I've got chalice II's and III's and man these things are spectacular. the I & II's are the same functionality wise, only differ in cosmetics but the III is a new design. the I & II's are built to be used with a Z coil. the reason it's called a Z coil is because that's pretty much what it looks like from the top down with a coil in place between the posts. the complication there for me is that the airflow comes in from the side and is not directed right at the coil. you can't get a Z coil setup to be right at the air inlet hole. the chamber is so tiny that even with the coil slightly further from the air inlet it still vapes great BUT because the coil is a few mm's away from the air entrance this is equivalent to building any other atty with the coil slightly back away from the air inlet. this works fine and many people really love it but for me having the coil anywhere but directly in front of the inlet hole adds throat hit to the
vape. if you like throat hit the chalice I & II are spectacular. if you are however like me, one who hates any throat hit at all then it can be a little weird for you.
it is very possible to build a side mounted coil in the chalice I & II but it is a little tricky as the post holes are really not ideal for that, so the coil winds up instead of a Z configuration, it actually winds up looking more like a 2 as one leg will have to wrap half way around one of the posts.
heres a shot of a chalice II with a side mounted coil. this is triple twisted ribbon wire ala mundy's magic. you can see the leg on the left has to actually go around to the back of the post on the left to be inserted
and here is how it's actually designed to sit in there
here's a few more shots of side mounted coils for the I & II
as you can see it's not very difficult to get the coil to be right at the air inlet, although it really wasn't designed that way
I tried to really push mark to reconsider the Z coil mounting and to make the new design more readily able to put the coil at the airhole. it wasn't easy because it seems that mark along with most people in that thread really love the Z coil setup for some strange reason. I showed pictures and comparisons to any other atty regarded as flavor kings and really pushed for it and thankfully the new chalice has corrected this finally
that and adjustable airflow were the only 2 flaws in an otherwise amazing atty, so amazing that even the Z coil config didn't stop it from still being my favorite single coil atty, but now that these 2 flaws have been corrected the chalice is in my opinion the best single coil atty ever made when it comes to tight flavor chasing atties...
now when it came to the chalice II I decided to modify one of mine to try and get it to work better for me with a Z coil so what I did was drill another hole in the rear of the cap, making it have airflow from both the front and the rear and that really cut down on the throat hit quite a bit, enough that I could now enjoy even a Z, but in drilling a second 1/16th hole I now winded up making it a little too airy for peak flavor so now it vaped awesome even with the z but it started leaning more towards a cloud chaser rather than a peak flavor atty so I made an airflow ring for it so I can reduce the airflow a bit but still keep dual air inlets. honestly in this configuration the chalice II is really spectacular. air flow on both sides of the coil eliminates any stagnant pockets in the airflow which I believe contribute to throat hit and being able to open the total airflow up to slightly more than a single 1/16th hole has made this thing sing like an angel.
heres a few pics of that setup. this is Ni200 nickel wire on a dna40 so I had to up the diameter of the coil a bit and stretch it out, making the air inlets even closer to the coil than a conventional Z would be. this setup is literally the best single coil I've ever vaped
I had to machine a relief in the chalice for the airflow ring I made. chucking that thing up in a lathe and cutting into it was pretty nerve racking but in the end it worked out the way I had hoped
and here is the airflow ring. I did it in brass because this atty had permanent residence on my woody with brass trim and it just tied it in that much better for me
and heres how the airflow is now, coil is still pretty far from the air inlets but by being on both sides it works as well as if the coil was right at the airhole
then I made a wide bore minimal drip tip which improved the flavor even slightly more because I noticed it vaped best with no driptip but I won't run it without any tip at all. this one is just enough to protect my teeth while not interfering with airflow in any way. the coil is just right there and the vape is awesome
now the only slight problem for me is that I winded up spoiling myself with that dual inlet chalice. the chalice III is an amazing vape but now since being able to compare this modded II directly against the stock III it has made me now wish for just a little more airflow on the III. I'm hesitant to start chopping up a chalice III to increase airflow a bit but honestly it's almost inevitable that eventually I will.
I hope this post helps clarify the differences in airflow between the I/II and III, I'm posting it here rather than the MB thread because I don't think mark likes seeing his masterpieces chopped up and modified, Robs already used to seeing me chop up his masterpieces though so figured I'd post it here instead
