Turbocad's finally selling mods :)

[turbocad6]

hey guys, ok an update on this current batch. all materials are in, all material has been cut to size and all material has gone though initial heat treatment, I am now working on machining the mod bodies and then will move on to doors and then faceplates by this weekend...

now there has recently been a brand new development in the DNA75 world, I did not know anything about this when this current batch started nor did I know anything about it when I ordered the whole batch of DNA75 chips for this current run, it was announced only about a week and a half ago, and for those that do not know, this new development I am talking about is the new DNA75C chip.

now I certainly do not want to complicate my life even more, and of course I could just continue to build everything in this batch with the "old" chip simply because I have already bought them and have deposits on them and really at this stage I do not want to cause any other further delays, BUT on the other hand I'm also guessing that there may actually be a few of you who like me, are just very excited about this new chip. I won't really get into all of the differences here between the new and the old chip I will leave that for another thread where we can go much deeper into all of the actual differences, but I will be offering the new DNA75C as an option on my mods going foward, and I'm starting to feel bad for those few who may be in this current run but really wish that they had known about the new chip before hand too, so in an effort to be as fair and accommodating as possible I am now considering allowing those who really want this the opportunity to upgrade to the new chip in this current run

now just a word here about price. I originally priced my mod at $490 after building the original prototype and calculating the amount of time and cost of materials that go into building a mod like this. since then I have added double heat treating cycles and vapor polishing and several other things that actually increase my costs and increase my labor and cycle times, but I never raised the price of my mod because I really didn't want to push the mod in to and over the $500 range tbh, but now this new chip does actually cost a bit more than the original and it will also require developing a new faceplate and buttons again, so honestly I have no choice but to charge an extra $49 for this OPTIONAL upgrade. I will NOT raise the base price of the base mod and I will continue to offer the original DNA75 mod at the original price, I will just be adding some optional upgrades to the menu and some upgrades may include an additional cost, such as this particular upgrade.

SO, who in the current batch of mods would like the opportunity to upgrade at this point to the new 75C chip? understand that this will be a $49 upgrade and may cause a slight delay because just to be fair I will be completing and sending out all of the original chip orders first if I have to, so anyone in this batch who does NOT want this upgrade will NOT be affected. the truth is if everyone wanted this upgrade I would probably be kinda screwed here, I hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot by trying to be accommodating to those few who are really excited for this new chip.

I do already have a few of these in my hands and I have a bunch more coming to me monday so there will be no real delay on that end, I just need to complete my design of the new chip faceplate cover and buttons which should be nailed down within a week or so. here are a few pics showing the new chip and a picture of how it differs by showing an old faceplate over the new chip on a prototype I built for testing. there will be zero effect on the overall size and shape of the mod, the screen is just slightly shorter and slightly wider than the original and there is now an extra button for select, the new chip does NOT make the existing chip obsolete in any way, shape or form, and the current chip will still be current, valid and still is every bit as good as it was before this new chip release and will still be supported by both me and evolv, the 75C is just an OPTIONAL upgrade, some will love it, some will hate it, I just want you to have the chance of deciding that for yourself

I can only leave this opportunity to upgrade in this batch open for a few days because at that point I will be up to machining faceplates and at that point no further changes will be possible so you have up until Sunday morning to request this upgrade in the current batch because by sunday afternoon I will probably be up to machining faceplates... remember its a $49 upgrade and it may cause your mod to be delayed by an extra week or more, the truth is they will all still go through most of the process together as a batch so there shouldn't be too much extra delay but if I have to choose I will push the original chip mods out first to not delay those who are already committed to that...

 

[turbocad6]

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* BAM V1 vs BAM V1C, what's the difference? *
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OK I've had a couple of people ask me questions like "is it worth it" or "is it a better chip" and "should I choose the new chip" so I figured a post here that goes over the differences between the 2 chips is in order

first of all the original DNA75 is an awesome chip. in my opinion Evolv really hit a home run with the DNA75, it's a very reliable and consistent chip and has a very low failure rate and it just works the way it should, it is just as awesome today as it was last month, I really like the new chip but honestly I don't think I'll be getting rid of any of my old chips just to replace with the new, I mean in the end they both pretty much do the same thing equally as well and both will give me a great vape, and once you look past all the little bells and whistles, in the end that's what really counts.

the short answer here is, if you are not a tinkerer and you just vape in wattage mode and don't even use temperature control and never really feel a need to even bother connecting to e-scribe then your not missing much, in some ways for a simple vapor the original may just be easier to use , it's a bit of a sleeker design, bit more streamlined and less busy looking therefore maybe a little more classy looking in a way. the original DNA75 is still an awesome chip and the 3 button design of the new chip is a bit cluttered and less attractive if you ask me, a necessary trade off, yeah, but in some ways the original is a just a sleeker better looking overall design to be honest...

