Odd user interface

[Giraut]

Is it just me or is the whole idea of variable voltage (or in the case of my iTaste PV, variable power) a convoluted, indirect way of achieving one single thing, which is vapor density?

The engineer in me keeps thinking vapor density is really what the user wants to control at the end of the day. My own usage, for instance, is this: in the morning, I want a light vapor to start out the day nice and smooth. After a meal, while I drink my coffee, I want a little thicker vapor. And in the evening, if I drink a glass of strong booze, I want a really thick, heavy vapor to go with it. That's all I really care about, not atomizer coil resistance, voltage, power, whether the tank is empty or full...

With vv devices, depending on the coil's resistance, you have to play with the voltage to achieve a certain power, to achieve a certain coil temperature, to achieve a certain vapor density. All this depends on the coil's geometry, temperature, wetness, how hard you draw...

With vw devices, it's a little less convoluted: you set the target power, and the device figures out what voltage to drive the coil at - presumably in real-time, as the coil heats up and its resistance increases, although I'm not sure. But at the end of the day, again, it's not the power that goes through the coil that you care about, it's vapor density, through the coil's temperature. And again, that depends on how hard you draw, and how wet the wick is.

Ideally, if I was to design a PV, I'd design it with a light barrier of some sort across the mouth piece - to measure air/vapor ratio - and a temperature sensor near the coil, to never exceed the temperature at which the juice breaks down into nasty chemicals, and to avoid damage to the atomizer.

The only thing the user would set is the air/vapor ratio, and the microcontroller's firmware would deal with the rest: when the device is started, it would drive the coil at full voltage, drop the voltage as the output gas approaches the set ratio, and limit the temperature to, say, 200 degrees, whether the ratio is achieved or not.

This would be ideal because:

- Regardless of how easily a particular liquid vaporizes, how hard the user draws (i.e. how fast air flows through the atomizer), the particular brand/model of atomizer, the firmware would automatically compensate to achieve the desired air/vapor ratio.

- The atomizer would warm up much more quickly.

- If the tank is empty or the user doesn't draw, the coil could never get damaged, nor the liquid overheat.

- The user would only have one, easily understandable setting to play with, to get consistent vapor output. They wouldn't need to know anything about resistance, voltage, power or any of these useless details that tend to overwhelm or scare new vapers. A vaper wants to vape, not revise Ohm's law.

- The air/vapor ratio could be programmed to evolve automatically throughout the day (light in the morning, heavier in the afternoon in my case).

In 2013, I can't believe such simple electronic devices force to user mess about with voltage, power and resistance. It reminds me of old, pre-PLL analog radios, with which one had to keep adjusting the dial to stay tuned to a particular station, as the received frequency slowly drifted as the radio warmed up, the power input varied, etc. Nowadays, you dial 100 MHz and the radio stays there. Why can't PVs do the same?

And it's not like it was difficult to achieve or anything: driving a heating element with a control loop is ultra-basic technology. Of course, the mouth piece and the atomizer would be a little more complicated and expensive to manufacture, and the connection to the battery/microcontroller would require several contacts instead of two, but surely it can't be that expensive to mass produce.

What do you think? Is there a particular reason why even advanced PVs still make you faff with voltage or power, do you reckon? Is it part of the vaping community's culture for no particular reason? Wouldn't you prefer a more logical, simpler device?

 

[Fantasio]

I think that some batteries let you choose how many "watts" you want, then adjust by itself the "voltage" according to your coil.

 

[Thrasher]

Ummmm, huh?
I

s it just me or is the whole idea of variable voltage (or in the case of my iTaste PV, variable power) a convoluted, indirect way of achieving one single thing, which is vapor density?

I think you have been playing with too many cheapo devices.

Having to do math is over thinking everything and people actually worry themselves over this for no reason.
I dont understand why everyone kills themsleves over that either, just screw something on and turn it up a little until it does what you want.

and yes power through the coil is very important, using the wrong wire or resistance causes things to either heat up too fast or too slowly.
vapor density is very dependent on the way the atomizer is constructed and the ratio of PG/VG used and not so directly related to just heat. it is a product of the way the wick is setup and the airflow combined.

in your system it would constantly overdrive the coil in the beginning of the draw, possibly scorching the juice and causing it to taste pretty nasty.
many of the better microprocessors are in fact trying very hard to not do this exact thing.

not everyone is worried about the density of the vapor and more are worried about the actual quality of the flavor and the overall temperature or feel of the vape.

a system like this would lock everyone into the same couple of expendible devices regardless of if we like the resulting flavor and vapor or not.

