iPV5 by Pioneer4You

Thanks to the GearBest I could test the iPV5 mod  - let's see wheter it is worth to spend about 60$. 

 

 

1. FINISH.

Is very nice - the body is made of aluminum alloy and makes very good, solid impression. Impression better than iPV2 or Wismec RX200, so it is very good. Ergonomy is typical for such cubes, but thanks to the rounded edges mod lays in hand very well.

Buttons are big enough, with typical for Pioneer4You "plastic" click. However they work 100/100. Spring loaded 510 connection handles well all my atomizers:

At the bottom we have only vent holes. 

Battery compartment is standard:

 

 

with pins on the spring and cover on magnets.

 

2. FEATURES.

* power: 200W,

* chip: YiHi SX330-200,
* temp control: Ni200, Ti, + TCR
* battery: 2 x 18650,
* dimensions: 6x2,5x10,2 cm,

NOTE: microUSB socket is ONLY for firmware upgrade, not for charging.


3. VW mode.

Measurements were done on real 0.26 ohm coil and Tektronix TPS2012 oscilloscope. Voltage shape, as usual for YiHi is just PERFECT:

 

In my opinion voltage stability is a little better than for dna75.
What about efficiency?

iPV5 sets the voltage with mediocre accuracy. The SET-vs-GET power difference is about 5%. Of course having such big margin of power we can compensate it with no problem.
Above 150W we can observe TYPICAL struggle resulting from limitation of current of the dc-dc converter (up to 25A I suppose). But actually WHO CARES? Do you know anyone who use power above 150W?



4. TC mode.

As usual (again) for YiHi;

during temperature regulation we get the PWM modulation. Let's look more precisely: 

Ni200: 

SS316:

We can see when the wick is getting dry the voltage interruptions became wider and it just WORKS. At the beginning we get a tons of cloud decreasing with drying wick. I'm not a fan of modulation but generally iPV5 deals with TC quite well.
 

5. CONCLUSION.

Reasonable mod at reasonable price. At about half price of dna75 mods we get the mod which is a little better in VW mode, and deals with temperature control. Of course it is far away from dna75 in field of configuration options and TC but not everybody needs it.

What I LIKED?
* VERY solid build,
* pleasant to touch, matt finish.

What I DISLIKED?
* could be lighter and smaller.

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Premium Nicotine Bases by ChemNOVATIC

Today I'd like to show the test of nicotine bases by Chemnovatic, company from Poland which is much more known abroad ;-) Its offer includes pure nicotine and nicotine bases, e-liquid flavorings and additives, bottles, labels as well as complete, OEM e-liquids and custom-made products. I got a whole spectrum of their nicotine bases (7 types) so let's go...

1. CHEMICAL PROPERTIES.

The best way (and the only if you don't have chemistry laboratory) to know it is to check the documents required from manufacturers of chemicals. Chemnovatic provides SAFETY DATA SHEET (in accordance with the criteria of Regulation No 1907/2006 (REACH) and 453/2010) and also CERTIFICATE OF QUALITY. If we look on the latter we find a table:

In which we can see:
* CAS identificators,
* glycol and glycerine have pharmaceutical quality,
* impurities are below of quantification.

NICE :-) Nice was also a real signatures at certificates which I got (not hard copy).
So everything here is stated properly, according to the law, and good practice.


2. VISCOSITY.

quasi-Viscosity actually. I will describe it in a separate article. In general I measured the time of free flow (forced only by gravity) of the bases from syringe in test setup like this:

And the result was:

 
As we can see the distribution of results was as follows:
* long-run players with time of flow 60s and more - extremely dense, like AtmosLab 100% glycerine base for example, NOT FOR USE in typical tank atomizers, drippers only, or for dilution,
* middle-distance runners with time of flow around 30s - most promising and universal option in my opinion,
* sprinters with time around 15s and less.


3. FLAVOR OF PURE BASES.

3.1. METHODOLOGY.

I poured the bases into bottles in random order:

No "0" was the reference base - my favourite for many months.

I bought 4 identical drippers and prepared test-setups similar to my usual:
* Kanthal D 0.3mm, 5 wraps = 0,9 ohm,
* power 20W,
* MUJI wick.
 

And taste and taste and taste ...


3.2. GRADING SCALE.

I decided to evaluate 3 things:

* cloud - 3 is an average, mediocre result, expected from typical 50/50 bases, more is better,
* flavor - 1 to 1.5 means lack of taste, and this is most desired result,
* throat hit - 3 is expected result, any deviation (up nor down) is undesirable.

An example result is shown below:

And it means nice, better than average cloud, with no flavor, and with expected throat hit.
As you can see there will be no exact grades like "3 sharp". The result always will be within range, 3.5-4 for example.


3.3. RESULTS.

4. CONCLUSIONS.

All Chemnovatic bases have one important thing in common: THEY ARE ALMOST FLAVORLESS - one of the most neutral bases which I know! But which one is the best? The choice is difficult - just because all bases are very good. Most of them produce nice and pretty big cloud, keeping the throat hit at expected level. So I was not able to choose the one winner. Therefore I selected two :-) :

* VPG Optima

* VPDO

Both of them are EXCELLENT. Both of them produce huge and dense cloud which also is quite "juicy", the impression of dryness is less than for most other manufacturers. And of course lack of side-flavors - in case of VPGoptima I noted "almost like vaping the air" ;-) But we have to remember that Optima is quite dense, so it may cause problem with liquid transfer for some tank atomizers. VPDO will be more universal, however the cloud will be a little smaller. Anyway both bases enter into my regular use.

NOTE: PDO and VPDO base use innovative Propanediol instead of Propylene Glycol - it may be important for person with an allergy to Glycol.

PLEASE REMEMBER that in this article I described my subjective opinion based on my individual flavor.

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