Bob Burruss, Has Died: Inventor and Commercial Pioneer of Dry Herb, Log-style and Other Hand-held and Convection Vaporizers

[vap999]

Robert (Bob) Burruss has died. He was the inventor and commercial sales pioneer of convection vaporizers, particularly 12-volt-powered 'log' and other convection vaporizers, such the Purple Days (a popular copy of his Eterra) and the current E-Nano.

For those not familar, he was an engineer and inventor, including receiving the first U.S. patent for a dry herb (intended for cannabis) vaporizer, which evolved into the first hand-held convection log-style vaporizers. I presume more information can be found searching FC, Google, etc.

Vaporizer models he brought to market include the Flash Evaporator; Eterra, which I recall was the 1st 'log' vaporizer; Pneuma; an air-heater attachment for a soldering gun (forget model name); likely among the first hand-held battery-powered vaporizers; sold custom vapes of various designs, etc.

I bought me 1st vaporizer, a Flash Evaporator, from him at his home (turned out be about 2 miles from where I live) in 1994. From there I visited a few times over the next 5-6 years, including buying newer models as they came out, checking out his home workshop (sometimes vaporizer factory), testing out vaporizers; and B.S.-ing a lot about improving his models and new ones he might develop. I haven't had any contact with him for about 20 years now.

Just thought I would be get this into the FC and public record. It may seem corny, but he was a vaporizer pioneer and deserves credit for this in our community.

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

Thank you for sharing ! Indeed he left a trail in the vaping history,but i am quite sure that one day he will get the fame he deserves !

 

[Hippie Dickie]

the Eterra certainly inspired my interest in vaporizing cannabis. i was lucky to stumble across his website sometime in 2000 (i think). i didn't even know at the time that vaporizing was a thing. i think he got the idea from the pyrolysis plant in Bawlmer.

R.I.P. Bob - you are remembered and appreciated.

 

[invertedisdead]

Much respect to one of the “founding fathers“ of the vaporizer movement.

the Eterra certainly inspired my interest in vaporizing cannabis. i was lucky to stumble across his website sometime in 2000 (i think). i didn't even know at the time that vaporizing was a thing. i think he got the idea from the pyrolysis plant in Bawlmer.

R.I.P. Bob - you are remembered and appreciated.

Here’s a brief blurb off his website.

A Brief History of the Flash Evaporator and Related Vapor Projects​ In 1975 I (Bob; send questions here) shared an office with a cigar smoker, who eventually died of lung cancer. Second-hand smoke was not considered a problem in those days. But I was working then under contract to the U.S. EPA, studying the cancer-causing chemicals produced by incomplete combustion, as in cigarettes, cigars, and in the oxygen-starved combustion of coal and solid waste.​ One day, as a part of my job, I visited a new kind of solid-waste incinerator which Monsanto had designed and built for the city of Baltimore. My task was to decide whether to bid on doing an economic analysis of the incinerator's performance. The special feature of the Monsanto incinerator was that it was designed to burn the solid waste incompletely, thereby producing fuel gases that could be piped to, and used to heat, office buildings in downtown Baltimore. At some point during my visit to the Monsanto plant I realized that tobacco could probably also be heated without combustion -- in other words, I realized that electrically heated air could be used to evaporate the taste and nicotine into an inhalable airstream without having to use the tobacco itself as the energy source to evaporate the taste and nicotine into an inhalable airstream. I decided to build a noncombustion tobacco inhaler, market it, and then retire. Instead, I learned about the frustrations, challenges and wonders of hands-on research and development. The first test model was made from laboratory glassware. It used a 1,000-watt heating element from a toaster and survived long enough to prove the idea, and then it melted down. Two years later I had a 100-watt model, which was built from a light bulb and a brake fluid can. My first patent, 4,141,369, was based on that model, which was called the Health Pipe. The present Flash Evaporator and related projects grew from that origin. Each of them uses about 10 watts of power. The Tobacco Master models use about 40 to 50 watts and, in a sort of irony, the smallest one is the size of a pack of cigarettes.​

 

[Jimmyweaese]

Robert (Bob) Burruss has died. He was the inventor and commercial sales pioneer of convection vaporizers, particularly 12-volt-powered 'log' and other convection vaporizers, such the Purple Days (a popular copy of his Eterra) and the current E-Nano.

For those not familar, he was an engineer and inventor, including receiving the first U.S. patent for a dry herb (intended for cannabis) vaporizer, which evolved into the first hand-held convection log-style vaporizers. I presume more information can be found searching FC, Google, etc.

Vaporizer models he brought to market include the Flash Evaporator; Eterra, which I recall was the 1st 'log' vaporizer; Pneuma; an air-heater attachment for a soldering gun (forget model name); likely among the first hand-held battery-powered vaporizers; sold custom vapes of various designs, etc.

I bought me 1st vaporizer, a Flash Evaporator, from him at his home (turned out be about 2 miles from where I live) in 1994. From there I visited a few times over the next 5-6 years, including buying newer models as they came out, checking out his home workshop (sometimes vaporizer factory), testing out vaporizers; and B.S.-ing a lot about improving his models and new ones he might develop. I haven't had any contact with him for about 20 years now.

Just thought I would be get this into the FC and public record. It may seem corny, but he was a vaporizer pioneer and deserves credit for this in our community.

Way ahead of his time.