New TC mod - Invader mini - specs online!

[TheotherSteveS]

What mod is that on, an Invader Mini? Mine seems to be fairly accurate and produces results similar to what I see reported for dna boards. At 500 degrees I'd be burning the heck out of my liquid.

invader mini! 500F is 54 deg below the boiling point of VG although much higher than that of PG. nonetheless, i think we have to get around this idea that these are absolute temps. they may be close to the coil temp but hey dont represent the temp of the liquid since that has a heat of evaporation which consumes energy. IN theory, PG and VG should be producing all sorts of merry hell at 450F but Farsolinos has shown that this just doesnt happen! TC is just a better way of regulating your vape. The temp doesnt really matter in the sense that non-TC vaping is just like setting the temp to 3000F if you get my drift! I think this is why people have problems with TC in that they just cant bring themselves to set the temp above what they think is a 'safe' number. Its BS. Just set the thing so as you get the vape you want and give the mod enough watts to get there. If you set too high, it will regulte. Thats what is is supposed to do! And that is what they do in my experience.

 

[awsum140]

I am only commenting on what I have observed personally, and seen comments about. PG has a boiling point about 320 F and it will boil, even as a component of a liquid at 320 F or higher. Boiling indicates a very high evaporation rate which will leave residues on the coil. In my own case, vaping at 450 resulted in a fairly gunked coil after about 50ml. Using the same setup at 400 F has drastically reduced the gunking. Now this may be specific to the particular liquid I am using, but, to me, it would seem to indicate that higher temperatures result in more gunking.

 

[TheotherSteveS]

I am only commenting on what I have observed personally, and seen comments about. PG has a boiling point about 320 F and it will boil, even as a component of a liquid at 320 F or higher. Boiling indicates a very high evaporation rate which will leave residues on the coil. In my own case, vaping at 450 resulted in a fairly gunked coil after about 50ml. Using the same setup at 400 F has drastically reduced the gunking. Now this may be specific to the particular liquid I am using, but, to me, it would seem to indicate that higher temperatures result in more gunking.

i am not disagreeing just saying that each coil/setup is different. Even at 500F, the kanger coils give only a mildy warm vape. There is no way they are actually at 500F. They take ages to gunk up even at these 'temperatures'. Conversely, if I ran my magma rda at 500F it would probably explode even with a buiold at the same resistance....it just isnt consistent across different devices/builds etc is all I meant

 

[TheotherSteveS]

by the way, just to reiterate to those having problems with waking on the V1 invaders, the 'keep pressing until it comes on' method really seems to be robust. I have not experienced any issues since i strated doing this and it is clear that sometimes 6 or even 7 presses are necessary to get the thing going again!

 

[awsum140]

My trick with waking up if it doesn't turn on the first time is just to wait a few seconds, the give it another try. Usually works fine.

If those coils are working at 500 and if you used a Magma, or whatever at 500, and get a "fire", LOL, something is way off somewhere. 500 is 500. Just how physically big is the Kanger head/coil?

 

[TheBloke]

If those coils are working at 500 and if you used a Magma, or whatever at 500, and get a "fire", LOL, something is way off somewhere. 500 is 500.

Something is way off - the technology and its ability to reliably and repeatably gauge temperature with current equipment/setups.

500 is not 500 when it comes to TC - one device+build combo might be super hot at 400, another anaemic before 500. In reality that '400' will actually be getting much hotter and the '500' is cooler. Busardo demonstrates that in his Yihi SX Mini M review where he talks about setting his Squape and Kayfun4 at about 280, and then measuring them with his fancy FLIR temperature sensing camera to be well over 400°.

In his case he had a bad setup on the KF4 (apparently the stock KF4 requires you not to use the juice control ring with TC as it changes the tension on a spring which messes up resistance) but it does serve to demonstrate the myriad problems possible across the range of vaping hardware and builds we have/do.

There's a lot of factors, one of which is the inherent resistance of the atty and its connection to the mod and to the coil. That can often be as high as 0.03 which, with Ni200, can be equivalent to a temperature of 90°F. A Kayfun4 is again an example of an atty that has been measured to have a high static resistance - 0.03 was measured by a guy in my thread discussing vaping on non-Ni200 TC wires (link to his post.) That whole thread may be of interest if you've not seen it as it touches on a lot of these points in various places.

