Pen Herbstick Eco Vaporizer

[ampakine]

I used a TM902C digital thermometer with Type K temperature probe for the measurements. I've checked the calibration of my meter and it is OK.

Thanks for the puck idea. It's working better than grinding. No more flying bits to clog up the mouthpiece holes, and the load warms up faster.

Which air leak are you talking about on the Ascent? I noticed that air gets in through the big crack where the chamber meets the main body? I tried using a big screen to hold the load against the chamber body for max heat conduction, and the Herbstick Eco still kicks its ass.

What did you use for your temperature measurements if I may ask?

Be it in the Ascent or this vape, or any conduction vape in fact, I always recommend to use the "puck technique". Tamp your load quite hard using a flat tool and make a small puck. This way you don't have to fill the bowl fully and it maximizes the contact surface area with the oven walls and removes air from the load, as this is how conduction works, by contact.

Then draw much more softly than in your other vapes (even more in the Ascent which you can only sip at best) If you get a rising puck or flying bits of material it means you are drawing too hard. It's not easy to self-regulate at first but with practice you should get better results. Just open the bowl and push back the puck in place.

PS: for the Ascent you also need to fix the air-leak but this is another story...

 

[KeroZen]

The Ascent has a design flaw at the top, it's a bit hard to explain without a picture (I did post such a picture in the dedicated thread back then though) But basically due to the telescoping stems you can suck air from the internal plastic "tunnel" which in turn is not properly isolated from the device internals where the electronics are.

The flaw is that the silicone top piece they call "buddy rim" can warp and create a gap at the end of the tunnel, and that gap opens to the internals. So it creates a dilution source and you get a suboptimal vapor/air ratio (plus sucking air from the electronics section but that's apparently not a problem for most people, even if I find the idea pretty disturbing...)

 

[nomadicsoul34]

The Ascent has a design flaw at the top, it's a bit hard to explain without a picture (I did post such a picture in the dedicated thread back then though) But basically due to the telescoping stems you can suck air from the internal plastic "tunnel" which in turn is not properly isolated from the device internals where the electronics are.

The flaw is that the silicone top piece they call "buddy rim" can warp and create a gap at the end of the tunnel, and that gap opens to the internals. So it creates a dilution source and you get a suboptimal vapor/air ratio (plus sucking air from the electronics section but that's apparently not a problem for most people, even if I find the idea pretty disturbing...)

Thank god i read this before buying one as a cheap holiday home vape...

What is up with davinci? They are producing what should be awesome vapes but with garbage reliability.

 

[ampakine]

I forgot to mention.. I ordered a 2nd Herbstick Eco from the same vendor I used before. Unlike the first one, which took 2 days of burn offs to rid it of horrible plastic odors, the 2nd one had no odor from the start! So YMMV on the stinkiness. Both Herbstick Eco's are still working well. The plastic USB port cover fell out of one of them, but it's no biggie to me.

I know what you mean about the air gap between the 2 glass tubes in the Ascent. I was thinking to myself when I first tried it that there would be an air leak there. I wasn't as impressed as all the rave reviews when I received mine. It looks cool, but I'm using the Herbstick Eco almost exclusively over the Ascent now.

The Ascent has a design flaw at the top, it's a bit hard to explain without a picture (I did post such a picture in the dedicated thread back then though) But basically due to the telescoping stems you can suck air from the internal plastic "tunnel" which in turn is not properly isolated from the device internals where the electronics are.

The flaw is that the silicone top piece they call "buddy rim" can warp and create a gap at the end of the tunnel, and that gap opens to the internals. So it creates a dilution source and you get a suboptimal vapor/air ratio (plus sucking air from the electronics section but that's apparently not a problem for most people, even if I find the idea pretty disturbing...)

