The Chinese SJK Induction Heater and The VapCap

Hackerman

Hackerman

User
I got my Chinese Induction Heater today and popped the top to allow a look inside. I also did a video which I will upload as soon as it's done converting and uploading to YT.

I am not one to bash the Chinese or their workmanship. I repair a lot of amplifiers and PA systems for the bands that I play in and I have seen some very nice work come from China as I have seen some very poor work come from the US and Japan (well, almost never bad Japan. LOL). Unfortunately, this heater is NOT one of those items. LMAO Pretty piss poor workmanship. Not the worse I've seen but, not great.

It looks like they had to upgrade one of the chips and couldn't find one in the DIP package so the had to use an adapter and a SMD package. LOL Not sure what that chip is.

I tried this with my 2018M with a stainless tip and with a Vong with a Ti tip. Both seem to work about the same. The video is the first try right out of the box with a cold cap. It took about 11 seconds to first click and about 13 seconds to the second click. The hit was awesome. The same as from my DIY heater and from a torch. Second heatup was a few seconds shorter at about 9 seconds.

To dispel any doubts in anyone's mind as to whether this works with a VapCap or not, you can set you mind at ease. It works great. I did a little experimenting and, of course, it made a difference how deep you insert the VapCap. If you press it all the way too the wall, it's too deep and takes longer to click and heats the stem, same as if you held the torch in the wrong place. Not far enough into the cup and the cap clicks before it's ready. Again, same as a torch.

A 10ml beaker fits perfectly into the opening and will allow me to set a fixed depth.

There is a variable pot in the circuit that might also allow some tweaking.

Overall, very nice and a great companion to any VapCap. For 50 bux, I think it's a great choice.

Here are some pics.

2usvrf9.jpg


21erv4l.jpg


2dbwbwg.jpg


24xhnxv.jpg


2gvn71v.jpg
 
Hackerman

Hackerman

User
Hackerman

Hackerman

User
I love this thing. An induction heater is the only way to go in this whiskey tango town that I live in. Totally eliminates the crack pipe image problem I have with the local inhabitants. I will actually be able to take my VC out of the house with me.

I am pulling the dash on my car and replacing the cigarette lighter with an induction heater. Then, I'm going to get one of Pipes portables for carry. Damn, life is good. LOL

I still love butane controlled vapes the best. My homemade glass "vaponics" vapes are my daily goto. I like the way you can totally control the kind of hit you get. Electronics are nice for what they are but, I have really come to love the control you can get with butane vapes. Especially glass. I like to see the color change ever so slightly as I heat the oven. :)

But, when you live in a town that still thinks it's in the industrial age, you have to make certain concessions. So, crack pipes stay in the house. :( But soon, I'll be able to take my VC with me into the real world. Or, dare I say, Dynaverse. LOL

Here is the video. Since this video, I am getting better results. I have figured the correct depth. And, the glass beaker seems to help. I'm not sure what the physics is on that. Is the glass dispersing the heat? or concentrating it? I'll read up.

If you listen real close you can hear the first and then the second click

Any way, I'm pretty happy tonight (which is rare). I'm testing my new Plenty with the party bowl full (well, half gone now) on my right. My Vapcaps and induction heater on my left. A crock pot of butter cooking behind me. And, an ice cold glass of beer in front of me. Setup like this could get a guy half stoned.



 
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Hackerman

Hackerman

User
Wow, after a few days of using this IH, I am totally impressed with this thing. I found the optimum effect when inserting it almost all the way into the cup. However, the M I was using, would get a little hot at the stem because it was slightly inside the cup.

I pulled out a new tip and cap and inserted it into my DDave original waterwand and... OMG!!! this thing is so perfect. The long glass wand allows me to insert the tip all the way into the cup and this puppy double clicks in about 4 seconds. And,a supper toasty hit. And, way more hits than I get out of a torch. Not sure why on that.

I am in a vape forum with a bunch of Italians and I did a video for them and they are buying these dental heaters up like crazy. Apparently, so I'm told, butane is expensive in Italy so this induction heater is a new idea for them. Can't believe they never heard of it. Dynavap is going to do great when they come out with their IH. Small wonder pipes is so behind on orders. These absolutely kill using a torch.

