Arizer Solo

[vaplexus]

But the air doesnt come up from the lower part of the unit, it comes in through those holes along the top of the cap" True and false. The majority of the air DOES come through those holes, but air is still coming up through the unit. if you blow through the bottom of your solo, in the holes around the power jack, you can clearly feel the air coming out the top (try it with the solo on max temp to more easily feel the heated air being blown out the top) - thanks to mattyg23 for pointing this one out.

The airflow is from the outside, through the small holes in the top cap (around the outside circumference), into the housing, through the top just outside of the crucible and in up through the holes in the crucible. no air (or virtually no air) flows otherwise. If you look at my post here somewhere in the middle are pics of the crucible housing taken apart. this is of the ceramic but the SS is the same. you can see that the crucible sits inside the plastic housing, offset with some standoffs that keep the crucible wall about 2mm from the plastic wall. these form the airflow channels from the top down through the crucible holes. you can see all 4 holes have an associated channel and are isolated from air getting in any other way.

However, the top area is not air tight from the rest of the unit so its possible that air from the body can get into the head and into the airflow. i suppose one could block off the areas around the head with cotton to prevent air from flowing other than through the top.

So logically this would mean that when you are inhaling with the cap on, the airflow is more restricted so theres more of a chance some would take the (admittedly, more restricted, but still present) airpath up from the bottom of the unit, making it flow over the electronics/battery areas, which i still think are what the smell/taste come from. The cap would also probably trap any fumes, or whatever causes this, when its on versus it being off.

I think it would very minimal because there would not be enough suction to over-whelm the airflow through the top cap. Although I haven't tried it my recommendation would be to do the ring mod in my post above, then pack cotton around the head trying to leave a bit of space at the top. the idea is to restrict airflow except around the top of the crucible, if you were really concerned about air getting in any other way.

What i DID try however, was rubbing the cap down with a paper towel with a tiny dab of iso on it. I was surprised when i looked at the paper towel after whiping the inside of the cap when i saw a blueish/greyish residue left behind on the paper towel. I wiped the rest of the inside, as well as the outside down and got a little bit more from both sides. Curious, i wiped the rest of the unit and got black residue, wiped it again and got more. Related to the source of the stink/taste or not i dont know. But i took a qtip and swabbed the inside of the housing thats down around the part under where the cap threads on, around the heating element, and, sure enough, i got more bluish/grey shit.

Well, its just paint of some sort. maybe some kind of epoxy based paint. i don't know enough about industrial finishing to know what you use. but you could have totally cured paint and then apply a solvent like iso and it will dissolve, that doesn't mean its bad or otherwise getting into your system. they could have anodized the case but that would have been added cost which would have translated into a more expensive product. i am sure they weighed the pros and cons and picked what they thought was the best finish. it might be a problem to some people, but not all and was likely inexpensive enough too. its hard to make a product that is going to satisfy everyone.

So i'm wondering whats the furthers i can dismantle this thing w/o voiding my warranty? Or, should i say, whats the furthest i can dismantle this thing without someone else being able to prove that i did it, and void my warranty?

If you look at my post above you will get a sense of how far you can disassemble without getting into major surgery. the only part i'd like to dig in more is the crucible and heater. its sealed with a high temp cement and the only way in would be to break that. so i didn't.

If you take it apart to the extend I did you can see there are a lot of opportunities to open up and guide the airflow path so that air is only sucked in around the bowl when its inserted, down through the channels and up through the crucible holes. i am not sensitive enough to the smell to bother doing this and testing it. but if someone who is sensitive to the smell can do the modifications and report that would be useful.

 

[ilovebOObs]

so i have been messing with my solo all day, hehehe after a few burn ins i still have the robot fart smell. not sure if its getting better or not but it doesn't really bother me too much. also both my stems are crazy loose, I can put it in and wiggle the stem around, is this normal? i decided to use a grommet from my eclipse vape and its holding the stem in place pretty nicely but not too sure if using it is a good idea or not. other then the slight smell, i'm happy with it!!

