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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SPARTANS 300W TC by Vapmod

Thanks to the GearBest we can look at the Spartans 300W TC Box Mod by Vapmod  - let's see wheter it is really one of the more powerful mods on market?

1. FINISH.

In short: you love or hate. Gloomy piece of iron with elegance of brick :-) But this brick ... quite well lays in my hand - forefinger surely reaches the fire button, thumb lays on side wall so the grip is quite sure:

And the material - according to the manufacturer the body is made of zinc alloy, coated with my favorite black mat layer. So we have an impression of gunmetal finish. It is just mod for James Bond :-)


Up/down buttons are quite small but work well and the FIRE button is bigger, with short jump and clear click, so far it fires 100/100. Spring loaded 510 connection handles well all my atomizers.

Inside:

we have 3x18650 battery bay with spring loaded pins and cover on magnets.


There is no vent holes at the bottom:

 
On top we have 510 connector and display:

2. FEATURES.

* power: 300W (hmm),
* temp. control: predefined Ni200, Ti, ss316 + TFR curve approximation(!)
* resistance in VW: 0,15 - 3 ohm,
* resistance in TC: 0,05 - 1 ohm (Ni i Ti) | 0,15 - 3 ohm (ss316),
* max. current: 40A
* max. voltage: 12,6V
* battery: 3 x 18650,
* dimensions: 104x62x25 mm,
* weight (with batteries): 370 g.


The things worth pointing out are the TFR curve approximation (about this later) and 3 ohm coils handling for ss316.

Finally we can look at the display:

to see typical parameters for TC mods.



3. VOLTAGE SHAPE and EFFICIENCY.

Measurements were carried out by use of real atomizer with coil resistance 0.31 ohm:

Until this point is quite good. At the beginning the resulting power is less than the set, but since 50W SET-vs-GET power difference is about 10%

Then we observe marketing witchcraft:

As we can see all what we can get is about 206 W and 8V. Hmm... let's calculate a little:

I = U/R = 8/0.31 = ~25.8 A

In my opinion we have current limitation level much smaller than declared in specification...

It is quite easy to check - let's do two more coils and try them with 300W:

First 0.2 ohm:

As we can see the maximum voltage to reach at 0.2 ohm is 5V. So the limitation of current is EVIDENT - 25A.

Now 0.6 ohm:

This time we can see evident limitation of voltage: 9.5V.

Having these two limitations we can simply calculate that the maximum reachable wattage for the Spartans is ~238W.

4. TEMPERATURE CONTROL.

4.1. PREDEFINED SETTINGS.

Ni200


Dry wick first:

Not bad - wick gets "brown" but only a little. So we put some juice on the wick and:

Not bad again - when the wick gets dry mod doesn't try to modulate - it just lowers the voltage to almost 0 and that's it. So the wick must be wet to pleasant vaping.


Ti grade 1

Dry wick:

As we can see the Spartans is trying to control the voltage but finally wick is burned. Interestingly with wet wick is better:

SS316

Dry wick:

And that's it - there is no regulation. The Spartans holds constant voltage level until wick is burned. The same is with wet wick...


4.2. TFR SETTINGS.

In this mode we do not enter only one TCR value (as usually). We have to enter three values of TCR for 200, 400 and 600F taken from TFR curve. Thereby Spartans may approximate the proper TCR for any temperature. It may sound complicated but with steam-engine page is quite simply:

First we select the coil material, then in "TFR" tab enter 200, 400 and 600F temperature and we get  "Res. factors" which have to be entered to the mod. In theory it is very good feature which should increase precision of temperature regulation. Let's see how is in practice:


Ti grade 1

Hmm, it is similar to predefined mode, maybe a little better...


SS316

YES! As we can see, thanks to the TFR option regulation with ss316 finally works!


5. CONCLUSION.

If you want the mod for TC forget about the Spartans - there are a lot of cheaper, smaller and better mods for temperature control.
But for the extreme VW... power margin is enough for EVERYTHING what you want. Yes, the wattage is overstated but 238W is still more than most of mods on the market, including the dna200.


What I LIKED?
* very solid finish and gun-metal look,
* voltage shape in VV mode,
* the potential of TFR curve using. 

What I DISLIKED?
* overstated wattage, max. current and voltage,
* poor predefined TC settins for Ti and SS,
* screen could be a little brighter.

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TESLA nano 60W TC

Thanks to the GearBest I could test the TESLA nano mod  - let's see wheter it is worth to spend about 40$.

TESLA nano 60W TC + Radius RDA

1. FINISH.

Is very nice - according to the manufacturer the body is made of zinc alloy, for me is just similiar to the steel. Anyway the Tesla is quite solid piece of mod - impression of solidity is at the level of HCigar vt40 or Dicodes No6, so it is very good.

Up/down buttons are quite big and easy to use and the FIRE button is just PERFECT -  big, with short jump and clear click, so far it fires 100/100. Spring loaded 510 connection handles well all my atomizers:

At the bottom we have typical vent holes and micro-usb port for charging:

Tesla looks very neatly but the ergonomy should be better (for me) - so far I can not find convenient position of mod in my hand. Of course it is highly individual - impresions will be different for each hand.

2. FEATURES.

* power: 60W,
* temp control: Ni200 and Ti,
* resistance in VW: 0,1 - 3,5 ohm,
* resistance in TC: 0,05 - 1 ohm,
* battery: built-in 3600 mAh LiPo,
* dimensions: 7x2,5x5,2 cm,
* weight: 210 g.

It is more than enough for me (I rarely use more than 30W and for TC usually  use Ni200).

Built-in battery. Hmm... for me it's disadvantage, but I can imagine that for some users it could be the advantage - we don't have to buy batteries and charger.

NOTE - the manufacturer recommends to use 5V/2A charger. It is typical specificaction of tablet (for example) chargers. Of course Tesla could be charging also by use of our mobile phone charger - but it will take 2-3 times longer. Real current consumption measured during charging is ~1.4A.

It is worth noting the "MECH" mode of Tesla - which means applying a voltage direct from battery, with no regulation.
Finally we can look at the display:

to see typical parameters for TC mods.


3. VW mode.

Measurements were done on real 0.23 ohm coil and Tektronix TPS2012 oscilloscope:

 

Of course it is not level of DNA or ProVari, the converter still "pumps" a voltage, so the graph is "thick", but most importantly there is no PWM modulation and such little oscillations are neutralized by thermal inertia of coil.
It should be emphasised the Tesla sets the voltage with very good accuracy. The SET-vs-GET power difference is below 5%. It is not so obvious for mods from China ;-)


4. TC mode.

Oscilloscope again, now the Ni200 coil:

Again it is not level of Dna or Dicodes but is quite decent, with no PWM modulation.


5. CONCLUSION.

Generally I do not recommend mods with built-in batteries. But recently friend of mine asked me about mod "without having separate charger and batteries". And I think I will recommend him the Tesla.


What I LIKED?
* very solid finish,
* FIRE button.

What I DISLIKED?
* ergonomics could be better,
* a little lag-time of powering.

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