Discontinued Pax Vaporizer by Ploom

[JCat]

Ok ... next session I'll pack tight again and see how it goes! (I like my sessions to generally be quicker though ... I go through a Solo stem in about 3-4 minutes not including warm-up ... an elb with .2g in it from the Cloud is 2 hits usually for me and it's well cooked)

 

[JCat]

if you only used .2, that was not "firmly". use like .3 - .4, also you will probably need to stir 6-8 hits in.

what temperature setting are you running on? i find medium gives the best clouds, however when im hitting it for taste i run yellow (still get quite medicated from this).

if you still aren't getting the "expected" cloud production with a .3 - .4 bowl the only thing i can suggest is getting higher quality herb.

It's not herb quality, and there's no way you could fit .3-.4 in to that bowl no matter how tightly you packed it in (maybe .3). The only time I've had stuff that would fit .4 in there, it would either have been wet or way too hydro/chemical for my liking (I've tried 5 different strains so far ... Chocolope, C-4, Double Trouble, Strawberry Diesel, Sensi Star ... these strains are all good cloud producers with my Cloud and my Solo).

I don't want to have to stir. If I have to stir, I'm done as it will get too messy. (I don't stir my Solo stems ... although I have a kinda' love/hate relationship with my Solo, that is currently where I set the bar to be met by portables)

My hopes for the Pax is that I can get it working so I like it at least "as much" as my Solo as it presents a number of convenience advantages as far as size/portability/discreteness.

 

[Xchadb]

got billing info sorted, pax will be here tomorrow, i got purple i did want black but eh, most of my tattoos are purple, all my glass is purple, ssv hose is purple, so hey why not?

thats what stickers, vinyl wrapping and dura coat coat are for

 

[Vapor Junkie]

I packed in firmly the first time and the top near the lid looked barely vaped ...

The Pax absolutely REQUIRES stirring in order to evenly vape your herb. In my experience I've found that each oven load needs to be stirred around 4 times before you get everything out of it.

Edit: I don't want to be rude, but if you don't want to stir, you bought the wrong vape. Take a hard look at the Inhalater. Great performance, discreet(after removing the stickers), and no stirring required.

 

[dudeeitsbrian]

I don't want to have to stir. If I have to stir, I'm done as it will get too messy. (I don't stir my Solo stems ... although I have a kinda' love/hate relationship with my Solo, that is currently where I set the bar to be met by portables)

My hopes for the Pax is that I can get it working so I like it at least "as much" as my Solo as it presents a number of convenience advantages as far as size/portability/discreteness.

you may not believe it, but i've fit at much as ~.5 in at a time, it is possible.

i agree i would rather not stir, and if you really don't want to i would run it on medium for most of the session then bump it up to high until it stops producing vapor, that would likely get the bottom layer a little darker and the top should be vaped quite well. however, i run it on yellow for about 6-8 hits, stir, then switch to the orange temperature.

just made a video of packing pax with ~.5, posting it in a min

 

[JoeKickass]

It's not herb quality, and there's no way you could fit .3-.4 in to that bowl no matter how tightly you packed it in (maybe .3)

Man you guys have a short memory:

I know it sounds like a downside but the thing with the Pax is it's not really convection. It's a new kind of vaporizer, a super-effecient but purely conduction vaporizer. Excess airflow is just not needed.

You can just pack it and pack it and it will reward you with thick voluptuous vapor and fantastic initial taste. You draw slow on the Pax because that's what gives you more intense flavor and thicker vapor.

It actually holds much more than I had first estimated, but this is pretty much the max (the heater door bulges out a millimeter or so)
(Also a little free advertising for a good doc' )

(Use your grinder tool to make it nice and pretty )

Draw is still just fine, it draws like a perfectly rolled joint or blunt. Too much flow means your lungs get too much hot dry air imo...

And you don't need to stir if you keep your Pax clean, just dump it into your palm and put it back in green-side first. Good bud stays in a brick shape:

Guys it's not difficult to hit, it's just a slow draw. As long as you don't inhale as max speed it draws fine even with 0.68g packed...

