Herbie V2 by Vape Engineering - 510 dry herb vaporizer

Momor

Well-Known Member
what’s going on with these mixed results
Only 2 people out of all the Herbie V2 owners seem to have good results from the start. The results aren't "mixed" mostly bad.
Other people become satisfied by what they get after a lot of tinkering with all the settings, coils shapes, modification of the hardware even. Those doesn't enter in the good results category neither for me.

Combustion: -> different reasons. Material is very dry. The bowl is packed too tight. Wrong TCR value. Too slow drawing technique. Loose screws.
Even if it doesn't combust it only cooks the herbes in the middle of the bowl and hotspots, no matter all the parameters you're mentioning here.

So as you can see, we are still pushing to make Herbie run for everyone.
I can see you hid for a fews weeks during the launch of your product even though people had problems and you knew about it. Seems that someone had to call you out on Instagram to make you post here again ? Doesn't feel like you're pushing hard...
You were very vocal when it was time to take preorders, saying how good of a vape it was and when the first order were received and problems appears you disappeared.

I find it's half the fun to figure out how something works
The Herbie V1 was a projet you could buy if you were in tinkering things but the V2 was advertised as an all working, all fonctional vape out of the box.
That's why I didn't buy the V1 but the V2 but there's no differences.
 

Momor

Well-Known Member
I won't get counting the people with good results vs those with bad, but there is far more than 2.
I can be wrong. I counted you and Vgoodies.
Can't remember other posts with good results out of the box.
Really curious now : who are the other lucky guys that had a well working Herbie V2 right out of the box ? I can accept the ones that just had to play with the TCR value a bit 😅
 

pudgewack

Well-Known Member
who are the other lucky guys that had a well working Herbie V2 right out of the box ?
I fall in this category. The only change I made was adding a second screen between the heater and herb.

I was also in the 2nd wave of Herbie v2s. I had the advantage of reading this thread before giving it a try. My biggest take away was the recommended 60w was way too high. Turning that down to 35w gives me decent results. Not as good as my TM or Tetra, but not many vapes are.

I am looking forward to tinkering a bit more. I installed 3mm rubies in the mouth piece last night, which helps with cooling. I also hooked it up to a mini bubbler. That gave me huge hits, but also huge hot spots. Going to try folding new coils, but haven't tried that yet.
 

LooseCucumber

Well-Known Member
Those who mentioned the marshmallow being too close to the fire seems to be accurate. I've found taking shorter convection hits (5-7 seconds) to be effective and counteract that middle hotspot.

Sometimes when taking the mouthpiece off to stir I clumsily spill my bowl (pulling to separate the two pieces, then the resistance from the o rings ceases and my flower flies everywhere). Coming from vapes with a ground glass joint this can be annoying, but the tradeoff is a much smaller profile. My heat settings still need some work, but I'm feeling better about this device now than I was a week ago
 

Grass Yes

Yes
Staff member
I don't know which bucket to put myself in. Good results from the start or not? I have not ever combusted, but I get hot-spotting. The bowl is too big and I hate dosing caps, but that seems like a "me" problem. I had the benefit of slow shipping so I cribbed settings from others on this thread. I agree the default mesh is too close to the marshmallow, but not fatally. I have had the most success in TC on my RX Gen3.

I never took the original review from Oddjob very seriously (sorry). The comparison to the Tinymight was just way too over the top. I thought Vgoodiez clouds in wattage were a pretty good endorsement, but I never filmed myself to compare. :-)

I still don't think this device is fantastic and I have 510s that are. So I will probably get rid of it as soon as I can be bothered to make a listing. I have been more disappointed from other devices. A handmade 510 I once purchased had a lot of fit and finish problems, but always performed better than the herbie. And that maker has offered to take it back to improve it with their new process. HerbieV2 on the other hand, has pretty great fit and finish with a lot of tinkering needed after arrival.

I have really enjoyed watching @David Root process through this whole thread, btw!

I think I just said a lot without contributing anything.
 

oddjobold

Vape swap shop
The top screen is clogging way easy. A dirty screen has quite a bit of impact on performance. It's seems to clog after every session. The balls seem okay. The material I am using is quite fine, crystally and powedery. Not the best mach.

I now preheat my Herbie. This seems to help. Holding the power button for 10 seconds before hitting. I would suggest giving it a try.

So the clogging screen giving a performance drag, and the preheating a plus. I am kinda back to were I was.

I went to the pub last night and my mate was having no luck with the Herbie. However I was getting clouds. Could not work out what he was doing different.

I am wondering how warmup on turbo firmware will affect performance.
 
