Discontinued The Grasshopper

[Purple Lava Lamp]

Do you guys have to pay for shipping when sending it back to HL for repair?

I'm in the UK and I've got a GH waiting for me at the post office pending a large customs charge. If I don't pay it they'll send it back to HL.

I'm considering just letting the send it back and then buying one from the UK off Vapefiend, as it will be much easier to send it back to them for return. Also it means I won't risk having to pay a customs charge every time I get a repaired unit back.

Am I crazy to consider sending back my Hopper?

Speaking as someone who recently received a hopper from Vape Fiend, I suggest you pay customs for the hopper from GH Labs.

The hopper that Vape Fiend just sent me had only one battery, and it was the old version (GHB1). It also had the older version of the charging cable, which quit working on me after only 3 days.

From what I understand, the hoppers that GH Labs have been shipping lately have included an extra battery, and they are the new GHB2 version, and also come with the new version of the charging cable. And might have other subtle improvements that we're not aware of.

 

[CapitalFlower]

Speaking as someone who recently received a hopper from Vape Fiend, I suggest you pay customs for the hopper from GH Labs.

The hopper that Vape Fiend just sent me had only one battery, and it was the old version (GHB1). It also had the older version of the charging cable, which quit working on me after only 3 days.

From what I understand, the hoppers that GH Labs have been shipping lately have included an extra battery, and they are the new GHB2 version, and also come with the new version of the charging cable. And might have other subtle improvements that we're not aware of.

Yeah I've also heard this about Vapefiend. But even if that is the case, when Vapefiend send your charger back to HL, you'll get a new version then.

I'm not sure if I'll be getting a free battery, I ordered 3 along with it so doubt they'll give me an extra one

 

[moondog]

Speaking as someone who recently received a hopper from Vape Fiend, I suggest you pay customs for the hopper from GH Labs.

The hopper that Vape Fiend just sent me had only one battery, and it was the old version (GHB1). It also had the older version of the charging cable, which quit working on me after only 3 days.

From what I understand, the hoppers that GH Labs have been shipping lately have included an extra battery, and they are the new GHB2 version, and also come with the new version of the charging cable. And might have other subtle improvements that we're not aware of.

My understanding is that you will only be getting a free battery from GHL if you have a pre-order that gets delayed. If your ESD ever gets pushed back you get a free battery.

 

[CapitalFlower]

Is there any way to identify if you have a v2 charger?

 

[moondog]

Is there any way to identify if you have a v2 charger?

The V2.0 has one cable coming off the ring. The V1.0 has two cables coming off the ring and they join into a single cable farther down the line. The charger pictured here is the new one.

 

[Purple Lava Lamp]

My understanding is that you will only be getting a free battery from GHL if you have a pre-order that gets delayed. If your ESD ever gets pushed back you get a free battery.

Which would include every Grasshopper ordered directly from GH Labs, right? Have there been any orders that weren't delayed?

Is there any way to identify if you have a v2 charger?

From what I've been told, the old charger has two wires connected to either side of the charging ring. The newer version has only one wire, and a swivel/pivot connection of some sort, I think? (I've only seen the old version)

 

[moondog]

Which would include every Grasshopper ordered directly from GH Labs, right? Have there been any orders that weren't delayed?

I thought the OP was asking about orders going forward. At some point GHL will catch up and newer orders would therefore not receive the freebie. It will probably be at least a little while before we reach that point, though.

 

[ChooChooCharlie]

When shaking the feeder, you're just breaking the surface tension of clumped ground herb -- it needs to "fall" into the windowed opening of the cylinder's chamber. The herb "falling in" is why the load is so fluffy and not tightly packed.

Thought these pics might help readers wrap their heads around the mechanism. Kinda like a bolt action rifle.

After shake loading, it's very helpful to rapidly and firmly plunge in the cylinder, then quickly twist to lock. If the cylinder is not fully inserted, it gets stuck when trying to twist.

Push it. Push it real good.

 

[moondog]

When shaking the feeder, you're just breaking the surface tension of clumped ground herb -- it needs to "fall" into the windowed opening of the cylinder's chamber. The herb "falling in" is why the load is so fluffy and not tightly packed.

