The e-hookah revisited

[HexKrak]

So I've been trying to figure out what my first mod would be, and I kept seeing random posts asking about e-hookahs. I know that someone rigged a single hose with an atty and I think wired a battery pack into the glass base. I'm thinking more along the lines of an adapter that would fit where the ceramic bowl normally goes so anyone with a hookah could just drop it on and start vaping.

I have most of the parts I need ordered, but I still have to do the math on the circuit, which I think I need to get the custom coil made first so I know how many ohms I need to power. I'll probably be making the adapter out of stainless steel, and the atty out of silica rope and nichrome wire. The circuitry will probably need to be an adjustable so that one can find the sweet spot and not burn or under heat the liquid over an extended vaping session. I'm hoping that I can just plug the thing in, and run it non stop during the whole usage time, but I have a backup plan where I run a remote wire that has a button so one person can control turning it off and on.

Anyone else undertaken a similar venture? If so what obstacles did you come across and did you ever finish? And do any of you senior modders have any advice (aside from bring lots of patience)?

 

[guitarman023]

I'm working on one right now, using the coil out of a soldering iron. I've had mixed results. It's definitely a work in progress.

 

[Youthful313]

Have you chatted with MuttSRT? he's made one before and people say it's pro.

 

[hova]

if you want something a little different , look into heating a pyrex plate or bowl with a micro torch.

back when i first started vaping , i wondered if you could actually just use heat , so i stuck some pyrex into the oven at 420* , got it out and dripped.


needless to say , i was sitting on my ... in no time. it works well but you gotta get the temp a little different for each juice , some of them , you dont want to see the residue that they leave , it was nasty...


keep the pics comin

-hov

 

[HexKrak]

I actually thought about getting one of those herbal vaporizers and modifying it, but I think making something that has a disposable atty will be greatly beneficial, also it should be more light weight.

 

[hova]

i have some herbal vaporizers , and unless you get a variable temperature one ,i would stay away . mos of them are set a little high , and the ones i have (vaporgenie,and an iolite) both work off lighters/butane , so they are a little un reliable...

im not telling you not to , im just telling you be careful. i ruined one vaporgenie , because the eliquid burned and clogged it all up , it was a nasty mess...the iolite burned it too , but that thing was a little overpriced turd anyways...


-hov

 

[guitarman023]

what I'm using right now is the coil out of a soldering iron, with a dimmer switch on it, makes incredible vapor, just haven't figured out how to mount it to the hookah, and there's a fine line between the vapor tasting good, and tasting burnt. It's a work in progress.

 

[hova]

i would say immerse the coil in a small dish/puddle of liquid. most soldering irons dont regulate the temp that well , i know it would be expensive , but try finding a weller station and use that. it would be a lot more controllable and accurate...

 

[guitarman023]

the problem with the coil itself is it is not nichrome, and it rusts when it gets hot, so at the moment I'm using a stainless steel tip, which makes about half of the vapor that the coil does. The dimmer actually does a fairly accurate job regulating temperature, and I'm not sacrificing my good soldering station for an experiment.

 

[hova]

i hear ya. i would look into maybe covering the coil in pyrex. a local glass blower miight be able to encase it , so that theres nothing to let it rust.

my othre suggestion is to look into hot melt adhesive guns. HMA is right around the right temperature , and they are usually the same type of heating element , but some are a plate heater. i never had a workshop , and the wife wont allow me to buy anymore stuff till we get a house...


-hov

 

[guitarman023]

yeah, I'm guessing encasing it in glass would definitely make the vapor taste better. That's been the worst part, it has a burnt taste to it at the moment.

 

[hova]

it is probably a little too hot and you may have trouble keeping enough of the residue off .

see if you can find a glassblower to encase the coil in some pyrex , and i think you may have something.


how about a pic?


-hov

 

[War Mouse]

My friend and I are actually kicking around a few ideas for an AC/DC multi-hosed E-hookah. Our biggest issue by far is wanting to get a continuous liquid feed to the atty's without the need for any other input from the user(s). The goal is to have a hookah that you can set down at a party, plug in, or run off battery if you're outside, fill with liquid once and away you go. If anyone knows of a good gravity feed device or something similar could you point me in the right direction?

General setup for this rig is 2 to 5 attys each with a hose and mouthpiece attached and "go" button placed in the mouthpiece. That way each person can vape or not at their own pace and no sharing is required. We can go with a universal feed system that runs to each atty or multiple feeders for different flavors. (The latter is probably the way to go.) Any help would be appreciated and if we pull it off, you could be the first one in line to buy a working model!