 

[KeroZen]

Oh so you got an Ascent already? Then I invite you to implement one of the air-leak fixes discussed in the thread. The posts are old but if you do a search for "leak" exclusively in the Ascent thread you should find them (I know I made many)

Nice to hear that some Eco's now have a neutral smell out of the box! Interestingly we had the inverse situation in the X-Max Pro v2 thread, where my sample unit had zero smell but another member had a later one with the trademark polyimide tape glue smell. Go figure...

 

[Marklariusz]

For anyone that is interested in using different MP on this unit. You can use any 510 drip tip by adding standard pipe screen. Just press the tip into the screen it will form nice basket and provide tight fit.

I'm using it with long acrylic drip tip. Here are some pics.

 

[KeroZen]

KZ's Herbstick Eco retrospective review

I re-read the thread today and realized I didn't really write my final review of this vape in the end. Much has been said already and this is clearly one of the most under-rated vapes around: the value for such a low price is incredible.

I'm not for disposable products in general, it's not sustainable, but this is definitely the electric portable that you can buy just for your holidays duration and donate to someone when you leave.

It's also a great vape for a gift and to make a person try vaporization before spending big bucks for nothing (the conversion rate is unfortunately very low... most give up and go back to combustion)

Now that I have more experience with it, I'll try to do a retrospective review while comparing it to two other pen-style vapes, the X-Max V2 Pro and the FlowerMate VT1.0:

The good

- It's super cheap (but if possible pay a little more to be sure you get a genuine one, the manufacturer is Ciggo / Bauway)
- Samsung 25R cell, 2500mAh means long battery life and a heater slightly more powerful than the X-Max, but maybe less than the VT1.0 (hard to tell)
- Relatively good vapor production, not a fog machine but not too shabby
- Vivid multi-color LED for all feedback (not good for color blind people though) is nice looking and easy to hide for stealth in the dark
- I find it's the best looking of the 3 pictured above, but this is really subjective
- USB charging
- Heat-up time is medium good
- Well chosen temperature settings covering both ends of the spectrum, with the low being low enough to please the most demanding flavor chasers
- The color progression for temperatures makes sense, contrary to the backwards one in the X-Max
- Simple operation, perfect for novice users
- Stealthy, doesn't attract attention, looks like a fat e-cigar
- Easy to clean and maintain
- Compatible with all 510 drip tips, comes with spare ones
- Stock mouthpiece is aluminum, not plastic, same for the top part holding it
- Aluminum shell, light, does not get as hot as the X-Max for some reason
- Really isolated air-path, unlike the VT1.0 (and for the X-Max it's not 100% clear)

The meh

- Stock mouthpiece is a bit meh, yet better than the X-Max one which is really awful
- Oven is stainless steel, it's more efficient due to better thermal conductivity but I prefer ceramic
- Had to do a lot of empty burn-ins to get rid of the polyimide tape smell (the glue on it) but some devices apparently have no smell out of the box (or their users are not sensitive...)

The bad

- The taste is poor really, same as the X-Max, and the ultra-short vapor path is surely to blame
- The bottom part has not enough venting holes, this is a real hazard and can create a pipe-bomb if the cell was to vent (if you hear the device hiss, don't hesitate a single second and throw it away!)
- Non-replaceable battery (they could have done it easily like in the X-Max but nope)
- There are clones of this product around, it's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you will get....

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

@KeroZen Great review ! I didnt know that there were different batches of this unit. I got one second hand from a forum member,it lasted like 4 days,before it broke,also something was rattling inside beforehand, all result of a heavy use i guess,maybe it served good to the previous owner but recently i opened it up and wasnt impressed. There were wires next to the heating chamber which were melted by heat,also there were tiny plastic particle jiggling all around that could easily be inhaled... It must have experienced a few drops i,cant tell for sure, but the damage was mainly due to heat degradation of the plastics.The heater is the same which is used in the flowermate,but was looking a bit less damaged from heat than the one on my gf's old flowermate which may have seen even more heavy use than the herbstick eco.
Another thing that bothers me is that the heater itself is held by six plastic pillars.
Airpath is clearly not isolated from electronics and surrounded by plastic and wires . I am glad i used waterfiltration the few times it did work,cause as mentioned it had small particles all around .
Maybe i got one from the shitty batches,idk,but build quality of this unit is nowhere near that of the x-max 2 ,thats why it is half the price :").

