Arizer portable heater tech discussion

[Andreaerdna]

Assuming for simplicity that the arizer heater is a closed system where, when not drawing, there is no heat lost other than what the cup is radiating and conducting away (transferring it to the load) then the delta between those two temperature fonctions is a representation of the heat transfer without convection

In an absurd assumption, like if there was no radiation (or conduction if you prefere) contribution to heat transfert, these two fonctions should meet fast (a completely insulated cup for example), meaning no heat provided by heater is lost and cup reach same temperature as the heater

I think @Stu you measured the cup temp empty for the graph up here, isn’it (looks like from picture ) ? Given dry flowers are heat insulators the gap between temperatures should be smaller with a loaded stem, reducing by this way also the heat transfer by “non convection” way (as dry flowers oppose their insulator nature to the heat flow), the cup should get hotter meaning flowers are receiving less heat (sounds strange I know)

By the way, thank you again both @stickstones and Stu for all the data you collected and shared with us

 

[stickstones]

@Andreaerdna - I think the point of @Stu ’s test was to answer the question of what the hottest part of the system was, not so much to find out how different. I’m with you that observing things while in operation is best. Air is a poor conductor as well, provided it’s not moving. I think in his test both parts were exposed to the air, which would be unusual but still answers the question ‘which is hotter, heater or cup?’

I’m still in search of the perfect mj substitute so I can run more tests with less impairment. Hemp fiber is good but still off. Abv is closer, iirc, but still not right on. I’m open to ideas. It needs to be clean so I can use my pump to simulate sessions without getting it gummed up.

 

[Andreaerdna]

I know and agree Stickstones, what I wanted to point out with my poor english is that I think @Stu proved with data (to be interpreted) that excluding convection there would be no enough heat flow to vaporize a load

 

[Flower of empathy]

we all thought and argued before that it was conduction heating based on nothing but speculation and anecdotal evidence

Nope, here is the whole heater disassembled, that's enough for my engineering viewpoint:

http://blog.puffitup.com/2017/11/arizer-air-2-teardown-and-disassembly/

and btw @Stu the upper donut with the thicker blue wires is the heater...
- it is clearly visible the system is basically a cooking pot with 4 holes in the edge on a hot plate.
Most of the heater surface is in direct contact with the cup, only the (3mm?) sidewalls are touched by airstream, so 90% of the created heat flows into the cup - even the airzer engineers seem to want that by adding thermal paste... How much does air get heated by the remainig 10% of power - maybe 3w?
And that will create air temps higher than the cup? - then every air cooled engine on a bike would burn your butt with convection, eg look up some cooling fins calculations for a plausibility check...

Anyone who continues to argue that the temp in the bowl is stable or dropping during a draw, instead of increasing, is simply not looking at the facts presented here

Temperature stability/reaction is determined by the whole system itself and the controller values, not only by conduction/convection - measuring 2 temps somewhere in the system makes not a fact, it is only the fun part, construction is a fact. The real work is to think about it before what to measure where and what to expect, then after measuring the interpretation is the hardest part....

Air flow does add energy to the load in this heater

In this case the 'added energy' comes from the heater reaction, who powers up fast at the draw beginning and overshoots the set value a bit due to that...(here is the good system engineering part to find imo)
That wasn't measured in the chart? (probe was on the outside surface of the donut?) - that's why it's 'convection cooled surface' as OF mentioned, temps between cup and donut would show a different reaction, that shows more direct what the heater is doing bc here is the main flow of energy by conduction. Shure there will be a thin hot air layer forming around the heater while not drawing, which acts a bit as a draw starting hot air reservoir, but if the air is flowing there is no time for much heating - after all the air layer around the heater is more beneficial to insulate the heater and save battery energy.

answers the question ‘which is hotter, heater or cup?’

if that was even in question, then i honestly don't know how to communicate on an understandable level...

Maybe try hops as MJ substitute, i'd say the most similar consistency of all herbs

 

[stickstones]

Maybe try hops as MJ substitute, i'd say the most similar consistency of all herbs

I feel like I've heard this before...like their might have been a thread on it ages ago. I wonder if there would be any effects to consider...thanks!

if that was even in question, then i honestly don't know how to communicate on an understandable level...

Stu's post quotes the statements he was addressing, if you want some more clarity on why he ran it. I think his post is a good guideline on 'how to communicate on an understandable level.' We're on a public forum and discussing with people we know nothing about...different levels of understanding are a given.

so 90% of the created heat flows into the cup

Where'd that figure come from?

And that will create air temps higher than the cup?