now even if you do vape in temperature control, the original chip is also still just as great for that as it was last month too, but if you are a tinkerer with your vape and you often think about raising and lowering your pre heat and doing stuff that you find you are often connecting to escribe to do then the new chip starts to look way more appealing.

now if your a full blown geek and you love to tinker with stuff then this is where the new chip really starts to look like something that you just gotta have, don't think twice, this is a tinkers dream chip. you can change the graphics, change the menu's, choose from different "themes" or skins to change almost everything about how the mod menus look and work, this chip is the stuff wet dreams are made of for the real tinkerer or geeky type so you can only imagine how excited I was when I first laid eyes on this chip

I was on the phone Monday morning with Ken at Evolv begging to get my hands on one of these like right now!!!

as far as performance and specs, yeah the new chip is a bit better in some ways, it's brand new and of course it is better in some ways, the whole 9V vs 6V output thing is running around out there completely miss understood by most and some guys are just thinking oh I want 9 volts because 9 volts is better than 6 volts, but the truth is if you build your atty in the proper range then this is really not even so much of an issue or big limitation for you anyway and you won't even see any difference there for the most part. if you are always coming across ohms too high messages then you are someone who may benefit from the wider range of the new chip. that's the real difference in a nutshell, wider range, but if you stay in the right range anyway then this isn't as big of a deal as many make it out to be.

I will still be building the original chip versions and evolv will continue to sell the original chip version too for the foreseeable future is what I'm being told, the new chip is not a replacement for the original, it's an option or an alternative and both chips have there own set of pluses and minuses, the new chip is bad ... for sure but the original is still a rock solid reliable more minimal approach, either one can get you to a great vape

 

[Boxster]

Brandon from Evolve introduces the DNA-75C

http://www.tasteyourjuice.com/wordpress/archives/15306

 

[supertrunker]

"Old chip 6v, new one 9v, not much of an issue." Oh.

"build your atty in the proper range". Oh.

Interesting times when one treats a TC chip like a mech. But i do like the graphics.

T

 

[Irish Messing]

"build your atty in the proper range". Oh.

Interesting times when one treats a TC chip like a mech.

I was a little taken aback by this as well. I thought the whole "regulated thing" was greater control over all of that; sort of...without "having to think about all of the math". Granted, my first foray into regulated was only this past year or so with the DNA 200... TC was the main driving force behind even wanting to try it and yet what was the figure he quoted? Something like only ~20% of users even utilizing it? Interesting indeed.

 

[Jay Hannen]

Okay so the super_X_drifter youtube video dropped yesterday and my jaw literally dropped. I'm a huge fan of what the Italian Modders are doing but the BAM batch 3 just batted everything out the park and mic dropped IMO.

@turbocad6 I wanted to drop by and salute you sir, the last time i was "wowed" by sliding door action was as a child watching Star Trek The mix of creativity and ingenuity on BAM 3 is tangible.

 

[Boobsley]

I have to agree with Jay you certainly are making some of the finest mods available. Out of my price range at the moment, but someday.

 

[super_X_drifter]

Good eye @Jay Hannen
My short vid does very little (if any) justice to this mod. The third batch is as tight internally as any mod I've seen prolly tighter. The spring is genius. It and every piece of these mods are made by John except the 510, the chip and the wire.


The materials and aesthetics of these mods put them in their own class. Not to mention the robustness as well as craftsmanship. John is always working to improve his means and methods and third batch is world class. Can't imagine future batches and how sick they gonna be.

Oh I forgot to pop the vid in here. I'll make a new post for it.

 

[super_X_drifter]

The vid

 

[Jay Hannen]

ok guys an update.... so as I've mentioned before here the ultem is a very hard material and sanding it has always been a problem because it's so hard.

what happens is, naturally you start out with course sandpaper and then work your way up in the grits finer and finer. well by the time you get to ~6-800 or so it starts to look like a really nice satin finish BUT there are always invariably a few deeper scratches still that you can keep sanding and sanding but they're just not going to come out with 800 no matter what, so you wind up having to go back to 400 or 320 or sometimes even 220just to try to get these scratches out, but then wind up creating new ones in the process.... it's a real battle to try to get all of the scratches completely out and sometimes you just can't get them all out, so you do the best you can.

well I started thinking that maybe my biggest problem is that I'm sanding this stuff the same way I would be sanding wood or metal, but this stuff is really more like glass, so maybe if I sanded it like it was glass I might get better results....

so I ordered some silicon carbide and diamond wet sanding belts made for glass and I tried using that and wow, world of difference, but this sanding process is normally done wet, so I did wet the paper a bit and kept dipping the ultem in water and this showed me a few things...

