Hey everyone, been lurking since my order on Nov. 2 (Blue) #57853. I received my unit yesterday, December 6. I just wanted to post my initial thoughts upon unboxing and first two sessions.
Unboxing impressions: Everything was very neatly organized, and it seemed like packaging suitable for a top-tier product. Although these things I could honestly care less about. What WAS really cool (and unexpected at least for me) were three things: a second little tool/pick (the first being in the unit itself) stealthy sleeved into a silicon "Da Vinci" keychain thingy - neat. The optional mouthpiece/adapter also came with a second silicon seal. I really enjoy having duplicates of these tiny but necessary parts. The last was the little metal/sealable carry can. Will be nice to have to carry around preground herbs.
Aesthetics: It feels great in the hand. Nice weight to it, the material feels great and sturdy in the hand. The blue is not nearly as blue as I was hoping. More like a light silver with a hint of blue. Looks really great though.
App impressions: Cool, but not perfect. I love the accessibility of it, and the dashboard is an awesome visual feedback to have on your temperatures. However, I have a little bit of beef in customizing the Smart Paths. For example, I wish the curve was a bit more free-form (if that's the right word?). Basically I don't like being limited by 3 inflection points, and wished there were more. Also, the smart path can only RAISE the temperature. I actually would be interested in setting a smart path that starts out pretty hot for the first minute in order to help raise the overall temperature of the herb and then cool off towards a more neutral temperature over time. This cannot currently be done, however, it seems like it would be simple to implement this + a more flexible curve pattern. Other little annoyances included the connection breaking anytime I navigated away from the app, and I would need to shutdown the app and restart it to regain that connection.
First session impressions: I weighed out about 0.3g of coarsely ground herbs (I do not have a fine grinder, yet). In hindsight, and for the second session, I upped this to about 0.4g. Which is significant for me, because I typically am solo seshing, so wow, I was a bit overdone by the end, so to speak. I started out on Smart Path 2, the flavor was just fantastic. Got some pretty nice clouds. Towards the last 2 minutes of the session, I was using the Boost functionality to make sure I got everything. Flavor suffered a little bit, but that was to be expected, and actually, it was not as bad as I was expecting.
Battery/warmth: I did not use the 3500mAh battery. Instead I used a high-drain 20A Samsung 25R 2500mAh. It did get warm, but definitely not worryingly hot. And even using the flat mouth piece, never did I feel discomfort. Felt rather good in my cold apartment as well.
Clicking Noise: The clicking noise, as I understand it, is a naturally occurring part of how the electronics work to heat up the oven. I believe what you are hearing is pulse width modulation, working to keep the oven heated, at a controlled and consistent temperature.
Second session impressions: This time I went with 0.4g and tried to do a 5-min sesh from around 360-390 and then save the rest for another 5-min sesh at 390-420. I think it was rather successful in that I still had some green by the end of the first session. And as in the first session, vapor production and quality was on POINT. I did notice the draw resistance increased, but I guess that is something for me to get used to (new to portable conduction). I did notice that when I opened the oven to stir it for part 2 of the second session, it was no longer as tampered as it was for the first session, which impacted the overall performance that part of the session. I suppose one could "top off".
Micro-dosing: I have yet to try the "tampered puck" method, but I am curious bc these oven sizes are much too large for just me. IMO Da Vinci needs to release a ceramic microdosing oven outfit.
Cleaning impressions: While the unit was still warm from the part 2 of the second session, I opened up the oven, and used the metal pick to pour out all of my ABV. All a nice, even brown, with the exception of maybe 5% of the bowl that was lightly clinging to the Pearl. Immaterial, IMO. A mid-session stir could've corrected this. I then used the little brush to fully scrub the contents of the oven. Then I removed the mouthpiece, flavor chamber, and with a q-tip soaked in Iso wiped down these + the ceramic oven. Minor staining in the oven already. Also I was surprised by the amount of "debris?" that made its way into the flavor chamber. I took another q-tip and went down into the gaping hole where the flavor chamber would meet up with the oven, and tried to clean out that tough-to-reach spot. It is indeed a trouble area, IMO.
This ended up being a lot longer than I expected, but these were all things I would've wanted to hear awhile I was still lurking, so - here you are! Let me know of any questions you have and I'll do my best to follow up!