I'll post the video that I made for the Italian forum It's totally amazing. This works way better than a torch for me. 50 bux and on your doorstep in 2 days. This thing brought new life into my VC.

If you own a VC and don't own one of these heaters, you just don't know what you're missing.

Now, I need to get a beautiful glass stem from someone. ;)

EDIT: A note on the 'new' tip and cap that I used. I bought this Ti tip from Puff it up a few months ago. When I pulled it out to test it in the DDave wand, I started getting all freaked by the posts about cleaning your VC before use. In the past, I have never cleaned my Vapcaps, or any other vape I purchased. I ASSumed otherwise.

Anyway, I got out the cotton swap and some ISO and went around the tip, cup and through the hole, avoiding the rubber O rings. And, the inside of the cap.

The Q-tip was spic and span clean. No tiny metal particles. No oil. No dark stuff at all. Spotless.

Just FYI, since it's been brought up in other threads.
 
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stardustsailor

stardustsailor

Well-Known Member
Accessory Maker
I 'm not quite sure but I think that the "weird " smd Ic is some chinese version of the TCA355G .
If so ,then it is a proximity switch .

Some transistors I can see at the pics they seem of rather mediocre quality and
the induction coil wire could have been thicker ,but other than these ,me thinks,
for it's price it is rather well made
( 1% resistors , 105°C Rated high Freq elec. Caps ,thick single sided pcb , multi-turn trimmer ,proper insulation ).

Cheers.
 
Diggy Smalls

Diggy Smalls

Notorious
This seems really cool. It's sort of odd how it's larger than the vapcap, but I guess it would allow to easily insert it to different depths to possibly simulate different placements of a lighter. The sketchy quality of the build though.
 
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kuzko

kuzko

Well-Known Member
Nice entry-level option to an induction heater. My worry would be that the o-rings on the vc tip might get too hot if you Insert the tip into the heater too far. It could start heating up the metal that the o-rings sit on. Of course I could be wrong.
 
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Hackerman

Hackerman

User
@kuzko I was also concerned about that. I did notice that when the tip is inserted to the most optimum position, the O-rings are definitely inside the coil.

So, unless some other variable applies, the metal where the O-rings are is getting as hot as the cap.

How hot does the cap get before it clicks?

Is that temperature enough to gas the O-rings.

Good questions. I'll see what I can find out.

Thanks for the input.

EDIT: Actually, I just checked again and the rings are definitely OUTSIDE the coil area. Pretty close. And, I'm quite sure they get very very hot. Still going to check into this).

@stardustsailor A proximity switch would make sense. The wire next to the IC leads right to the cup and the heater is 'activated' when the item is placed into the cup.

I tried something else pretty cool, tonight.

I took some adhesive backed copper sheet. It is the stuff that is used to repair copper circuits on circuit boards. I cut a piece about 3" long and about 1/2" wide.

Then, I wrapped it around the test tube that is the Vaponic outer tube, making a 1/2" wide copper band around the outer tube and inserted it into the induction heater.

!!!!!! The unit clicked right on. and started heating. LOL

I let it heat through the maximum time before the IH unit's safety feature shuts it down, checking it often along the way.

The copper wrap got nice and hot but it just wasn't enough juice to heat the chamber to roast the load.

I put it back in past the shut-off 2 or 3 times and the copper wrap got real real hot. The test tube got pretty darn hot but the load only gave a little flavor. No vapor.

Pretty neat idea and it might work with some tweaking.

Thanks again.
 
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Egzoset

Egzoset

Banned
Salutations Hackerman,

Great way to share the fun, actually this was meant to resurface sooner or later anyway!...

:myday:

Egzoset said:

Any idea how hot the dental tools can get in this induction heater?
Click to expand...

Of course it works: it's been done already, just not yet!...

:cool:

My advice would be to stick to the original susceptor mass which this unit was designed for, as it shall affect its design inductance and hence determine captation of back-EMF from the secondary (sensor) coil.

