Two days with the new V5 beta
My Gear: is a couple of eVic VTC Minis running Arctic Fox with fresh, new Molicel P26A high current 18650s. I've been vaping different strains of wonderfully made resin. Extremely clean stuff. If you don't burn it, it leaves no noticeable residue, except in your brain.
Settings: I've always used TC-NI200 with my V4s (I have a Quartz V4 and a SiC V4), but I noticed that Matt was using TCR-180-38w, and he knows more about the temperature response curves of the V5 crucible than anyone, so I set mine to TCR-180 as well. The first difference I found is that the granularity of the temperature readout was much finer and as the temperature went up and down it showed many more values. This is most apparent when cold firing the V5. In TC mode it steps from 70°F to 140°F with nothing in between. In TCR-180 mode I see changes every few degrees. So if you haven't used TCR mode in the past, I recommend you try it now.
My 2¢ on power: I only use 33 watts as I've never felt the need for more. The V5 comes up to temp fast enough with 33w and I see no need to run the heaters that close to their limit. I don't burn oil at 33w either.
If you're nice to your heaters, they'll be nice to you.
My 2¢ on temperature: I started out at 450°F but quickly dropped it to 420°F and I've been using it at 400°F now. My lungs aren't what they used to be and 450°F hits without the hubble are too harsh for my liking. My V4 Quartz is set to 490°F and my V4 SiC is set to 360°F. I think temperature is the most personal setting and each crucible type produces a given amount of vapor at a different indicated temperature. Again YMMV depending on what you're vaping and if you're using a water pipe of some sort. Plus some people like it hotter than others.
Speaking of which, after almost a gram of good stuff, I've had no need to burn off grunge because there hasn't been any. The Quartz V4 requires almost continuous cleaning, which sucks. The SiC V4 is much better, but I think the V5 ceramic is the easiest to keep clean of the bunch. Some pictures on the Discord forum show lots of grunge needing burn-offs, but I've not experienced it at all.
My V5 Vaping Routine: I've been putting in a grain of rice sized blob of resin and manually firing the V5. When it reaches 400°F I take a full lungful and let go of the button and hold it in for maybe 10 seconds. Exhale, push button, wait 3 seconds for it to get back to 400°F (it only drops to about 300°F in between hits) and repeat. I get three HUGE hits and that still leaves a fair amount of golden oil running around the junction of the base and walls of the crucible. At this point, after three huge hits, I have to take a break.
There's too much completely clean golden oil still in the crucible to Q-Tip it out, so after the break I autofire it and then just take MANY hits, one after the other, which are not monster hits anymore, but have lots of wonderfulness left in them. After many small hits the vapor exhale finally thins out, and then it's time to swab out the tiny bit of not-quite-golden-anymore oil that's left. And the crucible is clean as a whistle. One thing I noticed that I haven't figured out is when I clean the V5 the Q-Tip doesn't burn or turn dark brown the way it does when I clean the V4 SiC crucible. Not sure why, though I haven't actually measured the temperature of the crucibles, maybe it's just that the SiC holds heat much longer. Every once and a while I use an iso dipped swab to clean the cooled off outside of the crucible and the standoff. There's no boil over or anything, but the vapor does condense on everything inside the cover. And speaking of the cover, mine fits just fine; not too loose, not too tight. I've been using it straight, without the hubble. I replaced the stock metal mouthpiece with the included silicone version. The inner glass piece does need to be cleaned every few hits if you want to be able to see the crucible clearly. It fogs up with vapor.
Let's see, what else? I have the full glass cover that you can get for the V4 and it fits, but I'm concerned that the vortex tubes extend pretty far into the crucible and I'm also worried I'll break it
(I've broken two over the years). The full glass cover gets
VERY VERY hot in the area around the crucible. This is due, no doubt, to the fact that the crucible sides have heaters inside and are radiating heat like there's no tomorrow. The glass cover with the 14mm tip that mates with the Hubble is still my favorite cover so I hope Matt comes up with a thicker, stronger version for the V5.
To the person who asked earlier if the V5 would work with an eVic Basic, the answer is: it depends on the state of its internal battery. I have three old eVic Basics that still have working internal batteries, so I dusted them off and checked. The V5 works fine on one of them, but the other two have batteries that are on their last legs and they don't have enough umph to work with the half Ω V5 load. The eVic Basics are all at least 5 or 6 years old, maybe more, don't remember. The one that works, strangely enough, is the oldest of the bunch. YMMV
Haywood