This is (yet another) reason to use Titanium whose starting resistance is much higher, such that static resistance in the surrounding devices cause less inaccuracy. Though the reduced Temperature Coefficient of Resistance of Titanium also means that there is less resistance rise to measure which counter balances some of that advantage, but not all - the coefficient is half that of Ni200 but the starting resistance can be up to four times higher.

Another possible alternative is the new Resistherm wire being popularised by Dicodes which has a similar coefficient to Titanium but is meant to be even easier to work with.

Anyway, yeah it's all very imperfect at this time And Ni200 coil heads are notorious as being among the worst for inaccurate temp sensing and thus needing strange temperature settings.

 

[Croak]

A Subtank is a good example of an atty that can have a high (or at least variable) static resistance. The pre-built Ni200 head has long legs that also suffer from much less solid mechanical contact than an RDA/RBA with screws, that then screws into the base and makes contact with a pin that is not solidly mounted. 500F is a pretty common setting for a lot of vapers that have tried those ST coils, but it's not really 500F where the coil meets the juice.

 

[TheotherSteveS]

Something is way off - the technology and its ability to reliably and repeatably gauge temperature with current equipment/setups.

500 is not 500 when it comes to TC - one device+build combo might be super hot at 400, another anaemic before 500. In reality that '400' will actually be getting much hotter and the '500' is cooler. Busardo demonstrates that in his Yihi SX Mini M review where he talks about setting his Squape and Kayfun4 at about 280, and then measuring them with his fancy FLIR temperature sensing camera to be well over 400°.

In his case he had a bad setup on the KF4 (apparently the stock KF4 requires you not to use the juice control ring with TC as it changes the tension on a spring which messes up resistance) but it does serve to demonstrate the myriad problems possible across the range of vaping hardware and builds we have/do.

There's a lot of factors, one of which is the inherent resistance of the atty and its connection to the mod and to the coil. That can often be as high as 0.03 which, with Ni200, can be equivalent to a temperature of 90°F. A Kayfun4 is again an example of an atty that has been measured to have a high static resistance - 0.03 was measured by a guy in my thread discussing vaping on non-Ni200 TC wires (link to his post.) That whole thread may be of interest if you've not seen it as it touches on a lot of these points in various places.

This is (yet another) reason to use Titanium whose starting resistance is much higher, such that static resistance in the surrounding devices cause less inaccuracy. Though the reduced Temperature Coefficient of Resistance of Titanium also means that there is less resistance rise to measure which counter balances some of that advantage, but not all - the coefficient is half that of Ni200 but the starting resistance can be up to four times higher.

Another possible alternative is the new Resistherm wire being popularised by Dicodes which has a similar coefficient to Titanium but is meant to be even easier to work with.

Anyway, yeah it's all very imperfect at this time And Ni200 coil heads are notorious as being among the worst for inaccurate temp sensing and thus needing strange temperature settings.

Absolutely. I think Croak has tried repeatedly to get people to not think of theses as absolute temperatures and he is totally right. To my mind this problem is really affecting how people look at TC vaping and a lot of people are being put off it because they cant get satisfying vape at at 'temperature' that seems 'reasonable' to them but which in the end is basically arbitrary and device/setup-dependent. Its a real shame!

 

[TheBloke]

Absolutely. I think Croak has tried repeatedly to get people to not think of theses as absolute temperatures and he is totally right. To my mind this problem is really affecting how people look at TC vaping and a lot of people are being put off it because they cant get satisfying vape at at 'temperature' that seems 'reasonable' to them but which in the end is basically arbitrary and device/setup-dependent. Its a real shame!

