Seemingly short-lived high and throat irritation with vape pen

Discussion in 'Vaporizers' started by StandardFiend, May 11, 2017.

  1. Howdy folks. I'm still relatively new to dope, and to vaping in particular. I've probably smoked less in my life than some of the more zealous of you do every day. So please forgive my newbness.

    I have a small button-activated pen, Apollo brand. I picked it up for around ten dollars at an e-cig shop. Guy said it was a good product, manufactured locally. It's a nice-looking pen and feels like a solid product; soft-touch grip, perfect cartridge threads, reliable button with satisfying, rigid play, etc. All good stuff. I'm wondering if it might be no good, though.

    Using a couple Eureka-brand cartridges, which I've read from various sources are good, I find that A) I need to take quite a few drags before I get a reasonable high going; B) the high seems not to last very long--maybe an hour before I'm almost completely back to normal; and C) I tend to get some minor throat irritation when inhaling (nothing a few sips of water can't fix, usually, although I've had two or three unhappy coughing fits).

    So, is my device just poor-quality and wasting my dope, are those cartridges not so great, or is there something wrong with yours truly?

    Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated.
     
  2. #2 Allofthemtaken, May 11, 2017
    Last edited: May 12, 2017
    It's the eureka cart. They're not the best, I find them to be pretty harsh and not the strongest.

    Ahh skipped over the button activated, you want to get the one that turns on by itself. You pull it for a couple seconds and lights on the bottom flash. I'd also look into different carts aswell like BrasKnuckles, FlavRx.
     
  3. I recommend the smaller breath controlled batteries to a push button or anything bigger. I suspect the throat irritation could be from the fact that lower end cartridge companies add propylene glycol and/or vegetable glycerin(the stuff in ecig juice) in with their oil to dilute it and make it easier to put into a cartridge. My mother and I both bought one of a single type of cartridge once. I vape ejuice daily, so while I overall wasn't super impressed with the cartridge, it didn't hurt me. It gave my mother a sore throat and swollen glands for a week.


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  4. If you are set on using cartridges try to find distillate or raw cartridges they will be the least harsh
     
  5. Any suggestions for particular carts that meet that criteria? I am pretty set on using them. The convenience and lack of odour (I live with others) are the primary draws.

    Thanks for all the input folks!
     
  6. I really like the 710 King Brand Cartridges, good flavor and very effective. O.Pen are ok, but the taste isn't great and definitely need more hits to be effective. I have also tried TerpBoys cartirdges which were really good, but you would have to be in CA and near somewhere that carries them.
     
  7. They have O.Pen in Oregon. And a few other companies. What state are you in? Hard to give recommendations without knowing that.


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  8. I'm in California, in the East Bay. So I have access to a very wide range of products. I've been looking into a few dispensaries for the recommendations so far, but I'm of course eager for any more you can offer :)

    Thanks so much for taking the time.
     
  9. I'm not totally familiar with CA laws irt what is/isn't allowed into cartridges or in what percentages. O.Pen has a good rep here, but if it's the same company(it's possible businesses in different states could have the same name in theory,) they're on the expensive end. But you get what you pay for. Cheaper cartridges usually use something to thin out the wax to get it into the cartridge more easily/dilute their product to get more cartridges out of it, though there are plenty of good companies that don't use additives here in Oregon in the $50/g range. Personally my recommendation is to get a dab rig and buy wax not in cartridges. You pay a premium for them to put it in that cartridge. There are companies here that will charge $30/g for a gram of wax/shatter but then charge $50 for a 1g cartridge of the exact same thing. Plus with wax/shatter that's gone through testing, you don't really have to worry so much about impurities. It requires an initial expenditure on a dab rig/nail/torch, but over the years(months even,) you'll make your money back from the lower costs. I do buy a couple of cartridges per month. I'm an insomniac and generally wake up 3-5 times per night. I buy a 1g cartridge of Obama Kush once a month to deal with that and it works wonderfully. Then I'll usually get a sativa. Something like Sour Diesel or Blue Dream in case I need something during the day but still need to get stuff done.


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  10. Now, I have heard from a couple sources that O.Pen tend to have kind of a plastic-y taste and are prone to leaking.

    I think I might go ahead and pick up a couple TerpBoys carts and perhaps a Honey Vape cart, as they get really stellar reviews, to see how they treat me and hold me over until I can invest in some proper gear as you've suggested.

    Or perhaps go the other route and get an MFLB and some actual bud and see where that takes me.
     
  11. #11 Egzoset, May 15, 2017
    Last edited: May 15, 2017
    Salutations StandardFiend,

    I've started asking questions on vaporization in the 2nd half of 2010 and at the end i found myself inventing expressions, like "Release/Transport Agent", to put it short. Release because in Dry Flower vaporizers i'm expecting a technique that separates trichomes from their vegetal substrate. The "sugar" is often spread around, in those cases it may appear to require more heat in order to begin to melt then progressively evaporate cannabic surfaces. Generally speaking a mix of conduction/radiative/convection heat performs the "Release" action as described, then inhalation is when the "Transport" action occurs, obviously. So it's not very complicated, every single vaporizer has it in common and yet when i used to read dedicated forums there was no mention of any Release/Transport Agent or similar.

    One way or another it's still very simple, actually: practically every ready-made commercially available vaporizer you can buy will generally correspond to one of those categories:

    a) Dry-Baking Ovenizer
    b) Self-Moisturizing/Auto-Conditioning​

    Guess what the bad news are...