 

[skoony]

i beleive there are programable pv's allready out there that would pretty much do what you suggest.
if you like switching flavors you can have settings for what you consider the best vape for that juice.
there quite pricey though.
variable voltage devices like ego twist or the spinner are a lower cost version of what you suggest.
the user is the sensor and ajusts as nesassary.

regards
mike

 

[MudOnTheTires]

For me personally, I tend to adjust voltage/wattage more for flavor instead of vapor production. I'd be fine with minimal vapor production as long as the taste was there. There are definitely cloud chasers that are looking for the biggest thickest clouds, but that's just not for me. Well, not yet anyway. Each juice has a different sweet spot regardless of the resistance. In a 2.2 ohm, I could set it to 4.3v or 3.8v depending on the juice I use. A higher vapor production does not equal a better taste (at least in my experience). I've had excellent clouds with little flavor and barely any vapor with excellent favor.

That being said, I have the utmost respect for your post because you are looking to find ways to better the existing technology. We need people like you! Now you just have to make it!

 

[moondragon]

Interesting. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of vapor density before. I started with Ego batteries, and was perfectly happy with the amount of vapor I was getting from them. I did get a couple of Ego Twist batteries where I could adjust the voltage, but found that I never really used that feature. When I switched to a mod and a rebuildable atomizer, it wasn't because I was looking for more (or more dense) vapor, although my current mod does produce more vapor. Personally, when I started looking at all the options, I opted to go with a mechanical mod, because I did not want a lot of electronics involved - I was interested in long term durability and reliability, something with replaceable batteries. I went with an RBA because it turned out to be less hassle than using cartos, and it turns out I build the coils to have pretty much the same resistance that I had always been using.

I have heard that different flavors give better taste/performance at different settings, and that the ratio of pg/vg will affect throat hit and vapor production, and individuals will put more emphasis on one aspect than another. It's a very individualistic thing, and I think that there are a lot of people who enjoy being able to tinker and fiddle with the hardware.

 

[edyle]

Is it just me or is the whole idea of variable voltage (or in the case of my iTaste PV, variable power) a convoluted, indirect way of achieving one single thing, which is vapor density?

The engineer in me keeps thinking vapor density is really what the user wants to control at the end of the day. My own usage, for instance, is this: in the morning, I want a light vapor to start out the day nice and smooth. After a meal, while I drink my coffee, I want a little thicker vapor. And in the evening, if I drink a glass of strong booze, I want a really thick, heavy vapor to go with it. That's all I really care about, not atomizer coil resistance, voltage, power, whether the tank is empty or full...

With vv devices, depending on the coil's resistance, you have to play with the voltage to achieve a certain power, to achieve a certain coil temperature, to achieve a certain vapor density. All this depends on the coil's geometry, temperature, wetness, how hard you draw...

With vw devices, it's a little less convoluted: you set the target power, and the device figures out what voltage to drive the coil at - presumably in real-time, as the coil heats up and its resistance increases, although I'm not sure. But at the end of the day, again, it's not the power that goes through the coil that you care about, it's vapor density, through the coil's temperature. And again, that depends on how hard you draw, and how wet the wick is.

Ideally, if I was to design a PV, I'd design it with a light barrier of some sort across the mouth piece - to measure air/vapor ratio - and a temperature sensor near the coil, to never exceed the temperature at which the juice breaks down into nasty chemicals, and to avoid damage to the atomizer.

The only thing the user would set is the air/vapor ratio, and the microcontroller's firmware would deal with the rest: when the device is started, it would drive the coil at full voltage, drop the voltage as the output gas approaches the set ratio, and limit the temperature to, say, 200 degrees, whether the ratio is achieved or not.

This would be ideal because:

- Regardless of how easily a particular liquid vaporizes, how hard the user draws (i.e. how fast air flows through the atomizer), the particular brand/model of atomizer, the firmware would automatically compensate to achieve the desired air/vapor ratio.

- The atomizer would warm up much more quickly.

