Hah, wow, you guys managed to find some really cool battery packs! That $17 4500mah is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Something where you don't have to charge the individual cells, you just charge the whole pack, and it's cheap! Very cool. I might try to see if I can find a wholesaler for those, so that they could be ordered and shipped with a VK without adding too much cost overhead, and save you all on the shipping costs. Supplying 18650s plus a pack seems like it's just too expensive, so this will be a much better compromise.
The white one with the 0.5 increments is pretty cool too, I imagine if you're happy at 12v or 12.5v you'd be good with just that alone, although, I can tell you for sure that sometimes 0.5V can be the difference between combusting and not combusting! I'll sometimes keep my glass core HI around 12.5v, but I never run my UD or SS-core HI that hot, they would combust on me, no doubt! That unit also seems to require you to bring your own batteries, which is a little more complicated than the solution I've been looking for, but still, pretty cool.
I'm really interested in how people are using the battery packs with their VK, as it might give me some ideas as to how to get things smaller and more practical. And of course, the idea has crossed my mind to make a combined VK+Battery pack, it's most certainly possible, but finding the right battery pack is key.
When I moved out to Colorado, my old linear/non-regulated 12v supply was running maybe just 0.3-0.5v too high, our line voltage out here was just high enough to make the output voltage of the power supply higher as well. I get something like 120-121v out of the wall here, versus around 114-117v at my old house. With an unregulated supply, that was all it took to create some serious issues with combustion on my UD, and that's actually what inspired me to come up with the VK!
Now that I have a glass core HI, I've got some new preferred settings:
For the UD, I usually run it around 11.8-12v. Anything much over 12.2 was causing me to combust, like in my story above with the linear supply, it was running it at around 12.25v.
For a SS core HI, I usually like it around 11.74V.
For the Glass core HI = 12.25-12.45v seems to work well for me. These units gain and lose heat much more quickly than the stainless cores, so I'll bump it up sometimes after using it, then lower it again. Still, my current favorite way to start a roast! You can literally smush the glass core into your herb and it's still nearly impossible to combust.
I usually start the roast with the glass core, then use the SS core HI or the UD to finish it off. The stainless cores of the UD and SS HI are able to stay a bit hotter which is nice for finishing a roast.
Simply having two identical log vapes set to two different temperatures would probably have a similar effect. It's nice having a 2nd one ready to go, at a hotter temperature, since you'll usually immediately get vapor even if you couldn't get a thing off the cooler-running vape (or glass core.)
Regarding portable/mobile usage, I have to admit, I just recently got myself a new pen vape made by a local company (to me) in Denver, charges via a microUSB port, in terms of portability, no log vape + battery pack (even if it's a combined battery pack+regulator) will ever be able to really compete with that in terms of size and portability! Of course, they tend to work best with oils and waxes and such, but the one I have even has an attachment for vaping flowers! I still prefer the log vapes overall for flowers though, those pen vapes just don't have enough juice to do them justice. My favorite thing about log vapes is the 24/7 aspect, you can just have them running all the time, always ready to go, the chamber size isn't too large or too small (I vastly prefer the smaller core size of the log vapes versus some of the 18mm GonG/whip style vapes, I have a few of those as well, those roasting bowls are just too big for my taste and require a lot more stirring.) I've also been a bit into dabbing lately, so I've been all over the place! I've got an extensive collection of glass that most of this stuff gets used with, some day I'll have to post some action shots of some of the crazy things I do and attachments I've made! I've even got a new custom 18mm gong + cork thing that Alan and I came up with using some glass pieces I found on ebay, it's pretty nifty!
I decided to go with the 10-turn, 15v potentiometer, blue screen, clear case with the pot being top mounted. Really looking forward to the flexibility that this unit will bring. Cheers.
. The amount of control and precision I was getting from it last night was fantastic. I was surprised at just how much of a difference even small increments make. But I don't know much about electronics so maybe it was just me. With just a little bit of "nimbleness," you can easily dial into what you want.
