Discontinued Pandora Kit from Purple-Days

[Purple-Days]

Hi, this is Tom. Sometimes known as Purple-Days.

The Pandora Kit:

An American Cherry body turned, bored and lasered here in Port Orford. 100% RoHS compliant parts from USA suppliers. Plus other stuff you need. A data DVD with printable instructions, lots of captioned pictures and video instruction too.

It's obvious the Pandora isn't for everyone. A few mechanical skills and mostly common tools and you should be good to go, but only the buyer can be the judge.

I look forward to hearing from the builders.


Edit: 3-11-11

This was a fun project for a year. Lots of folks had fun and great success building the project. A small number of folks had assembly trouble ( a few shorts), but we helped them out with replacement parts (no charge) and second go around they spotted the problem. A very few needed further help, I even re-built or took over in the middle for those few folks. In the end I think everyone enjoyed the project and lots of folks now have the know how to build their own.

So it was fun for a year. But carrying two product lines, with three or more wood species each, is extra work and we are going to concentrate on The Original in three or four woods, North American sales only.

Sorry, if you missed out.

Thanks to all those who built our project.

 

[Qbit]

Hi, this is Tom. Sometimes known as Purple-Days.

The Pandora Kit:
http://i43.tinypic.com/1z585xg.jpg
An American Cherry body turned, bored and lasered here in Port Orford. 100% RoHS compliant parts from USA suppliers. Plus other stuff you need. A data DVD with printable instructions, lots of captioned pictures and video instruction too.

It's obvious the Pandora isn't for everyone. A few mechanical skills and mostly common tools and you should be good to go, but only the buyer can be the judge.

I look forward to hearing from the builders.

Looking very nice Tom. But I take it this kit won't be available outside North America either.

 

[Purple-Days]

Working on an International order page,
:link removed:
but we may limit the countries. Some customs departments and some countries postal services are just to difficult to deal with.

 

[SkeletonLips]

Awesome! I'll be ordering mine soon. I can't wait to put the time in to making my own Purple Days. Thanks Tom! I also can't wait to see people's Pandora pictures. Post 'em up please. -S.L.

 

[Qbit]

International Pandora ?
Sure... Sorry the navigation is a little obscure.
http://purple-days.com/PandoraInt.html
Same deal as the PD used to be, you provide the power to suit your regional needs.

Hmm - curiouser and curiouser.

I mean I got mine about 7 months ago when you were still taking internatioal orders, but I have friends.

 

[Mckdenton]

What kind of waiting list is there with the pandora kit?
nvm 2-4 weeks

 

[DevoTheStrange]

Well. Put my kit together today. All I got to do now is the finishing and stems. The build was pretty easy for me... This is primarily due to the directions included. Very easy to follow. Got pics for each step, and vids explaining things clearly.
I had a few hickups, but those were quickly remedied once I realized what I was doing wrong. I don't know how to rate this in terms of difficulty, I am used to assembling things that take much more work than I put into putting this thing together, so for me this was more of an enjoyable exercise.

 

[Purple-Days]

Thanks for the feedback on the pics and vids. Sometimes hard to judge your own teaching skills.

An expert doesn't always make a good teacher. I just got through a set of instructions for installing an on-board tuner for the strat, replace pot, re-wire etc. but nothing hooked up where the original wires (about 8) went

and the new pot was completely different with 9 terminals and jumpers.

Of course the instructions were written for a guitar tech and there were warnings that it was better left to pros, but hey the instructions could have made it a snap... instead it was a bit fuzzy. Went well in the end, but a nervous time till then.

Called a N-Tune, sweet little add on. Pull to mute and tune, push to play. 9V battery should last a year or more.

 

[HighSti]

Im actually looking forward to buying one of these in the future as a summer project. i think it would be really fun because I love to work with wood/tools. Im a pretty handy guy so I think this will be enjoyable. Any idea roughly how many hours it would take?

 

[rbrown13]

you guys ever have any questions about guitar repair or finishing let me know I make a fair amount of my living doing this for about the last 20 years, feel free to email me.

 

[DevoTheStrange]

Im actually looking forward to buying one of these in the future as a summer project. i think it would be really fun because I love to work with wood/tools. Im a pretty handy guy so I think this will be enjoyable. Any idea roughly how many hours it would take?

roughly three hours to do everything (doesn't include glue drying time)

 

[DevoTheStrange]

Here is a pic of my Pandora and original PD together (Pandora on the right)

One thing I did notice right off the get go, Pandora seems to be just as warm as my Original PD (OPD). So I am guessing after a few months running 24/7 it might run a tad bit warmer than my original.

 

[edamame]

Very nice..

 

[HighSti]

Would there be anyway to order the pandora without the logo? if not, would it be difficult to sand it off? I dont know how deep the engraving goes. I just want it to be very discrete.

 

[Lo]

The logo is laser etched and I'm sure could be sanded off it you really wanted to. It's actually much lighter than the old wood burned logo and is pretty discreet as is but I understand you might want to.