#1 it showed me that ultem sands much more like glass than wood because I can see how much better it is sanding and looking, #2 is this showed me that just getting things a little wet isn't the answer because although it was sanding better it was also kinda clogging up the paper because now instead of sanding dust it kinda makes like a muddy slurry, and without a lot of water flowing to keep the sanding belt clear it just makes a paste that then causes problems in the finish as you go up higher in the grits... and #3 is it showed me that my sander itself is actually adding high and low spots which add to the scratches because the platten, which is the part on the sander that gets sanded against is not really flat, it is worn and has divots and uneven wavy spots... I couldn't even see these spots when sanding it dry, all I could see was scratches but now that it's sanding crystal clear these spots are just right there and easy to see and def a source of some of the problems....

anyway, to make a long story short I started sanding these like this last friday over a week ago and although it was immediately obvious that it was so much better, it was also obvious that it was still just not good enough..... I looked around at lapidary sanders that are used to sand glass and found out 2 things, 1 is they are very expensive and 2 is that it would take weeks to get one, so now what? do I just finish this batch out the old way now that I know there is a way to get so much better results? I really want to make this batch as good as it can be so what did I do? I took my belt sander apart and tried to see what I could do to "fix this"...

I figured I'd be able to do something to get this to work in a few days... well a few days turned into over a week, and just fixing my old sander turned into me building a whole new belt sander specifically designed for this. trust me I have been really hustling here to try to get this new sander built and I have been working really hard night and day this past week to finish this and now it's just about done...

this is why I have not sent out any final billing because I promised that I would send out final billing once the mods were ready for electronics install, but since I was still trying to get this sanding stuff done the mods were still not technically ready for electronics, so I delayed billing till the sanding problem was solved... and now it is...

the new sander is amazing..... variable speed with a really nice amount of constant flowing water to keep the diamond belt and the ultem cool and lubricated and a new ultra flat precision silicon carbide platten to sand against for truly flat as glass results, it's actually a night and day difference, I feel like the old way I was sanding these was like a cave man in comparison... I will get you some pictures of the new sander later, I'll be buttoning it all up tonight and I'll also be finally sending out billing later tonight too... I'm sorry for this little delay here but this new wet diamond sanding process is just going to make these a so much better finish now, trust me it will be worth the extra 9 day delay. again they were very nice before but they will be even better now... wet diamond sanding, who woulda thunk it?

sorry I don't have pictures yet just been trying so hard to finish this but figured I should at least take a little time out to update you guys, I will have pics soon, this new sander is an absolute beast

So all these wealthy people who buy paintings and hand crafted luxury items buy the end result. This is why I love custom mods. Right here we have the journey, the blood, the sweat, the tears. The evolution.

 

[supertrunker]

One does like to vape in the room with the Picasso and Van Gogh's ear (which i bought 30 years ago on sale), and the walls and artworks seem to need cleaning less than when i smoked.

How to make a small fortune: start with a large one and get married.

T

These are pretty cheap for custom mods btw.

 

[Giando]

Hey John,
as can see from your last photos, where you show the new dna75c, you were also testing the new batteries ... I'm really curious about this, please tell us how the tests are going and if in the near future we can already wait a BAM with new batteries ..? !! "?

 

[chance B]

Can i please be put on the list when it comes out

 

[rudy4653]

Armed & Dangerous!!!
BAM with new holster by Coffeebum
perfect fit!

 

[turbocad6]

nice rudy, looks good


Giando the new battery is pretty cool, it does offer a bit more vape time than the 18650 but they are still not readily available nor are they established enough in the market place yet for me to redesign my whole mod around it, when something is settled on as the new standard and is readily available then I would be more than happy to build a mod to suit but who knows, the new standard may wind up being something more like the 21700 so I don't want to build a betamax here.. 18650's are still very relevant and still very adequate for what we are doing here, the little bit of additional power is nice but it's not such a huge difference tbh. lipo mods and 20700 mods are a niche that is def cool not denying that but for now I pretty much sticking with the tried and true 18650.... seems to be a great match for what we are doing and also a great match for the bottle capacities we are using here

"Old chip 6v, new one 9v, not much of an issue." Oh.

"build your atty in the proper range". Oh.

Interesting times when one treats a TC chip like a mech. But i do like the graphics.

