Vaporcussion
Well-Known Member
On Sneaky Pete's review (posted on Page 4), he mentioned that the flared MP hits better than the flat one. Thoughts on that? Didn't see any detailed discussion on that so far.... thanks!
Discontinued Pax 2
- Thread starter pakalolo
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KeroZen
Chronic vapaholic
To @Shit Snacks and @mitchgo61 : I'm an engineer, I got a rational mind. I tested Pax 1 and found the taste to be not so good (fact) @pakalolo and @BuzzDanklin tested the Pax 2 and said taste was better (fact x2), my immediate reaction, being a curious animal, is to ask: why does it taste better and how did they achieve that. I'm not attacking this vape (or you for that matter, although I find you once again very defensive for a vape you don't even own yet) I'm just trying to understand.
Now BuzzD gave us the same blurb the marketing guy served us several times, word per word, and Shit Snacks more or less implied it was the same and only reason. But 1) I don't trust marketing guys and you should always question their claims, which I did but was blatantly ignored 2) there are laws of Physics and Engineering and short of a break-through you can't change them (see for instance the Grasshopper bogus claim about 3h continuous operation time, Physics always win in the end)
You kinda make it sound like there's some kind of magic voodoo happening inside, whereas it's just very basic Control Theory and Thermodynamics, and even if it can make rockets fly, it's not rocket-science per se! You just have to visit the Bud Toaster thread to see for yourself how easy it is to make a vaporizer with very precise active temperature control, full-on convection and all-glass vapor path. Most of the principles are well understood, the only aspect where some kind of "art" is still taking place is (4), see below.
Ok so now let's break-down the hypothesis we have:
1) More accurate temperature control
The Pax rep made it sound like it was a novelty that the Pax2 adapts to user draw, to which I answered that this is how all "active temperature control" vaporizers work. It doesn't matter if you just put a sensor near the bowl and measure how much the temperature drops during a draw or if you implement a more elaborate sensor upfront to detect how much air flow you get (it just ends up as a difference between a feedback or a feedforward loop design, although I'm not aware of any vape that just has the flow sensor without a temp sensor, so they are rather a mixed mode loop)
Any well designed control loop will maintain the temperature in a +/-5°F range around the set-point and better designs can even narrow down the window to +/-1°F. If the loop parameters are chosen properly you'll get very little overshoot meaning you will never over-cook the load and alter the taste. On the other hand all heaters have a limited max power output and being a portable you can overwhelm them if you draw too hard and exceed their capacity. Again it doesn't matter how well you can maintain the temperature, at least for the taste part, because the temperature will always be inferior or equal to the set point during a draw, never above. No over-cooking again.
It also doesn't matter if the sensor is outside the bowl or inside the load (but I doubt the Pax2 sensor is inside the bowl, another question I asked that got ignored, but it sounds very impractical anyways as it could be affected by resin buildup or damaged during cleaning, I'm not aware of any vape that does this) because the load temperature inside the bowl is also always inferior or equal to the bowl walls, and it will drop during a draw more than the exterior of the bowl will drop (where the sensor usually is for most designs) So the argument of measuring the load versus the bowl is a bit moot to explain the taste question, at best if it's true it would mean the temperature is *higher* not lower because it would be closer to the set point instead of being always inferior to it.
This is why I asked if the Pax1 had no active temperature control, because if the answer is "yes" then we can stop here: indeed it would be enough of a reason for the Pax2 to have a better taste.
2) Change in bowl geometry
We know that convection tends to be more desirable for taste. Conduction can tend to give a more "roasted" taste. But you give me the argument that the bowl has been redesigned and thus has more surface contact area. This is counter intuitive. More surface contact equals more conduction. But it doesn't matter, as we discussed to death already, in those small "mostly conduction" portables radiant heat plays a major role anyways.
Now I'm willing to consider the more subtle effects of said geometry change as they could have an impact on (4) below.
3) Throttle-back mechanism
To me this is the number one candidate for the taste improvement reason, it makes a lot of sense and is the most rational argument.