Here's the abv from that:

Also, as promised, here's my technique for small loads. You'll see you really get your finger in there so make sure your hands as clean

(Now really pack it down like a pancake! Wash & DRY your hands first!)

The first few hits you'll swear you were hitting a full bowl! I think it's cashed on medium after after 5-6 hits but it's always producing and never combusting so if you're short on supply you can probably keep on going and/or vape your abv...

Here's the abv from 0.1g:

In reality it's all even brown like the edges but the camera seems to add green to the middle for some reason...

The Pax absolutely REQUIRES stirring in order to evenly vape your herb. In my experience I've found that each oven load needs to be stirred around 4 times before you get everything out of it.

You only need to flip a full 0.4-7g load once, less than 0.3-0.4g (packed under half the bowl) and you don't need to flip at all. Try hitting you Pax a bit slower, or wait a few seconds between hits

 

[Espo]

you may not believe it, but i've fit at much as ~.5 in at a time, it is possible.

i agree i would rather not stir, and if you really don't want to i would run it on medium for most of the session then bump it up to high until it stops producing vapor, that would likely get the bottom layer a little darker and the top should be vaped quite well. however, i run it on yellow for about 6-8 hits, stir, then switch to the orange temperature.

just made a video of packing pax with ~.5, posting it in a min

This also works well.
I pack my bowl and start on medium, after 6-10 hits I either put it on high and finish the bowl or open it up to stir it and then finish it off on medium.

 

[thevapenazi]

Anybody see, or get their PAX at their local headshop, locally near the bay area, CA? (anywhere in the south bay, no san francisco).

I'm tired of my busted temp change button and want to purchase a 2nd pax, but I'd really like to be able to play with the unit first at the store, to make sure the mouthpiece and temp button feels ok, before plunking down another $250. There's nothing I hate more than waiting 3-4 days for an internet order to arrive, then realizing I need to send it back in for an exchange to wait another 3-7 days over.

edit: warranty is out of the question, I broke the temp change button myself by pushing it in with my nail way too hard and i'm not going to be dishonest to a company that provided us an amazing vape (even if they don't want anything to do with us dirty, criminal marijuana-abusing potheads)

 

[JoeKickass]

I'm tired of my busted temp change button

I haven't seen it anywhere yet, I think all the first orders went straight to users.

But man I'm telling you, email Ploom! Just say my temp button was too hard and it broke, you shouldn't feel guilty about using the warranty if you didn't intentionally damage anything. Even if you opened it up, you didn't modify it or seriously damage it. For me it all comes back to the button that broke in the first place, that's on them not you...

 

[thevapenazi]

yeah...... true, JoeKickass. I only opened it up wanting to see why the temp button was stuck / falled into the body. But still - I don't want to mail my pax in and be without one! I don't have a problem with marijuana dependancy, but I fear I am growing a pax dependancy....

my mouthpiece is also sticking quite often, even after frequent cleanings. I carry around a paperclip taped to the pax now so that in travel situations I have something to pry/pull the mouthpiece up and out of the body with. Would love to play with a different new model in a store to see if it feels any different too, etc.

a friend of mine saw the PAX'es everywhere at headshops in san francisco, apparently. I hate driving up there though, and I'm closer to san jose. I'll follow up here if my pax hunt today yields anything locally.

 

[Vapor Junkie]

I agree with Joe. Plus, I think the FC community would love to see how Ploom handles a warranty issue such as this. They sell it with a 10 year warranty...let's see how much value that really is.

 

[JCat]

Ok ... just did a 0.25g session of Wappa that I had to pack down REALLY tight to get room to close it. It vaped actually quite nice. Not as good as my Solo, but close .... it's growing on me a little. I could have fit .3 but no way anymore. Comes down to strain and how the bud was grown.

