stickstones said:
I thought I read somewhere in one of these forums taht there is a difference in the heating elements.
Here's the real lowdown on the heating element difference-straight from the owner (Steve). He decided to try another, slightly less expensive source for his heating elements. They're made the same way, with the same materials and specs. They should have been identical in performance and reliability. He says he tested them for 9 months (with no problems) on the DBV before using them in production. All the heaters from the new source have been used only on the DBV so far. He's found that a small percentage (like 2%) have less resistence and those result in overheating and failure. So he's not going to buy from the new source again, but is going to use up all the elements he's purchased from them, since the vast majority of them are fine.
So there is no difference between the DBV and SSV heaters. That one purchase, since the heaters were used strictly on the Buddha, is responsible for the incorrect info that the heaters are different on the two units. The DB heater IS currently cheaper in cost, but only because the new batch is being used only with the DBV. As for other differences between the two units (as far as cost of production), I'll quote Steve:
"...the SSV costs more in production time. More cuts, sanding and filing. The base on the SSV is made out of metal not plastic. This costs me almost 4 times more than the DBV plastic base. Oh yes, the SSV is also a powder coated base, adding to the cost. Yes the bags are "free" but they cost me money and the SSV bag again is about 5 times the price now. We just came out with a new bag design. Also, the glass. The knobs take about 15-20 minutes to make. They are not cheap to make. The DBVs knob is about 1/30 the cost of the SSV konb. All glass costs more. Also, for some reason the SSV takes way longer to produce."