Discontinued The Grasshopper

Vaporific

All who wander are not lost...
@MoltenTiger had some very interesting things to say a month or two ago, in the wake of my Hopper battery venting/explosion incident. He saw some differences in how the mag. charge delivers current (in strong pulses) vs. a Nitecore.
Sorry to hear of your incident. I hope there weren’t any injuries. There may be valid points about the magnetic charger vs. Nitecore and external ones (not made by HL). Another possible variable with the magnetic charger and delivering current to charge is whether it’s plugged directly into an AC outlet or a pass through like a computer. Again, I’m not an expert with electrical stuff but it could play a factor. While I use my magnetic charger rarely it’s usually plugged into the wall or in my car, no passthrough. I usually remove the batts from the Nitecores when they’re ‘full’ (I may occasionally forget and leave them on but I’ve never had a physical battery issue since I’ve had my Hopper; batteries are stored full and usually used within a recent amount of time charging them).

Also, someone above mentioned “storage” which also factors in. How much charge is being held stored and how long it’s stored play a role in battery performance. I’ve gathered this from reading other FC forums. Just saying. So, lots of potential variables.

As much as I’d like to use the magnetic charger more than I do, extra charged batteries in an external charger provide backup and piece of mind. Though not swapping batts so much would help with my backend threading awkwardness on the last turn...:peace:

EDIT: it may be a balancing act for some of us who use the Hopper heavily - either you’re constantly charging the same battery with the mag charger (in the Hopper) or having the cushion of extra charged batts using an external charger.
 
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slozukimc

Well-Known Member
Damn. I love how this new Hopper hits.

A light load on 4.2 with my Grav Circuit bubbler tastes and hits like doing dabs of good rosin. Giant clouds of wonderful tasting vapor like no other battery portable I have met yet.

I think it is like a Mini battery powered Flowerpot to make a good comparison to a desktop.
 

Hopper Labs

Manufacturer
Manufacturer
Yes, the back end is screwed on as far as it will go. This Hopper doesn’t have that “tightening a spring” feeling when you get the back end almost all the way in like the older ones I had. It makes connection just as it gets tight and works the same every time. It seems like the connections in the dial are not making good contact all of the time. When I turn the dial with the Hopper off the red lights flash sometimes.

What should I do to get the process started to try another back end? This Hopper was a gift, so I don’t know if it was ever registered or not for sure.

Thanks @Hopper Labs !!!!!

Contact support@grasshoppervape.com with an explanation of what is going on and the serial number.


Warranty Times:
They are dropping fast and almost entirely eliminated for most issues at this time. The exception is heating assemblies, which there is still a wait for.

Battery/Warranty issues:
I am not sure about the specific case that @JCat had with his warranty, but in general, we do always suggest/recommend new batteries to people who are warrantying devices. This is a general message, and perhaps we need something more specific. The battery is not a primary focus during warranty as it is not covered, and there is a wide range of opinions people have on what is acceptable performance/battery life to them. Telling customers, they must buy a new battery when there old one is working to any degree can be a tricky line to walk.

Charging:
We can only officially recommend using the supplied charger, but this is because we have not extensively tested any of these 3rd party chargers to verify their safety. The battery does use proprietary chemistry (li-ion is a large category of chemistries), but that does not mean it will not charge safely on 3rd party chargers, it probably will. There is a long history of people using them, but we cannot verify any of the claims. The included charger regulates the delivered power. The brick will provide up to the rated power on it, but the hopper charger chooses how much to actually draw from it.

Battery:
It has been covered a few times already, but the proprietary battery size was mostly about keeping the device as small as we could. We did not want to build the device around a battery size, but instead build the ideal size device and build a battery that would fit that. This was difficult for us, and although many think it was an effort corner the battery market, it was not. Even if we had used a standard-sized cell as @biohacker said, there are a lot of other problems introduced if customers have the potential to put off-brand batteries in. We would have had to publicly require that only our battery of the standard size was used. The battery size is not "proprietary" in that it is not protected by patent and could be produced by anyone. For now, at least it is easy for us to be sure that the battery people are putting into their Grasshoppers is a real Grasshopper Battery.
 