For example ... if I get some local M-39 (which is the stock biker sourced bud in this town) ... then I can fit 14g in a 125ml mason jar. Most of the strains I prefer, are not that dense though, and you only comfortably fit 7-8g per jar. Crystal production tends to be more powerdery instead of gummy. I'm pretty sure I could easily fit .5g of M-39 into the Pax (or probaly .7g of the Burlington which was this super hydro we used to get 15 years ago in University)

Didn't stir ... on a whole less vaped than from my Solo, but pretty good apart from right at the top.

Thanks everyone for feedback and suggestions by the way ...!

(And yes ... my memory is very short ... I just can't figure out why ... )

 

[thevapenazi]

@JCat: Glad to hear you got it performing better. I'm in the same boat as you - when it comes strictly to vapor quality and taste, I still prefer the solo. But the Pax is SO convenient, and with its large oven loads I can pull and pull, and not find myself grinding and refilling glass stems all the time. I'm starting to fall into a pattern where the pax goes with me anytime I step outside (errands, work, etc), with one full oven lid and a spare oven or two (stored in a nice tic tac container for easy on-the-go loading). But when I'm at home, the Solo comes out.

Back when my temp change button still worked, I'd go through an entire oven on medium, and when it felt fully spent, I kicked it up to high. At high heat, the top unroasted part of the oven starts getting roasted to medium-levels, without having to stir. It's a bit harsher and tastes a lot worse since you're sucking through the burnt portion of the oven, but when you're on the go and can't stir or fiddle much, it's a quickie solution that works reasonably well as far as I can remember.

 

[dudeeitsbrian]

pax was my first portable vape ever, now its all i use even while im sitting at home

i can only imagine how the solo hits if you say the vapor is better than what pax produces.

 

[thevapenazi]

it's really hard to quantify. The pax produces bigger, thicker vapor. Very condensed and thick. The solo's vapor is mixed with more air and is cooler, thinner, but is full of taste. Generally, the solo clouds tend to be smaller than my pax clouds, but they tend to be purer in taste, and retain the taste longer (the pax seems to taste burnt after the 3rd or 4th pull).

Some though, cannot get over the "robot fart" smell of the Solo. For some people they swear it adds a taste. I've had two solos - an M102 and an M107. The M102 had no such taste, the M107 had a definite strong "robot ass" smell, which went away completely after about 4-5 hot burnin cycles on empty.. and I like to think I have a pretty sensitive palate, I can still taste the plastic whip in the DV, but no such added taste or smell in the solo..

With that said, if I could only have one of these vapes, I would pick a pax.

 

[pakalolo]

People, it's a conduction vapourizer. It looks as though a lot of you could benefit from a read through the Usage and Techniques section of the MFLB Vaporpedia entry, but the key points are:

1. Fine grind.
2. Slow draw.

I'd throw in stirring but JoeKickAss seems to think you don't have to, although I suspect a lot of people won't get nice bricks to flip like he does. Obviously shaking won't work if you pack tightly.

.5g, sheesh. The PD people must be scratching their heads.

 

[thevapenazi]

I think BlazedRunner here was getting decent to good results using TINY amounts of cannabis (looked to be about PD stem sizes, maybe a tad less) on his amethyst pax. Blazed Runner, care to elaborate?

 

[tranceporter]

I typically use quarter to a third of a gram per session with all of the vapes I have owned. I wish i could be satisfied off a .075 but it doesnt do it for me.

The Pax best functions with about s third of a gram in the oven. I get a bunch of thick hits on the high setting.

 

[JCat]

People, it's a conduction vapourizer. It looks as though a lot of you could benefit from a read through the Usage and Techniques section of the MFLB Vaporpedia entry, but the key points are:

1. Fine grind.
2. Slow draw.

I'd throw in stirring but JoeKickAss seems to think you don't have to, although I suspect a lot of people won't get nice bricks to flip like he does. Obviously shaking won't work if you pack tightly.

.5g, sheesh. The PD people must be scratching their heads.

