, and vapor density.

So what does this have to do with your question about the "red" versus "black" 14500 batteries? Low internal resistance batteries, such as the IMRs and the RCR123a LiFePO4s spend more of their time in the first and second modes (the higher parts of the voltage curve). They're putting out higher voltage for longer, but run out sooner than the standard batteries. You get more of the "better" hits (and faster warmup times), but less overall running times. The less overall running times don't turn out to be terribly different between the "red" and "black" cells, but it's more fun with the "red" cells (which is why I haven't put my "black" cells into rotation, but I will for testing purposes).

I suspect that the time spent in the three modes on the "red" cells work out to be 40%-40%-20% while the "black" cells are more like 30%-40%-30% (or maybe even 20%-40%-40%). I'll let you know in a week or two what I discover using the "black" cells, and I'd love to hear your experience when you have both kinds to test out. There are some usage "tricks" to help make the second mode almost as much fun as the first mode...

* The math:
1.5Ω LV DART/Revo cart:

@3.7v we draw 2.47amps which is 9.13watts
@3.0v we draw 2.00amps which is 6.00watts

So rounding off things, we're talking 9 watts at full charge, and 6 watts just before the battery croaks. That's 1/3 less power at the end compared to a fresh battery. (Or as OF rightly pointed out to me, saying the same thing from the opposite perspective, that's double the power at the beginning as compared to the end).

Edit: Fixed the incorrect math; blame OF

One minor quibble with an otherwise excellent post:

True enough battery voltage is down like 19%, but that also means the current is down by the same amount. Making the power (product of voltage and current) nearly 40% down.....a big drop. 61% by those numbers.

OF

I fixed the math; as always, thanks.

I guess the real issue is that I only have the one battery, so no matter how fast my battery drains, i still have to charge it again before use. With luck it wont be long before my AW IMR 14500 get here.

Excellent call. Even in the rare case where it's not really his fault, folks who know him will assume you're right anyway......

I think it's a huge plus to have a charged battery handy. The first thing to try when 'things don't seem right' is to swap the battery out. Otherwise you're reduced to adding more concentrate which can make a bad situation (low production due to low battery) into a hopeless one (adding flooding to your list of things to sort out).

I also know that using the AW IMR in that application will spoil you something awful. The Alpha and cart 'come alive' at maximum performance and due to the nature of IMRs hang in there solidly (rather than slack off like some do). Over time I got a couple more and now use the 'old batteries' (non AW IMRs) in flashlights and other less demanding stuff. I don't use 'game changer' as a term often, but this is one place it fits IMO. You should see what happens when you swap one of these guys into your Omicron V2 instead of that 'better' 1000 mAh IMR 14650 it ships with (you need the long end cap or a spacer). Instant and most welcome power boost.

OF

Good Morning!! I decided to put the HP LV Evo on my ultra this morning to take a few sips, and I am, again, very impressed with this combo, don't try it with out wrapping the ultra in something insulating, it does get hot pretty fast, but I was able to get the Evo going in about 10 secs, and got several (4-5) good sized clouds from it before I set it down to cool. Perfect for a quick pocket pick me up on the go. I am looking forward to the upgraded Cera mini that is yet to exist, but I can see it already. I liked the idea of an adapter to fit a Cera core on the Ultra body too that would be sweet. Any adapters to run the Cera/T1 line together will be golden.

Interesting.. how was the battery life? I emailed TET about running the 6v evo kit on the ultra body with 2x lifepro 3.2 14440s? I think it's 14440s, and they said battery life would be "minimal." I'm not sure what minimal means in this case.

My HP LV Evo is 3.7v so I am not using 6v in the ultra, or have not tried 6v in the ultra anyway. I prefer not to stack cells if at all possible. Battery life is decent with the AW 14500 IMR, I can get 4-5 full, decent hits before the entire ultra is too hot and needs a cool down. I usually change batteries once they get past the point of feeling a good solid charge. I found with the Evo, it can still get pretty hot, but if it's not getting full juice, it won't vape as well, it will feel hot, but just won't get quite up to vaping temp, so it has a point of no return once the battery starts to sag. I find I can load it, hit it 4-5 times while it's warmed up. Let it rest, try to go back for a few more hits, but if it starts to get warm but not hit easily, I will simply change the battery, and keep going. If I stuff the chamber pretty full, I can usually go through 2 batteries to finish off a load. Now this isn't ideal long term use, this is for quick tokes when trying to be very stealthy, or when I am waiting on another vaporizer to get up to temp (cloud) and have a bit of a wait, I might toot on it a few times.**I'd like to repeat again that my ultra has a sleeve of high temp soft silicone tubing, and a patch of grip tape as a thumb pad, to help protect my hand from the heat building up. I can see with out it, you will have a heck of a time running the HP LV Evo on there and being able to hold it for long.

