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My feelings towards my PAX plus has evolved somewhat since i first got it. FC has been more than helpful getting the most out of it.
I sort of disliked my PAX at first but i had never even tried vaping prior so it was hard to tell what the expected result should be. I learned some things i had shared before about some first steps I took to improve things. Her i want to b map out what i liked and didn't like about it.
First the Likes since these always seem to be overlooked:
- It is very compact, & can be palmed fairly easily - this is huge for me as i use it a lot in public
- It has lower stealth settings for temperature where you can get vapor but there is virtually no visible vapor at all
- Got a 10 year warranty, which is good considering it has a Li battery
- Battery lasts pretty well
- Good initial taste - I don't use this at the highest setting as i
Here is my list of dislikes and possible mitigation steps
- The silicon mouthpieces are not great and will certainly retain bad flavor if not regularly cleaned. I use a lower setting but it can taste a bit burnt if i persist. Doesn't I have tried a bubbler but dislike how long it becomes and all stealthiness go away
- My idea here is to use the WPA to add a small POTV glass piece on top
- Taste is now pretty decent for the first few draws. It does dissipate after a fairly short bit and its telling me its time for a repack. It would be nice if the process was more complete .
- Examination of AVB has lead me to repack and then do another short round to finish off the bowl. there is not really a way without removing the material to stir or anything like that. Will usually get another 2 or 3 hits that are more flavorful before i call that bowl spent and the remains added to AVB jar. So my thoughts are that something could be done which would allow for more complete vaporization to take place. More analysis below.
So the PAX being a Conduction vaporizer I have to ask myself what steps can i take to improve the situation. So the conclusion i have come up with is to find a way to bring that heat that the heater provides to the rest of the oven. I think the answer is either to add thermal mass to the PAX oven to retain heat and have a more complete roast. Some vaporizers use some kind of Convector element to
add redistribute heat to the chamber and this is something i may try.
So as to determine which things work and which don't I will proceed with testing each of these things. I know it is still purely subjective but i will try to properly document the results, as i can especially with warm up times & color of AVB. What i don't want to do is make a bunch of changes all at once and then i don't know how effective each one is. I have come up with some tentative steps that i want to try in this order. Try to keep some variables consistent: same ambient temp, same weed.
Step 0 Baseline results.
Step 1 Add mass to oven
Step 2 Add convector in addition
Step 3 Remove all chamber mods
Step 4 Remove mouthpiece, add WPA & glass to see if draw improves
Step 5 See if adding ventilated back improves draw as well
I am currently in Step 1 with regard to a thicker stainless screen as well as a variable back that would allow you to change oven size, but more importantly has its own mass to contribute to the equation. Not wanting to spoil the story but i can tell you i feel the improvement of taste and quantity of vapor and longer vapor production (as in more consistent production) has vastly improved. That is obviously subjective but what i can report it has vastly improved the experience at least for me. I would suggest if you have an opportunity it is worth it. Cost is minimal for these parts and you can easily find them on eBay or Amazon. The downside is warm up time is Greatly extended and i would say it is almost DOUBLED! I was seeing warm up times between 50 to 60 seconds & over rather the typical 30 seconds. So it takes a significant amount of time to heat this chamber to the prescribed temperature setting as before, but i think a lot of it is retained. I will have some definitive numbers the next time i share. I had also thought about how to use terp balls in this regard but that might be a later iteration to try.
The obvious downside that will result from additional heating requirements is that battery duration will suffer. From my experience however, you still can get through a session without needing to stop due to battery depletion. Like i said i think PAX engineered this battery pretty well.
Like i said i will document results and share them. I have also found the convector i will use for step 2.
These type of mods might be possible on other conduction style vaporizers as well. If the vaporizer is a Convection or hybrid heating we would be talking about improving air flow in the device.