MonkeyTime

Well-Known Member
Good to see you back here @biohacker , been a while! I stuck around and just lurked, completely stayed out of the drama!

I'm really loving my new SS still, It's got me thinking harder about something that I had already pondered, thinning down the vape herd. One or two desktops, one or two portables, and collectibles. Let's keep it simple, it's getting old digging thru tackle and tool boxes for all these parts and pieces, and I feel guilty not pulling them all out once in a while.

Anyways, back to the GH and enough about me.

I think the two largest factors are the battery condition and how well we're making contact. I cleaned the back end of my SS that was about to go back in for RMA and upgrades with a Deoxit pen as well as iso and compressed air for the fun of it. It was already at the point that it's loose internally (back end) and can be shifted back and forth some once the threads are engaged, she's about to pop! With everything clean and two of my three new batteries, I'm now getting decent results :bang:

The reason this is so frustrating to me is that I just got three new batteries with my SS purchase. Of those three, two would charge to 4.12v and the third to 4.18v day one. One of the two that go to 4.12v works the best of the three, the other is meh day one, 4.17v isn't far behind the best and works very well. This is all measured on my Opus charger, they were within .01v on my Nitcore, when checked just for a second source verification. This particular SS was purchased mid Aug '17.

These batteries seem to vary greatly right out of the box, and that's not real cool at $14 each.

With any of my older batteries the older SS is useless.

So with three GH's from three different years, Ti - 12/15, SSa - 8/17 and SSb - 10/19, I'm getting three very different results with the same batteries.

The Ti works with all of the batteris to some degree. If I still have them in rotation, it's at least two bowls worth on the Ti for a standard. Many of the older work pretty well, the new ones are 2/3 great, but I still don't get the same out of them with this as the new SS.

The new SS works great with almost all the batteries, even some of my original from '15/16, but doesn't even acknowledge 5 of them (all older, none of the new three). These same 5 work in varying degrees with the Ti and the old SS currently.

Not sure how much of this you're willing to answer, but @Hopper Labs , is this new "hotter" running heater version also more efficient? I'm getting noticeably more usage from all of the batteries that work with it.

If they become a bit more reliable, three working like this would cover me for portables even with some friends if I had any!
 

Vaporific

All who wander are not lost...
These batteries seem to vary greatly right out of the box, and that's not real cool at $14 each.
This has been my experience too in that there’s variability with batteries in general, and in several batches I’ve ordered. I don’t have empirical data like MonkeyTime but casual observations, i.e I’ve had a few duds that don’t compare to the others in the same batch.

Price is another concern, yes, but I’d really like to see better quality control with the capacity and discharging power. If they were all equal I could acquiesce a bit about price as it’s doubled (ouch!) over the years...:peace:
 

Hopper Labs

Manufacturer
Manufacturer
Battery variability is, unfortunately, a reality of manufacturing. Each new battery should be somewhat similar if it is the same age and stored the same way. The factory will test the capacity of each Cell, and some will be better than others, but ones that are below the threshold will be scrapped. It would take a prohibitively long time to cycle test each battery in-house without a lot of specialized equipment and would likely not yield a significant increase in "quality control" unless it was done to the point of degradation. Because the battery has a relatively small capacity when compared to say a 18650, it might have the appearance of being more variable than other batteries. Still, we are controlling the capacity value tighter than most.

The price of the battery to us has more than doubled over the last five years. There are a lot of factors here;
1. The cost of raw lithium has gone up
2. The demand for cells has skyrocketed
3. The number of factories has gone down
4. The shipping and packaging requirements for moving a large quantity have become much more restrictive and expensive.
5. The somewhat recent increased tariffs on li-ion cells certainly have not helped but, we have not passed that cost on to you.
 

biohacker

H.R.E.A.M
Right from the start, this proprietary battery has been the death of this vape IMO. It might be time to start thinking outside of the box and amplify the size from pen to marker or something. No way I could afford the battery roulette and short longevity/lack of warranty. I'd be happy with a GH in Arizer Air form factor even, if the battery was actually decent. Sigh.
 

