Grenco MicroG is good for the size and worth the maintenance, it's barely bigger than a BIC and is smaller around. TINY. You CAN submerge the cartridge in iso. It's just a plastic housing with two copper contacts (two inside, two outside) soldered to wires on the inside that lead to a heating element in a ceramic bowl surrounded by steel, of course you can submerge this in iso. Just not the battery... And make sure the cartridge is dry before applying power.
Also, if you pull (don't twist or you'll break the wire connecting the coil) on the metal bowl containing the coil, it will slowly slide out of the cartridge and you can clean under it where all the resin drips if overpacked (which is easy to do cause it is frigin tiny.....). If you can handle this on occasion, the convenience of having a vaporizer you can conceal in the palm of your hand (entirely) is well worth it.
Actual gripes on this product include the following:
- Bowl is small, wish it was more oval shaped with the coil along the long axis. This would allow for larger dabs and more hits between packs. But might lead to more splatter though.
- Area beneath bowl gets filled with residue and clogs air intake easily, see above. Using smaller dabs will prevent this. Once you know how to remove the bowl without breaking the wires (easy), cleaning this is easy. I've found holding the coil upside down and heating it up without the cover will help the hot liquid drip out of the base.
- Mouth tube interior gets gunky since bowl spatters under heat and wax/shatter jumps up into mouthpiece. This gunk makes repacking and usage difficult after a while so you have to stay on top of it. A better designed mouth piece might prevent as much of a mess without making a straw to suck hot wax into your mouth... maybe? I also imagine this is an issue for all brands of pull/twist apart bodies. Using smaller dabs prevents the gunk buildup but you have to pack more frequently.
- Don't use alcohol ear swabs, these things fall apart and leave shit inside. Amazon the Puritan Self-Saturating 91% Alcohol Swabs, they have no cotton to pull off and remove the residue a lot better. One cleans my two MicroGs.
- This isn't a pack-once use all-day/even half-day trippystic. It's a special occasion concealable visually acceptable method of dabbing while walking.
The cartridges are also supposed to be replaced every so often, not necessarily when they break/stop heating. So the next time one stops, pull it apart and check with the above. For price, size, and reliability (battery lasts for day or two with constant use) I haven't found a nicer one. But I'm open to trying them. But for the moment my standard is the MicroG. And I don't want my E-Cig looking like a woodwind instrument or fashion accessory, plz...
