Design question - why do most portables put stem so close to oven?

Boxman

Well-Known Member
Does anyone know why most vaporizer manufacturers keep making the same elementary mistake? Why is it that only a handful of designers bothered to incorporate some of sort of method to cool the vapor before it reaches your delicate lungs?

For their Crafty and Mighty vapes, Storz and Bickel designed a cooling unit with a series of chambers that the vapor gets routed through. The vapor has to go through several twists and turns, all of which serve to dissipate heat (and also clean up the vapor, catching resin and other fine particulates that get past the filter). This method works well and only requires a tiny amount of space.

S&B went even further with their Plenty vape, using a coiled metal stem that acts like a big heatsink and cools the vapor even more effectively, although this solution is a bit unwieldy.

Arizer manages to cool the vapor from its Solo & Air units with the use of longish glass stems (standard on the Solo, optional on the Air). However this doesn't cool as effectively as the S&B solutions.

Firefly uses cleverly designed metal air channels to cool the vapor and (hopefully) catch particulates, although the latter part doesn't work that well as users report still getting occasional bits of ground herb in their mouth. But still a great design (they probably just need to incorporate a filter).

Some other manufacturers use tricks like having a stem that goes through the body of the unit, with the oven on the other side (Pax, Pax2, Haze, Vapium Summit, etc). Having the oven on the opposite end of the draw stem is smart, as it allows a longer internal air path to dissipate some of the heat before it hits your throat. But still not nearly as effective as the solutions implemented by S&B or Firefly.

As for everyone else's portables, the vast majority of them have the stem sitting right on the oven. No cooling units, no clever solutions to dissipate heat, just you sucking hot air straight out of an oven (doesn't sound very healthy when you put it that way, does it?). I'm just wondering why is that? There are many cheap, simple and effective cooling methods that can be used without adding significant cost, and which still lend themselves to easy cleaning. So why not implement them?
 

zor

Well-Known Member
As long as the air isn't hot enough to actively burn your lips/mouth/throat, there's nothing really unhealthy about just hot air; it'll just dry out membranes and tissue more quickly.

One reasonable explanation I can imagine is that a longer the vapor path provides more surface area for the vapor to condense onto, thereby potentially reducing delivery. That also creates more area to clean.

I do sometimes find that the vapor is irritatingly hot, so I dilute it slightly by creating a crack in the seal formed by my lips and inhale some cooler ambient air at the same time. Micropuffs also help in this regard.
 
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CuckFumbustion

Lo and Behold! The transformative power of Vapor.
Does anyone know why most vaporizer manufacturers keep making the same elementary mistake? Why is it that only a handful of designers bothered to incorporate some of sort of method to cool the vapor before it reaches your delicate lungs?

Some other manufacturers use tricks like having a stem that goes through the body of the unit, with the oven on the other side (Pax, Pax2, Haze, Vapium Summit, etc). Having the oven on the opposite end of the draw stem is smart, as it allows a longer internal air path to dissipate some of the heat before it hits your throat. But still not nearly as effective as the solutions implemented by S&B or Firefly.

As for everyone else's portables, the vast majority of them have the stem sitting right on the oven. No cooling units, no clever solutions to dissipate heat, just you sucking hot air straight out of an oven (doesn't sound very healthy when you put it that way, does it?). I'm just wondering why is that? There are many cheap, simple and effective cooling methods that can be used without adding significant cost, and which still lend themselves to easy cleaning. So why not implement them?

This was a consideration, when I modified one of my pen vapes with a 4 inch glass attachment. It does work as a cooling path. Not the best workaround. But it is see-through. So I can get a visual as to how much vapor is produced between the oven and the mouthpiece. :2c:I believe that there is a lot of ways to affect the draw from any unit. Not just having a vapor path, but how wide the pathway can affect the type of performance. The pull off of my Summit is huge compared to my PAX. (Sometimes I don't taste anything until I exhale.) Both long metal pathways. Same principle. But The Summit's path is wider and has more open area below the oven chamber area. Making it more of a heavy single hitter then say for light continuous sipping. Also, I think this affects the thickness of the vapor. If the pathway is too open, the vapor is too thin and misty. There is a lot of small, seemingly trivial considerations with designing the pathway, that can impact the type of performance. And less directly battery life. That's why I get intrigued when I read that a NASA engineer designed a particular model of vaporizer.;)
 
CuckFumbustion,
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Boxman

Well-Known Member
As long as the air isn't hot enough to actively burn your lips/mouth/throat, there's nothing really unhealthy about just hot air; it'll just dry out membranes and tissue more quickly.

Surely this isn't good for the lungs; all the coughing that accompanies hot vaping should be testament to that...
 
Boxman,
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zor

Well-Known Member
I don't think the correlation is necessarily, or solely, due to temperature. Despite vapor being considerably less harsh than smoke you still are inhaling liquid droplets, particles which may trigger a coughing response if they irritate the cilia in your trachea or lungs. As anecdotal evidence I've taken a puff from a very dense volcano bag with cooled vapor as well as an SSV piped through an ice bong and have coughed up a lung at times.

