Sapphire and Ruby inserts for bangers

[biohacker]

@started@52 Curious what your controller is set to for the 350F floor temp?

The Terpometer is something like approximately 80f off from a IR gun. There was a discussion on Reddit about it, so maybe he's closer to low 400's which would sound about right for ruby. Then again, i'm pretty sure i've also gone into the mid 300's on a downtemp, so who knows! Either way, low temp ruby dabs are amazing!

 

[started@52]

@started@52 Curious what your controller is set to for the 350F floor temp?

Have you tuned your MaxVapor with the ruby insert installed?

It reads around 445° I believe after tuning it without the ruby inserts or pearls.

 

[biohacker]

It reads around 445° I believe after tuning it without the ruby inserts or pearls.

Do you have an IR in addition to the terpometer?

 

[started@52]

Do you have an IR in addition to the terpometer?

I did and it read 40-70° hotter.

 

[muunch]

I'm liking the AlN so much I decided to give Fadespace's SiC another go-round. Having to take the AlN out of the Peak to torch clean it back to brand new isn't ideal. It never tastes reclaim-y, but it's impossible to get it back to looking new using just the heat generated by the Peak itself... so I'm kinda getting the SiC because it'd be easier for me to daily, with the lack of maintenance in comparison. But also because I want to give it another fair shot, with all the people I see saying they do not find much of a difference between SiC and AlN

I did not have great results with the Fadespace v1 SiC, and have never really liked any of the other SiC I have tried so I am quite interested to see how this goes.

Still picking up the sapphire in a few weeks and doing comparisons of all 3 in banger, but definitely don't wanna pass over SiC due to ignorance or past experiences being poor/unideal.

 

[Azn2101]

Hey guys,

After a long and pretty convincing conversation with Brian from DNail, if what he's saying and showing me from 3rd party links/reports & photos regarding the AlN is true, there's some serious issues with it as a vaporization surface since Aluminum Nitride starts to show signs of degradation from almost Nuetral water levels like Pock marking & oxidation layers making it a downhill slide until it becomes pretty much useless in the purposes we use it for cause it would essentially be slightly paving over the Nucleation Sites with oxidation layers or just completely erasing them and would begin to break down when in contact to any liquids over ~7.5 alkalinity and really is seemingly only used in places where the entirety of the Aluminum Nitride is in an enclosed area like your body or in a "inert atmosphere" which im not sure if a sealed banger fits that statute (or does it?)

Also, from the things that brian described it, the AlN in a non inert enviornment has no real "safe" way to clean it because even when using 99% ISO it's still a liquid until steamed/boiled away and will still cause the AlN to create an oxidized layer on the surface eventually but still slower than Distilled water. Under "inert" conditions there is no risk to extreme heat breaking down the AlN when torch cleaning it but since moisture/water is almost always going to be in contact with the AlN whether it be air or Qtipping so it's going to degrade that way too. But this is just from my understanding based off the literature sent to me and the view of a single (maybe group but DNail as a company isn't that big is it?) Person who's technically in compition with the same sector of business.

I'm also taking this with a grain of salt cause he did say that Obsidian is just SiC trademarked under CCA now being pushed by NV and I have no idea on that one, especially since CCA offered a tier 1 polished SiC too so it started to make me question if he was biased in the sense that he was gonna bash any surface that DNail didnt sell.

Anyway what do you guys think about his take on AlN? It does have flavor over Quartz but achieving the "sweet" spot for vapor production & flavor has definitely felt like a moving target when it comes to finding it with the same batch of concentrate so I'm now almost sure I created some form of oxidation on the surface or maybe just certain parts from the damn DC Cleaner...for which both companies are aware of and haven't posted PSA's but what can ya do sometimes lol.

"Shapal Hi-M Soft is often used as an alternative to pure aluminum nitride because it also offers high thermal conductivity and can be machined into complex geometries."

So maybe it's just partially AlN and mostly this substance.

 

[LesPlenty]

What is AIN, is it used to grow the ruby or sapphire, Dnail sells sapphire so I don't know what you are talking about?

Edit, Ok, nothing to do with ruby or sapphire!

 

[muunch]

Also enjoyed speaking with whomever I spoke with representing Dnail - I did question the bias of his stance as well, but any literature shared (and the fact he bothered to look) I think is pretty positive.