Last edited:

fangorn

Well-Known Member
Ça pourrait marcher Gene Wilder GIF


:rockon::cheers:
 

David Root

Well-Known Member
Someone mentioned preheat. I set watts at 150% for first 2 seconds . Great, a real first hit. Now it's c ooking along. Good hits. Release and press. You have 150% again for 2 seconds.
It's now a combustible fucker. Forget stealth IF it combusts.
David

My Evic has a 60 second hold, so preheat is ok as long as I remember it's on.
 

David Root

Well-Known Member
Kinda quiet here.....

A few notes.

I tried a spiral coil. It seems its not too important.

I have been trying to describe how to set the MOD.

On my Evic Dual, I pull the top off. Look at the coil, press the button @ 390f. The coil should just barley glow in the dark. Turn it up to 450 it should glow more. Still not bright red or anything.

So I am doing this with the Paramour. No luck. It seems no matter where I set it, sometimes I push the fire button and I get what looks full and constant 45 watts its set at (in TCR mode). I tried TCR from 50 to 900. I tried SS wire.

On the Evic, TCR works around 200. I turn TCR up or down to get the result I want. It seems after the draw is going, TCR is what keeps it at temp for the rest of the draw. More up seems to make it "hotter" at the end.

Another thing is adjust the resistance (Ohms) by .005 or so. Just a little lower or higher than actual can make the MOD work better.

I can go through whole bowl no problems. I can use it as a demand vape, or do a session. All with the Evic Dual. I put Artic Fox on it. It worked with out Artic fox, but 15 second draw limit. Control was good.

Packing the bowl properly and having the MOD do what it should makes this thing work.

I tried a couple other 510 dry herb tanks. Not good at all. One kept combusting, the other was just a cheap .......

Enjoy Your Herbie
David
 

Trackrat

Well-Known Member
So I'm still enjoying my herbie. AVB , it's brown with black flakes and green bits around the edge. One stir and you get one more hit. Not worth it to me, bad tasting by then. I've tried putting it away but always get it out to play with. I have the herbie hooked up to an Evic V2 mini and having great results with it , running it between 33 -36 watts. Works for me. I finally received my Paramour, 4 days ago and after going back and forth with the mods, I feel the Evic is the better mod for me. Sure the Paramour works as it should, but I get more flavor, denser clouds using the Evic. So now I'm thinking of using arctic fox and was wondering if anyone have some numbers they could share with me. TY.
 

pudgewack

Well-Known Member
I played around with a couple different coils. I kept the shape the same, but adjusted the height. Mainly wanted to see the results with the coil further away from the load. Here is a pic:
The left and center coils were made by me. The coil on the right is the stock coil. All of my testing is on the Paramour mod.

The coil on the left was my first attempt. The "legs" on this are 10mm with an additional 5mm on the two ends that get secured to the deck. I did not get great results with this. I had to turn the temp and wattage up to get decent vapor. I would either get weak vapor or major hotspots. Not the results I was hoping for.

I then made the second coil, which is in the middle. This was to be a step between my short coil and the stock tall coil. The legs are 12.5mm with an additional 5mm on the two ends that get secured to the deck. Initially, this was a nice improvement over my short coil. But the biggest changes started when I was messing with the TCR. I ended up with great results at TCR 0870, 35w, at 360 F. I have vaped several bowls with these settings and am pretty impressed. Still not on the level of the my other favorite vapes (Minivap, Tetras, and TM) though.

Even though it is working well now, I want to go back to the original coil and my short coil to see what improvements can be made by simply adjusting TCR value. I might even trying a couple other mods (DNA board and a mod running Red Panda) to see if the results are similar.

I have made a couple other changes, but not sure if those are impacting the performance. I added a second screen between the heater and the load. This is mainly to protect the coil as the stock screen is not as fine as I would like. I also added 3mm rubies to the mouth piece.

I do question how much the rubies aid in cooling. The mouth piece gets hella hot, so they are definitely taking some of the heat away. But the new vapor goes through that accumulated heat, which makes me feel it increased the vapor temp once the rubies get hot......so I might need to re-do my testing without the rubies.

I did use all of the mesh that came with my Herbie. I ordered some more though, so I might try some new coil shapes when the new mesh arrives.

Looking forward to more testing and seeing what others find.
 

Vape Engineering

Manufacturer
Manufacturer
Maybe I should spend a few words about TCR since you try TCR 200 values. I try to explain it in my way of understanding. So this means I can be wrong.

Temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) is the calculation of a relative change of resistance per degree of temperature change. So most metals have the property that the ohmic resistance changes with temperature.
**Edit**
We now want to use this to our advantage. A box mod cannot measure the temperature. But it can measure the ohmic resistance. Because the resistance in the material changes over the temperature, the box mod can thus indirectly measure the temperature.
**Edit end**
So first we need to tell our box mod what material the coil is made of. This is done via the TCR value. (For the Herbie coil we used 304 stainless steel). Because the TCR value describes how the resistance changes over temperature. Each metal has a different value. Stainless steel 304 has a change of 0.00105 / °C (I have already posted the picture for the different materials).

