vtac said:
Can you elaborate on why the Vapor Daddy isn't as good as the SSV? I mean, it's quite similar from the point of view of someone who's never used one.
The Vapor Daddy is pretty representative of the typical box vape.
The drawbacks IMO, compared to the SSV and DB, are light weight, bad 'dump your load on the heater cover' angle (for most models), and most importantly (to me anyway), you're pulling air through the guts of the unit.
The light weight and bad heater angle may be related. A guy at Vaporwarez told me that they designed the angle of the heater cover to help prevent users from shoving the lightweight box around during use. This is no longer an issue on the hands free unit, but some people (including me) don't want hands free. The fact that he also confirmed their box works fine upside down or on its side backs up his reason for the angle. But who wants to buy a vape that you have to modify the heater angle on, or be careful to load and pack the bowl so the contents won't fall out? A lot of people apparantly. They continue to sell.
I still have a box vape I bought a couple of years ago that beats the typical design on weight and heater angle. It's the Vaporlight, which hasn't been available for almost a year now. It has good weight (3 lbs), a horizontal heater angle, and uses a halogen bulb for a heater, just like the Aromed. It's still going on the original bulb, but when it finally burns out, you just install another 35W bulb, available most anywhere for $5 at most.
http://www.amazon.com/Vaporlight-Vaporizer-LL-1-Loose-VaporLight/dp/B000CSOLIM
Why was it not successful? My theory is marketing. It sold for slightly more than the Vaporcannon and Vapor Bros., but the advantages were worth the extra $ IMO. But the maker never did any web advertising as far as forum sponsoring or selling on ebay. Ebay is especially important for exposure. How many V-Towers would have been sold with just a website that nobody knew was there and didn't even offer on-line sales? If anyone didn't see the original arizer.com, it was just a pic showing the unit and various parts, with a phone number and email address.
Obviously the 7th Floor vapes are an improvement in the weight and heater angle aspects over the standard box design. The other big difference is that the air flow only goes through the top part of the heater cover. Tom (Purple-Days) has pointed out the dangers of lead components in vapes, even the fact that most brass contains lead. I know of no other vape maker that advertises lead free circuitry, so a vapor path that avoids the guts of the vape is a big plus IMO. In view of the recent discoveries of lead paint on millions of toys shipped into the US by Chinese companies, you can bet that the cheap Chinese vapes that have been flooding the market lately are made as cheaply as possible. And I guarantee they're not spending the extra $ necessary to buy lead free components. These vapes could potentially be more dangerous than smoking. The Chinese ripoff of the Vapor Genie, the VaporBuddy, has been tested for lead content and found to contain high levels of lead in the paint, even in the bowl area. Certainly products made in China are cheaper, but they can be dangerous too. We also got a lot of poisoned pet food from them last year.
I'm not saying the Vapor Daddy is made in China. It's been around for years, like the Pure Vaporizer and iVape, among others. But none of these vapes have a manufacturer's website, so who knows where they're made and what's in them? And even if you could contact the makers, they could just say, 'sure we're lead free'. You'd have to take their word for it, or send it off to have it tested, which would most likely cost you more than you paid for the vape.
So for ergonomics and especially safety, I think the DB and SSV are worth the extra money over your standard box vapes. Every time I see someone on a vape forum say 'I just got my $49.95 VP-100 (or whatever) off ebay', I want to ask, 'do you know what's inside that box? Do you know who makes it?' 'Does the manufacturer care about your health?' The old saying 'you get what you pay for' doesn't mean you have to spend $500 on a vape, but when you consider a box vape with electronics and glass (with no warranty) selling for the same price as a Vapor Genie.....