I'm not sure it is more efficient that what @Bandoo does though: when he powers off the device he is able to continue drawing and considerably cool down the bowl and load, whereas with the automatic mechanism in Pax2 once you stop drawing there's strictly no active cooling, it just stops the bowl power and the temperature will take way more time to drop by itself. As I said in the previous post, this time can be relatively long depending on thermal inertia, and your load will continue to cook meanwhile.
Unless you wait so long as to let it cool below the temperature "floor" treshold, there would be no difference in power consumption when you turn the heater back on to reach the set temp: in both cases it would set the circuit to 100% PWM and draw the same amount of energy.
Now I agree that in the HD the 1 minute time-out is way too much and should be lowered to have a more significant impact, but at least it's the exact same throttle-back with floor-temp-point mechanism. And I was using the comparison to illustrate that it wasn't enough to warrant a good taste, as the HD is really not that good in this particular domain. The two vapes still have a lot in common design-wise and I think I find the HD taste not so good mostly due to the all-metal vapor path which I can smell and taste (this is why I greatly prefer ceramic bowls as they taste and smell completely inert) At least this is the conclusion I came to, by elimination, as I really wanted to understand why given all the bell and whistles it has, it has such a poor taste in the end.
4) Not completely elucidated difference in particulates size production and vapor quality
Most of the Control Theory and Thermodynamics involved are well understood, even if it can be an art to tune PID parameters, but as was discussed near the end of this excellent thread: http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/vaporization-temperature-dependent-selection-of-effects.1637/
...there is something very subtle about the "vape signatures" that could be well linked to the ability to generate different qualities of vapor, and most precisely different particulates sizes.
In this sense, the bowl geometry changes could have a more drastic impact than just changing the contact surface area. Together with any change in the air and vapor flow paths and dynamics. And this is not completely elucidated and it is quite hard to quantify. A very interesting subject nonetheless...
Now BuzzD gave us the same blurb the marketing guy served us several times, word per word, and Shit Snacks more or less implied it was the same and only reason. But 1) I don't trust marketing guys and you should always question their claims, which I did but was blatantly ignored 2) there are laws of Physics and Engineering and short of a break-through you can't change them (see for instance the Grasshopper bogus claim about 3h continuous operation time, Physics always win in the end)
You kinda make it sound like there's some kind of magic voodoo happening inside, whereas it's just very basic Control Theory and Thermodynamics, and even if it can make rockets fly, it's not rocket-science per se! You just have to visit the Bud Toaster thread to see for yourself how easy it is to make a vaporizer with very precise active temperature control, full-on convection and all-glass vapor path. Most of the principles are well understood, the only aspect where some kind of "art" is still taking place is (4), see below.
Ok so now let's break-down the hypothesis we have:
1) More accurate temperature control
The Pax rep made it sound like it was a novelty that the Pax2 adapts to user draw, to which I answered that this is how all "active temperature control" vaporizers work. It doesn't matter if you just put a sensor near the bowl and measure how much the temperature drops during a draw or if you implement a more elaborate sensor upfront to detect how much air flow you get (it just ends up as a difference between a feedback or a feedforward loop design, although I'm not aware of any vape that just has the flow sensor without a temp sensor, so they are rather a mixed mode loop)
Any well designed control loop will maintain the temperature in a +/-5°F range around the set-point and better designs can even narrow down the window to +/-1°F. If the loop parameters are chosen properly you'll get very little overshoot meaning you will never over-cook the load and alter the taste. On the other hand all heaters have a limited max power output and being a portable you can overwhelm them if you draw too hard and exceed their capacity. Again it doesn't matter how well you can maintain the temperature, at least for the taste part, because the temperature will always be inferior or equal to the set point during a draw, never above. No over-cooking again.