In the context of the overall conversation, the goal is to create air temps higher than the load, not the cup. I don't want to get lost in the details and forget that. We can argue the finer points of what's going on in this heater, but I don't want to lose sight of the perspective that forms the basis of it...what's happening in the load. The glass barrier allows the load to get heated, but keeps the load cooler than the rest of the system. Then air is heated hotter than the load as it passes through the system and brings the load temp to vaping temps.

Temperature stability/reaction is determined by the whole system itself and the controller values, not only by conduction/convection - measuring 2 temps somewhere in the system makes not a fact, it is only the fun part. The real work is to think about it before what to measure where and what to expect, then after measuring the interpretation is the hardest part....

For measuring what's going on inside the load, so far we've come up with a probe in the load and one outside the glass stem but in the cup, so it's mashed between the glass stem and stainless steel cup. That's been the placement for all of my 'real world' usage charts for Arizer portables and I believe it's where @Stu is placing his in those types of tests as well. Would you change anything for placement and interpretation in that test, as well as Stu's bowl temp test?

btw, do you have any Arizer portables and a meter you could use? I would still like more confirmation of these tests we're running...

 

[Andreaerdna]

I feel like I've heard this before...like their might have been a thread on it ages ago. I wonder if there would be any effects to consider...thanks!

Hops seems to be a sex envi inhibitor
but it is not working for me as after 4beers everything is so sexy

 

[invertedisdead]

Isnt air coming in through the carb cap almost ambient temp (cap isn’t hot, isn’t it?) ?
If it is then air is only kind of stirring the melted concentrate, but I may be wrong as i do not dab

Yes, but it's the sealing of the cap that creates that convective environment.

Some are experimenting with preheated caps now

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdN9nJUnfs5/?taken-by=eternal_quartz

 

[Stu]

and btw @Stu the upper donut with the thicker blue wires is the heater...

The blue (and white) wire does power the heater, but it is the lower "donut". The upper donut has clear leads and is the temp sensor.

Edit: I took some pictures to show the donuts better. Notice the blue and white/clear wires going to the bottom donut (heater).

Here you see the clear wires going into the temp sensor on the upper donut.

I ran an experiment measuring both ceramic discs during heatup to 7:

Notice that the heater gets hotter than it did in my first graph comparing the heater to the chamber floor. I'm thinking that is due to the fact that this test was run just like you see it in the pictures, exposed and outside of it's normal home where it is insulated a bit (first test was done with the entire assembly put back together). The heater in turn has to work harder to get the temp sensor to read ~260°C. That's the max temp the heater reached in my first test so it seems that Arizer programmed setting 7 to be 260°ish at the only sensor.

if that was even in question, then i honestly don't know how to communicate on an understandable level...

The fact that this was in question boggled my mind as well. That's why I felt that it needed to be addressed.

 

[Flower of empathy]

Where'd that figure come from?

In the context of the overall conversation, the goal is to create air temps higher than the load, not the cup. I don't want to get lost in the details and forget that. We can argue the finer points of what's going on in this heater, but I don't want to lose sight of the perspective that forms the basis of it...what's happening in the load. The glass barrier allows the load to get heated, but keeps the load cooler than the rest of the system. Then air is heated hotter than the load as it passes through the system and brings the load temp to vaping temps.

Somehow u are opening a lot of different big books at once...
There are a few different (engineering) tools to describe/work with such systems, but it requires a lot of understanding of the math and physic basics for it - guess that is one reason why most engineer talk sounds so dickish to normal people...
More generally speaking those temp measurement charts are the response of a temperature controlled system. There are many more parts like buffers, isolation etc than the conduction/convection heat source in every system, that will affect its reaction.
The 'simplest' view (at least for system theoretics) of a temperature controlled system would be a chain beginning with the heater power consumption, then the 'pathway' (here we simplify and only write one 'black box' at the beginning, later it is splitted up like the heat transfer into different paths with various 'components') and at the end of the cain is the bowl temp. Then there is the temp measurement signal feedback to the controller who then adjusts the heater power and closes the loop. That is to keep it in stable condition, now we add a 'distortion function' which represents the drawing out of energy of the system. Here draw resistance comes in handy to limit energy flow and the 'bandwith' of that distorition function, which makes adjusting the controller values to that a lot easier... (I might be using wrong specific vocabulary but i'm not a native speaker...)
So a simple drawing of a heater/airpath is better to determine how conductive/convective the main heat transfer is, in this system the mayority of heat is dissipated by the best conductor who also has the most surface contact to the donuts (pressure hold by screw) - the bottom of the cooking pot eh cup
Compare it to the fury heater, air passes around the bottom, side and top of the disc heater, which only conducts via the parts that hold it in place and that is still plenty with not much surface...