MonkeyTime

Well-Known Member
Right from the start, this proprietary battery has been the death of this vape IMO. It might be time to start thinking outside of the box and amplify the size from pen to marker or something. No way I could afford the battery roulette and short longevity/lack of warranty. I'd be happy with a GH in Arizer Air form factor even, if the battery was actually decent. Sigh.

Completely agree. This heater is really special. We just need it in a form factor that's reliable. If that were the case I too would cease to bring up the battery cost...
 

muunch

hotboxing the cockpit
I don't mind proprietary really, and I also don't think 18650s are quite as common as 9v, AA, or AAAs yet but maybe I'm just high. Of course non-proprietary is better, no one is gonna argue against that, including my stupid ass.

As long as the quality, and availibility of the Hopper batteries remains a non-issue, I'm personally OK with it. There are much worse decisions a manufacturer can make imo. I much prefer the GH style cell as compared to say, the HR style batteries.

I can't really help myself and will be buying a new Ti Hopper within the next weeks to give this a test. I'll likely pre-order the USB-C charger as well, as that REALLY nullifies my care about proprietary batteries...
 

biohacker

H.R.E.A.M
Completely agree. This heater is really special. We just need it in a form factor that's reliable. If that were the case I too would cease to bring up the battery cost...

I wouldn't care if the battery was twice the current price if this was the case! Just think about how many years ago this would have completely dominated the market. The heater is insanely awesome. Too much was compromised due to form factor.

I can't really help myself and will be buying a new Ti Hopper within the next weeks

Fuck yes! :rockon::popcorn:

Thanks for the input on this. We will certainly consider it but really there are a lot of great vapes in larger form factors already.

Not even CLOSE to your hopper man!!! Not even close. Nothing. Just a slightly bigger body is all that's needed.
 

Vaporific

All who wander are not lost...
I don't mind proprietary really, and I also don't think 18650s are quite as common as 9v, AA, or AAAs yet but maybe I'm just high.
Several portable vapes and many box mods use 18650s. I don’t have any of either but they’re fairly common; a buddy with VAS has several already.

Not even CLOSE to your hopper man!!! Not even close. Nothing. Just a slightly bigger body is all that's needed.
A slightly wider diameter could... house a 18650. I agree the heater is special and the Hopper hits better than my Furies (which I still enjoy and were my dailies when my Ti was in RMA - and I’ve promoted my Hopper to daily status subsequent to its return from RMA).

Happy weekend to all. :leaf::peace:
 

muunch

hotboxing the cockpit
Several portable vapes and many box mods use 18650s. I don’t have any of either but they’re fairly common; a buddy with VAS has several already.

Yeah I have used plenty of vaporizers with 18650s before, and have one right now. I'm getting an induction heater powered by 18650s, some of my devices (puffco peak, another IH) use 18650s in a pack to provide power, and I know some flashlights also use 18650s. I just don't think they are super ubiquitous outside of the vaporizer(cannabis and nicotine worlds) but I definitely could be full of it and just lacking perspective.

I don't see how multiple devices using the same battery is a plus that makes those batteries inherently better. I also have seen little battery sleeve adapters. Not sure how relevant those are but it is something at least. I am significantly more concerned with the longevity and future availability of the GH batteries - them being proprietary is barely even a thought in my head honestly.
 

Hammahead

Well-Known Member
This heater is really special. We just need it in a form factor that's reliable. If that were the case I too would cease to bring up the battery cost...

Thanks for the input on this. We will certainly consider it but really there are a lot of great vapes in larger form factors already.

It's been said and discussed, but needs to be said again: your one-of-a-kind magic heater in a 510 box mod device would rule the galaxy, at least for those who have no use for the form factor.
 

vapviking

Old & In the Way
Yeah I have used plenty of vaporizers with 18650s before, and have one right now. I'm getting an induction heater powered by 18650s, some of my devices (puffco peak, another IH) use 18650s in a pack to provide power, and I know some flashlights also use 18650s. I just don't think they are super ubiquitous outside of the vaporizer(cannabis and nicotine worlds) but I definitely could be full of it and just lacking perspective.