Thought these pics might help readers wrap their heads around the mechanism. Kinda like a bolt action rifle.

After shake loading, it's very helpful to rapidly and firmly plunge in the cylinder, then quickly twist to lock. If the cylinder is not fully inserted, it gets stuck when trying to twist.

Push it. Push it real good.

Great explanation! Thanks for the pictures.

 

[Icon13]

Mine were 4.2 when I received them, and also charge to 4.2 when full, it is a cheap multimeter I'm using but have checked it against a friends (think its a metracal something or the other, I know it was expensive) and it showed the same just with less numbers after the .



I thought the little disk on the positive end was just to isolate the positive and negative, and I think the cells are unprotected so don't have a PCB this would be in the hopper/charger, I understand they will have a PTC and CID under the positive end which will disconnect the positive cap due to heat, pressure or current.



I understand what your saying about nominal voltage, but I'm talking about actually measuring the capacity (mAh) left, as in ckecking capacity then leaving one full and discharge the other to 3.8 and after a few month the one that had been stored full had lost more mAh than the other, for this I was discharging down to 2.75 (not with hopper cells) from 4.2 and they're were brand new 18650's so both as equal as possible.

Anyway I hope you don't take any of this as argumentative as it's not my intention, just trying to do a bit of that brain learning stuff




It was mentioned earlier in the thread but it could be that with the cell being proprietary they are not just getting the A grade cells, this could be what the GB2 is, maybe the same cell but with all the duds removed this would explain the mixed reports, and on the chart it says that elevated temp and high current will affect cycle life and the GB's have a pretty hard life for their size.

Also as I mentioned earlier the cell under load will have a lower voltage than resting, the first time I checked the capacity in my GB1 it discharged down to 3v at 0.5A but had started to get very hot so I don't take them down that far now (just measure from 4.2 to 3.6) my guess here would be that HL chose the empty/red light at 3.7/3.8 because any lower and under load it could put the cell out of spec for what is required, you can turn the hopper back on after the red lights and get some usage but the performance is just not there.

1) Okay, so it must be my charger that is cutting off at 4.15v. Not uncommon.

2) Yes these are PCB protected and no, I am not talking about that white plastic disk on the positive end. I am talking about under that. Notice you can see there is a disk sitting on top of the positive end from a side profile? That is the PCB under the blue PVC wrap. Under no circumstances would they use an unprotected cell for this application. Unprotected Li-Ion cells are typically used for pack building as the entire pack itself will have one PCB vs having one on each cell. Again, I am 100% certain that these are PCB protected cells. As a matter of fact you should never use an unprotected cell in an e-cigarette. You can, but then again you can do anything you want. They're your teeth. I've seen/heard the horrors of using unprotected cells improperly in cigarettes while working in the battery industry. Yes, people get fucked up!

3) What are you using to check the capacity? The most accurate way is a machine that discharges the battery at 1A and times how long it takes. If you are using the LCD on your charger, well those are terribly inaccurate.

 

[JoeMama]

And for some reason, it reminds me of my childhood and the awesome Action Man accessories I used to play with . . . .

"Advance, in single file!"

Wow, I'd completely forgotten about my Captain Action doll with scuba gear. Now I even remember coloring his bald rubber head with black Magic Marker to replace the worn-off hair he had. Good times.

When shaking the feeder, you're just breaking the surface tension of clumped ground herb -- it needs to "fall" into the windowed opening of the cylinder's chamber. The herb "falling in" is why the load is so fluffy and not tightly packed.

Thought these pics might help readers wrap their heads around the mechanism. Kinda like a bolt action rifle.

After shake loading, it's very helpful to rapidly and firmly plunge in the cylinder, then quickly twist to lock. If the cylinder is not fully inserted, it gets stuck when trying to twist.

Push it. Push it real good.

I have one primary problem with the Feeder. Bare with me as I try to describe this.

Let me give the baseline: When I fill with @Ratchett 's funnel, just tap-tap-tap the herb into the funnel and tap-tap-tap the side of the chamber, I pack a consistent 0.08 to 0.1 grams.