I have nothing really to add (though I have found AlN consistent... I have only used in my Peak thus far) - but I have found studies where AlN was used as a cortical (brain) implant:
https://search.proquest.com/openvie...dacba/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

and also this:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0964-1726/22/11/115033/meta
"Cytotoxicity testing showed the AlN/polyimide material to be non-toxic to 3T3 cells and primary neurons. "


I have a Fadespace V2 SiC for Peak arriving this week (hopefully) (edit: tracking just updated to Friday delivery ) and have pre-ordered the Dnail SiC for Peak as well.
I have also found studies claiming (properly sintered and polished, I am assuming) SiC is practically inert when inhaled, as compared to quartz....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1061312/
"In particular, an increase in granulocytes indicated toxic properties of the dust. The long term elimination of quartz from the lung was worse than that of SiC"

Further testing needed. Must acquire a proper banger, and a sapphire insert and really get to work

 

[Azn2101]

What is AIN, is it used to grow the ruby or sapphire, Dnail sells sapphire so I don't know what you are talking about?

AlN (Aluminum Nitride) is FadeSpaces "Be all, End all" vaporization surface until they can manage to find a way to create diamonds for vaporization surfaces in a cheaper way for the general population to afford instead of rappers being able to dab with it then put it back on their chain lol. But DNail asked "what would you like to see us improve/work on" and I said to bring new Advanced Ceramics like the AlN and thus the long conversation that followed.

I thought this was a good little excerpt/minor summary of what AlN is https://precision-ceramics.com/materials/aluminum-nitride/

So based on what they're saying if it were fully Aluminum Nitride than it would be able to carry an electrical current right? Or am I interpreting that wrong lol?

 

[ensabbahnur]

Im just prolly not following the thread for the last page or so as close as i should but.....

I wouldn't expect AIN to bring literally ANYTHING to the table (that isn't already available) that will effect current dab techs, the hard numbers are close enough from what I've seen to SIC to where its not going to be a game changer of any kind.

Im not sure exactly what the comparison to inhaling quartz was about but Id expect if you have a properly sintered and polished adv ceramic, and a properly formed and polished quartz.......you wouldn't inhale any of the dish material......unless i missed something in the linked article.

If all that is trying to be accomplished is to find out what is "safe" and what is not, quartz and SIC have been in use for years with no issues save for perhaps using a physically damaged dish MAY not be a good idea. Ive torched SIC to fully bright cherry red with MAPP gas (much hotter then propane or butane) MANY times to clean it and soaked it in all sorts of things (off the top of my head ISO, PBW, oxiclean, DC cleaner, Simple Green, dist water, boiling water, salt water, industrial cleaning vinegar, toluene, 710/420 cleaner/formula, brake cleaner) to see what worked best (incidentally regular distilled water works the best by far IMO) to clean it and I can say under as careful visual scrutiny one can do unaided by magnification, that nothing has effected it in anyway to have loose inhalable materials from the SIC.

There are many, many, MANY (like hundreds) forms of SIC, Obsidian is a specific and I wouldn't doubt "unique" formulation and I have several of both "tier 1 polished SIC" and Obsidian to be able to say with certainty they are indeed different enough to be named something else however i will not say Obsidian is noticeably "better" then SIC aside from i do find it to clean up even easier then polished SIC. Tier 1 or Tier whatever or S-class S-Tier etc etc are all their own in-house classifications/advertising word vomit and hold little if any bearing or weight in the real world......someone can call something God class all they want, charge 2-3x more then everyone else and it won't make it perform better.

I see nowhere at all in the linked article that AIN would be conductive, in fact it repeats its insulating properties numerous times.

And as we have discussed elsewhere before, Im almost certain diamond would be a terrible dab surface due to its heat retention.....or lack of.

If D-nail needs to improve on anything its clearly their jokes for prices, there is no reason at all why their gear should demand such a premium, maybe 5 years ago but now there are far to many effective, healthy options to choose from......and they really need to sort their carb cap situation out, get us 1 at a ~<$30 price point, I really don't care if PukingBeagle or ScoobyDoo himself looked at the quartz before he made it it doesn't justify 6 of the 9 current options to be >$100 3 being >$150 and only 1 (roughly 10 year old design) is $45


If I've misunderstood anything Ive spoken on I apologize in advance

 

[Azn2101]

If I've misunderstood anything Ive spoken on I apologize in advance

No I think you got most of the things covered in my previous posts and current posts regarding the AlN and it's pretty much on par performance if not slightly worse in the sense that cleaning it mean pushing material into areas when the Qtip gets too full and even if you were to use 10 Qtips post-dab it would still stain and it's weird heating

The few thing I'm still not clear on is under what conditions does AlN actually degrade in? What happens when it starts to degrade? And does Brian's from DNail's point of view have any merit, especially the use of it in an "Inert Atmosphere" for it to even come close to actually functioning to the specs that FadeSpace shows on the chart, because it's the only info or input I've gotten on AlN that hadn't come from a FadeSpacelodite but then again I don't know their history when it comes to the dissemination of true/flase info debating on what side of the fence they stand on with topics either.