 

[vaplexus]

Tonight I started out with the SS (stock). i started at 5, and moved up to 6 then 7 until i saw no visible vapour. then i heated up the ceramic to 5 and put the bowl i was using in the SS, in the ceramic. at 5 there was no visible vapour, nor at 6 or 7.

so that tells me that the stock SS actually does a good job of full extraction. there might be some extra vapour in there or maybe not because there was none visible. this is a good sign for the SS because in the end a good characteristic is full extraction. sure there are other things too but thats a big one.

try it yourself and see what you get.

 

[aesthyrian]

Most people prefer looser fitting stems. I know I do, I have a tight stem and it's a pain to remove from the solo once inserted.

 

[TracyLee]

I've had mine for ??? 2 months now.....black ceramic. I ran at the 5-7 setting for 10 min maybe. I smelled the plastic smell you normally smell when burning in a new electronic device. I used to work on computers...familiar smell.

It went away pretty quick....one or two uses and I never noticed. Yes, the glass is wonky...I hold the device in the palm of my hand and place the glass between my fingers. I use a little pressure to create the "vacuum seal" I want down below in the chamber. Wiggle it around when you find that comfortable position one handed....awesome hits! And everything is safe and secure. I've used it so much today it's been on the charger twice.

--Tracy

 

[BossBrew]

I have 3 Solo's (all black ceramic) and two of them are fine but one has a strong smell and taste.

M104 (Strong Smell and taste)
M102 (No Smell or Taste)
M103 (No Smell or Taste)

Very interesting stuff here.

 

[VapeNStone]

Still haven't heard anything back from Kevin at Arizer :/

 

[steiner666]

Thanks for the info vaplexus, and the pictures. I think i might just take mine apart and see if i can see anything that would account for the smell/taste problem. Maybe some excess flux still on some of the soldering points or something, who knows. I'll probably also wipe down and bake the housing while i'm at it, couldnt hurt right?

I have 3 Solo's (all black ceramic) and two of them are fine but one has a strong smell and taste.

M104 (Strong Smell and taste)
M102 (No Smell or Taste)
M103 (No Smell or Taste)

Very interesting stuff here.

Hmmmm, mine is m104 as well. I think cluffy's were 104 too, werent they? there might be a trend here...


But thankfully the smell has lessened a lot. i have to stink it right up under my nose when its hot to smell the smell now, instead of being able to from a few feet away. and the taste is practically non existent at this point. If i vape at temp setting 4 or lower with teh cap off, it tastes perfectly fine. even with the cap it tastes acceptable at that temp, i dont really detect anything the strong fumey sort of taste that i was getting at first. if i go to temp setting 6-7 (something i've only done when trying it with goo) i can taste a little bit of it, especially if i dont vape it through water, but i dont htink i'll ever vape higher than 4 without running it through water anyway, so in a way, i'm pretty content with it already.

i just took a MZ stems worth of herb and tapped it out into the solo stem, put a little booger of abv qwiso on top of it and vaped that through the EHLE, keeping it so that the solo was always inverted so that the goo wouldnt melt into crucible. Let me just say that was terrific, i got literally dozens of hits off of it. I started at 5 instead of 4, because i knew the goo would take more (lol dr seuss rhyme time), and i took it to 7 and really didnt notice any flavor other than that of herb and that distinct qwiso goo flavor. It did such an awesome job vaping the goo, i pulled the stem out towads the end of the session to check on it and it was all melted and runny, all over the one side of the stem, with visible wisps of vapor still streaming off it. So it put it back in and hit it, and hit it, and hit it. Took me almost two full 12min cycles to vape that, and it was still putting out thinner clouds that were still visible with a led flashlight when i quit on it.

I had originally compared the performance of it to that of the SSV, but i think it might be a bit more like the HA imo. very good extraction, without the possibility of combustion, without a real need for stirring or super fine grinding.

Even so, i do prefer to grind my stuff up rather fine so that it can be used with solo or zap, so I ordered some pipe screens for the solo stems, because a LOT of herb has been getting sucked through. Surprisingly large bits too.