 

[PPN]

Hi @Abysmal Vapor I'm very sad the unit wasn't working more than a few days but maybe it was something good since you find in the unit!

It was never very used (40-50 sessions at max) and the unit came directly from Bauway for testing/review so I'm sure that was a genuine one... this is a shame, that's why I stopped to review too much chinese vapes, I want to keep my health!

Do you have some pics?

Thanks for your input!

 

[ghost]

Hi @Abysmal Vapor that's why I stopped to review too much chinese vapes, I want to keep my health!

Exactly!

Every one of these China pen vapes that I tried (herbstick eco, xmax v2, imag+, FM v3 Air) all not only smelled toxic, but when I tried to run multiple burnoffs, they ALL off-gassed visible mystery vapors from oils or plastics or chemicals or whatever. Even after a dozen burn offs, in a still room, if you shined a flashlight/torch on them, you could see the toxic vapors coming off.

We all switched to vaping for the health benefits. IMO, people would be better off combusting than using these shadily manufactured China vapes off-gassing toxic fumes.

That's just one mans experience and opinion though.....take it for what its worth.

 

[OF]

KZ's Herbstick Eco retrospective review
The good

- Vivid multi-color LED for all feedback (not good for color blind people though) is nice looking and easy to hide for stealth in the dark
- The color progression for temperatures makes sense, contrary to the backwards one in the X-Max

Thanks again for yet another well thought out and useful review. Once again, of a vape I didn't notice but should have.......after quick review I just ordered one of my very own. Looks like of like a round Hebe Titan II with no digital display and fixed steps? And a better MP hopefully.

While color blind takes in a LOT of different levels of handicap, mine is the most common (Red/Green), and I have to disagree with you some, the choices of colors made will actually 'work' for me. Adding blue and yellow to the code helps a LOT, the only possible confusion I can see from looking at videos is step 2 (Green) and 6 (Red). Here, unlike many other places, those two colors are very separated on the scale. I anticipate no serious problems.

But, IMO much more impressive, is the 'battery meter'. Unlike Air it's actually useful for what you need to know (both for color blind and normal vision owners). The first half of the range ('plenty of battery') is a non ambiguous White. When you start to need to plan (under 50%) it switches to Blue (50 to 20%), again a clear and useful indication. Then, for the final 20% (a single session?) it goes to Red, another clear indication of an important reading. Contrast that with Air where there is no useful indication of the important bottom of the range and where they chose a color scale that can most charitably be called ignorant of the color blind handicapped?

Even if you can read the colors on Air correctly, putting the entire bottom of the charge in one range makes no sense to me. Like covering the bottom half of your car's gas gauge with tape so you can accurately read fuel level until it really matters. You'd know you only have enough gas for less than 200 miles left, but don't really know when you'll run out. XMax shares this, 3 steps in the meter which rapidly goes to 'running out sometime'. Colors aside, one has to wonder what the thinking here is.....

I think 'a lot of vape for the money' might turn out to sum up my 'take' once I play with it some.

Thanks very much for the recommendation. Given your history around these parts a guy would be foolish and short sighted not to consider it seriously......so I did? This better be good, 'cuz I know who to come looking for if it's not.

Regards to all.

OF

 

[KeroZen]

The polyimide tape smell is one thing, but what you guys describe is more worrying... One thing is sure, this vape has never been my daily driver, so I can't comment on the long run. But for special occasions, like when having to pass through a security checkpoint where they search your belongings, this and the X-Vape can prove useful.

I hope you won't regret it @OF, but in the worst case you would not have lost too much money hopefully...

