By the way, wanted to say thanks again to MF for this thing. ... was able to get my glass, PA, and box fitted together without having to open my eyes! ... I'm really glad I have something that goes from cold to delivering in 5 seconds. 5 more minutes surely might have meant the difference between me being here and me puking and crying for hours...
Hi Quetzalcoatl,
Glad that it was of some help! Hope you feel completely restored soon.
... I recently wrote a 1200 word article on vaporizing by temperature in which I went to great lengths to dispel this myth. The popular temperature chart that floats around the interwebs encourages people to think that at temperature x you get y, and that's not what happens. ...
We agree -- the notion of temperature is at best only a rough indicator of what is going to happen when. The notion of available energy and the latent heat of vaporization, the available surface area, partial vapor pressures (when all of the various ingredients are in a mixture), composite surface tension with the plant matter, etc, etc, all have a complex effect on what exactly will be the proportions of which components will be in vapor form. Even when cycling the exact same temperature profile from one draw to the next, the mix of actives will change significantly -- lighter and more aromatic components will tend to predominate earlier and more sedative effects tend to predominate later.
In regards to the power supply and with batteries both, the voltages will tend to vary more widely in an open circuit situation then when in actual use in the Box. The high active current tends to pull the measured voltage down quite a bit in both situations. The overall situation is really about the delivered power (product of voltage and current) more than it is about either factor independently. To a large extent, the brightness of the light in the Box itself is actually a fairly reliable indicator of the amount of energy being delivered. Once you learn to recognize a certain brightness as being indicative of a characteristic performance in a given Box, the PA units tend to be fairly interchangeable (though dial settings may vary somewhat from PA to PA). It is very much the case though that different Box units will have different light brightness for "equivalent" performance (due to the nature of the parts, this cannot be helped).
-- Magic-Flight
PS: Those charts posted earlier were made with a battery.
Edit: Pakalolo; Any chance we can get a link to that article?