I do appreciate you chiming in on the aspects I brought up like the Obsidian being something different (something I believe I heard another Liger/experienced user say on VFL) and about the diamond too. I figured it would be better to have an actual thin diamond banger if anything than a insert, but the same point you brought up makes me think it was secretly you who sold me this insert cause he said almost the exact same thing when selling this to me when I asked him why he was selling what was being touted as the "Best" insert available and that it wouldn't fit in his ESB TruthTech lol.

 

[started@52]

@started@52 Curious what your controller is set to for the 350F floor temp?

Have you tuned your MaxVapor with the ruby insert installed?

Sorry just saw this. I forget exactly but right now I have my surface offset set to -64 to get my display and terpometer to both read 405°f, when I turn my coil off it reads -27 or something at room temperature so just offsetting the surface temperature doesn’t offset the display for lower or higher temps. This is with a 30mm coil, clear bottom banger and ruby insert, all from a Shane.

 

[muunch]

This pic shows the finish difference between the SiC and AlN well. I am not sure if it's due to the material properties, or simply the hardness that they cannot get the diamond polish on the AlN as well. Perhaps it increases nucleation? It definitely makes cleaning a bit less easy, but I am so far preferring it in every aspect besides maintenance to the SiC.

 

[ensabbahnur]

This pic shows the finish difference between the SiC and AlN well. I am not sure if it's due to the material properties, or simply the hardness that they cannot get the diamond polish on the AlN as well. Perhaps it increases nucleation? It definitely makes cleaning a bit less easy, but I am so far preferring it in every aspect besides maintenance to the SiC.

Polishing AIN is no more difficult then SIC, the AIN looks like it was just smoothed and not polished at all, this is the same "sintered and done" surface d-nail likes to call their 'patented' "wik" tech....which makes me roll my eyes every time i say or type it as its literally just sintering it and leaving the surface porous. D-nail SIC Halos have always had this finish aside from extremely early units I've seen, the surface they claim is all about nucleation sites but the SIC and Obsidian dishes from CCA have come in wildly varying levels of polish from none at all to a literal mirror finish and there was a lot of conversation in the Liger thread going back and forth about the merits of each and at the end of the day both extremes of polish performed "about the same", with the cleanup of the high polish units always being easier, even with rosins.

 

[Azn2101]

This pic shows the finish difference between the SiC and AlN well. I am not sure if it's due to the material properties, or simply the hardness that they cannot get the diamond polish on the AlN as well. Perhaps it increases nucleation? It definitely makes cleaning a bit less easy, but I am so far preferring it in every aspect besides maintenance to the SiC.

Woah, that surface has a ton of dots, like everywhere, above the surface. Those are the spots that I called the "unpolished" on mine so I wonder if mine is supposed to be like yours or your is supposed to be like mine?

Even looking at the picture of mine when super dirty it has nothing above the surface but the dots or "unpolished spots."

But I could've sworn in that I posted earlier that Brendon doesn't polish the AlN inserts so that they have larger & more Nucleation Sites so it really makes me wonder what surface he intended to put out.

On a different note I was definitely not doing Sapphire justice and think AlN and it are very evenly matched when the Sapphire is used at around 430-450 floor temp gives the same results as the AlN at 480-500 floor temp while the AlN has a lower delta than the AlN (35°F-40°F) where the Sapphire has about a 65-85°F Delta. I'm thinking that with further refinement Sapphire much take the cake in terms of pure flavor but the Advanced Ceramic path is definitely better suited for clumsy/accident prone people who want that flavor boost without having to be super attentive/responsible with the insert.

Although ill admit, the AlN is more of a bitch than I ever expected it to be to get it to good balance between vapor production & non burnt hints of flavor.

 

[muunch]

Hmm... Maybe everyone else's descriptions of the "rough" surface made me the think the AlN would be rougher than it is... I don't find it super rough but also it's quite obviously a ton less smooth than the SiC.

I'm not crazy about the finish, but at least in the Peak, I don't think it's quite a fair comparison. I don't think it's drastic as the difference between AlN and quartz was... but it's a pretty good difference I think, thus far.

I do wonder how a properly finished/polished AlN would look/perform...

 

[Azn2101]

Hmm... Maybe everyone else's descriptions of the "rough" surface made me the think the AlN would be rougher than it is... I don't find it super rough but also it's quite obviously a ton less smooth than the SiC.

I'm not crazy about the finish, but at least in the Peak, I don't think it's quite a fair comparison. I don't think it's drastic as the difference between AlN and quartz was... but it's a pretty good difference I think, thus far.

I do wonder how a properly finished/polished AlN would look/perform...

Sometimes the swab alone makes me wanna put the AlN in another banger and throw the Sapphire or SiC in but that would mean slowly cooling my banger then putting in the Sapphire then reheating Such a (1st World) hassle!

