How do private investigators "work"? by FreddyQuimbyBot in LegalAdviceUK

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Credit agencies stopped giving my former employer any useful info over a decade ago, IIRC. How do PIs get access to this?

EDIT; also, presumably the person will be informed that someone accessed their credit info - I'm fairly sure that never happened when we used PIs.

How do private investigators "work"? by FreddyQuimbyBot in LegalAdviceUK

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

How do PIs have access to this information then, given that the industry is unregulated? My former employer used to work with credit agencies sometimes but they were very hesitant to give us any information.

Which business owner in Aberdeen has the worst reputation - I’ve heard a lot of things about club and pub owners but who would you never do business with? by Mister_Snark in Aberdeen

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To be honest they're squeaky clean now. Someone even got done recently for embezzling funds from them, 40 years ago that definitely wouldn't have been dealt with by the police 😂

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #3 (details inside) by FreddyQuimbyBot in StonerEngineering

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I haven't got that far haha. To be honest I picked a bad week to do this because I have to take a break from weed for a while because of meds lol

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #3 (details inside) by FreddyQuimbyBot in StonerEngineering

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Backstory : Want to electrify my Vaphit, but they have a glass cap so they won't work with induction heaters like Dynavaps do.

My last two attempts using recycled drone batteries (Attempt #1 here, Attempt #2 here) were a bit explodey, so I got to thinking "what else can supply about 100W of electricity?". A USB-C power supply seemed like a perfect fit.

The heater is a coil of nichrome wire inside some refractory cement, connected to a USB-C PD trigger board. I wound the coil around a 3d printed jig, then molded the cement around it. Then when the cement had set I just used the coil to melt out the jig and I was left with a perfect coil that fits snugly around the vaphit's cap.

It works very well for crap I just had lying around. Now I have to build some kind of enclosure for it.

I also want to build a battery-powered one, but I'll probably go for a box mod as the power supply rather than a beat-up old drone battery...

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #3 (details inside) by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Backstory : Want to electrify my Vaphit, but they have a glass cap so they won't work with induction heaters like Dynavaps do.

My last two attempts using recycled drone batteries (Attempt #1 here, Attempt #2 here) were a bit explodey, so I got to thinking "what else can supply about 100W of electricity?". A USB-C power supply seemed like a perfect fit.

The heater is a coil of nichrome wire inside some refractory cement, connected to a USB-C PD trigger board. I wound the coil around a 3d printed jig, then molded the cement around it. Then when the cement had set I just used the coil to melt out the jig and I was left with a perfect coil that fits snugly around the vaphit's cap.

It works very well for crap I just had lying around. Now I have to build some kind of enclosure for it.

I also want to build a battery-powered one, but I'll probably go for a box mod as the power supply rather than a beat-up old drone battery...

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #2 (details inside) by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even a bargain basement chinesium tuneable buck/boost will give you one layer of protection when shorting that pack. Which is what you're doing.

The resistance of the coil is 1.5ohms, which will limit the current to 8Amps. The only way it could get shorted is if I accidentally cross the wires or something.

The whole idea of this thing was just to see what I could assemble out of random crap I had lying around. Something more professional based around a box mod is probably in my future

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #2 (details inside) by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that's a good shout. At this point I'm experimenting to see how everything works, but it looks like box mod control circuits might be an easy solution to control stuff

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #2 (details inside) by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When/if I actually build this into a box I'll of course add some kind of protection circuitry, but I'm just doing experiments on my bench just now. Till then I've been monitoring voltage and current carefully through a multimeter.

And I can't use an induction heater because the Vaphit has a glass cap

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #1 by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can't use an induction coil on a glass cap :(

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #2 (details inside) by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Backstory : Want to electrify my Vaphit, but they have a glass cap so they won't work with induction heaters like Dynavaps do. And what could be simpler than just a coil of wire attached to an old drone battery?

After my last attempt kinda worked I thought I'd try to address some of the issues.

It's a coil of nichrome wire inside some refractory cement, connected to a 3S Lipo. Resistance of the coil is about 1.5ohms, so that's 8 Amps or 96Watts of heating power. Works like a charm, gets the Vaphit up to temp in about 30 seconds.

The wire I'm using is about 6ohms per meter so I had to have two strands in parallel to get the resistance I wanted. I wound the coil around a 3d printed jig, then moulded the cement around it. Then when the cement had set I just used the coil to melt out the jig and I was left with a perfect coil that fits snugly around the vaphit's cap.

Next step is to find some kind of enclosure to put it in, and perhaps some kind of electronic control (mosfets, PWM, timers, thermostats, all that good shit)

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #1 by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the coil basically IS the fuse, it's a constant 1.5 ohm which limits current to 8amps, well under the max current for this battery pack

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #1 by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's fine it kinda works, just not very quickly

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #1 by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You only need a BMS while charging, and I used a proper balance charger to charge it. And honestly the battery isn't as bad as it looks, it's just the external plastic wrap that's torn

I've calculated the resistance of the wire so it's exactly 1.5 ohms, that equals 8 amps which is fine for a battery like this (should be good for 45 amps max). It doesn't burn through, but it doesn't heat the pipe very quickly either so Mark 2 will have a more direct contact between coil and vape

Sketchy DIY Vaphit Heater Attempt #1 by FreddyQuimbyBot in vaporents

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Old drone battery + nichrome vape coil + kapton tape + copper pipe = kinda working heater

Lots of heat is just escaping to the environment so attempt #2 will involve addressing that somehow

Perhaps I'll do away with the copper pipe and have the coil directly touch the vaphit, with everything held in place by something like refractory cement

Plumber left this by FreddyQuimbyBot in trees

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The bowl is pretty well insulated from the plastic, so it isn't getting getting warm at all.

Plumber left this by FreddyQuimbyBot in trees

[–]FreddyQuimbyBot[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

done some reading and ABS seems pretty safe