- If the tank is empty or the user doesn't draw, the coil could never get damaged, nor the liquid overheat.

- The user would only have one, easily understandable setting to play with, to get consistent vapor output. They wouldn't need to know anything about resistance, voltage, power or any of these useless details that tend to overwhelm or scare new vapers. A vaper wants to vape, not revise Ohm's law.

- The air/vapor ratio could be programmed to evolve automatically throughout the day (light in the morning, heavier in the afternoon in my case).

In 2013, I can't believe such simple electronic devices force to user mess about with voltage, power and resistance. It reminds me of old, pre-PLL analog radios, with which one had to keep adjusting the dial to stay tuned to a particular station, as the received frequency slowly drifted as the radio warmed up, the power input varied, etc. Nowadays, you dial 100 MHz and the radio stays there. Why can't PVs do the same?

And it's not like it was difficult to achieve or anything: driving a heating element with a control loop is ultra-basic technology. Of course, the mouth piece and the atomizer would be a little more complicated and expensive to manufacture, and the connection to the battery/microcontroller would require several contacts instead of two, but surely it can't be that expensive to mass produce.

What do you think? Is there a particular reason why even advanced PVs still make you faff with voltage or power, do you reckon? Is it part of the vaping community's culture for no particular reason? Wouldn't you prefer a more logical, simpler device?

Replaceable atomisers is really only a recent development; those plastic throwaway CE4's are still being sold where you use a plastic clearo for a few weeks or months depending on how much of a smoker you are, then you buy a new one; the batteries are really the costly item, so using cheap plastic clearos can work out.

Nowadays the replaceable atomiser systems are more common than the throwaway clearos, therefore I expect more permanent tanks to become the norm; once the tanks become more permanent in construction I expect we will see more adjustability; right now I'd say there's more of a problem with consistency and safety.

 

[Giraut]

I think you have been playing with too many cheapo devices.

Just two. The first one, an automatic eRoll, was kind of crappy. But to its credit, it did get me into vaping, and I thank the hateful little thing for that. My current device, an Innokin iTaste VV v3, works great. I like it a lot. I don't think it's a cheap device, but maybe it is as I don't know much else.

Just to clarify, my post wasn't bashing any device. As an electronics designer, I constantly look at things I use and wonder what could be done better, more simply, or more logically.

Controlling a heating element by cranking the voltage up or down directly - or the power you feed to it - seems very strange to me. It's akin to using a space heater and controlling the temperature in the room by setting the number of volts or watts you feed to the coil. Wouldn't that be a strange user interface?

Of course, the logical and sensible design for a space heater control is a thermostat that the user can use to dial the temperature they want, and the space heater does its own thing to meet the user's request safely and without further user intervention. What I was suggesting was a kind of "thermostat" for eletronic cigarette devices that let the user request weak, medium or strong vapor, and does its best to generate the desired vapor without destructing the atomizer or cooking the liquid. It seems more sensible than asking the user to input a voltage or power level.

Having to do math is over thinking everything and people actually worry themselves over this for no reason.
I dont understand why everyone kills themsleves over that either, just screw something on and turn it up a little until it does what you want.

Of course nobody does the math. I did like everybody else: I screwed a clearomizer on my Innokin and played around with the settings until I found what worked for me. It didn't even take me very long.

But consider this: I know I have to dial 6 Watt in the morning, 7/7.5 in the afternoon, and 8/9 in the evening to get the vapor I want. Fair enough. But I also know I have to crank it up 500mW to 1W when the tank gets below 2/3 empty, and crank it back down after I fill it up. I also know the other clearomizer I use with the exact same juice from the exact same bottle requires 0.5W more than the first one. Slightly different coil I suppose...

Why should I know all that? Why can't I just tell the device that I want a vapor "this thick" or "this strong" or "this flavorful" (whatever the unit of "thickness", strength of "flavorfulness" may be) and the device figures it out for me? It wouldn't be very difficult or expensive to design something like this.

Sure volts and watts work, but it's not an elegant design, is what I meant.

in your system it would constantly overdrive the coil in the beginning of the draw, possibly scorching the juice and causing it to taste pretty nasty.

Well that's the thing, it wouldn't: the coil would rise in temperature very fast - because the microcontroller would dump a lot of power very quickly into it at the beginning - then it would immediately level out at the ideal temperature because of the feedback loop. The coil would never be overdriven to destruction, and the juice could never be scorched.

