Cloud chasers take note, I think I may have stumbled on something useful. It's a variation on the glass bead idea. Instead of a bead I used several of the little glass 'flower screens', four bucks for ten:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008Y9PNAQ/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The last few times I've used
6 or 7 of them, so you can loose a few and still play. The last bowl I used seven of them for
one gram of glass (.99 actually, but who's counting?). This reduced the capacity to
.20 grams of bud (more than cut in half by a bit). I put them in in layers, put a few in, load a pinch of weed, put a few more in, more bud and put the last one or two on top, poking the stem down into the load. It's really easier to do than it sounds. I use a toothpick to wiggle them around in the bowl if needed, but fine ground bud slips around the smooth surfaces easily and you end up with a solid packed bowl. Only half of it's glass now (so the amount needed is smaller) and the distributed mass and lots of surface area means that hot glass (remember it too goes to 400F with the load) is making contact with a lot of bud. I think maybe even as much as the flat surface of the wall of the oven? A handy thing to have around in the hit.
The results are striking (at least to me). In this last run, I gave it 3 minutes to 'soak' after the icon changed. From the experiments I figured it was about as high as it was going to get, I might have rushed that part a bit. I also gave it at least 2 minutes to recover between hits. Anyway, the vapor didn't drop off like before. I wasn't able to 'overrun' it like before.
Four seriously heavy pulls (not normally my thing) and the load was exhausted. Toast. .2 grams gone in four hits. That's like 1.5 Solo stems. Nothing of importance escaped, it all came up the stem to me in four hits two minutes apart. Trust me it worked, about what you'd expect a stem and a half on the Solo to do, only compressed.
And sweet tasting too I'm thinking? I've been trying to put my finger on it, I think that might be a way to look at it. I noticed that putting ABV into the Solo at four (about on par I think) I was able to nurse one more OK hit out (not very tasty....). A little bit more, but
much darker doing it. I'm thinking that since Ascent seems to heat to a uniform temperature then drop with the hit, where Solo does the opposite, idling at a lower temperature but quickly sweeping to higher temperatures in response to the hit it's easier to control the maximum temperature in Ascent? As long as there's enough heat for the next hit on tap you may well be better off with this system from a temperature control standpoint.......and I think the little glass flowers might be a good way to make that happen in a more useful manner for some of us.
I also have been playing with AscentiL's excellent suggestion and watching the display of sensor temperature (?) in real time in idle mode. It drops pretty slowly, which supports the idea that there's not a lot of draft bringing in cold air and stealing vapor. However, if you hit it fairly hard the rate at first does't change, then changes to fairly fast, which
continues for some time after the hit, to finally go back to the slow rate from before the hit. I've done it several times in the 350 to 250 or so range cooling off. I think there's some fun stuff going on there and anybody can play and wonder that has a mind to.
So, how'd your Sunday night go?
OF
![:\](/i/s/hmm.gif "Hmm :\")
