Hey guys,
back from the dead! Just stopped by to say hi.
So where have I been? Well, I've gotten into two new television shows, my girlfriend moved in with me for six months, but is now moving out, my Ph.D has kicked up a gear and I'm now in the writing stages of my dissertation. The job market is thin, so I'm not exactly thrilled to be graduating this year, but I'm sooo done with school.
Anyway, I wanted to chime in on the vaporizer. I had my first Zephyr Ion for a few months (5-7?) before I started experiencing problems. The first problem I came across was that the internal silicone hoses that connect the different components together in the airstream had come lose, and my bags were taking a long time to fill: When I first got the Ion, it filled a bag in 30 seconds, but over time it was closer to a minute and 30 seconds. Since I had won my vaporizer in a Zephyr contest, I wasn't sure if I would qualify for warranty work, and Bruce gave me a go ahead to check inside the unit.
So the airstream goes from the base of the unit at the intake filter through a silicone hose to the pump, then through another silicone hose to the heating element at the top where the basket sits. At 3 of the 4 ends of the hose there is a small plastic elbow that facilitates the 90' bends the hose must make to/from the pump and to a small plastic nipple at the base of the heating element. The elbow at the base of the heating element was cracked and had popped off, so air was not being directly forced through the heating element, and therefore neither into the bag. The problem was probably caused by two issues:
1) the plastic body, including the hose-attaching nipple, under the heating element will obviously be under great heat stress from its proximity to the ceramic heating element. As most things expand when they heat up, if the plastic nipple expanded at a different rate than the plastic elbow attached there, it could split the elbow open (the plastic is very thin). This would then loosen the connection of the elbow.
2) Filling the bag to its maximum capacity would create a back-pressure; so instead of rupturing the bag from any over-filling, the loose elbow would be blown off from too much pressure.
One solution I thought was to just remove the elbow, and attach the silicone tubing directly to the heating element nipple, but I decided against its feasibility. While heating silicone tubing is relatively safe (I think), and I was pretty sure that it's flexibility would help keep it on the nipple as the plastic expanded, there was a problem . The main difficulty was that the nipple is positioned horizontally, parallel to the ground, and the tube is running vertically up from the pump. The tube would have to make a rapid 90' turn to mate with the nipple. The space is so small that the extreme nature of the bend would cause kinking of the hose and restriction of airflow - possibly resulting in blowing the hose off again from the nipple. Further, the nipple is very short, maybe only 0.25", so there isn't very much to hold leverage over the nipple, which has an outside diameter of about 3/8".
Bruce sent me some new elbows, and what I did was I put a short piece of 0.25" ID x 3/8" OD silicone tubing on the end of the elbow between it and the plastic nipple. It was able to hold the elbow on more securely and I wouldn't have to worry about cracking the elbow or blowing it off again.
The next problem that happened was that there was no vapor. It also turned out the heating element wasn't getting hot, despite the LCD turning green. Again, back inside the unit (which I don't consider you do unless you want to void your warranty) I discovered a transistor had broken off the circuit board. Not only that, but it had ripped the traces out of the circuit board, making re soldering very difficult.
I thought my little guy was down for the count. But Bruce called in the unit and set up a return tag for me. I had to find a box, but I shipped the unit back and Zephyr replaced it for me! I'm now using the 'newest model'. It came with the newer soft-poly bags that don't crinkle (I'm so fond of them, but be careful, they fill up without a warning sound like the oven-style crinkle bags, so keep an eye on 'em).
I'm really jazzed about Zephyr and Bruce's wow-factor for amazing customer satisfaction. Honestly, I don't really care that there was a problem with the product, because ALL products will probably experience some degree of problem that causes customer dis-satisfaction. If you're a good company you keep that % of problem units low, and for the people that do fall through the cracks with a problem, making them feel better really separates the companies you can put your trust in, recommend to others, and come back to, that makes all the difference...and is what we should all strive for, and look to do business with.
And maybe that is what will win back business to this country, which has slowly been eroded too much it seems recently. But I digress...
Thanks again Bruce! And thanks to Joe S for getting me hooked up with a new unit!!
This is actually replacing the LB as my go-to vape for bedtime. 
welcome to FC