I don't see how multiple devices using the same battery is a plus that makes those batteries inherently better. I also have seen little battery sleeve adapters. Not sure how relevant those are but it is something at least. I am significantly more concerned with the longevity and future availability of the GH batteries - them being proprietary is barely even a thought in my head honestly.
The main objection to 'proprietary' is, of course, that there is no competitive availability. As @Hopper Labs said, HL's are not proprietary, simply custom sized and spec'd. The market for them is just not big enough for anyone else to want to make them (because they're only used in one product). Conversely, 18650's cost a lot less. HL made conscious decisions to go this route.

I'm loving this 'form factor', though I call it design.
 

JCat

Well-Known Member
Accessory Maker
@Hopper Labs ... 2x I bought 2 new batteries, once directly from Hopper Labs, to address my issues; neither time did it result in even remotely acceptable performance or any consistency.

Right now sitting at 17 bowls in a row across 2 devices with zero issues and 100% perfect performance, this is the best/most consistent I've ever had Hoppers run, including the brand new one I bought from you guys, and ones right back from warranty which I put new batteries into. That being said, after many months of warranty claims, and $200-$300 in shipping expenses for warranty, it could be that initially the batteries weren't the issue, but by the time I was on the last of many, many warranty attempts (replacement parts and repairs), perhaps the batteries had gone bad by then and they had become the issue but the Hoppers had finally been repaired?? All just speculation of course ...

I was clear from my 1st warranty claim and on every one after, of what I deemed acceptable performance; and in good faith I tried new batteries that didn't fix the issue. Acceptable performance is being able to pull on it for 10-15 seconds and it to continue to produce enough heat to produce vapour ... my devices with all other 13 batteries and for over a year (2?) and many times sent back, all it would do is start to cloud up a glass piece, and then 2-5 seconds in, it would "give up" and the vapour would clear ... I'd have to run it through 3-4 cycles to not quite finish the bowl ... when working properly one 10-15 second hit and all material is definitely spent, much more so then in 3-4 hits when its not working. (I've been saying this for years though ... essentially since within 1 month of my first purchase from you guys ...). I would send it in for warranty for this very reason, then I would get it back, and it would behave the same, so I'd open back up the case, etc. etc. and round and round we went. Why in the many, many opportunities Hopper Labs had to test my battery they wouldn't have, is beyond me (since they ask that you send it back with the device for warranty and I did each time).

Anyways ... just saying that if someone sends in a device, you deem it to be working correctly, you send it back to them, and they still complain, perhaps you should test the battery the next time? (or maybe now its a non-issue because you can sell them new/good batteries ... last time I was suggested this and I purchased 2 batteries, this didn't solve my problem, but now one could reliably w/ 2 new batteries expect that to be a valid test? ... I thought buying 2 new ones eliminated that as an issue, but obviously it did not?)
 

MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
These custom cells are made and sold for the GH device, the whole batch just gets the blue GHB2 wrappers, and all that pass a capacity test threshold are being sent as part of the order quantity to HL, and then eventually passed on to an end user.

If the mAh tolerance is tighter than with previous batches there's not much to worry about, but the extent of that variability is what we are facing as users. Worst case a cell might perform for a relatively shorter period, in terms of each charge cycle and the overall charge cycles, but the cell health is still more dependant on the way the cell is used over it's lifetime. I seem to get a couple of years out of a cell, the lesser quality ones only manage fewer chambers per charge for a similar time. They still rip, just not as hard or for as long.

When you have the right hopper and battery combo, it doesn't leave much to be desired. Using the worst quality cell (obviously my opinion is bound to what I have experienced) certainly leaves something to be desired, but without direct comparison, it's not as big a deal as say the GH running cool to begin with (I guess if the cell isn't working than it would be).