Yeah. The 'temperature gauge' is more like an arbitrary scale. It's actually helped me that I do all TC measurements in F - high F numbers are meaningless to me so it's really just like a scale of 300-500. It could be measuring "Juice Jiggling Tacons" for all the difference it makes

I guess this is why companies like iJoy are trying to get away from setting a temperature degree and instead are claiming to allow the user to just say "this is the vape I like; repeat it." Which sounds good in theory but I think introduces other issues - like the fact that you have to vape a few times first to find that point, suggesting initially uncontrolled vaping on wires like Ni200 and Ti. And the fact that, at least for those of us who understand the complexities, it's useful having a scale which can be remembered, shared and discussed. We can say to a user who just got a TC device "the ST coils probably need 500", because we have a standard scale. I'm not sure how that will work, if at all, with iJoy and similar devices.

Anyway it's all hugely in its infancy. Maybe Innokin will spark the next revolution with a temperature sensor in the actual atty. It sounds limiting in principle - "you'll have to pull my gold-diamond-plated authentic Kayfun-Double-Plus out of my cold, dead, Kanthal-stained fingers!" - but if it works it'll probably be no more than weeks before there's a host of compatible attys and clone mods and no more than months before it's the "standard" thing.

 

[awsum140]

Thanks for the comments on TC. Maybe that's why I am sticking with RTAs for temperature control, the inherently better connections that can be made to the coil. Working at resistances this low any, even slightly marginal, connection will produce questionable results. I will also speculate that IF the connections are good and solid, the temperature indication is fairly accurate, maybe not to the exact degree but at least a fairly close representation and not off by 100 degrees, say 25%.

I will be ordering some Titanium wire to see if it eliminates the metallic taste I am getting from Ni200. I never expected to be able to detect that, my taste buds are pretty much dead from far too many years of tobacco.

In the mean time I will say that the resistance of my builds has remained constant throughout their use which I take as a good sign and enjoy the heck out of the Invader Mini.

It also looks like the "next generation" of temperature control is about to hit the market. Innokin and a few others are talking about temperature control that includes any wire. While that may be theoretically possible I have to wonder what kind of resolution, and accuracy, is required for Kanthal and nichrome which both seem to have pretty stable resistance over a broad temperature range.

 

[TheBloke]

Yeah I've not bothered with Ni200 coils at all. I had one spare Smok one when I first got my Waidea Flask and I vaped on that for a day and it seemed OK, but I never bothered ordering any more after I heard all the issues people have with them in general. Even if they worked reliably, I always think of coil heads as a quick expedience, something to keep around for when I happen to find myself with no spare builds and I don't have time to get one done. Now and then I buy a few and keep them in a drawer and then I use one a week at most. I have a baggie of about 25 of them that I've kept planning to eventually re-coil/re-wick them to keep on standby for future use, but I never get around to it.

Great that you're entering the Titanium world! My taste buds are terrible too. In my case I can't even blame smoking, because I know they were never great even before I started. I don't notice different tastes from different wires particularly, just from different kinds of coils and Titanium enables a wider range of coils, eg contact.

Current thoughts on the Innokin mod is that the most likely explanation is that it's not only a mod but also a special (range of) tank(s) that have temperature sensing built in next to the coil. An IR thermometer type chip or something like that.

Resistance detection with Kanthal would require accuracy of at least one in 10,000 (ten times greater than current mods) and even then the static resistance of the atty would be equal or greater to the entire temperature range. With Kanthal that 0.03 in a KF4 is equivalent to temperature up to over 1000°F! Apparently resistance reading accuracy is possible up to one in 30,000 or even greater, but that's into the expensive professional arena. And even then I don't think it can overcome the static resistance issue, unless the user was required to first accurately measure that using a hard short - not something I can see any manufacturer ever recommending, even if they put multiple protections in the mod.

So it seems most likely that they will release a mod with one or more tanks and by using their tank on their mod you can detect the temperature using any type of wire. The question then becomes, will they offer that only with their own coil heads or will they allow it to work generically with any coil? If the latter, presumably there will be some limitations on size and placement to get it monitored by the sensor - or at least, the accuracy of the chip will vary within certain parameters, perhaps strict.

If they have got it to work it's a smart move - they'll sell a bunch of mods, tanks, and coil heads all in one go. How attractive it will be to us 'power users' I'm not sure, depends on how good the tanks are and how much flexibility we have in putting our own coils in - if any. TC with Kanthal is great in theory but not so much superior to other metals that I imagine I would want to give up using any coil I want, and certainly not such that I'd want to go back to coil heads exclusively. Not to mention having to buy not only a mod but also new tanks and hoping they provide the taste and features I expect from tanks in my existing collection.

