Yeah, this is developping awesomely and wholesomely!
Now I feel like a dick for posting some smartass comment earlier.
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Loving the evolution we’re already seeing! I’m definitely curious how the proposed changes will affect costs but it looks like some solid refinement happening so far!
This is definitely one of the most intriguing vapes we’ve seen.
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@ForgeHavenVape are the sessions getting better for you as you speed them up and turn up the heat? is the taste better or worse? are the clouds thicker or thinner?
Great job on the 3-4 minute improvement!
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are the sessions getting better for you as you speed them up and turn up the heat? is the taste better or worse? are the clouds thicker or thinner?
Great job on the 3-4 minute improvement!
Thank you!
The sessions are way better at higher temps.. Actually getting big clouds. Maybe the faster heat up will help with terps too.. longer wait times give volatiles a chance to condense on cold surfaces like the mouthpiece while you wait. We shall see if it’s noticable though. When you use a volcano bag, theres plenty of residence time for the terps to condense and I guess it works out fine there?
I’ve been working on the new PCB to support higher power. I’m not sure if the faster manual session was better, but it did taste good. It’s not easy to get it right turning knobs, but I’m looking forward to dialing in those faster recipes when my new controller gets here.
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Quite the quality list of vapes, interested in seeing more on this but id suggest maybe testing some higher end more relevant vapes before releasing a 600 dollar device.
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This is really neat! It’s got me thinking about those drinking bird desk toys, which are colored alcohol inside of evacuated glass. If you hold the glass in your hand, body heat is sufficient to boil the alcohol.
Under vacuum, the difference between boiling and evaporating is academic. Less heat is required for vaporization because the evacuated chamber isn’t pusing back on the herb with 14.7 psi at sea level.
If you’ve studied chemistry you’ll have encountered the Triple Point concept, the temperature/pressure combos where a substance can exist in all three phases at once.
All of this is a long way around to making the point that THC will also vaporize at lower temps under vacuum, like anything else. So to those worried about extraction efficiency the same applies to just about everything in the flower, save for compounds that require combustion-ish temps to gas off. And we don’t want that stuff, anyway!
This concept of low temp low pressure vaping has legs, I think. It’s also got me thinking about how to convert something like a manual lever action espresso machine for increasing yield when making AVB tinctures. That’d use HIGH pressure to force solvent deeper into the material.
Or I could grind it all to dust and struggle through filtering at the end.
Anyhoo, neat stuff. Keep going!
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Latest trip report:
- 3-4min preheat to 160C
- Insert bowl and pump down to -.5bar, ramp heat up to 180C and bake for 5 minutes
- After the bake period, the chamber is back to atmospheric pressure with 50% air and 50% vapor.
- Unseal and rip or unplug and take it outside
Preheat the oven while you get everything ready, insert and pump down, then bake out until vapor builds up. The 5 mins is optional. If you want to just use it like a convection vape then just unseal at temp and go.. but whats the rush 
There are so many dose and pressure/temperature combinations to try I cant say what is best but I’m seeing it makes sense to match the pump down with dose. For example, for a .05g dose, you dont need to evacuate all the air since you wont fill up the entire cup anyway. -.3bar is okay. For party bowls like .5g-1g, pumping all the way down helps to let you know it’s fully primed.
What is always reliable is the pressure indicating when vapor is on tap. You know you emptied half the cup and when it hits zero, I’ve stored X molecules of vapor. No guessing if you picked the right temperature. The vapor is there.
Long slow heat ups make for really nice cool smooth flavor and higher temps are good for ripping.
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What about using something similar to the hit tracking sheets @420vapezone made? That way you could just look back and see how well various combinations worked.
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Good idea. I think I need some beta testers though. Can’t be me since my baby is perfect and could do nothing wrong 
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I would volunteer as tribute but couldn’t swing a $600+ price tag to beta test. It’s been encouraging to see how this is coming along!
Makes sense… I lowered it to 450 for beta, but I think once I complete the power upgrade, if anyone is interested in true beta testing let me know beta@primalengineered.com. We can work out discount/loaners or something in exchange for active feedback/reviews etc… just need others to experience this and call BS or let me know you like it.
The upgrade is going to take some time since the PCB needs redesign (1-2 weeks), then it takes 4-5 weeks to make a new PCB, then I need to update/test firmware.
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if you’re looking for actual feedback and a review id be interested in a potential loaner but my reviews take around 3 months from start to finish. If you want someone to call BS I’m the guy.
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I love the idea of this project, I’ve been wanting a vaporizer that utilizes active vacuum during the heat cycle for years.
Looking closely at the videos you have using this thing there are a few things that I might try to implement if I were designing this. The seal for the (test tube-like) chamber, I would see about extending the metal a bit to allow for a 2 o-ring seal. I’m sure that it seals fine with only one as its such a small volume that much of any pump could overcome any leak from imperfect seals. But a dual o-ring seal feels more secure and is less prone to being inserted crooked. It may make the fitment of that seal feel more secure/premium.
Possibly changing the “mouth piece” to a male 14mm ground joint, could maintain it’s current function. But would increase the options for how people could play around with different ways to use it.
I also think the design lends itself to trying different air flow holes in the test tube. Maybe holes along the walls of the test tube could get a more even roast (although that doesn’t seem like it’s an issue). Or holes above the herb might change the fluid dynamics enough change how it hits.
Ensuring that any heavy ware parts (seals, o-rings, glass parts) are as easy to source as possible, is something that I take in to the calculus when buying something expensive. If I know that I can buy the O-rings, seals, power cord, glass components from many sources helps to ensure that if the product becomes discontinued or changes that I can still keep the device alive.
I always love to see some sort of programmable heat curves with real-time temp feedback. Obviously not necessary and could easily be to expensive of a rework to even be a consideration. But tinkering with accessories and heating profiles is one of the things that keeps me reaching for vapes that otherwise might have just sat on a shelf.
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