Fluxer Heaters, induction heaters for Dynavap

[mr_cfromcali]

Hi all,

Thanks for your patience while I was offline and w/my family! I had a great week, and I hope everyone else had a good week, too!

I am back, and the Fluxer Heaters' shop is open again.

I feel like I am WAAAAAAAY behind with everything Fluxer-related, especially email (as well as that other thing I'm supposed to be doing, 'building heaters' ). I think I have finally replied to all of last week's emails, but I may have some PMs to which I still need to reply. If you wrote to me and haven't heard from me by tomorrow, please send me another note, so your communication doesn't fall through a crack.

Speaking of building heaters, I am well provisioned with cases in most colors, and just received another batch of 20 black cases and 20 more gun metal cases (the most popular colors). I am currently running low on dark green (3rd in popularity), but given my slow rate of production, my vendor may have those back in stock by the time I actually run out. I'll touch base with you prior to building your heater if your first color choice is unavailable.

I will have some more updates as I get back into the swing of production, but I did want to let you all know that I am back and looking forward to making more heaters for people.



Cheers!

 

[Tupak420]

Glad you’re back! Thanks for the updates

 

[Dubmonkey]

Glad you are back and happy to hear family time was good.

 

[mero614]

Hi all,

Thanks for your patience while I was offline and w/my family! I had a great week, and I hope everyone else had a good week, too!

I am back, and the Fluxer Heaters' shop is open again.

I feel like I am WAAAAAAAY behind with everything Fluxer-related, especially email (as well as that other thing I'm supposed to be doing, 'building heaters' ). I think I have finally replied to all of last week's emails, but I may have some PMs to which I still need to reply. If you wrote to me and haven't heard from me by tomorrow, please send me another note, so your communication doesn't fall through a crack.

Speaking of building heaters, I am well provisioned with cases in most colors, and just received another batch of 20 black cases and 20 more gun metal cases (the most popular colors). I am currently running low on dark green (3rd in popularity), but given my slow rate of production, my vendor may have those back in stock by the time I actually run out. I'll touch base with you prior to building your heater if your first color choice is unavailable.

I will have some more updates as I get back into the swing of production, but I did want to let you all know that I am back and looking forward to making more heaters for people.



Cheers!

Welcome back mr Jeff,great to know you had a great time and your back to building fluxers for us. cant wait for my email and my fluxer to be on your bench for building.

 

[caliganja420]

Just received my fluxer today, Very nice looking and compact unit. As I’m starting to play with it I am noticing that it’s very hard to get visible vapor in the first and second hit, I am also noticing that holding three to four seconds after the click gives me a big clouds and dark brown Abv.

 

[Obsessed 2]

Just received my fluxer today, Very nice looking and compact unit. As I’m starting to play with it I am noticing that it’s very hard to get visible vapor in the first and second hit, I am also noticing that holding three to four seconds after the click gives me a big clouds and dark brown Abv.

What size did you get if you don't mind me asking?

 

[mr_cfromcali]

Hi all,

I spent some good time w/family and had a nice break, but it's also good to be back. Here are a few updates on the project.

Power relay MOSFET issues:
I have seen a spike in power relay MOSFET failures recently. It has affected heaters of all coil sizes.

These MOSFET failures present in one of two ways:

A. The heater won't heat. The red LED may still illuminate when the switch is pressed, but the heater doesn't energize.

B. The heater heats as soon as the power switch is turned on.

If this happens it is due to an internal failure in the power relay MOSFET.

Root Causes:
I am still investigating, but I have some ideas as to the cause. These problems began to appear recently, and I suspect that I may have gotten a batch of power relays with "B" and/or "C" quality MOSFETs. The MOSFETs used in the power relays may not be manufactured to the same tolerances as the ones used in power relays I installed on previous builds. Since replacing a failed power relay MOSFET with a new MOSFET fixes the problem*, I have to believe that component quality is at least one of the factors behind these recent failures.