My only other complaint about the solo, usage-wise, is that there is no goo solution for waterpipe usage. It would be SO easy to make a short, straight stem with a GG connection on the one end. Have a couple of those glass ball things on it to make it easier and less hot to pull out of the downstem. I moved the stems around alot and always felt a little bit of air rushing in the side, and there was a good bit of cycloning of the vapor in the tube, so i think its not creating very good of a seal. I think i'm going to try cuttin a short piece of hosing and putting it on the end of the stem, to see if that works to create a better seal in the downstem. I think SSV tubing will do the trick, i just need to find it now...

someone mentioned straight stems, those would make bong usage a little easier compared to the current angle, imo. where can i order one? Has anyone looked into getting some custom GG stems done?

Also, what the deal with the use-while-charge adapter? I remember a while back ppl were saying you could get an unofficial one for a lot cheaper. If not, wheres the cheapest place to buy the official one?

 

[guitarscreamngrowler]

it seems like the smell taste probably come from 104ms, im getting 102m so im hopping first couple batches are good, but i think someone on here had 102 problem. i think arizer made first two models fine an probably started shitting off after 102s.

 

[steiner666]

just a quick update: i tried my idea of slipping a 1-2" piece of SSV/DBV hosing over the mouth end of the stem and it definitely DOES make it not only seal much tighter in my 14mm downstem (if i stick it in the downstem and cover bowl opening with my thumb i get no air/bubbles at all now), it also doesnt want to wiggle around as much. it not functions pretty much on level with using your standard nylon log vape stem with a GG joint.

 

[Greenscreen]

Received my solo from Puff-It-Up this week, it is an M104 and also has the smell.

I have baked my cap and case and it calmed the smell somewhat but it has returned over time, although from what i can see it appears the odor is coming from where the wiring and circuit board is rather then the casing to me or the cap.

Hopefully the smell will disappear over time but i doubt it to be honest, i knew i should of returned this vape when i found out it wouldn't have been the SS version. Its irritating because the solo could be so good, such a tease of a vape, mind you i suppose it shows the future direction of powerful portable vaporizers, its an impressive piece of kit. Once other companies make similar products and do the things arizer will be a great great day (or alternaterly arizer sort out all the bugs with the solo)

One things for sure though slight smell or not, it is an unbelievable piece of equipment. Having broke the bowl on my extreme Q the same day the solo arrived, the solo has had to attempt to replace the Q and i am very impressed. In fact if it didn't have the dreaded smell then I would be ranting how this is definitely on par if not the better then the Q..

 

[pain101]

ive got the m105, no smell that i can tell. it fully extracts my nugs, i can get browned to black material depending on how long i am vaping for, and it will crumble to a crisp. i'm very sad about my glass stems since ive broken both in exactly one month of having them!!! ARGH!!!! luckily my second one is still functional and hopefully will stay so until i can figure out how the hell i can afford THEN FIND a stem without having to go online...(small town, no ride, no cash, no job)


EDIT, i also find that HOW you inhale is crucial, if you actually watch the cloud in the stem you can really get a good stream going with practicing how softly you haul back.

i like to give it a GOOD quick pull with some force, then ever so gently haul back and watch that white stream going into my face till i feel like i'm gonna cough up a lung, then hold it in..... hold it in... lol

i think my second stem has broken simply because of its looseness while sitting in the unit during use, ive been extremely careful, but when moving the thing it rattles around and i use it VERY regularly, so just last nite after using it, a big chip came off the bottom of the stem, and theres a big crack line.

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

Pain your signature is painful for my PC . It starts lagging everytime i see one of your posts..
So guys can one say which are considered to be the smelly models of arizer solo and is there anyway to know what you are getting ?

 

[pain101]

fixed!!! i know the pain of having a crap comp, please santa bring both me and abysmal some really awesome gaming laptops so we never have to worry about GIF's clogging our poor dilapidated cpus ever again!!!

i get no stink with my m105. it tastes delicious and i cant stand a bong anymore in comparison. i think you pretty much just need to buy and hope!! lol, i got mine from torontovaporizer.com and it was a breeze!!

 

[darkrom]

My original was M104. Stinky but not robot fart stinky. Bad flavor but not super strong. Headaches in full force.

My replacement was SS but I forget the model number, but Im 100% positive that it was NOT M104. Worse smell by far, and the taste was significantly worse. Headaches were the same consistent with both. I didn't hear the whining sound with my solos but I know the sound that people are talking about.