    Now lets see some good one, it's about the DynaVap VapCap which captured my attention when Induction Heat experiments emerged on YouTube:


    And for those who like being able to get at the root of things i suggest reading the patent filed by DynaVap, owned by George Breiwa:

    Patent WO 2017011698 A1 (Exothermal vaporizer, publ. 2017-Jan-19)

    « ...a fluid inlet port in communication with a reservoir, an air inlet, and a wicking material... »

    « ...a wicking material or evaporation matrix... »

    « ...designed to function reliably when heated with almost any heat source of sufficient thermal intensity... »​

    Euh... Just WOW!! Because that means the manufacturer is after my 2nd scenario defined above, the "niche" category: e.g. b) as in "Auto-Conditioning"!!

    :popcorn:

    M'yeah, the benefit of water without a water accessory - if i've interpreted my ("diagonal") reading of this document correctly, that is...

    There are more selection criterias on my mind; contact surface of a cannabic path combined to its transit time, for example. In other words the less one's cannabic vapour makes contact with external objects the better that shall be, because that's where condensation of golden "honey" will occur, closer to its warm source, then the sticky surface turns progressively moist if it's a b) scenario, e.g. the contrary of DRY.

    Have a good look at the VapCap and search for excessive contact surface relatively to the cannabic path. There ain't much... Which in turn implies lesser impact on aroma/taste, not to mention the toking experience is unlike sessions with slow Dry-Baking Overnizing (torture) machines i'm sure - IMHO.

    ;)

    Lets consider the icons of the market, the venerable Volcano with its bags, or the Arizer series providing direct draw, etc. They're all based on a miniature oven with no water ever present or added to the inlet air stream, consequently there ain't going to be much more of it coming out of the mouthpiece unless one's cannabic load is somewhat wet itself anyway...

    In any case the ritual differs quite dramatically when switching to devices as the VapCap and the recent IH experiments add some real enthousiasm to an already challenging trend where customers as myself requiring option b) can finally find some real hope for future inclusive solutions.

    Right now this is *MY* solution and i acquired my 1st VG pipe during the spring of 2011 while i'm only starting to enjoy what appears to be my definitive reconfiguration (...), after many "iterations":

    [​IMG]

    On the left side this is what i believe to be an acrylic smoker artifact dating back to the Trudeau era or so, the other one i mean... While on the right this is many decades later; then after that i'll be condemned to abstaining again!

    I wish DynaVap won't be long to implement their fluid wick-evaporator, hopefully to "potentiate" their Inlet Air intake in a very similar way to what's going on in my moddified VG pipe (pictured above), in a sense, except their solution no longer implies the presence of CO2 and "Comet Dust" (15 ~ 30 ppm "impurities" from the butane can), which is a net advantage over the Self-Moisturizing option.

    On the inconveniencies side i suppose DynaVap's Auto-Conditioning solution will depend on distilled water, or maybe simply tap-water if the customer is careful with it i guess. A very long while ago i figured this would only require minute amounts of water, maybe even touching a wet tissue might suffice to transfer a sufficient amount of water to the "evaporation matrix", taking for granted that was meant for water at all... Because i'm worried this might have been meant about e-Liquids instead.

    But i'm confident the DynaVap series will promote inclusivity this much so i'll advise against costly purchases until the future owner has considered *all* available options.

    As for myself it took 5 years to get from the genuine pipe i couldn't operate to a fully adapted Hybrid Core configuration with this custom-made element as its heart:

    [​IMG]

    To boldly go where no man has gone before!... :excl:

    Only to solve a forgotten designer alternative (fig. 11/12 of VG's patent US 7434584 B2) while another still remains unspoken today:

    The Release/Transport Agent.

    And, no, the FogBong! strategy with water vapor in the outlet stream didn't work too well on the long run, not to mention my efforts to even discuss about it, for example:

    [​IMG]

    That was entertaining but not really useful; as a mater of fact i consider today it was even deceiving.

    <_<

    In my own personal case that "agent" is made mostly of Hot Dry Air gathered from around the corona of a butane flame, a blue one after i converted from yellow ones (which weren't as suitable). The clean-burning of butane results in 2 simple super-hot gases: steam (H2O) and carbonic gas (CO2), plus "Comet Dust" as i like to call it, or 15 ~ 30 ppm (e.g. "zero") impurities, dating back to the dynosaur's extinction... Considering aspects like the "specific heat" of water vapour and carbonic gas i'm ready to argue this actually "potentiates" the compound Release/Transport Agent when Hot Dry Air is enhanced with that.

    If i'm still correct about DynaVap's future offers then i bet we can hope for an even more compatible solution in terms of human physionomy (dry ain't friendly to your lungs, yano!), because we'll have the benefits of butane without the butane-related issue(s) it seems - and judging from offers as their "M" model it would quite possibly come with a most competitive price-tag i think!...

    :thumbsup:

    Now lets try to envision what's involved in the e-Cig Release/Transport Agent, with Propylene Glycol as its substrate, euh...

    This must be great for smoke-screen effects, euh... Then the artificial flavours and whatnot may happen to saturate the senses, euh... So to be honest that's NOT how i conceive a consumption method while i prefer cannabis flowers which i can inspect under a USB microscope, complete with their natural aroma/taste hints, etc., etc.

    M'well, i hope i gave you something else to reflect on besides just batteries.

    Good day, have fun!! :D
     

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