Regular preorder #2 reporting for duty! Took a while for my newly birthed Zion to make it from the frozen tundra of upstate NY to the south end of the Left Coast (9 days via UPS), but alas the moment had arrived and upon opening the package, I quickly realized that my patience had been richly rewarded!
Note that the package, while secure and undamaged, consisted of bubble wrapped items in a 6x6" corrugated box so be careful unpacking and check all folds and corners for any screens or other goodies that you might miss in your excitement! Speaking of excitement, in my haste to document my Zion's arrival with some pics, one short stem rolled off the edge of a cushion and fell less that 2 feet onto a thin carpet and shattered! -- so my advice, make sure and order some extras. RBT also mentioned that FC contributor
@Ed's TnT may eventually come up with a Zion compatible wood stem so looks like I'd be a good candidate for one of those as well!
After a quick initial inspection and tally I threw the included LG HE4 batteries on my XTAR V4 charger. One read out @ 4.2v to start and the other 3.5v. While waiting for the batteries to be topped off, I oggled the smooth organic lines of the Zion and drooled in eager anticipation. When they were fully charged, the first ended up adding only 61 mAh to the charge while the other took 1149 mAh.
Lacking any documentation included on these first couple (I know *Snacks is working up something for RBT), I jumped right in, loaded a couple medium grind pinches of Gorilla Glue #4, hit the power button for 5 seconds or so on "high" and then dialed it down to maybe a 1 on a 0-5 scale and proceeded to inhale. Virtually unrestricted airflow, smooth, absolutely no harshness, cool terpene loaded bliss! After temperature step hitting about 4 times up the scale, I decided to check the ABV and maybe give the load a stir. As I examined the glass stem, I couldn't see any material! Looking down into the chamber, I could see that I had packed my material too loosely and it had fallen out of the stem and onto the heater screen. No doubt, this is why a mild popcorn taste had developed earlier than I had anticipated. Upon inverting the Zion and pouring out the AVB I noticed uneven darkening (I know, wtf do you expect when burning shit off the heater!). Well, being from the "waste not, want not" school, I flecked the darker bits to the side and reloaded the stem with the remaining AVB (after revisiting the Zion thread here on FC and looking up some of the tips on usage.) I continued vaping for a total of about 8 hits and finished at about 80% power. This time when emptying the stem, the AVB color was all a light, even, golden brown.
After a few hour break (light weight here, not used to all this testing "in the name of science" in the @slcbdc spirit), I loaded (correctly this time) and waited for some aromatic bliss to ensue -- but nothing! I thought perhaps that I was over anxious and hadn't given enough time to preheat so held the power button down for another 10 and then 20 seconds but still nothing. I pulled the batteries and put them on the charger where they showed 0v. After about 3 hours or so of charging they both indicated a charge of 2700+ mAh.
In the interim, I put in some Samsung INR18650 25R's that I also had and drifted once again towards vape nirvana, temp stepping my way up the dial, exchanging short stem for long, low temp to high -- all working flawlessly with AVB finished off once again to a light golden brown.
I checked in with RBT and he wasn't sure what may have triggered my premature battery drain but speculated that it might have been moisture in the unit or a power button that might have got stuck in the "on" position. I didn't notice or detect either, but am happy to report that in subsequent use of the same batteries over the following several days, all seems to be functioning fine.
Congratulations to RBT, his henchman TKW and the alphabet boys (you alpha and beta testers that contributed so much). RBT, you've come up with a WINNER! Can't wait to work on refining my technique to obtain whatever result I'm in the mood for at the time. That being said, I can assure you that the learning curve is intuitive and not a steep one. Even with no instruction and somewhat limited vaping experience, this bad boy had me in the clouds within moments of inserting the batteries. Now it's just about finesse. Later I will probably try with some water tools for kicks but for now, I'm fine using it straight up. I have to tell you, even though I am sensitive to harsh, hot air, the draw on the short stem is amazingly cool and smooth and with the long stem, even more so.
If you haven't already . . . jump on the bandwagon, this baby's on fire!
sessions earlier, and I do a nice long preheat while filling a stem, straw-style, and get set for a large rip, and nada. A slight bit of warmth, but thats it. So pop those batts back into the d2 and one shows higher than the other (shoulda wrote it down. Oopsie).
And now, while I was planning on leaving Ja-geun Yong alone for the evening, after reading of your rollicking good time, I may need a session before calling it a night (and I did just get back an hour ago from a 6 mile hike in the hills around my place) so feel like rewarding myself ---right?!
