The Tempest by Mad Heaters & Phatpiggie

[Fearless Disaster]

I'm planning out batteries for my tempest and wand and would love some advice! I have heard that the wand works best with full batteries but i don't know what this means in real life. If you start out with a pair of fully charged batteries, how many bowls do you get before you would want fresh ones?

The usb-c port on the wand is nice but seems to be pretty slow so i'm thinking about getting 2 matched pairs of p30s for the wand. i just have no idea right now how long a pair effectively lasts! my wand came with aspire rewraps in it. I charge the wand to full with the usb port and during the first heatup the battery gauge drops to 50%. I don't know if its just the rewrap batteries or if the wand will load even top molicels like this during use? I am guessing its crappy batteries because a single 18650 molicel handles my TM2 just fine

 

[cybrguy]

I use almost exclusively molicels these days and they never last very long in my wand. 4 to 6 full heats maybe. More if I'm only reheating. I have always marveled at people who got many more heat ups than I did, but I have blamed it on my Wand. I have three pairs that I rotate through, so I always have something charged. And I always charge them in an external charger, in my case an XTAR.

 

[Fearless Disaster]

I use almost exclusively molicels these days and they never last very long in my wand. 4 to 6 full heats maybe. More if I'm only reheating. I have always marveled at people who got many more heat ups than I did, but I have blamed it on my Wand. I have three pairs that I rotate through, so I always have something charged. And I always charge them in an external charger, in my case an XTAR.

I use almost exclusively molicels these days and they never last very long in my wand. 4 to 6 full heats maybe. More if I'm only reheating. I have always marveled at people who got many more heat ups than I did, but I have blamed it on my Wand. I have three pairs that I rotate through, so I always have something charged. And I always charge them in an external charger, in my case an XTAR.

thank you! i'm guessing 2 pairs of batteries should meet my needs. i expect to mostly be rotating batteries at home and based on your advice i expect a single pair of batteries should do it for leaving the house, maybe both pairs if i'm gong to be smoking out a bunch of people

Edit, I have another question, thank you all for your patience! I looked down the cap and saw that the screen seems a bit off. here is a picture:

https://imgur.com/a/s1NF7IS

is the screen is supposed to be installed flat? shall i take it out, flatten it, and reinstall it?

 

[delta hotel]

thank you! i'm guessing 2 pairs of batteries should meet my needs. i expect to mostly be rotating batteries at home and based on your advice i expect a single pair of batteries should do it for leaving the house, maybe both pairs if i'm gong to be smoking out a bunch of people

Edit, I have another question, thank you all for your patience! I looked down the cap and saw that the screen seems a bit off. here is a picture:

https://imgur.com/a/s1NF7IS

is the screen is supposed to be installed flat? shall i take it out, flatten it, and reinstall it?

Looks correct, that's how it grabs the threads and secures down properly.

 

[General Disaster]

@Fearless Disaster
If you haven't already, check out the Tempest's Manual page (link to Manuals at bottom of MH webpages). It's very comprehensive, probably one of the best from a vape manufacturer. It should answer most questions fairly clearly:

Tempest Manual

madheaters.co.uk

[Disclaimer: Just to certify that @Fearless Disaster and I are in no way related, beyond us both being disasters! (and also, Disasters)]

 

[Musikchen]

i feel i already killed my wand with the tempest.
with new molicells it cant heat up.
gives that battery empty blinking or "error 01"
still works fine with dynavaps.
it was 2years old and dropped a few times.
i got a new one on the way but
@Brenyo still any plans for a Mad IH?

 

[666Honeybadger]

I charge the wand to full with the usb port and during the first heatup the battery gauge drops to 50%. I don't know if its just the rewrap batteries or if the wand will load even top molicels like this during use? I am guessing its crappy batteries because a single 18650 molicel handles my TM2 just fine

I found that the power drop on the wand display is not to be trusted too much. On newly charged batteries mine goes down to two bars (sometimes to one bar) during the first use but usually it climbs back up to three bars after use (and it continues to do so during a couple of bowls before settling on two for a while). The displayed power drop is more because it's temporary drawing a lot of power if i understood correctly.

Anyway: i use two pairs of dedicated molicel P28's in my wand and use it exclusively with the Tempest.
I've never counted (well i did but always lose count halfway) but i get like 10 (maybe a couple more) bowls out of one charge for sure.
Most (if not all) will be starting from cold and I never reheat the same bowl btw.
When it actually goes to zero bars during heatup i usually change the batteries (although they'll climb back up to one or two bars after use).
I've never had it run out of power during a heat up out so far.

I use almost exclusively molicels these days and they never last very long in my wand. 4 to 6 full heats maybe. More if I'm only reheating. I have always marveled at people who got many more heat ups than I did, but I have blamed it on my Wand. I have three pairs that I rotate through, so I always have something charged. And I always charge them in an external charger, in my case an XTAR.