OK, so... when you use the Feeder, as you remove the hopper from the assembly, you gaze upon a beautiful smooth surface of herb, perfectly flush with the top of the chamber. Neat! But it could be an illusion:

Depending on the amount of shaking I do, and the "way" it is shaken, I've managed to get loads varying from 0.05 to 0.18 grams, and whether it's 0.05g (which is a fairly poor load, IMO), or 0.19g (which is way too much IMO), the surface of the chamber as I described above has that smooth surface of herb. So you don't know what you have just loaded unless you poke the surface with a pick or something. It may crumble into a minimum pack, or it will feel solid - or anything in between, of course.

So far, I'm concluding that I will use the Feeder as an on-the-go accessory. At home I will use a the funnel. I haven't found the "right shake" to equate to A) the comfortable amount of herb to fill the chamber, and, B) the amount of time it takes to do so versus using a funnel (it's quite fast using the funnel, IMO)... But for on-the-go, the Feeder feels like a good thing if you understand how to use it... which I'm still figuring out.

Full Disclosure: To get "too much" in the hopper, I have to shake the Feeder vigorously with the intention of overkill. So perhaps it's not fair to say that you can "easily" overload the hopper. You cannot easily do this. As George Carlin once said, "you gotta wanna".

 

[Office_Printer]

As a matter of fact you should never use an unprotected cell in an e-cigarette.

Most modern ecigs have the protection built into the mod. Protected cells do not provide enough amperage required by most ecigs popular on the market today.

 

[Vapor_Eyes]

Wow, I'd completely forgotten about my Captain Action doll with scuba gear. Now I even remember coloring his bald rubber head with black Magic Marker to replace the worn-off hair he had. Good times.



I have one primary problem with the Feeder. Bare with me as I try to describe this.

Let me give the baseline: When I fill with @Ratchett 's funnel, just tap-tap-tap the herb into the funnel and tap-tap-tap the side of the chamber, I pack a consistent 0.08 to 0.1 grams.

OK, so... when you use the Feeder, as you remove the hopper from the assembly, you gaze upon a beautiful smooth surface of herb, perfectly flush with the top of the chamber. Neat! But it could be an illusion:

Depending on the amount of shaking I do, and the "way" it is shaken, I've managed to get loads varying from 0.05 to 0.18 grams, and whether it's 0.05g (which is a fairly poor load, IMO), or 0.19g (which is way too much IMO), the surface of the chamber as I described above has that smooth surface of herb. So you don't know what you have just loaded unless you poke the surface with a pick or something. It may crumble into a minimum pack, or it will feel solid - or anything in between, of course.

So far, I'm concluding that I will use the Feeder as an on-the-go accessory. At home I will use a the funnel. I haven't found the "right shake" to equate to A) the comfortable amount of herb to fill the chamber, and, B) the amount of time it takes to do so versus using a funnel (it's quite fast using the funnel, IMO)... But for on-the-go, the Feeder feels like a good thing if you understand how to use it... which I'm still figuring out.

Full Disclosure: To get "too much" in the hopper, I have to shake the Feeder vigorously with the intention of overkill. So perhaps it's not fair to say that you can "easily" overload the hopper. You cannot easily do this. As George Carlin once said, "you gotta wanna".

I gots say, I love my Doob Tubes. After years of chasing gadgets, I've learned the less moving parts the better.

Tap-tap-tap the tube, tap the side of the Grasshopper, tap the tube again as needed for a light, fluffy fill every time.

The feeder seems like a damn fine tool, I just don't have a big use for it personally. The one area it looks like it excels at is stealth. Your material never has to be visible, and it sounds like you could do it in the dark easily. Those are definitely bonuses, they just don't have a big appeal for me. I may get a feeder to play around with though. It is fun to experiment.

 

[slcbdco]

When shaking the feeder, you're just breaking the surface tension of clumped ground herb -- it needs to "fall" into the windowed opening of the cylinder's chamber. The herb "falling in" is why the load is so fluffy and not tightly packed.

Thought these pics might help readers wrap their heads around the mechanism. Kinda like a bolt action rifle.

After shake loading, it's very helpful to rapidly and firmly plunge in the cylinder, then quickly twist to lock. If the cylinder is not fully inserted, it gets stuck when trying to twist.

Push it. Push it real good.

