Hi everybody. Longtime lurker, first time poster.
I have a Persei and a Hercules SR-71 and wanted to post about my initial experience at getting it up and running. I upgraded my old Persei tops and original Herc at the same time so I am using the latest and greatest protected tops. I’m also using AW IMR 18350s to power this beast.
Let me just say right off that I’m loving my Persei/Herc combo! I’ve found the groove where I get consistent big hits after just a few seconds on the button. And I get these hits all day from loading about 0.12g of wax at a time. A pair of batteries also lasts through the day. I swap batteries when I reload the oil. I am only in the middle of my second gram of oil but already the Persei/Herc has become my go to vape. The flavor of top quality oil is excellent.
It seems to me to be pretty efficient too. The way I look at efficiency is that the concentrates I get are about 80% THC and the flowers I get are at least 20% THC so I should get 4 times the medication from the same weight of oil, amirite? In my Solo I use about 0.1g of flower per session and have 3-4 sessions per day. I figure I get 4-5 sessions from my 0.12g of oil in the Herc. So efficiency seems to be in the same ball park as my Solo, which is remarkable to me!
I never cared about stealth before because I always vape at home (tho I highly value cordless operation) but I tried using my Herc while walking my dog in the morning and it worked very well and was quite fun. It is pretty stealthy in appearance but the fact that one can get medicated so quickly with the Herc really enhances it’s stealthiness, IMO. Before anyone can wonder what I’m doing it’s already back in my pocket.
I still have not used my Iris (v1) top or Nibbler XL yet with the SR71 so more fun still to be had! I also want to try loading .2 or .3g of oil at a time but I’m reluctant to change what is currently working so well.
Anyway, back to my initial experience which was not all positive…
I had no problems disassembling or reassembling the Herc but the number of very tiny parts does make me nervous that I will lose something (like a little PTFE washer) or damage something. I do love the fact that it can all be cleaned and leaked oil recovered.
I always try to assemble the Herc very carefully, not taking short cuts and conscious of the fact that I am building a circuit as well as doing a mechanical assembly. I always check the results with a DMM too (1.6 ohms). I have not experienced any shorts when using the herc on the Persei. I have experienced a few open circuits due to the bottom insulator not making a good contact as others have mentioned.
The oil coils are another story tho. I pretty much destroyed one just trying to get the cellophane wrapper off! I think these coils are much too fragile to be trimmed by the end user. I started with a coil that was about 40-45% and got wispy hits and oil leaking into the lower half of the cartridge with the shatter I was trying to vape. Then I cut the coil down to about 25-30% (a hair below the top of the rod) and the performance difference was dramatic. Both shatter and budder now vape great and I’m reluctant to change anything. The downside to trimmed coils, tho, is their fragility and more frequent loading of oil.
OK. To wrap this up, while I love my Persei/Herc combo I think several things could be improved.
1) The “threaded assembly” could be redesigned to not require end user dis/reassembly. These tiny parts are easy to damage or lose. I remember G said that the bottom insulator was being redesigned to make a more reliable contact. I think this threaded assembly design should be simplified also. It would go a long way to making the Herc idiot proof. As it is, whenever I unscrew the upper and lower half of the cartridge the threaded assembly also unscrews itself necessitating careful cleaning and reassembly of all those tiny parts. In the meantime, I wish that spare parts for this threaded assembly were also available to purchase on the W9 site.
2) The oil coils (or whatever replaces them) should come in small sizes that are appropriate for the thicker types of concentrates that people mostly use. Personally I like the coils. I just don’t like cutting these coils down to size while trying to keep them from unraveling.
3) The air intake path goes through the side of the heater core lower section and up through holes in the bottom of the upper section. This means that any leakage or overflow winds up covering all the little parts in the lower section. In the original Herc the air intakes were on the side of the upper section which made it easier to keep an eye on what was happening as far as oil leakage. If 1) above were fixed then this issue wouldn’t be so bad as it would be easier to disassemble the 2 halves of the Herc core.
Finally, I want to thank everyone on FC and the folks at W9 for all the knowledge shared and help offered. It’s saved me a lot of money and frustration. I feel my original investment in the Persei is now paying off big time. Now excuse me while I go walk the dog
!
Hedo
Like Dilbert says OMG he has the knack, poor thing. Is there help for that...
