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So how does the AW IMR 18650 2000mah rate? And can somebody tell me where to learn about C ratings? Thanks eh.
The goal of this review is to give the reader all the information about the E-Cig, to help make an informed decision.
Comparing the unit to the Provari is a part of that process. If you read closely, the review is balanced and I have mentioned the bad along with the good.
If I've done the review correctly, when you start with the review on the Smokbox Varicool 3amp and than move to the 6 amp Review, and decide not to purchase this you've made an informed decision and if you decide to purchase this ecig and it arrives you'll have no surprises.
Myself, I'm tired of purchasing equipment, having it arrive and then finding out about it through experimentation.
Feel, fit, form are very subjective, I've addressed that in the review. Again you have to read it closely.
Comparing the unit to the Provari is a part of that process. If you read closely, the review is balanced and I have mentioned the bad along with the good.
If I've done the review correctly, when you start with the review on the Smokbox Varicool 3amp and than move to the 6 amp Review, and decide not to purchase this you've made an informed decision and if you decide to purchase this ecig and it arrives you'll have no surprises.
Myself, I'm tired of purchasing equipment, having it arrive and then finding out about it through experimentation.
Feel, fit, form are very subjective, I've addressed that in the review. Again you have to read it closely.
I think for the most part you have.
And Yes... Feel, Fit and Form are Very Subjective.
I'm holding a Lavatube right now in my Left Hand and a Provari in the Right. To Me, there is No Comparision.
Is the Provari worth $100 more on Feel Alone. Probably Not. Was I glad I spent $100 More for something that Feels so Great? No, I wish it was only $25 or $50 more.
If my Provari stopped working would I buy Another? In a Heart Beat.
Just placed an order for the Smoktek Vericool 6 amp Beast. And a Vision eGo Spinner 1300mAh from Madvapes just for backup. I'm keeping my expectations low on the durability of these devices. If I somehow managed to a get a full year out of them, then I'll be happy. If the durability isn't there... Provari it is!
Thanks tomzgreat for a very thorough review!
Thanks tomzgreat for a very thorough review!
To diverge from the post a little;
From my experience with a Mini Lava Tube. Yes the Provari is worth the $100.00 extra, it's a great unit, a solid, reliable E-Cig. I bought one a around a year and 1/2 ago and it was the best Mod I ever owned for mainstream vaping. If I have one gripe against Provari, it's that they haven't innovated. The only upgraded to a 3.5 Amp unit this year. Why didn't they produce a 5 or 6 amp unit.?
In my opinion, from having owned one for 1/2 an hour before it almost burst into flames. Lava Tubes are Hit and Miss Chinese Quality. They don't hold a candle to the Provari.
From my experience with a Mini Lava Tube. Yes the Provari is worth the $100.00 extra, it's a great unit, a solid, reliable E-Cig. I bought one a around a year and 1/2 ago and it was the best Mod I ever owned for mainstream vaping. If I have one gripe against Provari, it's that they haven't innovated. The only upgraded to a 3.5 Amp unit this year. Why didn't they produce a 5 or 6 amp unit.?
In my opinion, from having owned one for 1/2 an hour before it almost burst into flames. Lava Tubes are Hit and Miss Chinese Quality. They don't hold a candle to the Provari.
I just got the shock of my life. I just got in the ECD Meter Tester from Stoney in Australia VapeBrain and tested the Provari, you can see it in this thread,http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/atomizers-cartridges/335955-intro-ecd-meter-watts-ohms-voltage-amps-all-your-fingertips-stoney-australia.html#post7320723 than as an afterthought I tested the Beast and my jaw dropped.
Correction: At the end of the Video I should have said .08V instead of .5V Slide me a break, it was 9:00 at night and I rattled it off quickly, kept saying 6V beast instead of 6 amp beast. I'll try not to be so sloppy in future reviews
Correction: At the end of the Video I should have said .08V instead of .5V Slide me a break, it was 9:00 at night and I rattled it off quickly, kept saying 6V beast instead of 6 amp beast. I'll try not to be so sloppy in future reviews
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I think the ECD meter is a very nice and helpful tool. I looked on the site and they are sold out, maybe next time.
I noticed that you tested it on 2 very good U.S. mods and they both prove to be as advertised. It would be interesting to see the ECD meter on those china mods.
