I have been using my Evo without the Delrin sleeve now for a couple days. I can't even begin to describe how big of a difference this had made to my sessions. I am getting huge clouds without the sleeve and getting thoroughly medicated. Best part is how fast a cold bowl will heat up from a cold start without the sleeve. As long as I give a 20-30 sec primer I am gettin huge hits!
I've been testing since I first posted the message about directly connecting the mouthpiece to the Evo instead of via the Delrin sleeve, refining my technique and learning the ins and outs of the Evo, and at least once a day I try the standard Delrin sleeve again, and I still can't get the Evo to work well this way, and I still have no idea why. My Evo works great with the direct connect. I have also found that using the Evo this way allows me a tremendous amount of control. By varying my breathing technique and modulating the power switch, I can make a load five or six "HUGE HITS" or eight or nine normal hits, depending on my desires. This is the first time I have been able to duplicate what Tim and the TV gang were talking about with regard to saving battery life and getting the perfect size hits by modulating the power switch.
I use a modified Delrin sleeve, with the top "cut off", (see jam's message with pictures; I did exactly the same thing), to prevent burning myself when overly medicated, but still allowing the direct connection of the mouthpiece.
I have found zero difference with and without the modified sleeve, other then it saves my fingers. So I use it all the time.
I did find that two of my 16 batteries were not up to snuff. It was totally messing with my testing, as I would have "everything figured out" and then all of a sudden I would get completely different (unsatisfactory) results. Once I took the two weak batteries out of the rotation, all was well again.
Battery awareness and maintenance is going to be an ongoing "problem" for everyone, as we take more and more life our of our batteries. We really beat the shit out of our batteries with the load the TVs draw. And maybe more significantly, we not only heat the batteries up severely every time we use them, we also regularly discharge them to the absolute minimum (or less, if the Tenergy cells don't have low voltage cutoff protection built in). I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk about recognizing when a battery is due for the recycling bin.
And speaking of batteries, I've just invested in a smart charger, which will not only charge multiple batteries at once (this one up to six), but will safely charge them much faster (15 minutes to a half hour from dead to fully charged). It will also evaluate the cells, and will tell me when it's time to retire a given battery, and save me from the frustration of not knowing why my T1/Evo isn't working properly and from wasting a bunch of weed. Dead batteries are easy to recognise, but underperforming batteries are hard to detect as they still work well enough to heat up the core, just not enough. And if you're using a two cell standard voltage setup, the good cell will further trash the weak cell every time you use it. Then we mistakenly blame everything else on our poor results, because the batteries "must be ok" because they make the core glow.
Though smart chargers can run a LOT of money (hundreds of dollars), they can also be had cheaply. There's a wonderful charger put out by Thunder (AC6) that is well suited for our needs. It can charge from one to six cells of any type (LiIo, LiPo, LiFe, NiMH, NiCad, Pb), has a built in AC adapter, hooks up to your computer if you want, to give you graphs and a record of each of your cells, and only costs $45. (Note that you do have to build your own charging holders for whatever batteries you have, but it's pretty easy to do). I'll post pictures and info when all of the different parts finally get here. For those that have multiple types and sizes of batteries for all their different vaporizers, I would think a single great charger would be a no brainer. There are even smart chargers that can charge different chemistry batteries at the same time (though not for $45).