Hell, sitting in a sauna can make me cough, dry air is quite irritating for me!
 

Boxman

Well-Known Member
Interesting... because I seem to cough more when vaping at higher temps. When I start a session I'm typically vaping at around 350F, and I cough very little despite getting pretty good volume of clouds. But as I get further into the session and keep raising the temp to extract more herb, I increasingly feel the hot, dry harshness of the vapor hitting my throat and lungs, and I find myself coughing more and more.

So I had just assumed the coughing was mostly due to heat. Maybe I'm off base in thinking that.
 

zor

Well-Known Member
As an experiment, try vaping at a hotter temperature to start with and see how you feel, whether you cough, how the cough intensity compares, etc. Or, perhaps, try it without any herb to experience the hot air without other particles in it?

I'm curious now, I might test with a piece of cotton moistened with water to see how hot vapor compares to hot air
 
zor,

RUDE BOY

Space is the Place
Design Question - Why do most portables put stem so close to the oven ?

The simple answer is that portables are small so if you have a vape that is only 4-5 inches tall the vapor path has to be short, no way around it.

... I would recommend you check out something with a whip where you can smooth out the hit drawing through 3 feet or so of a whip.
 

Boxman

Well-Known Member
Sounds like what I really need is a water pipe attachment, no matter what vape I'm using. I guess I'm just a little b*tch when it comes to my lungs... :)
 

CarolKing

Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
I think some of us have lungs that are more sensitive than others. If you are like me and smoked cannabis for 25 years or so you may have done some lung damage. Also men have larger lung capacity than females and maybe can deal with harshness easier.

Portables are smaller with less surface space. You only have room for the battery the oven and whatever wires and other electronic parts.

A lot of DIY folks around here that usually try to solve issues with harshness with an extended airflow. With the Pinnacle Pro for me it seemed so harsh because the mouthpiece and the oven were so close. Folks started making their own mouthpieces and finally Vapor Blunt came out with their own version of an extended mouthpiece after quite a while.

After you buy a vaporizer and you find out that it's too harsh except on the lowest heat that's always a bummer it limits your use of your unit. I guess if you are able to use water that's always an option.
The only option is an extended mouthpiece or try to sell it on FC if it's too harsh.

Always remember toooooooooooooo Fuckcombustion
 

Chill Dude

Well-Known Member
Interesting... because I seem to cough more when vaping at higher temps. When I start a session I'm typically vaping at around 350F, and I cough very little despite getting pretty good volume of clouds. But as I get further into the session and keep raising the temp to extract more herb, I increasingly feel the hot, dry harshness of the vapor hitting my throat and lungs, and I find myself coughing more and more.

So I had just assumed the coughing was mostly due to heat. Maybe I'm off base in thinking that.

I really don't think its the heat factor that makes you cough when vaping at higher temperatures. IMO it's the increased vapor production and the denseness of the vapor as temperatures increase. I don't think the heat factor of portables with a short vapor path is detrimental to health.... But what do I know I'm a stoner not a doctor...
 

KeroZen

Chronic vapaholic
IMO it's the increased vapor production and the denseness of the vapor as temperatures increase.

I don't think it's true because if you deplete all low temperature levels (ie run the level until there's no vapor anymore) then raise to higher levels, you don't have such a dense vapor (compared to starting high directly) but it can make you cough the same.

Like CK said, some people are more sensitive than others. My gf coughs way more than me. She also coughs more with the FM5-Pro compared to the Ascent set to the same temperature, the main difference being the vapor path lenght.

If you read the many threads on this forum you'll see there is a clear correlation between vapor path lenght and high temperatures on one hand, and harshness / cough induction on the other hand. Some people for instance just can't use the Solo (or any vape) at high temps. I usually have no issue but the few times where I did cough, it was always using high temps.
 

Pain

Well-Known Member
Water filtering is better but just a simple long whip attached to any vape will cool down the vapor. Some of the small glass bubblers on DHGate are quite cheap, but work very well.
 
Pain,

Dramma Lamma

Looks like a job for!
To be frank, even though the mighty IS way more cool and smooth vapor.

Hammer and Whispr taste better to me, no contest period.

Think about it how snobby glass buyers see concentrate rigs. "time for the condensation = less harshness, but also less flavor"

You can't optimize EVERYTHING:2c:.
 
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flotntoke

thoroughly vaped
Sounds like what I really need is a water pipe attachment, no matter what vape I'm using. I guess I'm just a little b*tch when it comes to my lungs... :)

Through water - even just a little - usually makes a big difference. If you have to go dry, don't knock the temps up so much. If you use your abv, you'll get all that good stuff out of there anyway.
 
flotntoke,

Boxman

Well-Known Member
Good advice I'm sure. I once made cannabis caps from heavily vaped ABV (it was really dark) and all they did was put me to sleep for 12 hours. They were like the ultimate sleeping pills, but really unpleasant because the tiredness stayed in my body for at least 48 hours. Pretty much ruined me for an entire weekend.
 
Boxman,
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