4 to 6 sounds really low to me tbh.
Hope you are not marvelling to much at me, i take zero credit on the performance of my wand.
But, fwiw, i do think 6 is very low on average, so maybe your wand has some issues like you say?
Based on the reports/posts regarding the wand i would say 10 is a realistic average, but i realise i might be off here.

Edit:
the post from @Musikchen came while i was typing..
Not so good for my average...
But then again, there might be a problem with their wand due to the falling down?
I thought that most agree the wand does a pretty good job, it sure does for me.

 

[Fearless Disaster]

@Fearless Disaster
If you haven't already, check out the Tempest's Manual page (link to Manuals at bottom of MH webpages). It's very comprehensive, probably one of the best from a vape manufacturer. It should answer most questions fairly clearly:

Tempest Manual

madheaters.co.uk

[Disclaimer: Just to certify that @Fearless Disaster and I are in no way related, beyond us both being disasters! (and also, Disasters)]

I have read the manual and continue to refer to it, thanks Disaster Brother!

I found that the power drop on the wand display is not to be trusted too much. On newly charged batteries mine goes down to two bars (sometimes to one bar) during the first use but usually it climbs back up to three bars after use (and it continues to do so during a couple of bowls before settling on two for a while). The displayed power drop is more because it's temporary drawing a lot of power if i understood correctly.

Anyway: i use two pairs of dedicated molicel P28's in my wand and use it exclusively with the Tempest.
I've never counted (well i did but always lose count halfway) but i get like 10 (maybe a couple more) bowls out of one charge for sure.
Most (if not all) will be starting from cold and I never reheat the same bowl btw.
When it actually goes to zero bars during heatup i usually change the batteries (although they'll climb back up to one or two bars after use).
I've never had it run out of power during a heat up out so far.



4 to 6 sounds really low to me tbh.
Hope you are not marvelling to much at me, i take zero credit on the performance of my wand.
But, fwiw, i do think 6 is very low on average, so maybe your wand has some issues like you say?
Based on the reports/posts regarding the wand i would say 10 is a realistic average, but i realise i might be off here.

Edit:
the post from @Musikchen came while i was typing..
Not so good for my average...
But then again, there might be a problem with their wand due to the falling down?
I thought that most agree the wand does a pretty good job, it sure does for me.

Thank you! I think two matched pairs should cover me for quite a bit of use.

I gotta say, since it arrived I’ve been using the tempest almost exclusively. It is a really nice vape.

Also, I have a lot of experience with lithium ion batteries. I can add some general information about what is probably happening with the wand power indicator.

Typical there are two voltages to take into consideration. The voltages are the resting voltage of the cell and the loaded voltage of the cell. The cell might rest at say 3.8V but under a certain load might drop to 3.6,3.4,3.2 etc depending on the load.

Cells like the molicels have a very low internal resistance. This is supposed to reduce the voltage drop for a given load. Empty is when the loaded voltage of the cell passes a certain point like 2.8 V or so. So a cell with higher internal resistance will hit empty for a given load before a cell with lower internal resistance.

To me this suggests that the battery gauge on the wand is showing the loaded voltage of the cells during use which is great. What is interesting to me is that their load would pull a fresh pair of 35A rated batteries down to 1/2 right away. To me that suggests that either the power draw is larger than claimed, the batteries are weaker than claimed, or the display is off or not precise.

 

[cybrguy]

Hope you are not marvelling to much at me, i take zero credit on the performance of my wand.

No, I get it. There really isn't much that we can do to make the performance of the wand better or worse, other than the batteries we use or potentially the depth of the tip. What I'm marveling at really is what appears to be the inconsistency among the different Wands in performance. I use it enough that when I see a really good sale on it, I will probably buy a 2nd one to see if it performs better.

 

[TigoleBitties]

To me this suggests that the battery gauge on the wand is showing the loaded voltage of the cells during use which is great. What is interesting to me is that their load would pull a fresh pair of 35A rated batteries down to 1/2 right away. To me that suggests that either the power draw is larger than claimed, the batteries are weaker than claimed, or the display is off or not precise.

I suspect that one or some combination of all your theories could be in play. The display is certainly coarse with only 4 bars to represent a range of (roughly) 1.2V from 4V (fully charged) to 2.8V (discharged). If each bar represents 0.3V of that range then if a load pulls down the voltage down even 0.31V the display would have to remove 2 bars to represent this range from 0.3-0.6V discharged. I suppose this is what's happening when you see those bars crawl back up after using the Wand sometimes while the batteries recover.