Good day, have fun!! :peace:
 
Dynavaper

Dynavaper

Karma Farmer
I spent several hundred Euros on the original German device that yours is a copied version of and am surprised to see that yours works fine for you.

Mine did not. It was completely impossible to calibrate it for the mass of the Vapcap. It either overheated itself all of the time before the Vapcap was hot enough or did not heat it at all... Nothing in between and I spent days with it trying to make it work. Interesting that Chinese copies sometimes do a better job than the original.

I bought a used device (was already expensive enough) and maybe I was unlucky and catched a broken one. It works well with dentist tools though, so I assumed it does its job, just not for the Vapcap.
 
Egzoset

Egzoset

Banned
Salutations DynaVaper,

Dynavaper said:
It works well with dentist tools though, so I assumed it does its job, just not for the Vapcap.
Click to expand...

Here's what information was made available by LazyLathe in 2014 (...):

lazylathe said:
Voltage - 115V
Wattage - 100W
Amperage - 2A
Click to expand...

lazylathe said:
Initial testing at work shows that a 2mm thick stainless steel tool will heat up to 230 Degrees Celsius in about 5 seconds.
Click to expand...

Assuming a conversion efficiency of about 85 % we can expect the 100 Watts power consumption of a NoFlame (or some equivalent 3rd-party) IH driver used to translate as something like ~85 Watts of Induction Heat, probably less in absence of a flux concentrator. Anyway i regret there were no mentions of mass relatively to its associated 2 mm thick SS tool...

Egzoset said:
The ~0.8 g "susceptors" happen to weight nearly the same as a 1 mm thick x ~12.5 mm dia. 17-holes metal disc located in my fully-customized VaporGenie pipe...
Click to expand...

...while the DynaVap VapCap will make a 0.8 g susceptor, if i'm not mistaking.

Unfortunately, the way i see it, less than half of its available spiral contact-surface partly contains the inlet path where conductive and radiative heat vectors are created to convert into a more complex mix which includes convective heat as well.

So, unless the stem is glass i figure a non-trivial amount of power goes to wasted energy, in a situation with none to spare! Hence it seems to me failures are only to be expected when an experiment has fundamentally flawed foundations itself. Perhaps the combination of injected IH power and susceptor mass are more appropriate in this present/new case.

Good day, have fun!! :peace:
 
Egzoset

Egzoset

Banned
Salutations SkunkPort,

Skunkport said:
....ended up getting high in the 1960's...
Click to expand...

Hummm... Go figure, perhaps you've actually experienced some "anti-time episode" (e.g. time flowing backward), which might happen to be one side-effect of my LAVA concept. Remember, YMMV, proceed with caution!!

:science:

Given the particular circumstances i got to wonder if it even makes any sense to comment that's "better late than never", having confusing uncertainties about your "before" vs your "after"...

M'well, here's a record which came from FC's own time-line anyway. Practically 4 years ago on a linear time-frame:

Egzoset said:
Last but not least lets finish with a video that should illustrate the idea that magnetic coupling/shielding is no trivial matter in our particularily special context:

Click to expand...

Welcome back to the present, or past, or future-past! Whatever that was, is, euh... Will be, or used to be!...

Euh...

Good day, have fun!! :peace:
 
Egzoset,
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Abysmal Vapor

Abysmal Vapor

Supersniffer 2000 - robot fart detection device
@Hackerman Hey bro, i saw that you have an induction heater. I thought today that the older vapbong concept can work in it. I really wonder if is going to work good enough :). You could give it a try if you have the time :)).
imvapbong.jpg
vaporizador-vapbong.jpg
 
Abysmal Vapor

Abysmal Vapor

Supersniffer 2000 - robot fart detection device
Hackerman said:
I really like the looks of that. It it bigger than the Vaponic? Is it still available?

I will try some experiments with my Vaponic in the IH later today and let you know how it works
Click to expand...
It is the same size afair. IDK where can somebody get one. But it is an easy DIY ;).
 
Abysmal Vapor,
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