What's fun is that my X-Max v2 Pro sample had no polyimide tape when other members posted pictures where it could be seen through the vents hole. My unit had strictly zero smell but on the other hand it gets ultra hot around the oven, and at the end of a 10min+ session the entire device feels hot, even the battery part.

My Herbstick Eco definitely had the polyimide tape but seems to run cooler (on the shell) than the X-Max.

Anyways the taste is poor on all three units pictured above.

@Abysmal Vapor : could you post pictures of said heat degradation in the FM5 thread please?

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

Sadly i havent taken photos of the disassembling of the units,but i think i havent thrown my trash bin yet,i will try to dig up the herbstick eco and make photos of the chamber and the chipping pillars that hold the chamber.
Sry the FM is long gone,i have this habbit in the last few years to give away my trashed electronics for recycling. But i think i can make photos of the Atmos boss, the horror there is equal to what i've seen in the herbstick. I also keep the purple dusting glass fiber like isolation from the T-vape chamber,reminds me of indigo,when i took it apart i was is this even real or i am flashin back .
I made a short post few days back in a thread dedicated to vaporizer material safety. I didnt feel like making multiple post in the model specific threads cause , i wasnt wise enough to take photos,and i would look like i am onto some rant on chinese vapes. I am not ,for sure !
Btw i am very happy with the Atman Pretty +which i won in FB give-away,i have just few minor concerns but sofar it has the best ceramic chamber concept . Heating time is amazingly fast, it has one set temp which is a bit too high i believe it is 410 but you can control it easily by switching it off,also delivers very thick hits via waterpipe,i should gather my thoughts about it and post in a thread.
I am with you on your feelings about testing chinese vaporizers,sofar i have been a tester only once , there was a mass give away on Herbstick deluxe beta units, which didnt last long but wasnt that bad.Other than that i did try to review few Airistech vapes,but they smelled so badly that i told them that i wont be reviewing them. Sadly my friends keep on buying this shit ,and i have stumbled upon many ,which didnt impressed me much.
Sofar i have tried VS3,X-max v2,Imag +,Lativa,Shiva,Herbva,Flowermate,Pluto Wooden Vape (than one was very nice btw,just the moutpiece needed some modding,i will try to get in touch with that friend and post a review about it ,cause it really deserves one,far better than flowermate IMO .
http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/vaporizer-safety.10686/page-2#post-1127477

 

[KeroZen]

I took the the discussion about the FlowerMate 5 here: http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/f...v5-0-v5-0s-v5-pro.13786/page-151#post-1129580

I stand on my positions that it's perfectly fine, especially the recent versions with the fully isolated air intake.

 

[OF]

I stand on my positions that it's perfectly fine, especially the recent versions with the fully isolated air intake.

They can be made safe, at least relatively so, since one can argue nothing in life, include vaping itself is 100% safe? We (collectively) know how, that is you can engineer and build such a device without any known risks. At least in the traditional sense, those which can be identified and studied.

Cost is not necessarily a factor here, although it seems natural to suspect cheap vapes I guess. But there are appropriate materials, and they generally don't cost all that much more than substitutes.

Other concerns, like isolating the nasty electricity vapors from the vapor path are more problematic. Since they (defined hazards from conventional electronics) don't exist at the technical level it's hard to justify eliminating them. And how do you know when that job is done? IMO the concerns are genuine (or can be, and often are) but the hazard is not real in most folk's minds since it can't be measured, tested for, or otherwise studied. Worse than Global Warming, at least there we have temperatures and such we can measure......and modify to fit our needs later? No chance for objective approaches, we're deep in subjectiveland.

Some of us are easy to please, others near impossible. Part of the fun. But I'm with KZ here, it's possible, and if he says it is here, it probably is?

Regards to all.

OF

 

[KeroZen]

Just to be clear, that last message was about the FM5-S. I haven't opened the Herbstick Eco...

 

[PPN]

Hi @Abysmal Vapor ... so all 3 vapes I sold you (T-Vape, Boss & Eco) are totally dead for now... or did you bought them for a tear down?

