Identification: One of the main categories
Different types of devices
We differentiate mechanical and electronic vaporizers.
Mechanical vaporizers
Mechanical vaporizers vaporize cannabis or other plant material by indirect heating. The glass body is heated from the outside. The plant material evaporates and can be inhaled.
Electronic vaporizers
Electronic vaporizers use electric power to vaporize the herbs. A distinction is made between desktop devices, which come from medical applications and have a power plug, and mobile devices that are operated with rechargeable batteries. The mobile devices can be differentiated by size, into pocket or pen vaporizers.
The advantages of the tabletop units are, that they allow a very precise setting of the temperature and that they generate a large volume of vapor. Bong smokers like that. The advantage of a hand-held devices lies in its compactness and outdoor usability. If you decide for a high-quality model, you should definitely make sure, that the evaporation temperature can be set precisely to the degree. In this way, it is possible to determine which cannabinoids are released. This can influence the effect of the plant material, which is especially important for cannabis patients.
Two different technical procedures
Electronic vaporizers use two different techniques of evaporation.
Conduction
During the conduction, the nail on which the plant material or the dab lies, is heated.
Convection
In convection, the plant material or dab evaporates by supplying hot air.
Devices that combine both methods are called hybrids. Conduction is technically more simple, which is why these devices are slightly cheaper. However, there is a risk that plant parts burn, which negates the actual advantage of the vaporizer, the avoidance of the release of oxidation pollutants. This is why most vaporizers are convection vaporizers.
How to smoke pot in a vaporizer
Stoner must know which devices are suitable for the evaporation of which material. Most manufacturers avoid this information. This is why.
Almost all vaporizers have chambers for plant material and are therefore suitable for cannabis in its unprocessed form. To vaporize Dabs, some manufacturers offer liquid pads, which are round sheets of steel wool that prevent oil or wax from destroying the heating coil or clogging the airways. On this the dab is applied and can then be smoked.
Significantly more difficult is the evaporation of pot. Both the herbal chambers and the drip pads stick together through the resin and are then unusable. Not a single manufacturer has provided a solution for h*sh so far. Smart dudes have identified degummed hemp wool as the solution to this problem.
Place the hemp wool on the liquid pad to prevent resin from seeping into the metal, or dress the chamber with the hemp wool and then spread the crumbled pot over it. This is a bit fiddly, but at the moment it is the only and therefore best solution.
A whole new generation of vaporizers comes with a tank for evaporating liquids, turning the vaporizer into an e-cigarette.
Vaporizer for cannabis patients
For cannabis patients vaporizers are indispensable, more precisely, electronic vaporizers that can be set to the nearest degree. Cannabis sativa contains 113 different cannabiniodes, which are divided into twelve different groups (THC, CBD, CBE, etc). Psychoactive cannabinoids are in the minority. The majority of drugs have other properties that are important to patients. They have an antispasmodic, anti-diarrheal, anti-viral, antibacterial and so on. In order to be able to release these medically relevant active ingredients, the evaporation must take place in a precisely defined temperature range. And is only possible with degree-adjustable electronic vaporizers. The problem with the use of cannabis in medicine is that different diseases require different sunstances or combinations of substances. Since cannabis has only recently been approved as a medicine, there is a lack of in-depth knowledge of doctors and pharmacies. In order to offer patients help in the application against the most common diseases, a special “cannabis for medical use” will be published soon.
Smoking medical herbs or tea in a vaporizer
Vaporizers are not only suitable for smoking cannabis. The field of phyto (plant) inhalation covers a wide range. Many of the well-known medical herbs can be used in vaporizers much better than in a conventional way. For example, green tea (Sencha) smoked in a vaporizer, is much more invigorating than coffee or espresso. This subject will soon be described in great detail in an article on this subject.