What is the difference between all the different percs that are out? Is one style better than the others?
Yes. Differant perks break up bubble differant. The theory is, the more bubbles= more diffusion. I prefer showerheads and armtrees. Usually the perk with the most slits in it diffusses better. But yeah there all differant.
It's not necessarily the amount of bubbles, it's the size of them that affects diffusion. If it were the amount, you could just fill your tube high with water an make it stack like that.
There is way too many to compare haha. If you have a couple in mind we can give you the differences and pros/cons. I seem to love anything gridded.
If your not experienced with bongs, then you cant even appreciate the differences. Which is why its bad for people to put to much emphasis on percs. What gets you high? Your weed does. So don't worry about how you get the weed into you, just fucking do it without breaking your wallet. A showerhead has essentially the same diffusion as trees, except it takes more glass to make trees. For those that don't notice. Most exists on percs are slits. A slit in a showerhead is the same as slit on a tree perc, which is the same as a slit on an inline. Once you grid them, you just make the opening smaller. Smaller opening = smaller bubblers. Irrespective of where these gridded slits are located, they all make small bubbles.
But dont take what kliff is saying the wrong way, the placement of slits is very important. You have to have the slits firing for them to make a difference.
This really should be in the Toking Tools Q&A section, this would be the best example of a question for that section. Back on topic though, the difference in percolators is how many points of air diffusion is allowed. Something like a 3-hole disk perc has -wait for it- 3 points of diffusion, while a 9-hole swiss perc has 9 points of diffusion(and 6-9 hole disk perc underneath, some forget about this). The more points of diffusion you have, theoretically, the easier it is to diffuse your smoke and air mixture with the water. Things like multiple percs/chambers in your bong will change this effect though. That's why Toro runs a 7/13, not a 13/7. The 7 tree would reduce the amount of pressure in the 13 tree's chamber, thus bottlenecking your perc. **Edit** I just realized you asked about which is the best. Well, think about a bong like a car. You have the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, which is the fastest Ferrari ever made in terms of course and straight line speed. Then you have the Noble M600 which holds one of the greatest power-to-weight ratio's of all time and holds a #8 spot in the record books for top speed. You can't tell me which is better. It's opinion. So whatever you like, that's the best one there is.
I was under the impression a bottleneck refers to the most narrow point in a particular pathway. Wouldn't the bottle neck be the size of the joint? 18.8 or 14.4 Irrespective of number of tree percs and their location, the bottleneck in a well made bong should always be the joint size of the piece. If theres a bottleneck in your perc, that means the perc chamber has a smaller diameter, and thus, less airflow, than the initial joint of the bong itself. Or are you using bottleneck differently than Im thinking of it?
You're taking it way to literally. Think of it like this: You're upgrading your computer. So far you've done the CPU, the hard drive, and the video card. Yet for some reason, all of your games still play like shit. Reason being? You didn't upgrade your RAM, thus creating the bottleneck. Wan't another example of a bottleneck? You have a proffessional paintball gun that can shoot 20 paintt balls per second, yet you have a hopper that only feeds 1 ball for every .5 seconds. You're not going to be shooting 20 bps, your hopper is bottlenecking the gun to run like a wal-mart brand marker. Bottlenecking is a term used by most computer engineers/programmers/system administrators. Bottleneck is not a term used on bongs.
I don't really understand this bottleneck effect you're talking about. It makes perfect sense in your examples, but I don't see how it applies here because regardless of he number of arms, there would be enough tubing to equal the airflow of an 18mm joint.
He is saying that he fucked up and shouldn't have used the term bottle necking. I underlined the part where he realized he this mistake. Unfortunately, he didn't reiterate his point with a more worthwhile term. So I still have no idea what he's talking about in regards to bongs. But at least he knows what RAM does in a computer.