*Actually, this failure requires replacing all four of the circuit's MOSFETs at the same time to prevent the failure from coming back immediately. Also, sometimes the replacement MOSFETs themselves fail, which is another thing that can happen.

The argument for more post-build testing continues to make itself stronger.

Fixes and remediations:
Since I suspect the quality of the MOSFETs is a big factor in these failures, I am now changing out 100% of the stock power relay MOSFETs and replacing them with new MOSFETs sourced from a quality vendor (e.g., digikey.com, mouser.com, etc.). I had thought I might get by with just performing more pre-installation bench testing (i.e., if I can prove a part is good before I install it, I don't need to change out its chips), but I found that some relays worked OK on the bench but still failed after installation.

Upon thinking it over I feel I'm better off proactively replacing the stock power relay MOSFETs with new/identical MOSFETs sourced from a quality vendor, like digikey.com, mouser.com, etc. This should address the "quality of the components" issue.

I am also extending my post-build quality testing, and will perform more heating cycles (at different power levels) before declaring a heater good-to-go. This will hopefully shake out the power relays failures earlier, while the heaters are still on my bench.

However, even with better quality components and more testing, there will still be some heaters that work fine on the bench and yet fail shortly after they are delivered to you, the customer. I'd like to tell you that won't happen, but I know it will - that's just the nature of personal electronic devices, unfortunately, this one included. If that happens to you, you have my sincere apology, and a promise that after you send it in for repair I will fix it and get it back to you ASAP. (I can promise you that it worked on my bench before I boxed it up, but that's not a lot of comfort when your shiny new heater just stares at your vapcap instead of heating it. )


Best practices and safety recommendations:

1. Test the heater from time to time to make sure the power relays has not failed "hot":

A. Put your dynavap in coil with the heater off.
B. Turn on the Deluxe, but don't depress the dynavap.
C. Wait ~10 seconds. Maybe less.

If the dynavap clicks from being heated, even though you did not explicitly activate the heating element by depressing the tactile switch, you have a MOSFET failure, and will need to send your heater to me for repair.

2. PLEASE turn the heater power switch OFF (i.e., the green LED is not illuminated) when charging the heater via the mains charger. The battery pack will still charge with the switch OFF.

The thermal fuse is currently tied to the battery's B+ lead, meaning that battery power is protected thermally, but power from the wall charger is not currently part of the thermal protection circuit. Recharging with the power OFF removes the power relay from the charging circuit, and is therefore the safest way to charge your heater.

3. Going forward, I plan on adding a second thermal fuse to kill power to the entire heater circuit in the event the heater overheats. This will make the heater even safer, and offer protection for overheating events that take place while on mains power as well as battery power. On paper this looks like it will be a straightforward change that I can also retrofit to existing Deluxes. I will know if that's true sometime Thursday night, after the parts arrive. I'll hope to post more about the feasibility of this future safety modification by the end of the week.


Other Flux Deluxe news:
I am continuing to chip away at the waiting list, and I appreciate your patience.

February has been a challenging month. The power relay issue has taken a lot of time to figure out - to the extent that I have - and I may still have more of it ahead of me. Between that issue, being offline last week, and my cold earlier this month, I had a much lower rate of production in February than I anticipated. I'm sorry, though we all know that it goes that way sometimes. Hopefully, March will be better.

Thanks, as always, for your patience and support! It's nice to be back.

Cheers,

 

[Tupak420]

Thanks for the updates. Got my invoice today and super excited to track it on its journey to it's new home (where it will be working very hard once arriving)

 

[started@52]

My 14mm is still heat cycling away without any problems. Sometimes it’s good to hear about the stuff that works.

 

[odc57]

Dumb Question but here I go. I micro dose thru out the day. Do you have to turn the FD on and off every time you use it or can you turn it on and leave it on ? will it use up the batteries if you leave it on all the time ???

Thanks Mr C for your updates, Good to see you Back...

 

[started@52]

Dumb Question but here I go. I micro dose thru out the day. Do you have to turn the FD on and off every time you use it or can you turn it on and leave it on ? will it use up the batteries if you leave it on all the time ???

