One of the projects that I've been working on is doing the bowls on a 5 axis CNC router. It all starts with a block of wood and ends up with a pipe bowl. There are different designs I want to try.
Building Custom Pipes
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An update for the Springfield pipes. Worked on a new battery holder. The electronics are going to be molded into the battery holder. Made a test mold out of rubber to start with. The new battery holder will have a vape Safe in it.
I need to update this thread more often. I finished the new battery holder. Now all the electronics are molded into the battery holder and you can use a VapeSafe in it. The whole electronic pakage still comes out of the pipe by removing three screws. Makes for a much better package and it looks better.
Some of the first run, of the new Springfields with VapeSafe, sold to the ePF members. How cool is that.
I don't know how I missed this thread! I miss my pipe now and again, haven't smoked one since college, but would love to get my hands on one of these. I think the straight pipes are the bees knees, very nice work.
From reading through the thread am I to understand they they provide regulated, straight voltage to the atty? So depending on fully charged battery it'd be 3.7/4.2V into your 1+ohm atty. What woods have you been working with primarily? I'd love to see one in some desert ironwood. How's the weight and balance?
Apologies for the question barrage.
From reading through the thread am I to understand they they provide regulated, straight voltage to the atty? So depending on fully charged battery it'd be 3.7/4.2V into your 1+ohm atty. What woods have you been working with primarily? I'd love to see one in some desert ironwood. How's the weight and balance?
Apologies for the question barrage.
Ask all the questions you would like. The electronics tries to keep the circuit in balance. It will not let you put more then 3.7 volts to the atty and it will not let the battery discharge any faster then it's condition will allow, down to 3.1 volts. You can use a 2.5ohm, down to a 1 ohm coil. I find a 1.8 ohm, cotton wick, in a Protank mini works great. The bowls are all made out of Ancient Kauri from New Zealand. It is 40,000 years old wood. See the link. Ancient Kauri Wood Oldest Workable Wood in World The bowls are then soaked in a ploymer to make them waterproof. They come out all different colors. The pipes weighs in at 5oz and most of the weight is in the bowl where the battery is. Makes it hard to hold it in your teeth.
A couple of new Springfields for ECF members Yeahitsme and Kiryn. One wanted a light colored bowl and the other wanted a dark bowl.
Have a few to show off that are different. One is a matte finish with a bushed stainless steel beauty ring and matte finished stem. The other is made out of 100 year old black walnut that was given to the customer by his father. Two ever nice pipes and they were fun to make.
One more thing to share is the load tester I built. I now can test the circuit board before I ship any of my pipes for leakage at rest and voltage cut-off when the pipe is over loaded. Plus normal operation. I can also load test batteries. That has turned out to be very interesting.
I'm going to do a little history on Springfield Custom Pipes. It's been one year since I started this quest to build an all auto, touch e-pipe. I've done most of my builds and development out in the open, on the forums, for people to see. This was two fold. One, I don't pretend to know all there is to know about the vape industry, so I get to ask for other peoples opinions. Two, it's just fun to do builds on the forums. So I get to learn and have fun all at the same time. Let me tell you, I've learned a lot and there is much more to go. This week I'm going to do a picture history with a few stories to tie it all together. To start with is what started this whole thing. I built myself a manual pipe using an old pipe I had. Very simple design with a C-4 in the stem. I took this pipe with me where ever I went. For 6 months it got knocked around as you can see. It was Labor Day weekend 2013 I decide I would build a auto touch pipe for myself. More tomorrow.
The first step in making an auto pipe was to come up with a circuit that would work. There was a few things that I wanted it to do. It had to be strong. Not this, vape for 2 seconds, then wait 5 minutes for it to cool down, then take another hit. I didn't want it to stress the battery. It needed to be a balanced circuit where the battery could only put out what it had to give safely. Last was the touch circuit, where you touch a pad on the bowl and the pipe fires when you put it in your mouth. There needed to be a wire in the stem. I built a lot of circuits on bread boards before I came up with one I liked.
I'm a real hands on guy so I like to build models of what I want to make. I did this cheap with wood and some 4-40 all thread rod. Made a quick PC board and just like that I had a working proto-type. I put a battery in it and it still works today.
I'm a real hands on guy so I like to build models of what I want to make. I did this cheap with wood and some 4-40 all thread rod. Made a quick PC board and just like that I had a working proto-type. I put a battery in it and it still works today.
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I started out with a two piece battery holder and circuit board that fitted into it. Three wires ran to the top of the battery holder. Touch pad wire, positive wire and ground. The idea was that you could undo the wires and remove the electronics for repairs if needed. The problem was that it looked to cluttered on top and it was hard to get everything put together. The good thing was that it worked.
The final outcome of some auto fire problems was to encase the whole works in plastic. This meant molding all the electronics inside the the battery holder as one unit. That included the battery spring in the bottom of the holder. The two 510 connector wires come out the bottom and are sealed. The touch pad wire goes up the side of the battery holder and mounts on top with a gold wire ring. The bottom of the new battery holders need to be trimmed when they come out of the mold. The 510 connector is soldered on before it is molded.
So, start to finish was about seven months and a untold amount of money that the wife never saw go out the door. The all in one molded battery holder will take a VapeSafe and if you look there is a 1/8" post coming out of bottom of the holder. This is a compression strut that is soldered to the circuit board, that sits on the bottom of the bowl. One it gives room for the wires and two, when you push down on the battery you are not pushing on the circuit board but, the bottom of the bowl.
One little thing you can't see but really helps is, there's about .050 of lead-in hole on both post in the battery holder. Being 2-56 screws, it's hard for these big fingers to get in there and hold them center so you can start to turn them. Add a wire connector and positive tab make it even harder. With the lead-ins all you do is drop it in the holes, put the screw driver on it and turn. If it won't go, turn the other direction. Little things you will find in a Springfield.
Next step was to come up with a EGO connector that the stem could mate too. Using the bayonet connection seemed to be the way to go. Didn't want to screw it on or push it on so, that is what was left. To start with was a fixed contact point and EGO 12mm x .5mm threads.
It worked good but, with a .5mm pitch thread you could over tightening your atty and split the insulator in it. So the next style was an adjustable center pin. You would have to loosing the set screw, screw the tank on until it almost bottomed out, tighten the set screw and finish putting the tank on. At this time I added the 510 threads. It turned out to be a PITA always adjusting the center post.
The final design was the spring loaded center post. It has 10 in/lb of pressure on the center pin. This makes good contact and won't break out the insulator. Nothing to adjust, just screw the tank on until it stops, done. The 510 threads also have a lead-in of .050 so you don't have to try and center it.
All stages from the first to the last.
It worked good but, with a .5mm pitch thread you could over tightening your atty and split the insulator in it. So the next style was an adjustable center pin. You would have to loosing the set screw, screw the tank on until it almost bottomed out, tighten the set screw and finish putting the tank on. At this time I added the 510 threads. It turned out to be a PITA always adjusting the center post.
The final design was the spring loaded center post. It has 10 in/lb of pressure on the center pin. This makes good contact and won't break out the insulator. Nothing to adjust, just screw the tank on until it stops, done. The 510 threads also have a lead-in of .050 so you don't have to try and center it.
All stages from the first to the last.
Need to finish this. The bowls have gone through some changes over the year. Started out with a straight tall style. This was because I was doing them by hand. Now I do them with a CNC router and can round them out to look more like a pipe. The last change I made was to make the bowl taller to fit in the Vapesafe. I think this was an important improvement.
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