Mine seem to have had this happen. Before firing it up, everything seemed locked in place, but after a bit of time at temp the coil has loosened slightly. Any extra downward pressure while holding it to a bowl can cause slippage.
I don’t know (or can’t tell) if this is affecting heat transfer to the head and rubies, so it hasn’t been a huge issue. I know we all talk of getting Inverted, but I have no plans on turning my Z8 upside down for any reason
Edit: Z8 on HMK
Example of slippage:
Watch this video on Streamable.
streamable.com
Dang that's a bit of a bummer to hear, it definitely seems like they are loosening up over time after some sort of an initial break in. I only ran them for a few minutes just to heat-set the housings. Since most ball vapes are metal they expand more when heated so you potentially wouldn't notice it as much. Sort of seems like my glass heaters used to do a similar thing, but I never had the same sort of tolerance control available with the hand worked glass parts, so I always chalked it up to natural variance in the glass. But now I am starting to suspect the coils do expand a bit further after an extended use as it's happened on ones that users installed too.
If it starts bothering you and you don't feel comfortable adjusting it please don't hesitate to send it in and I'll get it cleaned up, re-fit, and bench tested.
For this reason I wondered if it was possible to add a small indent in the ceramic for a snap ring like the b-0 uses. The ring could come with the head and you would just have a disclaimer in the description saying that to assemble it they'd need the snap ring tool. It would be a bit more consumer friendly.
Another thing that may be helpful would be the make a 14mm stand that screws into the CH stand base. Maybe from aluminum so it's softer than the ceramic? I worry the ceramic would be scratched by a metal stand.
Would the qaroma stand be a good choice for this? It's ceramic so it wouldn't mess up the Z8 but it's also pretty damn safe and solid. This DC stand is a litte precarious on my desk
Thing is with a proper friction fit coil it should be near impossible to have any issues.
Seems like the coils are falling out of tolerance which is affecting the fitment.
Enlarging the housing just slightly should fix that without needing to add anything.
I do agree though that some things could be altered for easier assembly for me or the end user.
This would actually be a good candidate for an enclosed housing that recesses the coil inside, as it would hide any marks the coil makes on the inside. Wouldn't be cheap to do though. Maybe if I left the coil exposed but threaded the bezel onto the body it would be more affordable and could lock the coil in from both sides. I still assert with a good friction fit it's a non-issue but the high hardness (and probably price) of the zirconia makes it a little more intimidating for achieving it due to the illusion of it being scratched.
No metals should scratch the ceramic really, it's the inverse - the metal coils have a rough surface finish and the ceramic is very hard and finely polished to a smoothness beyond the requirements for chemical processing so any marks are actually the metal. You need a diamond to scratch the zirconia. Any coil marks should be able to be rubbed out no problem.
That Q stand should be fine hanging from the groove, though I obviously don't have any experience with their stuff at all.
Wish I could offer such a complete package as others do with absolutely all of the accessory bits and electronics, but it would cost a small fortune to put all of that inventory together well beyond that of a grass roots effort. TBH it seems like an op to me, but I digress...
Anyways back to the vape lab, time to catch some Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's