Thanks Mr C for your updates, Good to see you Back...

I disabled the green led and leave mine on 24/7 but the led uses next to nothing as far as battery. I just didn’t like looking at it.

 

[mr_cfromcali]

Dumb Question but here I go. I micro dose thru out the day. Do you have to turn the FD on and off every time you use it or can you turn it on and leave it on ? will it use up the batteries if you leave it on all the time ???

Thanks Mr C for your updates, Good to see you Back...

The green LED only uses 20mA, which is very little power. As long as you are running it from the battery alone (so it is protected by the thermal fuse), you can leave it on all day. I accidentally left one of the test FDs in my shop on for >24 hours over the weekend. It still had a lot of juice left when I checked the next day.*

For safety, please don't heat with it when the mains charger is attached and charging.
Also for safety, please keep it turned off while the mains charger is attached and charging, as discussed in my earlier post.

When I revise the FD's PCB, I'll likely add some jumper options or DIP switches to let you disable one or both LEDs. I am also looking at offering an option of a longer switch and matching hole in the cover, so that people who want an external switch can have one without a major revision on my part, but adding a decent looking hole or slot in the lid is proving to be harder to work out than I had hoped. So that's still on the back burner for now.

*BTW, I recently bought a set of these Samsung 3500mAh batteries to evaluate, and so far I'm very impressed with them. I don't have any data to share yet, but speaking subjectively, they do seem to last a long time - longer than my Sony VTC6 3000mAh batteries. YMMV, etc.

 

[caliganja420]

What size did you get if you don't mind me asking?

16mm coil

 

[Gray Area]

My 14mm is still heat cycling away without any problems. Sometimes it’s good to hear about the stuff that works.

Very true. I have #14 from the first production run. I got mine Jan 3rd and have given it constant abuse.
I roast around 1.5-2g of flower a day through the thing, quite often trad or bubble hash when I have it, I also run it hot past the click too...
I have to change batteries daily, which is a bit of a bummer (well the charging part as they're pretty easy to switch out, but I'm just swapping between two sets atm).
Have to admit I've dropped it twice , but the worst that happened was the lid came off and the battery tray became dislodged (although it's not fixed in and you can lift it up anyway)...
It just works, every time

Just received my fluxer today, Very nice looking and compact unit. As I’m starting to play with it I am noticing that it’s very hard to get visible vapor in the first and second hit, I am also noticing that holding three to four seconds after the click gives me a big clouds and dark brown Abv.

I have a 16mm coil too. I always run it 3 seconds past the click (maybe get away with 4s for the first hit only). I feel it's heating as if you're aiming a single jet torch towards the top half of the cap (towards the closed end). As with aiming the torch there, if I stop at the click with my FD I get light first hit or so till it warms up, then you get the noticeably visible vapor... I just run it 3s past I get visible vapor from the first hit this way. Yes, it still gets thicker 2nd and 3rd hits etc, but first is still visible.

As a side note, seen a lot of talk about the 14mm coil and questions about the pros and cons between the two.
I haven't tried the 14mm and did, at first, consider talking about upgrading mine from 16 to 14... but after thinking about it, I've decided to stick with the 16mm coil as it's a bit more forgiving than the 14mm.
I like to dip and sip a lot, and generally don't always pay attention as I should.
I think (if you're willing to go a couple of seconds past the click for a hotter hit) that's possibly the way to go if you're anything like me.

 

[Jethro]

I am continuing to chip away at the waiting list, and I appreciate your patience.

Hey, whatever it takes!! I am super excited to get mine but have no problem waiting. Gotta live your life too!

-Geoff

 

[bossman]

I am continuing to chip away at the waiting list, and I appreciate your patience.

Do you have an estimate on fulfilling orders from the wait list? I'm not sure where my spot is but I'd be curious to know.

 

[Dank_Star]

Welcome back Mr C

 

[started@52]

Wow, used my SS tip for the first time with any IH, it takes longer to heat and click but retains that heat so well I get another half hit out of the same heat up! Anyone else experience the same?