 

[muunch]

Well, interestingly enough Fadespace just told me he plans to try polishing the AlN, but thinks it will reduce performance due to the nucleation aspect.

I wonder how it would be side-by-side... I don't wanna lose the flavor/vapor production of the AlN but having it be easily swabbable would be godly.

Realistically, the insert being visibly dirty barely matters. It is just aesthetic, if you swab when it is still warm. I have yet to get a burnt/reclaim taste out of my AlN.

 

[Azn2101]

I have yet to get a burnt/reclaim taste out of my AlN.

I actually don't have an issue with this, that being said I've given up on babying the AlN so I might experience this. Im gonna put it through some "average dabber" lack of cleanliness, care in terms of all the steps to keep it clean after each dab and not spend 5-10 qtips getting new material off each time, and if it starts to show signs of degradation, shit. If it keeps thru the storm of 4mm SiC & 3mm Ruby pearls spinningg in it, both of which make a huge difference in extending the flavor even though he says they aren't to be used with his inserts, and that lack of care to remove all the reclaim from the insert in hopes that the flavor will still maintain an acceptable level than that'll be great! But it's just so much easier to deal with SiC/Sapphire in every sense of the word.

My final outlook on AlN Inserts it that they're like if SiC decided to wear a stucco coating and more pure flavor that comes with Sapphird without the risk of thermal shock that Sapphire has.

Also I can confirm that I have formed some kind of layer that makes the staining much harder to bring out via 99% ISO/Distiled water steam bathing, QTipping while at that temp Water & Iso to drop the boiling point. Very little comes off as to when I first received it. I did a live chat with FadeSpaces UK distributor and while he does have a MaxVapor and I have an Auber, I bumped the temp over 50°F higher than he had to and still just a small layer will come off but with him that Qtip soaked in distilled water at 200°F will take staining off the wall like an eraser swipe across a crowded whiteboard. Mine needs a torching to get that way now. Soo, ya, watch out for that and spread the word cause both DC and Fade don't want to post anything about it.

Anyway that chapter written, closed and put aside for later added excerpts there's this:



Blackmarketglass and/or Happydaddyproducts is claiming that they have made the "first" ruby pucked banger. Blackmarketglass is saying it's ruby but the actual page that the banger is on says it's "Thermal Quartz" So I'm not sure. Is this even possible?

 

[invertedisdead]

If it is ruby I bet oil runs all the way up the sidewalls from the major conductivity difference, just like when using pearls in a quartz banger.

 

[ensabbahnur]

I call shenanigans on the ruby banger, Im no expert on quartz nor am i a gemologist but I'm pretty sure you can't fuse quartz to grown crystal ruby like that. You are not welding quartz and ruby together so what actually is going on at the puck joint, is it ruby coated quartz? It does make me think of how they fill low grade ruby with glass after bleaching it, maybe they can do it with quartz now? There is almost certainly a catch to this product.......other then I'm sure the super cool IG exclusive pricing.

 

[invertedisdead]

I don't think so either, if anything It's probably encased in quartz then attatched just like the dude that made the "ruby core reactor" banger.

It definitely looks weird compared to my ruby inserts, could also just be Molten Aura fuckin "ruby" for all we know, especially if dude is a glass blower

 

[sarkunit]

I wonder if it is composite Ruby in that banger's puck? That is current tech, as well as being sub optimal I'd think?

 

[Azn2101]

@ensabbahnur @invertedisdead

I know that aside from black market having some affiliation with DNail's venture into bucket style dabbing, currently their main venture has been the Mr HotBox's Flameless Induction Banger Heater cause it needs a long arm to sit on top of the surface and be able to accommodate any Rig & Banger Set-Up. Other than that I have no idea how good their product or customer service is but that's kinda my point. It would seem like a more well known individual/company would be able to bring this to market first, well at least in a safe capacity for us to inhale.

I'll make like a copy and paste message and send it to all three of em. I wouldn't be surprised if I came back with 3 separate answers as to what the puck's comprised of lol.

 

[pxl_jockey]

I'm pretty dang excited you guys, have a ruby insert along with bangers & axial coil and lotsa lil stuff coming from Shane. He's really such a gent. Anyhoo, because I don't live anywhere civilised like @invertedisdead @sarkunit @ensabbahnur @muunch or the rest of you fuckers*, it’s been a long-ass plan to get to this point.

So it’s just weeks now and I’ll be able to make rosin and finally try a proper dab. Fooled with some cured resin in the VRod recently for proof of concept (but way too hot I think) so I’m very excited to be able to try the full flavour Coil/Banger/Ruby insert setup.



*of combustion, of course!