 

[stinkmeaner]

Would there be anyway to order the pandora without the logo? if not, would it be difficult to sand it off? I dont know how deep the engraving goes. I just want it to be very discrete.

What do yoy mean by discreet? That tiny little sun logo shows or describes nothing of its intended purpose, you can't be serious. 99.9999% of the people in the world don't even know what a vaporizer is let alone recognize a vaporzer company logo.

 

[Chubba]

HighSti wrote:

Would there be anyway to order the pandora without the logo? if not, would it be difficult to sand it off? I dont know how deep the engraving goes. I just want it to be very discrete.

What do yoy mean by discreet? That tiny little sun logo shows or describes nothing of its intended purpose, you can't be serious. 99.9999% of the people in the world don't even know what a vaporizer is let alone recognize a vaporzer company logo.

Yeah seriously... my original PD got picked up by a Senior Sargent from the Tactical Crime Squad during a search warrant and he put it back down.

That's messing with some big boys and they didn't even suspect a unit under close examination

Very stealth, very very stealth.

 

[HazyDayz]

I think i'm going to get one of these as I live in the UK. I see they dont have the light at the front like the PD does, is there any other differences? It looks bigger judging by that picture above...

 

[wthanna]

I think i'm going to get one of these as I live in the UK. I see they dont have the light at the front like the PD does, is there any other differences? It looks bigger judging by that picture above...

The PD does not have a light, unless you have one of the early ones. New PDs have no light, just like the Pandora Kit, just a different logo. ...and regarding the size, this unit is exactly like the PD, other than the different logo and custom bottom.

 

[HazyDayz]

The PD does not have a light, unless you have one of the early ones. New PDs have no light, just like the Pandora Kit, just a different logo. ...and regarding the size, this unit is exactly like the PD, other than the different logo and custom bottom.

Thanks wthanna

 

[Purple-Days]

The Purple-Days Original had a small purple LED when we first started making the unit. LEDs are vulnerable to heat migration through the wiring. A failed LED, on a separate circuit never stopped a PD from functioning, but was annoying. So we stopped producing LED units in late 2008 and went to a wood-burned logo on the front. Woodburning was all done by Pammy (the artist in the house), consistency and time involved and the fact that it agravated her wrist troubles, made me look for alternative ways to make a logo. Our buddies at the woodshop down the street own a laser and there is a video of the laser work on our thread somewhere. Ahhh, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNWBvuPdhQA

All the PDs including the Pandoras are made from the same slabs of Kiln Dried American Cherry wood and are turned on a lathe, right here, but the shaping is done by hand-eye coordination. Not a duplicator so every unit will be just a little different. All are gonna be 4.5 inches tall and ideally about 2-5/8" diameter, just like a Coca-Cola can. So size and shape may vary a little from one unit to another, wether it's a PD original or the Pandora.

The differences between the PD Original and the Pandora? A slightly different logo (both laser etched), and the Elk Hide bottom leather available only for the Pandora. Other than that they are identical.

Same materials I use every day in our shop. All 100% RoHS compliant. 100% Lead (Pb) Free. 100% 304 Stainless Steel heat exchanger. Our toxin free finish (bigger one ounce tin).

On the question of the logo and stealth, the PD and the Pandora have no printing or other info on them. Nothing to point to a website or other info. Keep the copper aroma cup handy and the vapor tubes outta sight and it is a legitimate aroma diffuser. We have one running in the bathroom for that purpose.

 

[HazyDayz]

Thanks, thats awesome!

On my way to your site right now.

 

[HazyDayz]

I've just ordered my Pandora kit for international delivery. Would it be possible to add some accessories to the order, such as screen replacement kit and billy-bowl?

 

[DevoTheStrange]

One thing I must note, at least with my kit.... the only problem I ran into was putting the outer metal sleeve of the heat exchange into the wooden body. The hole bored into it was no where near large enough to fit that.... Took about 45 minutes to an hour of using a file and some sand paper to enlarge the hole big enough to slide the HE all the way down. Even then it was a super tight fit. Most of my build time was spent enlarging the hole.
I had to come up with a different solution to using the piece of wood provided to help seat the Heat Exchange, I was able to seat the HE one centimeter too high and no further, it didnt want to move and lower... Turns out the the last bit I was unable to reach with sand paper was keeping it from moving down. I ended up removing the heat mass from the outer sleeve, inserting washers of the same size and using a long dowel of harder wood than the piece in the kit, and hammered it into place. Then slid the heat mass back into the outer sleeve no problem.

The only other problem I ran into was putting the steel parts of the stems together, but this was due to tiny size of the clips more than anything... so tiny and hard to work with...

 

[Purple-Days]

Devo, I will check on the hole size. :/ I recently ran into a few tight ones myself, first time this has happened. But knocked them home. I'm thinking I had a piece of stainless tubing that wasn't quite round. Hard to believe that a Freud 1" bit is not 1" but I will check that too. Either way it will be resolved. Quality control steps will be taken to assure that they fit properly. I will report back on this later today.

Hazy, get an e-mail to Pammy and let her know who you are (name) and what you want and she will get you a checkout that deletes shipping on those items (since you are already paying shipping).