Teardown of a Vype device.

I bought it for the challenge and to see what their tech was like.

Big Clive

What you done with the drill was a really clever idea btw :)

When you bought it to refill it... Please buy a real e-cigarette it is much less complicated to refill and has some other advantages :)

After all that tear down excitement you probably need to relax with a good long vape :)

Phil Collins

Interesting input, thank you chaps.

mikenco

I'm sorry, did you say "hurdles" or "best potential videos"? LOL! I understand, It must be frustrating to ride the line between taking to bits and keeping for use, but then that's why i always try to get two of something... All the best, Clive!

Michael Thompson

If you just like the vapour effect then the simplest e-liquid is a mixture of glycerin and propylene glycol. Usually 50/50 for standard vaping devices and closer to 80% glycerin and 20% propylene glycol for the denser cloud-chaser devices. You can use plain glycerin on its own or with a touch of water to get the correct flow and wicking speed for your device.

Big Clive

I don't know anything about vaping but it kind of intrigues me for some reason. Any article I seem to come across about it however seems to be immediately assuming that the liquids have nicotine and that there exists nothing else. I can't imagine that helps people get access to safer liquids. Also this text input sucks absolute donkey balls. I had a point but the text input destroyed it.

duck

Not many. The biggest hurdles are when things are new, fragile and expensive.

Big Clive

Oooh, I've been told the new Vype iSwitch has a fundamentally different design for the atomiser and is, apparently, rather good. From a pic I've seen it looks like they're catching up to the current stuff, tech wise. Might be worth a sniff if you see one in the supermarket, Cive?

Steven Raith

Pretty much as I suspected - which isn't to crow, I've just been following the tech scene around e-cigs for near six years so I'm familiar with how this works. Basically, it's an extremely highly refined Tornado e-cig - which were common about six years ago when I started. Modern devices (IE Innoken T18/20) series are technically less sophisticated in terms of how they atomise/vapourise the liquid, but are significantly *better*. It's like comparing the single most efficient petrol engine in a car, to a Tesla; yeah, it's a good effort, but things have moved on since then!

Steven Raith

Yeah, one of the few *good* things the Tobacco Products Directive (and it's UK equiv, the TRPR) did was to make a list of 'harmful products' that is fairly arbitrary and can be updated as evidence shows any issues. Otherwise, actual risks have been shown to be acute (that is, short term) with minimal evidence of anything long term - the lack of solid particulates is the key, as far as I'm aware.

Steven Raith

Have there been many devices that were truly "Clive Proof"? I can't see that, personally...

Michael Thompson

Vice of Knowledge is the name of my next band.

Michael Thompson

It only requires about an amp. I'll guess it's just regulation to provide consistent output as the battery voltage falls.

Big Clive

wonder if the inductor was to send a higher voltage down to the heating element, would explain the smallish wires....

Michael Gilchrest

It would have been nice to explore further, but the circuitry is quite complex, so to completely reverse engineer it would have taken a long time. Especially when the processor holds a lot of the functionality as software. It was also hard to conclusively identify some of the components. I reckon that the six wires between the charge PCB and processor PCB are likely to be battery +, battery -, charger status, possibly an overvoltage flag and other status signals like charging voltage present and maybe low voltage shutoff. The boards are densely packed and double sided making tracing tracks quite time consuming.

Big Clive

They couldn't possibly be worse than traditional cigarettes which involve inhaling physical smoke particles into your sponge-like lungs. There have been studies into breathing of glycol, loaded air and the nightclub industry has followed that up by fogging the air with a blend of glycols continuously with no known adverse effect. The one bit that does cause me concern is the cocktail of chemicals that are used as flavourings. I think that if health problems do occur then they will largely be due to a few random flavour chemicals like the notorious diacetyl butter flavour that caused lung damage to workers in popcorn factories.

Big Clive

I have to admit I'm a little bit disappointed with this video - I would have preferred to see those circuit boards in more detail. What were all the wires coming up from the charging board for? Why did the unit need three separate boards for what seems to be a relatively straight-forward function?

Amos Bannister

That atomizer looks to be VERY similar in design to the Kanger SOCC coils I use in my Protank IIs. Different dimensions & such, but the only real difference is that inner silicon cup where the SOCC coils just have the coil supported by the wicking material. (of course, the SOCC has a little chimney to feed the vapour up the center too... but that's just details...)

Scott Miller

I quit smoking after 25 years and just before vapes become mainstream. I think I'd have bought one a few years ago, but I can't help thinking that they will prove long term harmful evenutally. Have you looked into this yourself Clive? What do you reckon? Completely harmless, or life is too short to worry?

mikenco

Jesus Christ, it's so over-built. lol It's so overbuilt it's almost a bad design. O.O;

Vype do refillable kits, too, and have done for a long time! I stopped smoking a few years ago, switching to Vype, and now use their kit with fluids from poundland. I got my latest one from Sainsburys. The Vype kits, which I have taken several of apart myself, are very good. Even when the top part leaks, it doesn't make it past the top connector. When they sold the 36mg/ml cigarette size devices, they and their chargers were very nicely made and had very useful batteries in them. They also have very good customer service when their devices go wrong, and ask for lots of details for their engineers before a full collect and replace service. Nicely designed kit with good customer service, and work just fine with the 88vape fluids from tat shops!

Andy Brown

Insert Mary Jo Anna comment here...

If it's anything like the US the cartridge/nicotene/tobacco part has to be made in the country to avoid tariff's and other taxes. They probably have the bare components shipped to them so they just have to fill them, but that's probably all they need.

cool unit silly that they don,t want you to refill it

God 420