For measuring what's going on inside the load, so far we've come up with a probe in the load and one outside the glass stem but in the cup, so it's mashed between the glass stem and stainless steel cup. That's been the placement for all of my 'real world' usage charts for Arizer portables and I believe it's where @Stu is placing his in those types of tests as well. Would you change anything for placement and interpretation in that test, as well as Stu's bowl temp test?

btw, do you have any Arizer portables and a meter you could use? I would still like more confirmation of these tests we're running...

That's another thing, there are whole bachelor/master theses about setting up test stands without even doing one measurement...
By principle every measurement will change the system, so the cat is always gonna bite it's tail.
There are many different temp sensors for various ranges, i only got a bit experience with platin resistances - main advantage is relative easy calibration and easy elimination of measure errors induced by the wires... Measurement errors - another large chapter
A thin film probe between cup and donuts and some thermal paste to even the surface out might be interresting as would be the power consumption.
@Stu thanks for clarifying the cables, misread that somehow.
The last chart shows some more of the 'heater modulation' action in the lower curve...

Still got an old solo laying around, but it's not worth buying equipment for a few measurements to me already got too much stuff...

Now it's time for a double decker - a filled arizer stem hold onto a filled plenty reducer (only long stems, they get f'n hot that way)

 

[Andreaerdna]

@Used2use what is your take? How arizer works in your opinion?

Edit: i mean in short: conduction? Convection? iR radiation?

 

[Taz4101]

This has gotten above my head, but I have a air, and just wanted to point out that the intake air flows in the holes near stem at top of heater cover and flows down the sides of the cup, then to the heater area and out the 4 holes. I loosened it at one point to improve draw restriction and had to run it hotter.

 

[Flower of empathy]

@Used2use what is your take? How arizer works in your opinion?

Edit: i mean in short: conduction? Convection? iR radiation?

It is 101% thermo tunneling just kidding.
Well, it depends - the further u go down the pathway between heater and load, the more complex it gets. Energy streams interact in different ways etc, and not forget different 'outside variables' like load and draw speed... It's a dynamic system - static and dynamic seem like just 2 little words, but complexity changes a lot.
So looking at the starting point (heater surface) and the routes and quantity the energy takes from there into bowl direction (some energy will get lost) is just a static simplification of one little part in the system, but the construction of that part determines if it is a convection or conduction heater.
Normally i avoid analogies because they never fit perfect, but i started here with the cooking pot - like the arizer stem just loaded on the top u can use the cooking pot with a smaller pot inside like a dutch oven. The point is, the heat flows both times via the bottom per conduction into the pot, so it stays conduction heated from 'the viewpoint' of the heater.
To say what's happening specificly inside the bowl is not that easy per se and alone the possible variations of loading make it much harder....

Another fun thing would be to see the system reactions with removed 'lid' of the pot - punch out the glass screen of a stem and get rid of restriction...

 

[Andreaerdna]

@Used2use Maybe I am wrong but I feel you overthink things here, and our hobby does a good job making us overthink things

Mesurments are mesurements, and sometimes difficult to accept/understand

there are other kind of meters, 100% subjective but so direct like smell and taste

I own few almost 0 convection vapes. NOONE has the freshy, purely terpy taste of first and second solo hits, almost pure convection taste if you have experienced a vape that delivers this kind of regulated convection taste like enano. When you take first hit with vapcap or vapman (wich have almost 0 convection), load has already spent few seconds (up to 10 max) with heat slowly but surely toasting the taste and difference is night and day

Solo is designed to no need a huge heater as the bowl is heat insulated. When you hit first time you start driving hot air into the load and up into your lungs. Being the metal bowl a postive source of heat through IR radiation (this can be measured easy) as it is just a little hotter than the set temperature, load stays hot in between hits, not vaporizing hot, but terpenes killer hot

this combination of IR radiation keeping the oven “hot” and hot air coming in through material make this device a very well engineered vape, an hybrid one

Also I like to state conduction is responsible only for heat transfert from ceramic donut to metal cup and distribution all around the metal cup and a little for heating the glass stem but conduction need contact at least, and normal use of solo (load tamped a milimeter or 2) do not allow contact between the cup and the load, so the cup delivers heat to the load mainly through IR radiation heater delivers through convection (as we are only interested to the heat reaching the load not how heater get hot

 

[Flower of empathy]

Yes, i have a tendency to be overanalytic - guess that comes more from the job than the hobby but probably both...

Many different things happen after the cup bottom, a mixture of conduction convection and radiation transfers the heat into the herb, but that happens in every vape (or dutch oven ) just at different levels.
So it needs more measuring than only temps to quantify a bit more, like u mentioned eg ir radiation...
And even then the different levels of conduction, convection and radiation change dynamic during the draw, as the herbs heats up and cools down. Additional different areas of the load get different heating...
That gives in the end every vape its unique signature imo, in the end enough Joules flow into the load.