Unless juice can be damaged by rapid temperature rise alone (as opposed to strict overheating), which I doubt, but I may be wrong. And if rapid temperature rise does kill it, then the feedback loop can still be put to good use: the microcontroller can be programmed to heat up the liquid following the most ideal curve - as fast as possible without damaging the liquid, or slower if the user requests it, if they prefer a progressive rise in vapor density.

not everyone is worried about the density of the vapor and more are worried about the actual quality of the flavor and the overall temperature or feel of the vape.

a system like this would lock everyone into the same couple of expendible devices regardless of if we like the resulting flavor and vapor or not.

Well, I must admit I'm not advanced enough a vaper to know all the subtleties. But for experts like you guys, I bet a properly controlled heating of the liquid over the length of a draft that's consistent and repeatable regardless of the level of the liquid in the tank, the exact coil used, the temperature of the device and whatnot, would be of great value.

This said, maybe I'm just splitting hairs here. I'm just thinking aloud like a designer, as always...

 

[edyle]

Just two. The first one, an automatic eRoll, was kind of crappy. But to its credit, it did get me into vaping, and I thank the hateful little thing for that. My current device, an Innokin iTaste VV v3, works great. I like it a lot. I don't think it's a cheap device, but maybe it is as I don't know much else.

Just to clarify, my post wasn't bashing any device. As an electronics designer, I constantly look at things I use and wonder what could be done better, more simply, or more logically.

Controlling a heating element by cranking the voltage up or down directly - or the power you feed to it - seems very strange to me. It's akin to using a space heater and controlling the temperature in the room by setting the number of volts or watts you feed to the coil. Wouldn't that be a strange user interface?

Of course, the logical and sensible design for a space heater control is a thermostat that the user can use to dial the temperature they want, and the space heater does its own thing to meet the user's request safely and without further user intervention. What I was suggesting was a kind of "thermostat" for eletronic cigarette devices that let the user request weak, medium or strong vapor, and does its best to generate the desired vapor without destructing the atomizer or cooking the liquid. It seems more sensible than asking the user to input a voltage or power level.



Of course nobody does the math. I did like everybody else: I screwed a clearomizer on my Innokin and played around with the settings until I found what worked for me. It didn't even take me very long.

But consider this: I know I have to dial 6 Watt in the morning, 7/7.5 in the afternoon, and 8/9 in the evening to get the vapor I want. Fair enough. But I also know I have to crank it up 500mW to 1W when the tank gets below 2/3 empty, and crank it back down after I fill it up. I also know the other clearomizer I use with the exact same juice from the exact same bottle requires 0.5W more than the first one. Slightly different coil I suppose...

Why should I know all that? Why can't I just tell the device that I want a vapor "this thick" or "this strong" or "this flavorful" (whatever the unit of "thickness", strength of "flavorfulness" may be) and the device figures it out for me? It wouldn't be very difficult or expensive to design something like this.

Sure volts and watts work, but it's not an elegant design, is what I meant.



Well that's the thing, it wouldn't: the coil would rise in temperature very fast - because the microcontroller would dump a lot of power very quickly into it at the beginning - then it would immediately level out at the ideal temperature because of the feedback loop. The coil would never be overdriven to destruction, and the juice could never be scorched.

Unless juice can be damaged by rapid temperature rise alone (as opposed to strict overheating), which I doubt, but I may be wrong. And if rapid temperature rise does kill it, then the feedback loop can still be put to good use: the microcontroller can be programmed to heat up the liquid following the most ideal curve - as fast as possible without damaging the liquid, or slower if the user requests it, if they prefer a progressive rise in vapor density.



Well, I must admit I'm not advanced enough a vaper to know all the subtleties. But for experts like you guys, I bet a properly controlled heating of the liquid over the length of a draft that's consistent and repeatable regardless of the level of the liquid in the tank, the exact coil used, the temperature of the device and whatnot, would be of great value.

This said, maybe I'm just splitting hairs here. I'm just thinking aloud like a designer, as always...

Well do us all a favor and design it; this industry is just being born. You're talking about things that haven't been developed yet.

But I expect other things to develop more critically relating to airflow and consistency.