I don't know if the average power draw on the Tempest as a load fits with the numbers above. If it doesn't then maybe the battery specs are off as you say. I do know that if you don't keep your batteries paired for use in the Wand, mismatched batteries will lead to suboptimal performance.

Edit: I forgot to say, all things considered, I love the Wand. Mine has worked flawlessly from the day I bought it and I've treated it pretty badly. Dropped it a lot. Left it out in the cold. Used mismatched batteries when I was in a jam. It's always served me well over 5 years now.

Now that I've mentioned this and jinxed everything, it probably just spontaneously combusted in my garage.

 

[Fearless Disaster]

I suspect that one or some combination of all your theories could be in play. The display is certainly coarse with only 4 bars to represent a range of (roughly) 1.2V from 4V (fully charged) to 2.8V (discharged). If each bar represents 0.3V of that range then if a load pulls down the voltage down even 0.31V the display would have to remove 2 bars to represent this range from 0.3-0.6V discharged. I suppose this is what's happening when you see those bars crawl back up after using the Wand sometimes while the batteries recover.

I don't know if the average power draw on the Tempest as a load fits with the numbers above. If it doesn't then maybe the battery specs are off as you say. I do know that if you don't keep your batteries paired for use in the Wand, mismatched batteries will lead to suboptimal performance.

Edit: I forgot to say, all things considered, I love the Wand. Mine has worked flawlessly from the day I bought it and I've treated it pretty badly. Dropped it a lot. Left it out in the cold. Used mismatched batteries when I was in a jam. It's always served me well over 5 years now.

Now that I've mentioned this and jinxed everything, it probably just spontaneously combusted in my garage.

Yes! Fun analysis aside, I am super happy with the wand after using it for a couple of days now. My last IH was a Fluxer Deluxe back from the age of artisan induction heaters. Despite its clear non-artisan-ness the wand has been pretty dang simple to use for very repeatable while fine tuneable results. I'm sure its the honeymoon period talking but last night i turned off the desktop ball vape timer after basically not using it since the tempest arrived.

 

[coolbreeze]

Yes! Fun analysis aside, I am super happy with the wand after using it for a couple of days now. My last IH was a Fluxer Deluxe back from the age of artisan induction heaters. Despite its clear non-artisan-ness the wand has been pretty dang simple to use for very repeatable while fine tuneable results. I'm sure its the honeymoon period talking but last night i turned off the desktop ball vape timer after basically not using it since the tempest arrived.

I wish someone could make a rebuild of the Fluxer Flite (& Flix). It works at least as well as the wand but is more robust, has an adjustable pulsing rate, etc. I consider it the best of the half-dozen or so IHs I have, and I really like the Wand.

 

[TigoleBitties]

I wish someone could make a rebuild of the Fluxer Flite (& Flix). It works at least as well as the wand but is more robust, has an adjustable pulsing rate, etc. I consider it the best of the half-dozen or so IHs I have, and I really like the Wand.

Everything I've read about the Fluxer series has been good although I've never owned one. One thing I like about the Wand is the ability to pass a load through the coil at an arbitrary depth since it's open on both ends.

I didn't know I'd ever need this feature when I bought the Wand but it has come in handy with the Tornado, allowing me to heat different parts of the tip and stem. If there are those who heat the Tempest freehand, it gives you the ability to focus the field on different parts of the tip and bowl should you want to.

 

[coolbreeze]

Everything I've read about the Fluxer series has been good although I've never owned one. One thing I like about the Wand is the ability to pass a load through the coil at an arbitrary depth since it's open on both ends.

Good point. Also the diameter goes beyond DV-only.

I didn't know I'd ever need this feature when I bought the Wand but it has come in handy with the Tornado, allowing me to heat different parts of the tip and stem.

Interesting! I haven't used it with the wand--I will have to try that!

If there are those who heat the Tempest freehand, it gives you the ability to focus the field on different parts of the tip and bowl should you want to.

I hadn't tried that either, just resting the ledge on the tip, turning slightly while it heats.

Thanks for this!

 

[TigoleBitties]

Good point. Also the diameter goes beyond DV-only.

Interesting! I haven't used it with the wand--I will have to try that!

I hadn't tried that either, just resting the ledge on the tip, turning slightly while it heats.

Thanks for this!

You're welcome! Although I maybe jumped the gun in assuming the Tempest head fits all the way through the Wand like the Tornado does.

Does it? Full disclosure, I don't have a Tempest.

Edit: Wouldn't be the first time I've posted while high

 

[coolbreeze]

You're welcome! Although I maybe jumped the gun in assuming the Tempest head fits all the way through the Wand like the Tornado does.

Does it? Full disclosure, I don't have a Tempest.

I think the Tempest does fit through, but for whatever reason I thought we were talking about the Stunner, lol. D'oh!