T

I was a little taken aback by this as well. I thought the whole "regulated thing" was greater control over all of that; sort of...without "having to think about all of the math". Granted, my first foray into regulated was only this past year or so with the DNA 200... TC was the main driving force behind even wanting to try it and yet what was the figure he quoted? Something like only ~20% of users even utilizing it? Interesting indeed.

yeah guys everything has limitations, just because it's a regulated mod does not mean that it can allow you an indefinite amount of adjustment, but regulated does def offer you a wide range of adjustment compared to say a mech. a mech does not allow for any adjustment at all so your power output is dictated strictly by the ohms of your coil combined with the battery input voltage. if you build a coil that gives you 25 watts at full battery power then that's it, there is nothing you can do past that, if you want to increase or decrease your wattage then you have to rebuild the coil to suit. a regulated allows you to build what would be lets say a 25 watt coil on a mech and then allows you to adjust it up or down from that 25 watts in a fairly wide range, so that otherwise 25 watt coil can be run at 12 watts or it can be run at 50 watts all at the touch of a few buttons. no you can not take a coil that would run at 12 watts on a mech and run it at 150 watts though, these are the limitations which is the actual range of adjustment.

the new chip just has a wider range so where before you may have been able to run a 15 watt on a mech coil up to 45 watts, now you can run that 15 watt coil al the way up to say 70 watts... these numbers are illustrative of the theory and not necessarily exact but it does just simply illustrate what I mean by the 9v output now allowing a wider range of adjustment. it also illustrates what I mean by if you build in the proper range then the wider range does nothing for you. why do you need to build a coil that would run at 12 watts on a mech and then run it at 75 watts? if you build the coil more suited to the proper range then you will still have all of the adjustment you need within reason, hope this clears that up some, I would have to start doing math and calculations to give you more precise exact numbers and ranges but the truth is a regulated mod just makes it that you really don't even have to bother with this in the first place within reason, unlike a mech

a mech is like a radio with a fixed volume control. the loudness is dictated solely by the ohms you build to, you can't lower nor raise the volume period. a regulated just simply gives you a volume control on that radio, you can make it louder or quieter depending on how you twist the volume knob. who wants a radio with a fixed volume? I mean that may be adequate in some situations sure, just set it to the volume you want and it stays there but tapers down as the power is depleted... now that may be suitable for some situations of course but having adjustability is something that I think more would appreciate, rather than just an always fixed volume. and lets not forget that the fixed volume scenario also includes a volume that deteriorates and gets all scratchy and static as the contacts degrade with simple use, unlike a regulated which has smooth stable volume throughout it's range without any constant deterioration of contacts

ok I'm working on finishing up the current batch of mods and I will be starting a new list within the week. I will contact those who asked for reminders but if you are interested in getting in on the current batch just let me know a few shots of the current batch in progress

 

[aarcoleo]

Hi John. Are there any in the current batch with the same arrangement as super x'es "batch" 3 not spoken for?

 

[turbocad6]

no these are all spoken for as pre orders, they are each built to the spec of who ever was in that batch requested. I build to spec for orders in each batch.

there are just way to many different possible combinations with all of the options I have for me to just pre-build mods to sell. they are not all the same and there are not just a couple of possible combo's here, there are literally thousands of different possible combinations between color choices and finish choices and left or right handed and then different squonk hole options and button choices and now even choice of chip too...

when you sign up for a mod in a batch I send you a menu that allows you to choose each option to your specific desire and then build it to your spec, this is really the only way I can do this while still offering so many different configurations and possible combo's

now I am starting to add options for white and blue delrin components too so again the possible combo's are up there, next batch will start to add clear acrylic door and chip covers in clear acrylic blue, red, green and smoked too so the possible combinations are in the many thousands of possible combo's

I used to build a couple of extra "generic" mods in standard common combos to sell but lately past few batches have just been full to capacity so I'm really not building extras to just sell randomly at this point for the most part

 

[aarcoleo]

Thanks for the heads up. Is the next batch filled?

 

[turbocad6]

no I'll be starting a list for the next batch in a couple of days here. I know people in general don't like to wait but the way I do these now it's kind of unavoidable. I take a deposit when the order is placed and then the balance doesn't become due until the mods are ready for the electronics to be installed. so far the last 3+ batches have all winded up being about 8 weeks start to finish but I keep hoping to get that down to around 6 weeks at this point. ideally I'd like to eventually get it to a 4 week cycle but that just hasn't happened yet I'm hoping next batch to be more in the 6 week range but hard to really promise, I originally hoped this current batch would only take 6 weeks too but I don't push these through just to get them done, honestly I don't mean to sound like an ... but truth is they just take what they take. if history and my track record is any indication then worse case it still shouldn't take much more than 8 weeks worse case and full payment isn't due until approx. 2/3rds of the way through the batch

 

[aarcoleo]

Thank you for the details. We'll keep present awaiting your notification. Thanks again!