So step one is done: Find the TCR value for the coil material.

The next step is to calibrate the coil with the mod. (No worries, it sounds more complex than it is)

Each BoxMod with TCR mode first measures the initial ohmic resistance of the coil. Therefore, most of the time in TCR mode you have to confirm that you have a new coil when you switch to TCR mode.

To put it simply, we must first tell the box mod what the resistance of the coil is at room temperature.

So you screw Herbie onto the box mod (the coil must be at room temperature) and confirm that you are using a new coil. Thus, the box mod has its starting value from which it can calculate the change in resistance over temperature. The resistance of Herbie should be anywhere between 0.15 - 0.3 Ohm.

So second step is done: Tell the box mod from where it should start the calculation

Now you have to tell the box mod with how much power it can fire the coil. For my draw behavior, 60W has turned out to be very good.

I.e. the watts that you set in TCR mode is the maximum value with which the box mod energizes the coil.

To find my personal value I measured how many watts are needed to keep Herbie at my desired temperature (175°C) while I draw. That was about 25W.

So why take a maximum of 60W for the setup?
As soon as you press the fire button, the coil is fired with 60W until the temperature you set on the box mod is reached. After that, the battery carrier itself regulates how many watts are needed to keep the coil at the temperature (For me it was as I said 25W).

Simply explained. You set the maximum power (60W) The box mod fires at maximum power until the desired temperature is reached. Then it adjusts itself to maintain the temperature.
The more maximum power you set, the faster the coil reaches the set temperature.

So now the question: Why shouldn't I use the maximum power of my mod to have a very short heatup time (maybe 200W)?
Well this is because the temperature can overshoot. If you use too much maximum power it's kinda hard for the mod to regulate itself to maintain the desired temperature -> the behavior of Herbie is not consistent.

In short -> Find a good balance between heatup time and controllability.

Third step is done. Set the maximum power.

And now it's kinda done. Just set your desired temperature and have fun :)

To sum it up:
1. Set the TCR value for your coil material

2. Mount Herbie on your box mod while the coil has room temperature (your box mod needs to know from where to start the calculation)

3. Set the maximum power output level.

4. Set your desired temperature.


When you start playing with the TCR value (TCR200) you tell your box mod that you have another coil material mounted and the calculation your mod does is wrong. So your mod thinks that it is at the desired temperature but in reality you are a way above and you will combust.

For me personally I use 0.00102 instead of the original 0.00105 as TCR. It's a very slight change but I have the feeling that this works better for my drawing behavior.

I hope this helps
 

KeroZen

Chronic vapaholic
I've refrained from posting much here since the product launch, as I got an embarrassing confession to make: in the end I missed the boat because I waited too much (I was concerned it would be delivered when I was away) and it turned eventually out of stock... and well, since then I must admit I'm really concerned by everything I've been reading afterwards.

This was supposed to be a finished product, but I feel I'm teleported back in time to the early BULLI and Project days! And oh boy did we hack and tinker back then in the DIY section! But that's absolutely not what I expected to find in there.

Some users, and I don't blame them, everyone has to start somewhere, seem to be completely clueless about all the subtleties and practicalities of those bloody 510 attys and their myriads of mods, firmware and what not, as well as the art and pitfalls of coil crafting. I see the same attempts and mistakes repeated again, but that's perhaps because we failed to direct them to the right sources of knowledge. It's all there on the forum, albeit sadly scattered in many places and in a not very easy to digest form...

First we got the mandatory Lithium battery safety thread >> https://fuckcombustion.com/threads/18650-battery-safety.18527/ ... Never forget how dangerous these cells can be. And if you start moding your coil(s), never ever do that on unregulated mods (ex: mech mods or using a mod in bypass mode) You really need to have over-current and short-circuit protections in place.

If you switch materials, be very careful if you use Nickel wire, many people can develop a sensitivity to it, and never ever use Titanium in power mode, this metal should be used in TC mode only. It vaporizes explosively and you really don't want to inhale those fumes.

Then we got a good resource about Mods, firmware and settings in the form of this thread >> https://fuckcombustion.com/threads/tc-box-mods-firmware-discussions-and-customizing.23742/

For those using single cell mods, do not exceed 50W unless you are really using special high discharge rate cells (i.e. higher CDR than the usual 25R/HE4/VTC5 and much higher than the 30Q/HG2/VTC6 etc) You'll be putting a lot of stress on your cell, shortening its service life and making it run hot etc. Plus 50W is already a lot of power. If you really need more, use a dual-cell mod.