It also doesn't matter if the sensor is outside the bowl or inside the load (but I doubt the Pax2 sensor is inside the bowl, another question I asked that got ignored, but it sounds very impractical anyways as it could be affected by resin buildup or damaged during cleaning, I'm not aware of any vape that does this) because the load temperature inside the bowl is also always inferior or equal to the bowl walls, and it will drop during a draw more than the exterior of the bowl will drop (where the sensor usually is for most designs) So the argument of measuring the load versus the bowl is a bit moot to explain the taste question, at best if it's true it would mean the temperature is *higher* not lower because it would be closer to the set point instead of being always inferior to it.
This is why I asked if the Pax1 had no active temperature control, because if the answer is "yes" then we can stop here: indeed it would be enough of a reason for the Pax2 to have a better taste.
2) Change in bowl geometry
We know that convection tends to be more desirable for taste. Conduction can tend to give a more "roasted" taste. But you give me the argument that the bowl has been redesigned and thus has more surface contact area. This is counter intuitive. More surface contact equals more conduction. But it doesn't matter, as we discussed to death already, in those small "mostly conduction" portables radiant heat plays a major role anyways.
Now I'm willing to consider the more subtle effects of said geometry change as they could have an impact on (4) below.
3) Throttle-back mechanism
To me this is the number one candidate for the taste improvement reason, it makes a lot of sense and is the most rational argument.
I'm not sure it is more efficient that what @Bandoo does though: when he powers off the device he is able to continue drawing and considerably cool down the bowl and load, whereas with the automatic mechanism in Pax2 once you stop drawing there's strictly no active cooling, it just stops the bowl power and the temperature will take way more time to drop by itself. As I said in the previous post, this time can be relatively long depending on thermal inertia, and your load will continue to cook meanwhile.
Unless you wait so long as to let it cool below the temperature "floor" treshold, there would be no difference in power consumption when you turn the heater back on to reach the set temp: in both cases it would set the circuit to 100% PWM and draw the same amount of energy.
Now I agree that in the HD the 1 minute time-out is way too much and should be lowered to have a more significant impact, but at least it's the exact same throttle-back with floor-temp-point mechanism. And I was using the comparison to illustrate that it wasn't enough to warrant a good taste, as the HD is really not that good in this particular domain. The two vapes still have a lot in common design-wise and I think I find the HD taste not so good mostly due to the all-metal vapor path which I can smell and taste (this is why I greatly prefer ceramic bowls as they taste and smell completely inert) At least this is the conclusion I came to, by elimination, as I really wanted to understand why given all the bell and whistles it has, it has such a poor taste in the end.
4) Not completely elucidated difference in particulates size production and vapor quality
Most of the Control Theory and Thermodynamics involved are well understood, even if it can be an art to tune PID parameters, but as was discussed near the end of this excellent thread: http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/vaporization-temperature-dependent-selection-of-effects.1637/
...there is something very subtle about the "vape signatures" that could be well linked to the ability to generate different qualities of vapor, and most precisely different particulates sizes.
In this sense, the bowl geometry changes could have a more drastic impact than just changing the contact surface area. Together with any change in the air and vapor flow paths and dynamics. And this is not completely elucidated and it is quite hard to quantify. A very interesting subject nonetheless...
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turtleatabeach
New Member
wow so what portable would you yourself recommend no price limit, just the best tasting.
If he actually said "hits better" then I missed it. What he said (and I think this might be what you mean) is that there was less resistance using the flared mouthpiece. I don't have a way to measure this objectively, and my opinion is that the flat MP has slightly less resistance. The difference is minimal and could easily be attributed to the seal made by my lips vs. his. Remember also, I don't try to draw any harder than the natural resistance of the device.
@KeroZen: the original Pax dropped heat to about 150°C (~300°F) after it was motionless for 30 seconds. There is no question that the Pax 2 turns off the heater sooner than this, so that should satisfy you—but my bet is that it won't. As I keep saying, most people don't care how it works as long as it delivers better taste, and I'm telling you that the flavour is significantly improved. Don't you believe me? How about Sneaky Pete and @BuzzDanklin, do you believe them? Whether you can figure it out or not, whatever they did simply works.
turtleatabeach
New Member
should i buy the pax 2 or crafty? what is the best flavor out of a portable?
Flavour is subjective. No one can tell you which one you will like better, we can only tell you which one we like better.