I had the Beast at work today, the 'peanut gallery' thought it was a nice device and I was surprised that I didn't hear any wise cracks from that crew.
It's nice to know that the Beast has stable numbers, but I knew that after the first day of use....lol.
Thanks for the vids btw
I noticed that you tested it on 2 very good U.S. mods and they both prove to be as advertised. It would be interesting to see the ECD meter on those china mods.
I had the Beast at work today, the 'peanut gallery' thought it was a nice device and I was surprised that I didn't hear any wise cracks from that crew.
It's nice to know that the Beast has stable numbers, but I knew that after the first day of use....lol.
Thanks for the vids btw
Very nice, Tom. Thank you.
If you get to playing around with the meter some more, I'm curious of the measurements in these parameters:
Peak Voltage
Duty Cycle
Frequency
Since my Gripper went belly up, I've ordered 2 OKR-T6 regulators and some other goodies. It's about time to christen the new o-scope at work.
If you get to playing around with the meter some more, I'm curious of the measurements in these parameters:
Peak Voltage
Duty Cycle
Frequency
Since my Gripper went belly up, I've ordered 2 OKR-T6 regulators and some other goodies. It's about time to christen the new o-scope at work.
Thanks so much tom! You just tested the two devices I most wanted to see tested. I'm assuming those were Vrms readings. Yeah?
Tom,
I'm assuming that you edited your video afterwards, putting in the "boing" sound when you got confused at the end and said that the ProVari was varying by half a volt. Obviously not (as I think you know).
The ProVari was "oscillating" (vacillating? probably self-correcting) between 4.18 and 4.26 volts. There was one brief 4.29 pulse I noticed, but I'll discount that. Anyway, that's a total variation of .08 volts.
The Smoktek 6-amp VV box varied from 4.26 to 4.28, a total variation of .02 volts.
Yes, the Beast is indeed stable, at least in your brief test firing. Shockingly so? I don't know. I'd need to see a lot of other PVs tested before I come to any OMG conclusion.
I grabbed my Penguin tin VV mod---which uses as its regulator the same Okami OKR-T/6-W12-C switching converter that the SmokTek box has, but is powered by dual 18650s rather than two 14500s (and is housed in a bigger box, obviously), plus it has a built-in voltage display. I tried your test at 4.20 volts, both unloaded and under a 2.5 ohm load, and over a 12-15 second firing got a variation of .04 volts (from 4.18 to 4.22). That .04 volt variation occurred identically in both conditions, loaded and unloaded.
That seems to support your findings.
I would also guess it's probably one of reasons why many private mod maker-builders praise the Okami OKR-T/6-W12-C regulator so highly. Besides being quite efficient, it's very stable in voltage output.
I'm assuming that you edited your video afterwards, putting in the "boing" sound when you got confused at the end and said that the ProVari was varying by half a volt. Obviously not (as I think you know).
The ProVari was "oscillating" (vacillating? probably self-correcting) between 4.18 and 4.26 volts. There was one brief 4.29 pulse I noticed, but I'll discount that. Anyway, that's a total variation of .08 volts.
The Smoktek 6-amp VV box varied from 4.26 to 4.28, a total variation of .02 volts.
Yes, the Beast is indeed stable, at least in your brief test firing. Shockingly so? I don't know. I'd need to see a lot of other PVs tested before I come to any OMG conclusion.
I grabbed my Penguin tin VV mod---which uses as its regulator the same Okami OKR-T/6-W12-C switching converter that the SmokTek box has, but is powered by dual 18650s rather than two 14500s (and is housed in a bigger box, obviously), plus it has a built-in voltage display. I tried your test at 4.20 volts, both unloaded and under a 2.5 ohm load, and over a 12-15 second firing got a variation of .04 volts (from 4.18 to 4.22). That .04 volt variation occurred identically in both conditions, loaded and unloaded.
That seems to support your findings.
I would also guess it's probably one of reasons why many private mod maker-builders praise the Okami OKR-T/6-W12-C regulator so highly. Besides being quite efficient, it's very stable in voltage output.
@skelley: another advantage of this device, the form factor means less flack from the "peanut gallery" lol
@rader: was that you that was talking about how Vrms is basically still an approximation of what is actually happening at the coil? if not who and where was that? interesting stuff though way over my head at the moment. Trying to grasp the concept.