For those interested in the history of how we got there with refurbished e-cigarette gear, the threads of interest in chronological order would be: BULLI, the Project (in the DIY section), then Splinter and iHeat (sharing a thorny common history), Stempod, the Glow, the Imp then Impcognito, Musa 510, the SHAMMER more recently... and of course the Herbie v1. I probably forgot some, but those were the major stepping stones for 510 dry herbs vaping. The concentrates vapes took a parallel route with notably the Divine Tribe range and the Saionara.

(sorry I'm lazy those are not links but a search using the keywords in bold restricted to thread titles should find them easily)

If I were to give you just a few pieces of advice for the Herbie v2, it would be:

1) in power mode you don't need a lot of Watts, 20-30W is plenty already. The more you use, the harder it will be to control. You will have to feather the trigger exactly like on the Milaana/MistVapeTouch/etc. In theory you should find a sweet spot where the temperature rise is exactly countered by the drop induced by your draw, allowing you to keep the trigger engaged the whole way without charring.

2) TC mode is utter crap by default on most mods excepted DNA ones. Installing a custom firmware does not fix that until you manually enable PI(D) control which is often disabled by default (excepted maybe in tubo_evic) In all cases you will have to tweak the values as the ones good for e-cig or the ones in tubo_evic are for different devices than yours.

3) do not try using the old finer SS mesh like you can find on fasttech etc, it can self-vaporize partially in no time and again you don't want to inhale that deeply. You need beefy wire, be it mesh or simple coils. Current will slowly eat away fine strands and that's not good. SS316L 20awg is a good choice, 18awg is harder to form and requires more space, 22awg works too. If you want to go Nickel-free you can test SS430.

4) contact resistance is a bitch, and even more with woven meshes. For TC to work properly, you need a rock-solid reading. Clamp your coils/mesh hard. Lock your resistance value on a cold mod at room temperature. Hammering down (literally) your mesh before folding it can improve the strand to strand contact resistance somewhat, but overall it will be harder to TC than standard coils. The 510 center pin to mod connection is also very important. Clean your contacts thoroughly and don't swap attys too often.

5) keep experimenting! Good luck!
 

David Root

Well-Known Member
Thank you VE and KeroZen.

I set the TCR to 105 on my Ecvic. It seems to work fine. I did a LONG hard draw and it keeps up with me adding power.

I keep reading "All mods are different" and just above me it says.
***************************************************************************************
"In all cases you will have to tweak the values as the ones good for e-cig or the ones in tubo_evic are for different devices than yours."
***************************************************************************************

So setting TCR is a little relative.
If SS is .00105 (105) and I set it to 150, it thinks the coil is not as hot as it is because it thinks the resistance is going up more than it is.

Clear as mud?

All the stuff I read says bigger numbers are easier for the MOD to work with. Bigger numbers mean a bigger change in resistance.
so it can make changes as it sees the changes. If I increase TCR, MOD is looking for a bigger change in resistance than the wire is making, so it runs hotter. These bigger numbers are from different kinds of coil materiel. I read In all cases you will have to tweak the values as the ones good for e-cig or the ones in tubo_evic are for different devices than yours. I read Kanthanal has very little change in resistance as it gets hotter, so its not going to work with TCR.

Watts and preheat set the beginning of the draw. Once it reaches your selected temp (which is totally arbitrary) The TCR takes over.
I find this as the part that adjusts the tail off or the end of the curve.

When in Temp mode, I pull the top off Herbie and watch the coil. On the Paramour, It glows red unless I set the watts low. I need to spend more time with it, or use it as a dedicated watts unit for another 510. With the Evic, I pull the top, hold the button, it heats up and remains barely glowing. I can see temp numbers on the screen and if I blow on the coil, it shows a drop in temp on the Evic display. So when I am drawing I can watch the temp drop as I draw harder. TCR should keep the coil in the same temp. I think you can make it a little more aggressive or less.

Its been fun
David
 
Last edited:

David Root

Well-Known Member
Today, I took a 16mm OD glass tube with a 12mm basket screen.

pressed the glass end against the tapered part of the bowl. I put my hand around the holes in Herbie.

I could easily hold it so there were NO air leaks. It just seems to fit. I have a silicone band that goes on the end of the glass to seal on my flower pot B1 Baller. I don't need the band Herbie.

I put the power on 250C. after pre heat and stabilize I pressed the glass on the bowl and got a perfect stem hit. Roasted the whole basket full. ABV was black on the surface and brown all the way through. Kind of blew my socks off. Oredered another Evic today. $29.00.

David
 
Top Bottom