Actually I can't even do that because I have never tried a Crafty.
turtleatabeach
New Member
well tell me whats the best thing you like? How would you compare pax 2 to solo?
Ed, we have recently regained the rights to sell internationally and are hoping to be in retailers in your area by this summer, and have online capabilities fairly soon. Thanks for waiting!
turtleatabeach
New Member
may i test out a pax 2 now for a higher price? my volcano just broke;/
The thing I like most about the Pax 2 is the flavour. As for a comparison, the Pax 2 is a pocketable portable but the Solo is not. I haven't done a direct flavour comparison, so I guess I should put that on the list. I am not as keen on the Solo flavour as most Solo owners seem to be, hence my references to subjectivity throughout this thread.
Good to note! We don't have any upgrade programs in the works to date. Although we love the new PAX 2, we know lots of customers are happy with the original PAX.
KeroZen
Chronic vapaholic
@turtleatabeach : better start a thread in the "Ask FC" section as to not derail this thread, plus it's the right place to do that, but as pakalolo said we all have so different expectations you will likely get very different answers, especially if you don't precise your question more than that.
@scott_dunlap : excellent news about Europe distribution!
@pakalolo : I wasn't clear enough then, I do believe you and BuzzD, I trust you for being non biased and having a lot of experience. As I said, I'm driven by curiosity and just wanting to understand the "how", as I'm not "most people"...
I also don't question whether it works or not, but you see at the same time I'm trying to understand why it didn't work in the HD I've been sent for review, as it's largely inspired by the Pax1 I think (but okay, not so well executed)
I just find the taste topic very interesting because on the surface a lot of vapes share similar design patterns but in real world practice, I think we all experienced the "vape signature" aspect that @stickstones tried to express several times, and that we would like to be able to understand and pinpoint better. I'm leaning toward the (4) in my previous post for now, as temperature control and heating mode don't seem to explain it all...
@scott_dunlap : excellent news about Europe distribution!
@pakalolo : I wasn't clear enough then, I do believe you and BuzzD, I trust you for being non biased and having a lot of experience. As I said, I'm driven by curiosity and just wanting to understand the "how", as I'm not "most people"...
I also don't question whether it works or not, but you see at the same time I'm trying to understand why it didn't work in the HD I've been sent for review, as it's largely inspired by the Pax1 I think (but okay, not so well executed)I just find the taste topic very interesting because on the surface a lot of vapes share similar design patterns but in real world practice, I think we all experienced the "vape signature" aspect that @stickstones tried to express several times, and that we would like to be able to understand and pinpoint better. I'm leaning toward the (4) in my previous post for now, as temperature control and heating mode don't seem to explain it all...
BuzzDanklin
Well-Known Member
I still prefer the Crafty over the Pax2, but it's a large price bump. The best flavored portable I own is the Firefly, but its not near as good for on the go as the Crafty or especially the Pax2.
@KeroZen I wish I could give you a better answer to your questions, but unfortunately I am also as curious as you. I will let you know if I come up with anymore speculations or ideas.
Shit Snacks
Milaana. Lana. LANA. LANAAAA! (TM2/TP80/BAK/FW9)
I wouldn't call it being defensive dude, I dont know how you or anyone else could take what I said that way? You say it like i came at you. I was just trying to answer your questions based on the feedback posted here, on the surface your question was fairly simple. Maybe I like to play devils advocate, any advocate really, but given the feedback so far, it all checks out in my opinion. Obviously you disagree lol
Taste being so subjective I happen to disagree with you completely regarding metals and ceramics. Ofcourse not all metals are equal, the Herbstick's alloy is not as pure as this I'm sure, and oven shape does matter so as to not overcook areas, something all the ceramic conduction vapes I've had or used suffered from with their big bowls. I know you like the puck method and get results with any amount regardless, but personally I have not had the best results with that system. (I mean these days I am pretty much all on demand convection, so that tells you something about how I feel about conduction session vapes in general. Only useful for groups lol)
Pak stated how little he used, how he used it, and the taste and effects. Considering I think that is pretty impressive and new for a vape of this conduction session design. I first thought the pax2 was the same old, but hearing Pak and Buzz's experience with it so far, I could see the improvements. I'm going by their testimony, and what I know about my own taste profile. Clearly ours are different, but I trust the actual users feedback more than marketing claims or how everything worked before.
