Received the Lotus with a ding? in my plate. So by my nature - I’m going to fix. Used A Gerber multi-tool with duck-bill pliers to remove the screws. Well I am now Looking for A Replacement Heating plate now-having dinged my plate with the pliers, I did get one good bowls’ worth in for great taste, and Vapor of which my technique needs to get better. Also enjoying knowing I am not getting butane in the Draw.
The hot plate should work fine unless you really boofed it. The plates oilcan (warp) over time due to the repeated extreme temperature variance on the thin metal plates. This is just physics, not a flaw in the design. We all want near instant performance and this is the inevitable trade-off.
Be super careful anytime you touch the screws. Do not over tighten. They should be snug, not tight at all or the wood will strip out at least on the OG caps, not sure about the olive.
Slowing things down a bit while using the Lotus and never going beyond the slightest orange glow on the metal will greatly increase the life of the hotplates. Take a few seconds preheating the entire inner circle of the plate without focusing on any one point gives excellent results. The plates will last a long time over thousands of heat cycles if there aren't extreme temperature variances over the plate.
Hot spots will eventually lead to cracks. I know as I am going on ten years with this vape (currently have six or seven caps in rotation) and have a dozen cracked (pinholed) plates to show for it. The last three or four years I've only had to change a couple plates after slowing things down and keeping the torch a bit further away so the heat is less concentrated. The heat is still there and transferred over a larger area of the hotplate reducing the temperature variances that lead to cracks and improving the overall performance of the cap. Even heating of the plate leads to even heating of the payload and everybody is happy.