My grasshopper feeder arrived today. First observations, it's smaller and lighter than I thought it would be which is cool.

It holds a decent amount of ground bud, To fill it up is a big commitment to one strain, I think i'll use it most traveling when convenience is more important particularly in a non-legal place where strain selection is an issue.

If you like gadgets i'd recommend it!

 

[ChooChooCharlie]

@JoeMama : I have a different weight experience. Must be due to herb and/or grind.

As you said, on left is how it usually appears, very pretty. For kicks, poke it with a toothpick, and it will look like the pic on right, because the feeder yields fluffy loads.

Here are four trials I did after reading your post.

Yes, I'm a gadget nut. Anything to make altering life easier.

 

[UnshavenFish]

2) Yes these are PCB protected and no, I am not talking about that white plastic disk on the positive end. I am talking about under that. Notice you can see there is a disk sitting on top of the positive end from a side profile? That is the PCB under the blue PVC wrap. Under no circumstances would they use an unprotected cell for this application. Unprotected Li-Ion cells are typically used for pack building as the entire pack itself will have one PCB vs having one on each cell. Again, I am 100% certain that these are PCB protected cells. As a matter of fact you should never use an unprotected cell in an e-cigarette. You can, but then again you can do anything you want. They're your teeth. I've seen/heard the horrors of using unprotected cells improperly in cigarettes while working in the battery industry. Yes, people get fucked up!

I'm just not seeing what your describing, also if protected surely it would have a connection going from the positive to negative end? Just like every protected cell I have taken apart, this I also can't see or feel.

I'm sitting here right now with a GB1 and a knife but don't really want to take off the wrap as I don't have any the right size to fix it back up, but this has my curiosity now so either when I get some wrap or new cells I will have a peek and see.

The only dry herb vape I know of that uses protected cells is the Haze, others like Arizer use unprotected as the protection is in the device, also some ecigs recommend not using protected cells as it can confuse the mod and some won't even fit due to the extra length and width, i do appreciate the warning about safety but most cases of things going wrong are when charging or down to user error like building coils that the cell can't cope with or just flat out fakes.

3) What are you using to check the capacity? The most accurate way is a machine that discharges the battery at 1A and times how long it takes. If you are using the LCD on your charger, well those are terribly inaccurate.

My imax b6 (a hobby charger that discharges the cell at anything upto 1A) I also have a foxnovo charger (similar to nitecore) that has a capacity checker (only discharges at 1A or 0.5A) but as you mentioned it's not as accurate but it is consistent which for comparison sake works just as well.

 

[CapitalFlower]

Have there been any reports of problems with the new HL v2 charger?

 

[vapviking]

Got a new Ti Body yesterday, sleek smooth, mates up nicely and after quick burn offs it went right to work making nice vapor. On its' 2nd bowl, the blue light flickered and then turned kinda lavendar/purple color. That was a new one for me. Looking closely it almost seems like a small blu-ish light and a small red-ish light in there, but it reads pretty much like light purple. So now I have a hopper that turns lavendar instead of blue. Seems to work okay EXCEPT for one other thing-- behavior on factory V1.0 charger is weird.
Several other 'bodies" I've had, both Ti and SS, all do the same thing on charger: when connected, short red blink then red blink every 4 (or 5?) seconds until it becomes a blue blinker at same rate, and it is ready. This new one goes red for about ten+ seconds then off, then after about ten seconds red comes on for about ten seconds. After several of these longer cycles, the light comes on red for ten to twenty seconds, then off -- and NO MAS, not lights at all. I believe it is not charging at all. I've tried charging it with a few different batteries in it.

So, day one with Ti body #4 and though it produces good vape, it clearly has some "issues".

I've been a big fan of HL for over a year now, and an official Hopper for about 3 months. I want to believe that there are now thousands in the wild functioning perfectly, but I also know that I could not possibly be statistically alone (if that means anything!). I bought four hoppers. Two went to daughters and both have failed, daughters just have not gotten around to returning those two. Both have cop lights and so will need replacement SS bodies, it seems. One of mine (SS) has had two warranty returns, so it's on body #3. Backend on that one spikes really hot at times, but I keep hoping to get a good Body and THEN work on a Backend warranty... The fourth Hopper (my Ti) is the one I'm describing in first paragraph, on it's fourth Body.