To me, there is no reason not to think this product offers something that others have not. It should be afforded every opportunity to prove it does, and if it does not it can and should die. It is reasonable to want to understand it, and apply previous principles, but I try not to think so close mindedly personally. I presume innocence first, if there is any guilt it will reveal itself eventually...
(also re: hopper, come on dude, claims from the 2 year old indiegogo model, that was exaggerated? theres no reason to bring that up like anywhere anymore, I dont think its relevant to a discussion. They already explained the logic behind that, it had been changed, battery life is hard to estimate. Jeez)
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Vapinghole
Low-Temp Hempist / JedHI Master
In honor of the Pax 2, I wrote a poem:
Pax 2, electric boogaloo,
I'm waiting for you!
So do what you do,
And then rock on down to,
My vaping avenue!
Ok, so I might be a little zooted right now. Might be. But I'm just stoked to get my grubby little hands on this one.
Pax 2, electric boogaloo,
I'm waiting for you!
So do what you do,
And then rock on down to,
My vaping avenue!
Ok, so I might be a little zooted right now. Might be. But I'm just stoked to get my grubby little hands on this one.
Vaporcussion
Well-Known Member
@pakalolo yes, less resistance is what I meant! I'm glad you feel the flat one is better, and that the difference between the two are small. I think the flat is where it's at! Thanks again...
To turtleatabeach I've owned the Crafty for 3 months, and at this point, I would choose the Pax 2. I'm sick of taking the Crafty out in public, it looks like a blinking hand grenade! I'm also sick of the slow warm up time, on boost mode it's over 3 minutes, blinking red the whole time! Not very socially acceptable. Also the battery is horrible, just had two sessions tonight and the battery went from 100% to 17%. But the hits are massive, no doubt, and it's very efficient.
I can't wait to get a smaller lighter better flavor Pax! I just wish they still had the blue color... vape on!
To turtleatabeach I've owned the Crafty for 3 months, and at this point, I would choose the Pax 2. I'm sick of taking the Crafty out in public, it looks like a blinking hand grenade! I'm also sick of the slow warm up time, on boost mode it's over 3 minutes, blinking red the whole time! Not very socially acceptable. Also the battery is horrible, just had two sessions tonight and the battery went from 100% to 17%. But the hits are massive, no doubt, and it's very efficient.
I can't wait to get a smaller lighter better flavor Pax! I just wish they still had the blue color... vape on!
Bandoo
Well-Known Member
I think the only change that could possibly improve intrinsically the flavor is a narrower deeper oven.
Maybe like the flavor difference between a slim joint and a thick one. The thick one will have a better taste because you are drawing through more less heated material.
So the 1 has a wider shallower bowl so when you are taking a hit you are breathing air through a thinner cross section of material vs the deeper one in the 2.
Ymmv
elmomuzz
That just happened...
JiggyJack
Well-Known Member
What is this "joint" of which you speak?
queefermadness
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your reviews pak!
How does draw restriction, cloud production and flavor compare to the indica?
Thanks!
How does draw restriction, cloud production and flavor compare to the indica?
Thanks!
You're welcome.
In my opinion, the Indica is slightly more restricted even with a drilled-out mouthpiece, the Pax 2 wins on flavour, and I can't comment on clouds without doing some tests. Like the Solo, I haven't done a head-to-head comparison. I'm not sure I'm up to doing all three at once.
stark1
Lonesome Planet
In my opinion, the Indica is slightly more restricted even with a drilled-out mouthpiece, the Pax 2 wins on flavour, and I can't comment on clouds without doing some tests. Like the Solo, I haven't done a head-to-head comparison. I'm not sure I'm up to doing all three at once.
Sure. YOU can "pak" them with the best!
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