Primary Materials
The Volcano Vaporizer
What your Vaporizer is made of is important, especially what the inside and parts that will heat up are made of. Generally plastics are bad, the quality of plastics can vary though and some are purely exterior decoration that shouldn’t become hot enough to cause health problems, as with the Wispr for example. Vaporizers made of aluminum or steel are likely to last longer but also won’t give off fumes like most plastics will; Volcano Vaporizers are made of surgical grade steel and among the best made. Generally cheaper vaporizers are more likely to be made of cheap plastics, which can give off carcinogenic fumes, but some mid range vaporizers are very well made and great value.
Heating Element Material & type
Aluminum heating elements can give off some toxins so go for a ceramic heating element where you buy a vaporizer that uses direct conduction heating. Ceramic elements in vaporizers as well as not releasing toxins also heat very evenly and tend to last well. Some vaporizers also use blown air convection heating, this gives a more even heat and makes burning of your biomass less likely.
Digital or Manual temperature control
A digital system uses a microchip to measure and regulate temperature working intelligently to keep the heat at the
right level. Manually controlled vaporizers with a dial normally aren’t as accurate and may vary by several degrees from your chosen temperature: this can lead to inefficient vaporizing or burning of your biomass. Then of course there are cheaper vaporizers and many portable vaporizers that don’t even have a temperature control. Different plants need different temperatures and so you may find that some plants burn while others don’t heat enough to release many vapors where you can’t adjust the heat.
Portable or Table Top
Portable vaporizers are very useful, you can easily take one with you to work, friend’s houses and for use in your car even. This is ideal if you are using your vaporizer to vaporize Tobacco as a healthier alternative to smoking tobacco, and a great way to work towards giving up entirely. For those that mainly use a vaporizer at home though a tabletop model may be better. In general a tabletop version has more accurate controls, heats up more quickly and may be better made as well; in many cases portable vaporizers are made from cheap materials to be entry-level models.
Truly portable vaporizers are rare as well, a few use rechargeable batteries and some butane but many others still need to be plugged in.
Bag or Whip
If you want a bag type vaporizer it is going to have to be a tabletop model. A whip type vaporizer includes a mouthpiece to deliver vapors to you, on some vaporizers the tube connecting to the vaporizer is quite long so that you can move around a long distance from the vaporizer. With table top bag type vaporizers you fill a balloon with vapors and you can then take it anywhere and use it easily from wherever you are: meaning you aren’t tethered and can get on with any housework or leisure activities around the home.