If daughters returned failed Bodies and got replacements, that would be a total of 4 Hoppers employing 11 Bodies. Or, let's make that 12 Bodies for 4 Hoppers if I return this 'new' Ti one that won't charge a battery!

On of my concerns is posting problems too often and making the troubles with Hoppers sound worse. So I try to not summarize too often. Just seemed a good time...Where's that October Update?

 

[moondog]

Got a new Ti Body yesterday, sleek smooth, mates up nicely and after quick burn offs it went right to work making nice vapor. On its' 2nd bowl, the blue light flickered and then turned kinda lavendar/purple color. That was a new one for me. Looking closely it almost seems like a small blu-ish light and a small red-ish light in there, but it reads pretty much like light purple. So now I have a hopper that turns lavendar instead of blue. Seems to work okay EXCEPT for one other thing-- behavior on factory V1.0 charger is weird.
Several other 'bodies" I've had, both Ti and SS, all do the same thing on charger: when connected, short red blink then red blink every 4 (or 5?) seconds until it becomes a blue blinker at same rate, and it is ready. This new one goes red for about ten+ seconds then off, then after about ten seconds red comes on for about ten seconds. After several of these longer cycles, the light comes on red for ten to twenty seconds, then off -- and NO MAS, not lights at all. I believe it is not charging at all. I've tried charging it with a few different batteries in it.

So, day one with Ti body #4 and though it produces good vape, it clearly has some "issues".

I've been a big fan of HL for over a year now, and an official Hopper for about 3 months. I want to believe that there are now thousands in the wild functioning perfectly, but I also know that I could not possibly be statistically alone (if that means anything!). I bought four hoppers. Two went to daughters and both have failed, daughters just have not gotten around to returning those two. Both have cop lights and so will need replacement SS bodies, it seems. One of mine (SS) has had two warranty returns, so it's on body #3. Backend on that one spikes really hot at times, but I keep hoping to get a good Body and THEN work on a Backend warranty... The fourth Hopper (my Ti) is the one I'm describing in first paragraph, on it's fourth Body.

If daughters returned failed Bodies and got replacements, that would be a total of 4 Hoppers employing 11 Bodies. Or, let's make that 12 Bodies for 4 Hoppers if I return this 'new' Ti one that won't charge a battery!

On of my concerns is posting problems too often and making the troubles with Hoppers sound worse. So I try to not summarize too often. Just seemed a good time...Where's that October Update?

Wow, Vapviking, that's a discouraging bit of history there. Regarding your latest travails, given all the problems people have had with V1.0 chargers, is it possible that your old charger has coincidentally chosen this time to fail and it's the charger that needs to be replaced?

I'm guessing we'll see the October Update this weekend.

 

[Hammahead]

Hm.... some 5 weeks after I received the new Backend, it looks like I'm having an issue again. The last days, I had an occasional blue/read blinking when I pressed the button. Put it off and on again immediately and everything was fine. This happend four or five times, like pretty random. Last night I plugged in the charger to my usb port and it didn't start charging, I saw the red and blue led light up together for one moment, then nothing. I unplugged, plugged back in: same. I looked for any debris on the charger, cleaned it, retried and it charged, up til the blue led started blinking. So far - so good. This morning (I'm a wake, then breakfast, then baker) it just didn't heat up properly. Set on full, it would not really heat up to the max, I could feel it to the touch and there was considerably less vapour, and after like twice as many tokes than usual (always the same _standardized_ material) the ABV is super light compared to what I had before. I tried a second, fresh battery, with same results. It sort of does a job, there is visible vapour, but soo much less. This is not the Hopper experience I'm used to. I really, really hope it'll work tonight, as otherwise I might have to open another warranty case. Seriously fnck that...

