I honestly dont see any way that holding it upside down when its running should damage the unit. So I guess the question is, does your Volcano work fine if you use it as intended? If the thing still screams, when used properly then you most certainly have a problem. If you are still concerned, then contact Stors and Bickle. Im sure they can answer all of your questions.
Thanks so much for the response! My concern isn't of it being 'broken' as much as something being out of alignment causing the air path to blow in air from the electrical compartment or if the heater started rubbing against something it shouldn't. The device appears to work pretty normally, but I'm more concerned about the quality and safety of the vapor now. Just to clarify - the device can be on when held directly upside down and still work normally, but once it's any other direction besides straight up or down the terrible grinding sound and vibration occurs. I wouldn't have cared if my roommate took it, flipped it upside down, and THEN turned it on... instead it was already blowing air when he went to manhandle it.
The exact concern is the motor/pump being on while the thing was held horizontally/tilted/spun/etc.... The noise the pump made was beyond scary. I believe the pump is designed to vibrate/move directly up and down... yet with gravity pulling it sideways and such while on, I'm sure its possible that it could have moved some stuff around internally or messed up some alignments. But I have no idea what the internals look like, so I'm not sure if this is even cause for concern.
I'd say get on YouTube and listen to several volcano videos and do a sound comparison. Report back and let us know what you find.
Lol that literally was the first thing I did! But it's super hard to compare that sound. No matter what, the recorded sound won't sound the same as having the thing right next to you. It's like comparing apples to apples...
Plus there aren't any videos of the device just sitting still with the air pump on (without a bag/herb chamber attached) for a long enough time for me to try to compare.
If someone here is brave enough, you could always try turning on your volcanos air flow and then picking it up and rotating it 90 degrees to hear this sound it makes for yourself. Afterwards when you set it down, then I'm curious if it still sounds
normal.
Thanks again everyone.