I feel your pain, for once we're getting a Seattle quantity of rain here in NorCal.. good for our drought but bad for me and the bucket brigade trying to keep the shop from flooding.
I feel your pain, for once we're getting a Seattle quantity of rain here in NorCal.. good for our drought but bad for me and the bucket brigade trying to keep the shop from flooding.
Just wanted to drop a big "+1" for this vape. I've had mine for right around a month now. Only complaint is too much "real life" getting in the way of using it as much as I'd like... I guess I can't rightly hold that against UD.
Currently, I'm not using a dimmer or VVPS. I was initially worried that the lack of voltage control would be an issue. So far it's not! The "one size fits all" temp fits me perfectly. And there are still ways to adjust temp indirectly, if necessary (screen depth, draw rate, DC extension cords).
Here are some random tips. Apologies if these have been mentioned before (but I figure some repetition never hurts). I actually originally posted these over in the E-Nano thread, as they are equally applicable to both vapes.
Oh, one other thing: when I received my UD, all my stems had the formed screens pointing "down". That is, vertical part of the screen (what directly touches the tube) is away from my mouth/towards the heater (making a true "basket" for the load).
- Let the device heat up for a good 20-30 minutes before use, if you want the best consistency. I think compared to the UD, the Nano can start producing vapor sooner. But to reach an "equilibrium" state, they both need a fairly long warm up time.
- Screen depth: the E-Nano comes with an "E-Pick" which has notches to describe the "standard" screen depth. I assume most UD owners won't have one of these unless they also own a UD. Going from memory (scary), this depth is 15mm. I don't know if this is coincidence or not, but my thick glass direct draw UD stems came pre-set to the "standard" E-Pick depth. However, I push my screen back an extra millimeter or two beyond that (i.e. move load a bit farther away from the heater). This is clearly a personal preference thing, but it seems like I have a tendency to over-roast or char otherwise.
- I like a slowish, deliberate draw. I compare this to the Arizer Air, with which I have the most experience. With the Air, I am forced to take a slow draw due to airflow restriction and the weaker heater. The Nano/UD have virtually no draw restriction, but I find the overall hits to be smoother, and the effects better when I take a deliberately slow draw with the log vapes. I don't know if it's the slow draw or if I've just gotten used to it, but going dry with a log vape used to irritate my throat a bit, but I don't have that any more.
- Less is indeed more, in terms of product. I use what I assume is a medium grind (whatever comes out of the freebie PuffItUp grinder I have), and loosely fill about half way between the screen and end of stem. Then I lightly tamp it down with the blunt end of a chopstick.
- I can't keep my stuff out in the open all the time (have to "hide" it when not in use), so getting some kind of box/container for everything is a game-changer in terms of convenience. It goes from being an annoying collection of stuff to shuffle around, to pretty damn convenient. You could go super cheap and use an old shoe box. But for $12, this MCM Electronics EVA case that Underdog recommended has adjustable compartments and is all but purpose-built for log-style vapes.
- Keep those screens clean! I find that I can't really go by sight as to when I should clean the screens. That is, they still "look" fairly clean when they really need to be washed. I forgot who posted this (sorry), but I use a little rubbing alcohol with sea salt in a leak proof container. Drop the screens in the alcohol salt bath, shake a bit, rinse screens with water and they're good as new. Quick and easy!
With the Nano, I always had my screens the other way. At least with my glass UD stems, I re-oriented the screens to the way I'm used to.
Has anyone found any benefit to going one way or the other? Is it a matter of personal preference?
Anyway, I mainly just wanted to spread some love for UD vapes!
Just to be clear, in case I implied otherwise: I didn't mean to suggest any kind of deficiency or superiority of either log in terms of heat-up performance! Furthermore, my comment about the Nano's heat-up time relative to the UD was purely speculative. I should know better than to post things like that, as they tend to propagate on the Internet! But for my personal use style, pre-heating for 30 minutes or so isn't a problem.
In my mind, there are two distinct "stages" of heat-up progress with both the Nano and UD: (1) able to produce vapor, and (2) equilibrium.
A little background as to how I arrived at this observation: when I first got my E-Nano, I used it the way many suggest. That is, turn it to 10 (max heat) for 5ish minutes, then turn down to desired temp (6-7 for most people), wait another 2ish minutes, then start vaping. This works, and you can get decent vapor; this is what I call stage 1, able to produce vapor. But what I found was that I'd get started with that process, then hang out for a while (maybe an hour or so, didn't really keep track of time) and decide I wanted to vape again. All the while, the Nano would have been left on my desired temp setting. But by this point, the whole unit itself was much warmer on the outside, and it seemed to me that the heater itself was hotter, so I'd usually have to turn the dial down again, otherwise the material would char. This is what I call stage 2, equilibrium.
I don't have the tools to measure these stages precisely, but I suspect that at stage 1, the log---as a whole system---is still changing fairly rapidly. The heater is hot enough to make vapor, but the rest of the unit is still changing. Stage 2 is where the rate of change of the whole log-system itself is zero (or effectively zero).
At least with the Nano, I found some vapor inconsistency between stage 1 and stage 2. And there were at least a few other people in the Nano thread making similar comments, along the lines of, "Yes, you can start vaping in under 10 minutes, but the best and most consistent results come after a good 20-30 minutes of heat up time."
Based on my experience with the Nano, when I got the UD, I had already established a 20+ minute preheat time for my vaping. In other words, I've never experienced a stage 1 with the UD.
So as far as the idea to test with a 15v LED dimmer: I appreciate the offer! I'm a bit hesitant to do the test though, mainly because I don't have precise quantifiable definitions for stage 1 and stage 2. Also, since I don't need a faster heat-up time, I'm hesitant to put the higher voltage wear and tear on my UD (though in the grand scheme of things a few times just for testing is probably negligible). Another problem is that whatever results I came up with would be specific to my particular logs, and the wood used for each. I'm pretty sure both stages are affected by the type of wood used. Lastly, I think Underdogs have a lot more overall variance in size and shape.
I don't have the equipment for this, but if you had one of those thermal imaging cameras, you could turn on both logs at the same time, then take a picture of both every time unit (say 10 seconds). Do this for say an hour. Then go back and look at a few key locations on each device and plot temperature over time. I would expect to see increasing temperatures on all points, though the rate of increase would be different. And after enough time, all points should reach a steady-state temperature. Repeat for at least the most popular woods. Then repeat again playing with different voltage settings for both devices. That's a lot of time to do all that. Perfect is the enemy of good, so maybe there's a much simpler way to get most of this data?
Sorry to ramble! I can't help but geeking out with just about anything that comes into my hands. I'll have Linux running on my log vapes before long.
@underdog : If you want to borrow my Nano to test against, you're more than welcome!
This person always seems to get there first when new toys arrive. 
Those buffalo horns are as black as my heart and they make me so happy!
For those wondering how a UD & J hook combo work