I am still having some combustion at the start of the load, when everything is fresh, including battery. It is a fine hair line, getting this HP LV core started, but once I get it going, I usually get decent vapor using long, med. speed pulls, Noah style. I am still working on the technique of starting the load with out combusting a little, you only get one shot at it each time, and so far, I keep missing my mark. It's hard to feel the hot air at first, and on a fresh charge, it gets hot really fast, as it makes its way through the fresh load. Since you rely on feeling that to determine how hot the inside chamber is getting, and also taste, it doesn't leave much room for error. It's a fraction of a second from vapor to combustion when it happens. I am sure in more time I will get the hang of it. I have to be starting fresh and only get the one shot to get it right, so I haven't had that many times doing it yet. I am impressed though at how well it is working for such a small battery. I could see carrying a spare battery or two and having the ability to medicate on the go with a super stealthy sized pocket vape.

If you send yours in to get rewired, I would make sure you let them know you want it set up to run on HP LV on the Ultra. They also sent me a second HP LV that takes longer to get hot, so it doesn't perform quite the same on the Ultra, but does fine on the full size. I would also suggest holding off on sending anything in, until they get this Cera released, they are mighty busy with that right now. Not sure what the turn around for having a core re-wired would be at this point, or even getting a response from CS about having it rewired since I know how busy they are trying to get this Cera ready for release. Hoping that will all be smoothed out in the next couple of weeks. we shall see...

The batteries you're looking for are 14250 LifePo - and they don't exist. Well, thats not entirely true, but the only regular source seems to be Ali right now.

I'd be interested if you did order a set.

It means it just barely works, I tried it, basically a waste of time IMO. I'm not even sure what happened to those tiny little guys. You can also get almost two hits with Evolution. Almost.

IMO LV Revolution/DART is pushing it very hard.

OF

14250 that's it! From my understand the LifePo 14250s We're custom made by one manufacturer? However I came across these http://www.innovapor.com/apex-alpha...r-14250-lfp-3.2v-rechargeable-batteries-pair/ so my interest was sparked since there are some available. I don't think I'll be trying this setup anytime soon though.

Wow nice find DKits. I may pick up a set just for shits since I have some SV accessories too.

Also promo code ECF(or EFC)20 for 20% off The 14250s are in pairs too, so it's dirt cheap I believe.

They've got a polishing cloth too

Yes, I think I will abandon this idea. Are there any useful SV accessories you can recommend I could run on the ultra should I pick up a set of batteries to run 6V?

And on a side note in relation to your last comment there; what is your preferred set up then for vaping essential oils?

Sorry for double posting.

One could run an SR or HR AVA atomizer or other such ecig stuff. A higher resistance Omicron cart could be used with the suitable adapter:

Adapter-510 Battery to 601

BTW the double post can be combined to one with the edit function.

Best,

bopper

Nice! Thanks for the heads up. I'll probably order a set when I get back from vacation.

OF did you get a chance to try these with the DART?

Yes, I did, my advice remains 'don't waste your time'.
And your money. FWIW I don't recommend 14250s for this heavy duty either and they're a lot more capable. It's too easy over discharge unprotected cells in series wrecking them.

OF

Understood. Thanks!

That's true, but I have no need for such things honestly and as soon as I learn how to clean this DART/Rev I'll be good to go, haha. But thanks for the tip that's very useful! I'm doing it now so it will come in handy...

Edit: Now how do I do that exactly?

You're welcome. Good luck.

IMO you might want to reconsider the adapter idea. Lots of us like to use them to run Omicron carts sometimes.....

Cleaning Revolution/DART is rock simple, you can soak it it ISO (which usually cleans them well enough for most folks) or boil it (in pieces) in a pan of water for 20 minutes or so. That gets it squeaky clean usually. There's a final routine if you're really in the mood, empty and open, run 20 seconds on with a fresh battery, 20 second cool down then 20 more seconds on. 20 times. The so called "20/20/20" technique.

Editing posts is pretty easy. For a few hours after you post if you look at the very bottom between the date and "Report" is "Edit". Only you see this. If you click on it another editor opens up. Edit there. You can copy stuff from the normal page into it.

Good luck in your adventures.

OF