 

[mr_cfromcali]

Do you have an estimate on fulfilling orders from the wait list? I'm not sure where my spot is but I'd be curious to know.

I'll send you a PM shortly, @bossman .

For anyone else interested in their current position in the queue, please send me a PM or email. I am happy to look it up, but there are ~160 people in the list at the moment, and I'd rather not clog the thread with this info.

Also, don't despair if you are far down the list, as not everyone on the list ends up buying a heater.

 

[Chandler]

I like to dip and sip a lot, and generally don't always pay attention as I should.

Can anyone with the 14mm coil comment on how well the dip n sip technique works with the fluxer?

 

[lookhigh]

It would be interesting if we could compare the time it takes to click with the 3 sizes coils. There prob is not many 15 ones out there yet.
Anyone up for the compare

 

[Moses Baca]

Can anyone with the 14mm coil comment on how well the dip n sip technique works with the fluxer?

No problems with dip-n-sip. I frequently finish my bowls that way. Just a quick dip is all you need.

 

[mario]

FD 39 is back in my hands and it is running great! I think for sure there was something funny with how it heated when I first got it because now I have to really be careful about how long I leave my Omni in there because it gets hot fast.

I took it with me for my lunch break today and it was so nice to sit in my car, button click - cap click - unclick. Vape. It was wonderful. So much easier and faster and smoother than having butane heat it. Also with a half second (and I mean for REAL a half second) delay, you can get giant hits off a glass piece. I finally caved and bought a Magic Flight Orbiter, and it is getting delivered today. So I'll be giving my FD a run with the Orbiter tonight. So far, my dynavap experience has been incredibly elevated....and so am I!

The heater is so small and powerful it surprises even me when I use it. I'm learning all my caps again and when they need to be withdrawn from the heater to get the response I want. It is basically like learning your lighters all over again, but this time you know what you are looking for and you have complete control over it. Rather than variables of flame, fuel quality, breeze, spin speed, flame angle, etc etc etc. Little trick I've been working on is finding the tempo of my caps and button click.

One of my caps always does a double click. So It's a click - snap snap - unclick. I keep the cadence of the sounds and it is right every time. Now I just have to figure out the cadence of my other caps.

All in the name of...testing of course...

 

[Obsessed 2]

FD 39 is back in my hands and it is running great! I think for sure there was something funny with how it heated when I first got it because now I have to really be careful about how long I leave my Omni in there because it gets hot fast.

I took it with me for my lunch break today and it was so nice to sit in my car, button click - cap click - unclick. Vape. It was wonderful. So much easier and faster and smoother than having butane heat it. Also with a half second (and I mean for REAL a half second) delay, you can get giant hits off a glass piece. I finally caved and bought a Magic Flight Orbiter, and it is getting delivered today. So I'll be giving my FD a run with the Orbiter tonight. So far, my dynavap experience has been incredibly elevated....and so am I!

The heater is so small and powerful it surprises even me when I use it. I'm learning all my caps again and when they need to be withdrawn from the heater to get the response I want. It is basically like learning your lighters all over again, but this time you know what you are looking for and you have complete control over it. Rather than variables of flame, fuel quality, breeze, spin speed, flame angle, etc etc etc. Little trick I've been working on is finding the tempo of my caps and button click.

One of my caps always does a double click. So It's a click - snap snap - unclick. I keep the cadence of the sounds and it is right every time. Now I just have to figure out the cadence of my other caps.

All in the name of...testing of course...

Fantastic report! Just fires me up reading the feedback. Thanks! My build is roughly a month out and I am truly trying my hardest to be a patient man. Doing the best I can

 

[started@52]

Just a note to 14mm owners and future buyers. You might want to go with the top mount temp control. I find that when the batteries are fresh I turn the temp all the way down. When the indicator shows the batteries are mid level on the led plug in tester I put the temp in the middle and when low I turn the temp full up. Or... I just leave it turned down and just leave my tip in a little longer as the batteries fade. Mine is mounted under the battery tray and wish I went with the top control.