Best,
Hamma

 

[CapitalFlower]

I think that confirms it, I'll be returning my Hopper to HL and buy one from Vapefiend (albeit with the v1 charger)

 

[VegNVape]

Hm.... some 5 weeks after I received the new Backend, it looks like I'm having an issue again. The last days, I had an occasional blue/read blinking when I pressed the button. Put it off and on again immediately and everything was fine. This happend four or five times, like pretty random. Last night I plugged in the charger to my usb port and it didn't start charging, I saw the red and blue led light up together for one moment, then nothing. I unplugged, plugged back in: same. I looked for any debris on the charger, cleaned it, retried and it charged, up til the blue led started blinking. So far - so good. This morning (I'm a wake, then breakfast, then baker) it just didn't heat up properly. Set on full, it would not really heat up to the max, I could feel it to the touch and there was considerably less vapour, and after like twice as many tokes than usual (always the same _standardized_ material) the ABV is super light compared to what I had before. I tried a second, fresh battery, with same results. It sort of does a job, there is visible vapour, but soo much less. This is not the Hopper experience I'm used to. I really, really hope it'll work tonight, as otherwise I might have to open another warranty case. Seriously fnck that...

Best,
Hamma

Is the back-end robbing power from the load chamber?

A short while back my Hopper started to display less than stellar performance - in a similar manner to what you describe. But I found that cleaning the back-end threads with Blu-tac did the trick. Instantly.

Now I'm back to drinking full fat milk every single muthafuckin time

Anyway, it was just a thought, but of course, ymmv.

Best of luck!

 

[Hawk]

1) Okay, so it must be my charger that is cutting off at 4.15v. Not uncommon.

2) Yes these are PCB protected and no, I am not talking about that white plastic disk on the positive end. I am talking about under that. Notice you can see there is a disk sitting on top of the positive end from a side profile? That is the PCB under the blue PVC wrap. Under no circumstances would they use an unprotected cell for this application. Unprotected Li-Ion cells are typically used for pack building as the entire pack itself will have one PCB vs having one on each cell. Again, I am 100% certain that these are PCB protected cells. As a matter of fact you should never use an unprotected cell in an e-cigarette. You can, but then again you can do anything you want. They're your teeth. I've seen/heard the horrors of using unprotected cells improperly in cigarettes while working in the battery industry. Yes, people get fucked up!

3) What are you using to check the capacity? The most accurate way is a machine that discharges the battery at 1A and times how long it takes. If you are using the LCD on your charger, well those are terribly inaccurate.

These do not have PCB's. They are most likely IMR safe chemistry batteries and do not have PCB's and IMR's are used almost exclusively in the e-cigarette industry. They better be IMR's. All the battery protection will be in the GH.

 

[vapviking]

Wow, Vapviking, that's a discouraging bit of history there. Regarding your latest travails, given all the problems people have had with V1.0 chargers, is it possible that your old charger has coincidentally chosen this time to fail and it's the charger that needs to be replaced?

I'm guessing we'll see the October Update this weekend.

Having a second (currently!) working hopper gives me option to try it out and/or swap parts for go/no-go scenarios. The V1.0 charger I have been using does fine with the working (currently!) SS piece, but not with the troublesome recent Ti piece.
Having the extra working (currently!) hopper has been truly helpful in alleviating the ???wtf??? more than once along the way.
After consulting my in-house Department of Redundancy Department, I broke out a brand new charger, V1.0 that was still in box from when I got them all in early August. Same thing, works for one hopper but not this new Ti bodied, purple-lighted hopper. Wife calls it hot pink, btw. We often call 'em different when color is the topic...She thinks there are two led's in there and maybe both on at the same time, giving this pink/purple/lavendar color. idk.
I came up with an option I'm considering for going forward. If this becomes too frustrating (still a good ways from that, I am a patient s.o.b., uh, sometimes) I'll put them all in time-locked vault for, say, a year. When they see the light of day again HL will either be belly up or replace at that time with some perfected devices.

If they did not, when they work, work so really, really, really well, then I might just...

Edit:
And in a counter-intuitive throw-money-at-it moment I wonder if I should get a couple of GHB2's to try out...gonna need them soon anyway. Yeah, right! Buy something, that's the ticket!

 

[BadDog No]

Vapviking wrote:
And in a counter-intuitive throw-money-at-it moment I wonder if I should get a couple of GHB2's to try out...gonna need them soon anyway. Yeah, right! Buy something, that's the ticket!

Buying something is always a good choice!