I know it's a conduction vaporizer. I've (obviously) tried various draw speeds etc. and being my ?16th? vaporizer I realize that fine grinding is required. First thing I attempted was full bowl, not packed too tight, slow long drawn out pulls. My main issue was not packing tight enough which once fixed now seems to result in much better hits. Stirring for even cooking would be required, but too much of a pain (if I had all the tools, space, no wind, etc. to stir, I wouldn't be using a portable but my Cloud!)

I agree ... .5g is crazy ... if I had to do .5g every session, I'd be going through a 5-10g a day as opposed to 2-3g. I like bowl sizes of .15-.3 but like to achieve full extraction or as full as possible. Also don't want to have to spend half an hour to medicate every 1.5-2 hours or it would feel like I spend my whole day medicating.

My last session with .25g was very good. Quite pleased. It's worth noting that if the Pax was my first portable I would have stopped looking. It is a nice device. Beats the Solo in many areas but efficiency, even extraction, taste, all go to the Solo in my opinion.

It's worth noting I've been mostly on the mid setting (ending for a few draws on high). I'm going to try starting on high next ... or maybe heat to high then bump down to mid? I find the Solo works best if I preheat to 5 but as soon as it gets to temp knock it down to 4 for usage.

 

[ilovebOObs]

i like the bigger bowl. i normally have to go through atleast 4-5 solo stems to feel medicated. with the pax i need like 2 bowls. i can kill the pax bowl in like 3 mins if i connect to bong.

 

[JoeKickass]

I'd throw in... JoeKickAss... although I suspect a lot of... nice bricks... Obviously shaking... if you pack tightly.

.5g, sheesh. The PD people must be scratching their heads.

Thanks for bold-ing my name, I read it in several funny accents

The Pax is kind of a scary vape because you can go from 0.1g to 0.7g just by how full you pack the oven... and it works so well when it's full...

 

[Tstat]

We made some mods to this yeserday. Now we have a hole up through the bottom to thread the cord through. With the rubber feet, the cord runs underneath the stand and isn't crushed by the wood

***

The hole for the Pax is lined with felt.

Nothing left to do but

 

[stickstones]

if this thing is truly a conduction vape, then it must be packed tightly to achieve the conductivity needed for vapor production. a loose pack simply won't transfer the heat to most of the load. that's why jka packs it tightly even when using half an oven's worth. how much you can pack in there has more to do with the grind than the strain.

 

[turk]

....vapenazi, I have also experienced some "issues" regarding the temp control button...at times the unit is "problematic" when attempting to change temp settings...(I start at the lowest and teminate at the highest)....I have experienced sometimes a delay in my pressing of the button, and the unit recognizing that a temp change should occur...so far it hasn't been dramatic but I do believe it's worth monitoring...
...on another note I live in s.f. (obiviously) and I haven't seen the pax at local headshops....but I'll keep looking...

 

[thevapenazi]

....vapenazi, I have also experienced some "issues" regarding the temp control button...at times the unit is "problematic" when attempting to change temp settings...(I start at the lowest and teminate at the highest)....I have experienced sometimes a delay in my pressing of the button, and the unit recognizing that a temp change should occur...so far it hasn't been dramatic but I do believe it's worth monitoring...
...on another note I live in s.f. (obiviously) and I haven't seen the pax at local headshops....but I'll keep looking...

Ugh... that's how mine started. The delay comes from the button "sticking", and the temp change doesn't take effect until the button is reset and pops back up. For me, the delay got longer and longer, until eventually it just refused to come back up. I pulled it up with some fine tweezers once, but the next button press made it just stick again. I applied some ISO to the button with a qtip and dabbed lightly while the unit was off (just popped on charger then pulled it off), but I'm not sure if it made it better or worse, so I wouldn't recommend it. The white button also seems like it might react with ISO so I'd be careful..

weird about the SF headshops, friend of mine who lives out there swears he's seen them at a few headshops on the haight. Hmmm...

iloveb00bs: how is your new temp button? still working smoothly after much use?