The member in question is
@Mike-Topbond. He is a frequent visitor to IRC, where he has been soliciting advice and making the corresponding adjustments based on feedback. Early in the development process he asked me to test a beta unit, pictured below:
Here's a view showing the oven chamber as it was in my beta. There is a small screen for the bottom that I stopped using since nothing was falling through because you are pulling the load away from the bottom and it will usually clump up. In fact, it tended to stick to the screen in the bottom of the mouthpiece, which is shown on the right. As you can see the MP screws onto the oven. That metal part got pretty hot so one of the changes you'll see in the production version is that that part is now covered. Note that when the MP is removed the oven can be covered by the sliding panel on the left so your load can stay in there on the go.
This is a shot from the bottom of the beat unit. The MP can be stored in here for travel, kept in place by sliding the panel on the right over. The four holes are the air intake. The heater actually does not surround the oven chamber as it usually does in devices like this. Instead, it is below the oven and therefore provides a strong element of convection heat. The oven chamber does eventually heats up so there is still some conduction, however.
PIU has
lots of pictures of the rest of the Odin if you want more.
The packaging I got was impressive. I don't usually mention by this aspect but Topbond did a fantastic job here. You immediately get a feel that you're getting something of the highest quality. That is carried over to the construction and materials used for the Odin itself. It's nice in the hand and has a solid feel.
My first test for any device is a dry draw without heat to check for unwanted flavours. There was a slight "new" taste to the Odin, but it quickly disappeared with use. The heatup time was pretty good: ~40 seconds to 160°C (320°F), my favourite starting temperature. Incidentally, the range for the Odin is really good: 80°C-230°C (176°F-440°F).
I won't get into operation details except to say that this is a pretty simple device to operate. Five quick clicks turns it on. You can switch the temperature display to C or F, and you simply push the + and - buttons to change temperature. The Odin changes temperatures even more quickly than it heats up, usually about 10 seconds for 10°C. As for the vapour, the draw is slightly constricted and the clumping load doesn't help, but production is excellent even at low temperatures with a small (.07 g) load. The flavour starts out really good and holds for the first 3-4 hits but eventually conduction makes its mark and it does start to taste a bit cooked. It still can match or better the Pax 2, the Haze 3, the Indica Noir, or the Ascent.
On the con side eventually you can see noticeable vapour escaping when conduction sets in. This could lead to more odour than some would like. The oven screens I got fell out whenever I dumped a load, so I stopped using them since they didn't seem necessary. Loading it was sometimes messy because the oven opening is fairly small. Cleaning wasn't much of a problem except that I needed to brush off the screen on the bottom of the MP fairly often. The MP doesn't easily connect to water tools, but I understand that Topbond will offer a different MP option for that purpose. Finally, the timeout will catch some off guard (like me). After 5 minutes it turns off the heater and the display. The unit isn't actually off, however. Pressing the button recalls the last temperature, but the trick is that in order to restart heating, you have to hold the button down for two seconds. If you don't, it will hibernate again. To shut it off completely, you'll have to do the five quick clicks thing.
I did not test its battery life or attempt to use concentrates in it. I no longer have the device so I can't do more tests. I can, however, say that I would recommend this device as something that I think will please the cloud chasers among us. At the announced price, it's a terrific bargain.