Of course this is all extreme speculation, it could just be that they don't have it working with Kanthal at all - that it does normal TC with Ni and Ti and then with Kanthal it's some sort of 'simulated' crap like the Smok M80. They have specifically said it's not that so it would be surprising if it was, but you never know.

There's some more discussion on all these points in a new Innokin thread: Innokin announces temp control | E-Cigarette Forum

 

[jks89]

Haven't read the last few since I'm about to head out the door, but wanted to jump in for a moment. This may be partially due to wicking, but I found a HUGE difference between Ni200 and Ti wires. I got a spool of Spider Silk or Spider Wire (can't remember the exact name) from Envycig, which is 26g G1 Ti. The flavor was amazingly better, and I got a much more pleasant vape.

On top of that, I didn't practically pull the coil off while wicking, which was nice.

 

[awsum140]

I haven't had any problems wicking Ni200 with rayon, and that's 30 gauge, so I don't expect any problems with Ti. I guess that's a result of all the practice rebuilding CE3s with 32 gauge and wicking with rayon.

 

[jks89]

I went from using 26 or 28g Kanthal to using 30 or 32g Ni200, so that was definitely a bit of a transition.

So far I've been very happy with my Invader Mini. I've used it almost solely in TC mode, which is going a lot better now with Ti. 26g Ti, 8 spaced wraps, came in at .39, temp set at 390F. With Ni200 I had it set upwards of 550F and it still didn't really seem like it was warming, but I'm getting a nice warm vape with Ti.

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say when I was reading through the last couple pages, but I've totally lost it now. Oh well, guess it wasn't that important.

 

[jks89]

For anyone having issues with showing in temp mode when you should be in voltage, or the opposite, make sure your coil is tight.

After rewicking yesterday, resistance had changed from .16 to .22, and was randomly jumping back to voltage mode. Haven't had any issues since I tightened up the connection to my coil.

 

[awsum140]

Mine has been solid as a rock, modified Fogger V6. I have noticed the phantom "lost settings" phenomenon few times. Each time it was when the battery was getting really low so I'm guessing it is supply voltage related. The low battery warning is basically useless though, it doesn't stay on screen long enough to see it most of the time.

And that brings up another problem with TC mods in general. The displays are nice and informative, but you have to vape in front of a mirror to see what's going on while you're vaping or hang a long tube on the drip tip, which ruins the vape, so you can "remote" vape. Totally useless.

 

[TheBloke]

And that brings up another problem with TC mods in general. The displays are nice and informative, but you have to vape in front of a mirror to see what's going on while you're vaping or hang a long tube on the drip tip, which ruins the vape, so you can "remote" vape. Totally useless.

Three words: Vapor Flask (clone)

 

[TheotherSteveS]

And that brings up another problem with TC mods in general. The displays are nice and informative, but you have to vape in front of a mirror to see what's going on while you're vaping or hang a long tube on the drip tip, which ruins the vape, so you can "remote" vape. Totally useless.

errr....check out the display on the vaporshark lol!!

 

[TheotherSteveS]

actually it would be cool to have a bluetooth op[tion to send diaply to phone screen or whatever!! Hmmmm...I guess SMOK started off down that road before they started setting fire to unsuspecting vapers!!!

 

[jks89]

Mine has been solid as a rock, modified Fogger V6. I have noticed the phantom "lost settings" phenomenon few times. Each time it was when the battery was getting really low so I'm guessing it is supply voltage related. The low battery warning is basically useless though, it doesn't stay on screen long enough to see it most of the time.

Mine has been good overall. I've had the lost settings, but it does seem to remember my temp setting, just not watts. It also seems to be the same as the times where it doesn't want to turn on (have to just hit the button a bunch of times until it comes on).

And that brings up another problem with TC mods in general. The displays are nice and informative, but you have to vape in front of a mirror to see what's going on while you're vaping or hang a long tube on the drip tip, which ruins the vape, so you can "remote" vape. Totally useless.

I usually tell my wife "HEY WATCH THESE NUMBERS!"