I don't know where to post this so move it if it's in the wrong spot.
Disclaimer: I'm not encouraging the opening of your vape, nor am I condoning it. Use this knowledge at your own risk, or don't use it at all. Knowledge is a great power, use it responsibly.
Alright so I've had this Zeph' for a while and it has been rumbling pretty bad. It's out of warranty at this point so I had no problem opening it up. It's very well built, but I took minimal pictures as this was my 5th time opening and closing it today... Took a while to find the root cause of the rattle/rumble.
At one point, I thought it was the small black box next to the air pump. I put two-sided tape on it (it's far enough away from the heater that it should be alright). Made the noise worse. Lol. Whatever. I found if I set it on a slight angle to the right, it would rumble less. Odd. Anyways...
I found out the power cord was slightly out of place. There is a ridge that it presses into.
Here is where the heater core plugs in. This is merely for reference.
It has quick disconnects that unclip like speaker terminals. The colored ribbon wire is for the USB plug.
Okay so after taking the Zeph apart, which is really easy anyone can do it, I rattled it until I found the stupid thing that was making the noise. It was the heater core. I was scared. It is attached to a mounting plate by 4 screws, remove them. Here is the catcher for anything that goes into the heater core by accident (you SHOULD have a screen below the crucible).
You can see some material has fallen into there. Screens don't catch everything.
You should see this. If you're lucky, you can just tighten that nut up and be good to go. Ignore the hose (and hair, holy eff macro)
I just removed the gasket and tightened the nut up.
I'm sure it holds a purpose in being there, but, since it broke, the core was rattling around which is even worse. Threadlocker should be used, but, that is probably too toxic for this application. I don't know what could remedy this except routine maintenance.
And yeah, that's all there is to it. Replace the zip-ties on the hoses and tighten them up real good. Mine have come off before.
That's my experience today. My Zeph is much more quiet now.
This isn't intended as a how-to, just some info for you guys.