Honestly it doesn't seem to be a certain model that stinks/tastes/headaches/whines louder than other models. I just think the QC isn't as high as they claim. I feel like there are some M104's and M102's that work fine, and some that have any of the well known problems. I don't believe that one batch was produced differently or anything like that. They are mass produced so the process is going to be the same. They just have flaws. Some do, some don't. The key now IMO is getting the company to address and improve them. I WANT this vape to go back to the one I was raving about in the beginning, but quite honestly that can't happen without Arizer being on board to improve their own product when it needs it.

 

[smokum]

My warranty replacement for my ceramic chipping M102 is an M105 SS, and it has that dreaded new electronics burning smell during use.

I charged the battery up upon receiving it, took the cap off and did a full strength burn in which is when I noticed that smell. Repeated the burn in's until the smell was diminished enough to say that it was starting to go away (about 3 full battery recharges), then put the cap on and repeated a full strength burn attempt. Well.... the smell was back to being very heavy again and so far after full strength burns (now approx 20+ full recharges) it is still noticeable albeit slight, yet enough that I can still taste it AND smell it 'mildly' enough to put off my use experience.

I haven't done the disassemble and baking of the housing yet because I'm kind of miffed at the ordeal at the moment, but I suppose that is my next approach if I want to attempt to eliminate the issue. So for now, I'm back to the M102 with the chipped ceramic to enable continued medicating.

I'll tend to agree that with my SS replacement that it is definitely running cooler since to get to the same level of herb satisfaction I need to run it at 5-6 setting for a full cycle as opposed to my ceramic's 3-4 setting of a full cycle. I don't really have a problem with that, only the off putting smell & taste that seems to remain at this point as well as the lacking visual vapor compared to my original purchased unit.

Arizer did step up with their warranty and customer service responses, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in the overall experience on the whole for where I'm sitting at now considering my purchase was at full pop. So, for me, it has now led my hopes set towards watching & waiting on the release of the Cloud as a viable next purchase.

 

[OhTheAgony]

Do you use firefox Absymal?

If so install an add-on called Adblock Plus. After you've installed it you can just right click that picture (or any other one) and block it so you won't have it showing up again. I do this all the time with some of the louder/annoying gifs

 

[vaplexus]

Honestly it doesn't seem to be a certain model that stinks/tastes/headaches/whines louder than other models. I just think the QC isn't as high as they claim.

From reading all the reports it seems more like it has to do with the model of human using it. some people are more sensitive to the smells and sounds than others. there so far has not been any conclusive evidence that it can be pinned to specific model numbers. also based on the design i don't think its QC related either as the issues are either there in full force or not and if there was that much variation due to material or assembly differences i think we'd be seeing more issues than just smell and sound. consider that everyone is different and some people have a sensitivity to smell and sound and taste it seems like the variations are based more on who is using the solo.

i guess the best bit of advice would be to only buy from a place that will take a return if you find your sensitivity to the smells, sounds or taste are not going to make you happy.

i think arizer could have made a kind of mini-cloud in that they could have designed it with a completely glass airflow isolated from the electronics and other materials. however i can totally see where this would likely increase the cost of the solo significantly and it would likely not be as small and the battery last as long (the heater would have to be bigger and be on more to keep the glass hot). i think arizer did a great job creating a good balance and compromise for this portably vape. so just make sure you can return it for a refund so you can see if the problems others have reported are going to be a problem for you.

 

[pain101]

/\ very wise words indeed!!! i spend alot of time with circuits and soldering so i would very likely be largely immune to any robot fart smells if they arent directly smoking! and before it was pure bong action with a disgustingly gross bong, to me, the solo tastes like heaven!!! i really need to get a wallwart that puts out 9volts 5000ma though cuz i dont like being so intensely mean to my battery. ultimately i have a vision of my head of creating a stand to plug the solo into, much like an ipod dock, then a simple switch to go from charge to use as the situation calls for, all housed in a nice little box, then attached to a whip, cuz i'm not all that delicate when it comes to my 'airflow' path, and will take some heat resistant surgical tubing, especially if it shall keep me from breaking the damn stems!!!


EDIT, also to be perfectly honest, i would have preferred if i could resize the signature gif to a smaller size cuz it was waaaaay to big for my taste. i'm just a newb though, so what can i say??