@rader: was that you that was talking about how Vrms is basically still an approximation of what is actually happening at the coil? if not who and where was that? interesting stuff though way over my head at the moment. Trying to grasp the concept.
Hi Bill,
I stand corrected. I should have said .08 or almost 1/10th of a volt. When I reviewed the Video I realized that the fluctuation was .08 instead of .05 and I mispoke. This is still stable but what made my draw drop is that I expected more from the Provari in a normal vaping situation.
Maybe I'm a snob but when I spend $200+ dollars, and the whole world talks about how stable the Provari is, I expected the variation in voltage to be almost nonexistant.
The $63.00 Beast varied by only .02 Volts as you corrected me.
This Video just shows how important it is to keep an open mind and use scientific testing.
I stand corrected. I should have said .08 or almost 1/10th of a volt. When I reviewed the Video I realized that the fluctuation was .08 instead of .05 and I mispoke. This is still stable but what made my draw drop is that I expected more from the Provari in a normal vaping situation.
Maybe I'm a snob but when I spend $200+ dollars, and the whole world talks about how stable the Provari is, I expected the variation in voltage to be almost nonexistant.
The $63.00 Beast varied by only .02 Volts as you corrected me.
This Video just shows how important it is to keep an open mind and use scientific testing.
VRMS is a really complicated subject and my interpretation is that they are applying to PWM Mods from China that aren't well filtered.
This link http://ecdmeter.com/rms.html explains it in very technical terms. Stoney the inventor of the ECD Meter espouses VRMS as the only way to accurately evaluate pwm mods. It's been controversial but P Busardo in one of his posts seemed to be convinced that Stoney is correct.
It's techy formulaic stuff but if it's accepted and used by the Chinese Manufacturers than we'll see a increase in the quality of the PWM Mods.
I've been in a few of the RMS topics. The link that Tom posted explains it pretty well. The main take away is that with a pulsed voltage you are getting a really high power for part of the time and little or no power for part if the time. Vrms is the calculated DC eqivalent voltage of those powers.
Thanks, Rader! I didn't really want to wade through all the technical stuff anyway. I know my way around Ohm's Law and how to re-wire a table lamp, but I don't much cotton going back to school in electrical engineering. Your single sentence tells me all I need to know, at least for right now.
So far all the devices that I've tested are registering as non PWM devices. Stoney says that the Provari Filtering is so good that it's not a PWM device, Provari calls it PWM because it's perceived as the latest technology and more power efficient.
From a Laymens view, if it talks like a duck, walks like a duck, it probably is a duck. If the Provari is producing voltage that isn't falling into line with PWM devices than it's not PWM.
Radar2146 caught that I unintentionally made a error, I originally wrote that the he SmokeTech Smokbox Varicool is not PWM. He is familiar with the regulator and assures me that the Varicool is a PWM device. The filtering on the Varicool is mad good and you'd never know it through vaping or testing.
I believe VRMS results are applied to PWM devices but not necessary for Non PWM the Gurus are invited to correct me.
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There is a huge misconception about what is and isn't PWM. PWM is a function, PWM is not a category to lump a device into based on its output. ALL switching regulators use PWM. The regulator adjust the output voltage by adjusting the length of the "On" pulse; the pulse width. The pulse width correlates to the duty cycle; the percentage of ON vs OFF. No matter what the output voltage looks like, one thing remains constant; the function that allows them to do what they are intended to do is PWM.
The VariCool's regulator, Murata OKR-T series, uses PWM. It also has 2 capacitors and an inductor onboard; 1 input capacitor, and an LC Output Filter consisting of the inductor (L), and 1 output capacitor (C). This is how it achieves a low ripple DC output voltage. Without the filter it would produce a square wave pulse train and register on the ECDMeter as PWM. This is why I have often said that a more appropriate set of categories would be filtered and un-filtered. There is no other way to get a low ripple DC voltage from a switching regulator.
The VariCool's regulator, Murata OKR-T series, uses PWM. It also has 2 capacitors and an inductor onboard; 1 input capacitor, and an LC Output Filter consisting of the inductor (L), and 1 output capacitor (C). This is how it achieves a low ripple DC output voltage. Without the filter it would produce a square wave pulse train and register on the ECDMeter as PWM. This is why I have often said that a more appropriate set of categories would be filtered and un-filtered. There is no other way to get a low ripple DC voltage from a switching regulator.
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