Didn't know anything about the Atman Pretty Plus but I reviewed the Almighty I received , it was so bad I never posted a review and the contact with Atman was not easy and cool.... absurd airpath/vaporpath, ton of silicone to fill the empty spaces, absurd design, unworking grinder... I know there is a V2 now...The Hashi with a screen àla MFLB was not working well (the woody body was nice though!) and the only one which is working for me is the StarLight, it offer a very decent taste (even good) IF used with a glass stem inserted in the oven, the original mouthpiece is too bad!

Do you think the 2017 standards about internals are better...? cause all this 3 vapes are 3-4 years old (even more)..
Have I to be worry about the Focus, odin, Torch, Swift,Adventurer,Hydro9, Starry, Fury, Alfa, Pax... or all this shit is only coming from a few manufacturers?

From Flowermate I received 3 products for testing&review: Swift, Ihit and a flower vape pen I don't remenber the name... since some retailers this one was very bad and unsafe (PIU made a tear down) and the Ihit was a total robot fart experience one of the worst of my vaping life , you can't even taste your flowers using a 0.5g load... a bit less after some more use but I never felt comfortable to use it, it's gone now.

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

Hi @Abysmal Vapor ... so all 3 vapes I sold you (T-Vape, Boss & Eco) are totally dead for now... or did you bought them for a tear down?

Didn't know anything about the Atman Pretty Plus but I reviewed the Almighty I received , it was so bad I never posted a review and the contact with Atman was not easy and cool.... absurd airpath/vaporpath, ton of silicone to fill the empty spaces, absurd design, unworking grinder... I know there is a V2 now...The Hashi with a screen àla MFLB was not working well (the woody body was nice though!) and the only one which is working for me is the StarLight, it offer a very decent taste (even good) IF used with a glass stem inserted in the oven, the original mouthpiece is too bad!

Do you think the 2017 standards about internals are better...? cause all this 3 vapes are 3-4 years old (even more)..
Have I to be worry about the Focus, odin, Torch, Swift,Adventurer,Hydro9, Starry, Fury, Alfa, Pax... or all this shit is only coming from a few manufacturers?

From Flowermate I received 3 products for testing&review: Swift, Ihit and a flower vape pen I don't remenber the name... since some retailers this one was very bad and unsafe (PIU made a tear down) and the Ihit was a total robot fart experience one of the worst of my vaping life , you can't even taste your flowers using a 0.5g load... a bit less after some more use but I never felt comfortable to use it, it's gone now.

Hey ! The Boss and Eco failed soon after i received them,the Tvape is still working with the short chamber,i use the other one few times and wasnt getting any good results to the point that it even stopped heating. I already mentioned that i bought them to give to some friends,just wanted to try them few times before i gave them away,and sadly they didnt survive that. I didnt even mean to tear them down,i opened the Eco so i can try and fix it but.. what i found there,made me gut out the rest of the mentioned above. Anyway i am glad it happened cause i would never forgive myself if i let people that i consider friends breath trough that shit.
Well Atman pretty is way better in terms of design. It is a really small battery with 510 atomizer which has none of that toilet paper around the heater. It is one of the slimmest and smallest battery vapes i tried. Battery holds for 5-6 cycles only.but i am happy with it. Also drip tip is standart 510 ecig,you can get longer metal ,glass or combo ones. It also fits 14 mm without issue and for 18.8 i just add a piece of silicone tubing around it. I lend it to a friend,but when i get it back i will post some thoughts about it in a dedicated thread.
I got really carried away,but i agree that the new line of chinese vapes coming might have already addressed the issues i tripped upon on their later models or not,until we gut them out we never know for sure.I dont mind breathing hot electronic that much,i would die if it happens sometimes but melted Isolation and chipping particles ... is just too fuckin much, i would never purchase a Herbstick Eco even at a gunpoint for sure,i didnt see those issues with the herbstick deluxe model,which was working somewhat fine,despite the crappy taste.