 

[pain101]

ohhh, one more point, ive created a smell filter for the vapor blown out, as i cant stink up the house at all.

simply taken a computer fan, wired it up with a switch to a 12volt wallwart(powerplug) then taped on a 600ml pop bottle to the fan. on the bottom of the fan is a simple respirator filter which could be subsitiuted for almost anything, and use something like febreeze on the filter. works like a charm!!! literally smells like nothing coming out the other side, AND ive got a 9volt battery plug dealie i can plug into it as well for 'portable use' but its a slower process and cannot overload it with too much vapor or it will leak smell.(only at 9volt)

note the awesome dresser i have!!! someone threw that out!!!! i kept the stickers due to awesomeness!!

AND here is the view from the bottom where the switch is at... stole it from a busted ps2 from back in the highschool era\



EDIT
furthermore, i do not agree that the finer ground the better. a proper grind for a joint is absolutely perfect. if its too fine, its smoked too quick for my tastes. i PREFER to have a nice slow relaxed process about it, and when its ground up extremely fine, its gone within a few puffs.

 

[steiner666]

OK, so i have my solo dismantled atm. Big thanks goes out to vapelexus for his pictures assuring me that i wouldnt open a can of worms (er, wires) that i couldnt close back up easily. Everything looks nice and neat like his pictures, except for one thing (this is one of vaplexus pics since i dont have a good quality camera atm, so you cant see what im actually talkinga bout since his is nice and clean):

those points where those 4 wires are attached to the circuitboard that i have highlighted in yellow/orange is nowhere near as clean as it is in the above pic from vaplexus. Mine has some sort of honey-like goo that covers all of the wire soldering points as well as the one side of the nearby IC chips. it looks like rosin flux that was just gobbed on all over the place. I just over the other bunch of wires in the top left area around and i can see theres a big gob of it under them, where they connect to the board as well.

It seems pretty well solidified, like hardened glue form a hot glue gun, but I'm wondering if this might not be the source of the problem. Especially since the first time i turned the unit on my first guess for what the smell was was in fact soldering flux. Then i open it up and see this....

So yeah i'm going to try cleaning it off and then put it back together and see if that changes anything. However, im also going to wipe down and bake the entire casing while i have it apart, so i suppose i wont know which fixed it if it goes away.

But anyways: If other solo users could take theres apart to the degree that you need to in order to get a view of this circuit board (its REALLY easy, just unscrew the 4 screws on the bottom of the unit and slide the housing off and then unclick the plastic piece that holds the battery into the unit, lift the battery off and you're at it) and see if you also have this gobs or gunk around your wire connections as well, we might be able to see if this is something thats in all stinky units.

I think that, if they have different people soldering these together (which i imagine they do) that one of the assemblers could have a different method/technique (such as putting gobs of flux around their soldering connections) that would make their units more likely to stink.

more to come soon....

 

[darkrom]

Nice work Steiner and of course vapelexus. If I was inhaling gobs of shitty solder or flux that would explain the smell/taste and likely the headaches as well.

 

[vaplexus]

thats not flux. its glue. its used to create strain relief on the wires so they dont break off during assembly and repair. i dont think the smell is solder flux. from my experience with electronics, the smell is typical of products designed with heaters in them. i am prett confident the smell will go away with use.

 

[darkrom]

thats not flux. its glue. its used to create strain relief on the wires so they dont break off during assembly and repair. i dont think the smell is solder flux. from my experience with electronics, the smell is typical of products designed with heaters in them. i am prett confident the smell will go away with use.

But lots of people are saying the smell got worse, mine included, which didn't stink when it was new. Is it possible that the glue is heating up? If it is neat on yours and liquid on his that is all I could imagine is happening.

 

[vaplexus]

thats not flux. its glue. its used to create strain relief on the wires so they dont break off during assembly and repair. i dont think the smell is solder flux. from my experience with electronics, the smell is typical of products designed with heaters in them. i am prett confident the smell will go away with use.

But lots of people are saying the smell got worse, mine included, which didn't stink when it was new. Is it possible that the glue is heating up? If it is neat on yours and liquid on his that is all I could imagine is happening.

Tonight i will dig into the solo an see if i can pinpoint the source of the smell. Stay tuned.