War Mouse

 

[hova]

well it seems a little pointless to make a hookah where you dont share the flavors... then you might as well all just sit around with your 510 or 901 or whatever , and not have to mess with a hookah...


i would have to say that an idea you might want to try is a homemade coil and wick. you could make it 20ohms if you wanted . i would think a larger ohm coil , would be a little more stable , and you would be just barely vaporizing , if you want to do a hoohah right...


it is a nifty idea , but i just dont see why bother anymore...

bah just one of them days , stick to it.
-hov

 

[rannox]

Couldnt you just use a fog machine? Ive never seen the innards, but they use a pg mix dont they?

 

[Raenon]

Just a couple of thoughts here....

The benefit of using multiple atties is that you'd be able to each control their own flow, but part of the attraction of hookahs is the communal aspect.

Perhaps you could work something out with the central coil in the base, submerged in liquid, with several hoses coming off the top with their own mouthpieces and button to open the valve.
The main coil would be turned on by a central switch, which would then heat it up to a predetermined temperature to generate vapor- perhaps you could include a pressure sensor at the top that would shut off the main coil when it's built up a good head of steam. When the pressure is released by vaping, or the vapor settles on it's own by cooling, it would turn the coil back on (provided the master switch is still on).
The pressure sensor would effectively cycle the liquid's temp to keep it just at vaporization level. Tuning the exact pressure desired, and coil power would allow a decent level of customization.
If I'm not off my mark, most of this could be done with off the shelf analog equipment, except perhaps things like the custom coil.

I'm fascinated by the many shapes and forms that modders take personal vaporizers, I look forward to seeing a real hookah design!

 

[War Mouse]

Raenon...That's an interesting take. I'm not sure how you would set up your valves to keep vapor from leaking out the hose, or being to hard to pull on. I guess you could use a powered valve with a button, but that's going to bring build price up. Functionally I'm trying to do this as easily as possible so that most of the money can be spent on the casing. (Wanna use spare parts as much as possible so it doesn't hurt at bad when I mess stuff up.) Plus if it's easy to build it'd be easy to fix/replace parts.

@Hova

Either I didn't understand you or you didn't understand me. With a multiple feed system each hose could have its own flavor. Get your friends together and start passing hoses. Yes, we all COULD sit around and share our 510's or whatever, and we do, just like we used to sit around and smoke analogs. However, we also used to sit around and hookah quite a bit and there is a different "vibe?" you get when using the hookah. I am just trying to see if I can create a system that gives that vibe without using traditional tobacco. That's all. Plus I've seen lots of people and posts asking about one. Thought maybe I could help some people out.

 

[hova]

im not knocking you at all. yesterday was very blah , and i didnt see the reasoning behind everyone having to plug in to the hookah , just do use their own flavors. ive never used a hookah for its intended tobacco use , nor have i gone to a hookah bar , so i dont really know what its like , the experience....

if its somethin you want to do , dont let me stop you , it was just when i thought of hookah i thought of everyone sitting around an electric stove coil , spraying eliquid onto the coil...

and i think submersing the coil in the liquid is going to thicken the liquid too much , so you may want to look at the homemade atty threads , and see some of the pictures we have been working on. i have a pic up of an almost water-pipe sort of contraption , that uses a regular (design anyways) coil , and a very long circular wick . i think something this big , you want the coil to be modular (easily replaceable) , and you definately want to keep the actual coil out of the liquid if its posssible.. once you get some crust built up , you dont want it tainting the flavor of the rest of the e-liquid.


have you thought about using the charcoal that a hookah normally uses , and just putting some sort of glass plate or something on top of that , then all you would need is like a soap pump , pump a little on the plate when its hot , vape , and you may have to scrape the residue away , but it wouldnt foul up 30-100ml of liquid.


which brings me to another question , how much liquid have you calculated it would use?

-hov

 

[War Mouse]

Lot's of good ideas starting to pop out here, would like to see more. My initial vision had a large (12 or 18 volt) batter stepped down to provide power to 4 different atty's along with a rectifier and other parts so the unit could be plugged in as the base of the unit. the middle would be the 4 atty's covered with a hose and mouthpiece. Top would be liquid storage and AFS. Now I realize that this is basically 4 different PV's that share a power source but after looking into single large coils and other approaches, my friend and I concluded that it would require too many valves and constant back pressure, not to mention cleaning and liquid outlay to do a single vaping chamber with multiple mouth pieces effectively. I'm sure it can be done, but a simple housing with quickly replacable parts seems like the route to go for right now.

 

[guitarman023]

I really don't want to use charcoal, just because there are carcinogens in it. I looked into an electric coal heater, which might be feasible if I can make my own bowl out of clay to hold fluid instead of tobacco.