For example with radiation i recall the 2 important variables of the planck black body formula (emmision energy) are distance in 1/R^2 (half the distance=4 times the energy) and temperature in T^4 so the smaller the temp difference between 2 bodies gets the less energy exchange via radiation between them (important as herb heats up, ir plays less a role). Additional needed are emmision coefficents of herbs for real measuring.

Taste is very subjective to judge, best tasting to me is the vaponic if heated properly...

 

[Boden]

Is there not also air being drawn down between the holder (thing the cup sits in) and the metal cup?

 

[Taz4101]

Is there not also air being drawn down between the holder (thing the cup sits in) and the metal cup?

Yes that's what I was referring too

 

[Boden]

Yes that's what I was referring too

So the cup is both heating the incoming air and warming the glass to keep vapors from condensing on it within the bowl. Good design.

 

[Stu]

So the cup is both heating the incoming air and warming the glass to keep vapors from condensing on it within the bowl. Good design.

It's not the cup itself that is heating the incoming air, it is the heater below the cup that heats the incoming air.

 

[Boden]

It's not the cup itself that is heating the incoming air, it is the heater below the cup that heats the incoming air.

I need to find an air path diagram.

Thinking of getting one so I’m curious.

Edit:
Figured it out. The cup is SS. Heat does not spread through it quickly.

The heat is heading up the rod on the bottom of the cup and spreading out in a circle. The bottom acting like a thermal capacitor as it is not touching anything. This will be the hottest part of the cup.

As the air comes in some heat is gained as it passes near the heating disk and thermostat disk. Then it is pulled into the cup and across the hot bottom of the cup picking up more energy. Then it takes that combined hot air up through the material.

The glass gets the % that gets that far up the cup and then transfers into the glass.

Bought right?

Why not just measure the temp at the bottom and 1/2 way up the cup. That’ll tell you how much energy is where.

Graphing both at the same time would be cool.

 

[Stu]

Why not just measure the temp at the bottom and 1/2 way up the cup. That’ll tell you how much energy is where.

That's easy enough to do. brb.

Edit: Ok, I'm back. I let the Solo heat up to seven for this test.

The setup:

Results:

 

[Boden]

That's easy enough to do. brb.

Edit: Ok, I'm back. I let the Solo heat up to seven for this test.

The setup:

Results:

So ~10% diference between the bottom of the sidewall and half way up. Could you check the temp in the center of the bottom vs half way up the cup on the inside of the glass

 

[Stu]

So ~10% diference between the bottom of the sidewall and half way up. Could you check the temp in the center of the bottom vs half way up the cup on the inside of the glass

Yeah, I can do that however it will require initiative and sobriety, both of which I'm lacking at the moment. I blame the Strawberry OG that I've been liberally overindulging in.

 

[Andreaerdna]

Yeah, I can do that however it will require initiative and sobriety, both of which I'm lacking at the moment. I blame the Strawberry OG that I've been liberally overindulging in.

You are a very kind (and sometimes misunderstood) spirit but if I may it looks it will not deliver big differences

Heat is tamed first by temp probe donut, then conduction through the metal cup spread heat all over inside the metal cup so it would be difficult to have a significant gradient on the bottom of the cup
When cup walls are insulated by glass stem (while in use) this graident of 20’ should be even smaller

Hope your tireless probing activity will be funded by the new mecenate in town as well

 

[Boden]

Yeah, I can do that however it will require initiative and sobriety, both of which I'm lacking at the moment. I blame the Strawberry OG that I've been liberally overindulging in.

Thanks

No worries, I wrote the above while ~50mg of full spectrum NL#5 munchables were coursing through my cortex.

You are a very kind (and sometimes misunderstood) spirit but if I may it looks it will not deliver big differences

Heat is tamed first by temp probe donut, then conduction through the metal cup spread heat all over inside the metal cup so it would be difficult to have a significant gradient on the bottom of the cup
When cup walls are insulated by glass stem (while in use) this graident of 20’ should be even smaller

Hope your tireless probing activity will be funded by the new mecenate in town as well

While glass is ~20x more thermally conductive than air I still am thinking most of the energy will be found in the center of the cup bottom.

Near-field radiant heat may be in play. As it seems the herb just above it absorbs more energy than the rest.

Need to find my IR camera.

 

[Andreaerdna]

While glass is ~20x more thermally conductive than air I still am thinking most of the energy will be found in the center of the cup bottom.

Sorry if I sounded rude, didn’t want to

You are correct about glass being more conductive than air. But air will always be there (even with stem inserted), as glass isn’t in contact with cup walls. My point was related to the fact that glass stem will stop almost all natural convection (air flowing), also heat lost by IR will be stored by glass stem (what inside the glass bowl), rather than lost in the air, contributing to cup’s wall insulation