Just checked and the Stunner will just barely fit through cold...but it's so close I'm not sure I'd try to heat it tht way

 

[TigoleBitties]

I think the Tempest does fit through, but for whatever reason I thought we were talking about the Stunner, lol. D'oh!

Just checked and the Stunner will just barely fit through cold...but it's so close I'm not sure I'd try to heat it tht way

Yeah, better to not chance it if it's a really tight fit as the metal will expand when hot and could shatter the glass.

 

[General Disaster]

Not exactly sure what you mean about the pest fitting through the Wand.
The Tempest comes with a Wand adapter cup that sets how deep into the coils the pests head is positioned. If you meant the width of the Wand's coil (in it's housing) then it's going to fit the Tempest with ease, since the Tempest Wand adapter makes it narrower but the Tempest still has some wriggle room in the width.

 

[TigoleBitties]

Not exactly sure what you mean about the pest fitting through the Wand.
The Tempest comes with a Wand adapter cup that sets how deep into the coils the pests head is positioned. If you meant the width of the Wand's coil (in it's housing) then it's going to fit the Tempest with ease, since the Tempest Wand adapter makes it narrower but the Tempest still has some wriggle room in the width.

Yeah, what I was suggesting is to not use the Wand insert at all so the Tempest could be pushed through enough to heat the bowl area more, for example if you wanted to do that. It just allows for fluid control of the area you want inside the coil compared to most other IHs where you set a static level of depth.

For the Tornado, I found it useful to push the tip through the Wand and heat the second stage atomizer section of it located well below the bowl instead of the top of the device. I realize this feature may not be useful for all TEDs, but I know from reading this thread that the Tempest roasts are quite sensitive to insertion depth, so maybe changing it slightly during a heat cycle could give a user some dynamic control over the roast.

 

[General Disaster]

Yeah, what I was suggesting is to not use the Wand insert at all so the Tempest could be pushed through enough to heat the bowl area more, for example if you wanted to do that. It just allows for fluid control of the area you want inside the coil compared to most other IHs where you set a static level of depth.

For the Tornado, I found it useful to push the tip through the Wand and heat the second stage atomizer section of it located well below the bowl instead of the top of the device. I realize this feature may not be useful for all TEDs, but I know from reading this thread that the Tempest roasts are quite sensitive to insertion depth, so maybe changing it slightly during a heat cycle could give a user some dynamic control over the roast.

From my experience using the insert, it takes such a small change in position, like 1mm, to make a noticeable difference (and I couldn't hold the pest so steady as not to let it drift by 1mm or more), plus I suspect the 'pest is not designed to be heated much lower in the coil - MH make a point of showing the limits of what they recommend.
Of course that doesn't mean you won't get results you're happier with, but I for one find the cup insert to be an important part of getting precise and repeatable results with little effort, and MH seem to consider there to be an ideal zone to stick to (it is after all a convection device by nature, not conduction so much).
Plus it keeps vapour condensate out of the Wands coil area. I'm sure some are happy using it 'free-hand' as you suggest, but I'm totally good with using it as it's intended and sticking with the recommended set up, and get great results already; I'm not sure I've much to gain for the trouble of doing it 'manually' myself? Frankly, for me it'd be moving too much to have that accuracy of where I'm heating.

 

[cybrguy]

If anybody happens to see a good sale for the Wand, please shout it out. I got a super sale price of around 78 bucks delivered when I got mine, but that might be asking too much...

 

[HaggisHunter]

I found a shop in the UK who still have stock of the gen 1 revolve, which arrived the other day.
I got a raw/plain finish. Well happy.

Just ordered another bowl.
Can't wait for that to arrive, once the new bowl arrives, I have some anodising to do, hopefully I'll end up with a matching set of gen 1&2 revolves, and tempest in deep purple.

Not a massive fan of purple, but I think it's one of the best colours when anodising, that deep Cadburys chocolate purple, like the foil on the bars back in the day. Looks the dugs danglies.

Still using just one heater/head between them all, but that's all good. I don't mind the ball changes, they take seconds.

I'll chuck a photo up when they're all done.

I've actually been ripping a lot through bubblers recently, almost forgot just how good the tempests are through water.
I only have a large and mini globe, but they're both nearly perfect for it.

 

[modernblacksmith]

Which ball do you guys prefer?
I tried default, boro, ss and mix of boro with ss and I still think default are the best
Brenyo knew what to put as the default

 

[coolbreeze]

Which ball do you guys prefer?
I tried default, boro, ss and mix of boro with ss and I still think default are the best
Brenyo knew what to put as the default

I been happy with the default. Works great.

 

[RedZep]

I been happy with the default. Works great.

I tried all the others, then went back to Zirc. Most balanced choice imo.