The target capacity is ample (not ridiculous, but impressive given the size and the energy at hand), the portability of the device and the size of the spare cells sits well, it's easy to stash a few wherever for travel and the pen is pen size (just about) and instantly pocketable (which is funnily rare for a portable). The GH is remarkably efficient, much more so than any of my 18650 vapes. A big benefit with the small cells beyond portability is the rapid charging. Charging my Box mod is an ordeal that I don't have to bother with often because the GH is so superior to anything that plugs into my box mod that I simply don't use it. But when I want to, I typically have to wait a day to do so... I just checked it and it tells me that the batt balance is out, so it must be charged to power up.. I could get a single cell box mod, but then I'd be charging for long stints frequently and the whole thing is undesirable (plus they're hard to find in Aus for a reasonable price, mods and batteries that aren't fake).

Good quality 18650s don't cost much less than a GHB2, but you can rest assured that if you pay for it you can get a better QA with 18650s. That's the only benefit I'm seeing. The difficulty with that size is that many cells are very cheap and bad quality (not to mention all my LG HG2's keep failing as they are getting stretched to max spec) and consumers would be open to using any cheap old thing, which would further disrupt the user experience with their vape. A lot of the high power demand 18650s specify the cells they require or are pre-packaged in a pack like the Ghost. 510 vaping has been less than ideal, GH vaping has been exactly ideal despite the previous failures I was having years back.

I think the GH is more than fine as it is and I'm happy HL decided to push with this design form factor.
It is a pity that the price has escalated but the reasons stated are real, if you have a nose in that side of affairs, nothing fishy is going on. It is a bummer though.

It would have been a much smoother transition to the higher price if stock remained available, but I understand that isn't what happened. That was a rather unfortunate turn of events in a difficult time, but people still only have one lure to get snagged, as you say @biohacker larger vapes might open the possibilities, but the GH is probably still better in its certain ways.

I'm more interested in leaving Li-ion alone than anything else, or at least seeing solid state tech arrive.
Interested to see GHB3s come to fruition in whatever fashion that arrives. I'll be waiting.

I haven't felt the need to buy new cells yet, though it's tempting and I probably will soon.

My most recent purchase from 2018 had 2 okay and 1 bad cell, they all work just fine to this day, but I actually marked one from that PO and it turned out to be the worst of all my cells from much earlier. Most are still going. I have an embarrassing amount of these blue cylinders lol!
I basically just use 4 atm, I find that is a golden qty for perpetual GHing.
 
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Mr Mellish

Well-Known Member
I have 5 vapes that use the 18650, 3 that use the GHB2 and 2 that are full-on proprietary (by that, I mean that the enclosure for the battery entails much more than just a battery). My preference is for the 18650 because it's affordable and I'm getting a collection.

The GHB2 don't bother me if they are going to be performant (although the latest price is a bit of a choke point). However, I bought 5 extras, so I'm hoping I'll be good for some time.

It would definitely be interesting to see what other form factors GH Labs could find for the heater. As a big Firewood fan, I'd love to see a wood-based vape with that heater (it might actually be more reliable if it could have actual wiring...or maybe I'm just too tired at this point).
 

JeffD

New Member
I keep hearing how the warranty times are lower, but, here I am at 5 months as of today, and have gotten nothing but run around. Every time I enquire, I just get responses like "checking on it". What gives? Warranty case 39099823.

I don't normally start bad mouthing companies online until service just becomes ridiculous, and it looks like I may have to start soon.
 

muunch

hotboxing the cockpit
Will there be a Black Friday/Holiday sale?

I'm also curious if there's any more rolling changes being made to the actual design/parts of the device, or whether variation between devices performance is simply just battery+device variation?

I know this is likely only a "time will tell" type hypothetical question, but I am curious if there were estimates for how often/how large future battery shipments will be? Will this be a reliable thing, and will QC of these batteries be stringent before being shipped to consumers?

While I see that you have addressed that the HBC/SS Case could still possibly come out in 2019 still, do we have any sort of indicator how close these products actually are to release?

Is there any sort of hierarchy to the other, possible accessories that were mentioned (cooling mouthpiece,oils front end)?
 
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