 

[CallmeBob]

I love how this thread was revived with bad news just a couple of days after I ordered mine, lol.
Would have loved to see some pics of the guts as well.

Right now I'm thinking about reselling it when it arrives.. Just suck it up and order a convection vaporizer or something like the MFLB maybe. Not too keen on spending more than the MFLB costs, which is already kind of pushing it, but at least it seems reasonably priced here in Europe compared to US prices.

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

I will post photos on Sunday,i managed to find the heater in the trashbin,but i wont have access to a quality camera till then. Sadly my phone doesnt have a camera but does have a flashlight ..

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

Degradation on the top of the pillars is visible.

Other side of the heater - melted

Circuit board wire with white fuss on them,heat probe looks charred too,i guess heat degradation.

Not here is the worst..

Airpath is definetly not isolated. Those holes above the pillars that look like windows is where battery and circuit board attach to the heater.. it doesnt even separates the battery department.. So if something happens during use u will be inhaling that shit i guess,but this is the least problem i see with that vape.

I can take more photos of the airpath but,i admit that i could have done better,but i wont bother unless somebody thinks that those are not enough.. You can take my word for it .. there are two tunnels from from end to end,letting you ventilate every one of the parts involved in that vape.

 

[KeroZen]

Thanks for the pics but you said your unit failed? And it looked like it went out of regulation indeed.

I'm clearly amongst the smell-sensitive users on this forum (many times I smelled things when other members said it was completely neutral) and I would have noticed burning plastic like that I would assume.

For the air path isolation or lack there-off, in my unit the vast majority of the air intake is from the large hole just under the heater. I tried blowing in the mouthpiece several times and vapor always escaped from these vents. If I block them I don't get air from the button or elsewhere.

The best recommendation would be to avoid using at max temp setting anyways? Or get a pricier vape anyways...

PS: is there a non-destructive way to open the device for inspection?

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

Thanks for the pics but you said your unit failed? And it looked like it went out of regulation indeed.

I'm clearly amongst the smell-sensitive users on this forum (many times I smelled things when other members said it was completely neutral) and I would have noticed burning plastic like that I would assume.

For the air path isolation or lack there-off, in my unit the vast majority of the air intake is from the large hole just under the heater. I tried blowing in the mouthpiece several times and vapor always escaped from these vents. If I block them I don't get air from the button or elsewhere.

The best recommendation would be to avoid using at max temp setting anyways? Or get a pricier vape anyways...

PS: is there a non-destructive way to open the device for inspection?

Well as i mentioned few times before, i got mine second hand from a forum member that mentioned that he got it directly from the manufacturer and havent used it more than 50 times ,i myself used max 5-6 times before it failed. So if this is a result of 60 sessions...
You might be on the right path to stay off high temps,i personally havent gone beyond middle of temp range.,i never do it is just not my style.
I am not complaining of the deal i got or from anyone from the herbstick company, i would have never purchased the herbstick eco anyway if it wasnt in a bundle ( i got nectar collector which was my main target,works very good, and atmos boss,tvape and herbstick eco for 60$ i cant really complain ,just wanted to make gift to some combusting heads but i am glad i didnt).
I am sure buying a more expensive vape is the key to being happy but i have found happiness in my DIY test tube vaporizer, which works better and has cleanest airpath possible,delivers fat convection clouds and costs me 2$ to make.. If i had the cash to spare i would be for something more pleasing in appeal ,handmade of wood or smth cool with much love and dedication.
It is kind of easy to take the unit apart,but i cannot guarantee that it will go without damage.
Anywat first you can unscrew the button,it is like a bolt that holds the chamber into the upper part.Then you just pull the top away.
Btw i found that you can lock the button if you like by rotating it in a certain direction .

 

[KeroZen]

Thanks for the precisions and for posting the pics, they sure do look horrifying!

 

[CallmeBob]

I'm glad I can pick up my Woody Ti on Monday. This is after 5x burn-offs: