You did it! After lots of research, or maybe none at all, you purchased your first ball vape and can’t wait to learn what all the hype is about. As you get ready for the most fun part of any new device, testing, you suddenly feel woefully unprepared and intimidated by the cords and wires in front of you. Not to fear! This guide is intended to help get you comfortably situated with your ball vaporizer of choice. We cover finding your Optimal Temperature Settings, Cleaning & Maintenance and lots of fun Tips & Tricks. Make sure to check out installation instructions as well if you have any questions about setting up your new device. We hope you love your new device and please reach out if you ever have any questions on any of our products!
Optimal Temperature Settings:
We think it’s very important to start any discussion about optimal temperatures by mentioning that optimal temperatures aren’t consistent across people and there are many factors that impact what you set your PID controller to including; what glassware you’re using, if you’re hitting dry or through water, what bowl and housing you have, your rate of inhaling, elevation, and plenty more! The good news is you don’t have to understand all of these factors to have a pleasant session. We find it easiest to adjust the temperature settings based on the color of your herbal material when it stops giving off visible vapor. The formula is just a bit more involved when you incorporate conduction heating into the mix, but we’ve broken it down below.
These suggesting starting temperatures are based on the Ritual Colorado team’s use with high-airflow glass pieces so it’s completely normal for your temperatures to vary. You’ll notice our suggestions below all focus on the devices. As long as you’re pulling consistent air through your glass piece you should be able to adjust the device to match your session style and not the other way around.
Pure Convection (Includes Taroma (OG, 2.0, 3.0, Lite Plus, XL, Lite XL), Qaroma, Qaroma XL, and Ceroma)
These pure convection devices sit the heater above your bowl for you to draw heated air down through your flower for efficient extraction. Because all of the heat is circulating through airflow, we like to make sure to loosely fill our bowl for these devices to ensure even extraction. We’ve included a handy table at the bottom of this blog post with our suggested starting temperatures for all QaromaShop devices. When adjusting temperatures for pure convection ball vaporizers we use the simple rules below;
- If your flower is a lighter color than you prefer when it stops producing vapor we suggest
- Turning the temperature on your PID controller up 5-10 degrees
- Similarly, if your flower is a darker color than you prefer or you noticed the flavor change at the end of your bowl we suggest;
- Turn the temperature on your PID controller down 5-10 degrees
- Turn the temperature on your PID controller down 5-10 degrees
Light Conduction (Includes all of the devices above when paired with a metal or ceramic bowl)
We’ve titled this section light conduction because the heat is still coming from the housing which sits above the bowl. However, the metal and ceramic bowls retain heat and can provide additional conduction to help you extract your bowl. You can also ramp up the conduction by heat-soaking your bowl while it’s empty. This is accomplished by placing the housing on top of the bowl and letting it sit as it transfers heat to the bowl. When the bowl is heated satisfactorily the housing is taken off, the bowl is filled, and then the housing is put back on the bowl for your session. This can lead to insanely efficient ball vaporizer performance for those who like the ability to play around with gear and customize their sessions.
I’ll be honest, this isn’t my favorite session style. It is certainly powerful and efficient, but for me it’s too many moving parts, timers and things to remember for my inebriated brain. That said, I do prefer to use the titanium bowl with many of the convection housings. It provides nice security with the heavy titanium construction and heats up through a bowl to where it is helping provide some extraction by the end when you really need it.
When dialing in your light conduction setting we recommend using timers on your heat soak to keep it easy to track variables. Adjusting temperatures can follow the same rules listed below for the 360 series, however the length of time adjustments are generally longer when you’re heat soaking an empty bowl with your housing. We start with 10-15 second adjustments (up or down)
Conduction / Convection in Perfect Harmony (The new 360 Series)
These awesome new devices drop the heater fully over your bowl for a clean mix of conduction & convection heating and super-efficient extraction. We find this heating mix particularly effective when you incorporate a short heat-soak before taking your first draw. However, as opposed to the Light Conduction above this heat soak doesn’t require any extra moving of the housing. Just fill your bowl up, place the housing on, and set a 15-20 second timer before diving in for immediate clouds. Our favorite session style with the 360 Series is setting the controller to 420 and doing a 15-20 second heat soak before fully extracting the bowl in one take. However, check out this blog post for more fun ways to session your 360.
When adjusting operating temperatures with the 360 you can control both the length of heat soak and the temperature setting on your PID temperature controller. For social settings we like to set it at a moderate temperature and individuals can adjust their heat soak timing if they want to get a more powerful hit. However, playing with the temperature settings can also yield great results so we encourage you to experiment and find out what your preferred session is. We adjust on the following simple rules;
- If your flower is a lighter color than you prefer when it stops producing vapor you can either;
- Turn the temperature on your PID controller up 5-10 degrees; or
- Increase your heat soak time by 5 seconds on your next bowl
- Similarly, if your flower is a darker color than you prefer or you noticed the flavor change at the end of your bowl you can;
- Turn the temperature on your PID controller down 5-10 degrees; or
- Decrease your heat soak time by 5 seconds on your next bowl
Cleaning & Maintenance:
Hands down our favorite part of ball vaporizers is how easy they are to maintain over a long period of time. Because air flows from the housing down onto your flower there shouldn’t be any cleaning requirement for your housing unless you’re dropping dabs on top of it. We would caution that if your glass piece has blowback where water momentarily moves backwards when you stop drawing, that this can lead to some light vapor making its way into the housing. The easiest way to prevent this is using a pass-through adapter or carb which is removed when you stop drawing to give the air another path to escape.
Bowls, screens and glass should be cleaned regularly for your health and optimal performance. We like to give everything a hot water rinse before soaking in isopropyl alcohol and finally rinsing in hot water again. Luckily QaromaShop DIY Kits include a full pack of screens so you can easily swap out a screen and keep the party going.
Tips & Tricks:
Below are some tricks we’ve developed based on how we like to use our devices. Let us know if you have any to add and we hope everyone gets the most out of their sessions!
- Leave it on! When I turn my device on for the day I leave it powered on until I head to bed. As long as you’re setup in a safe place, ball vaporizers operate very efficiently and by leaving them on you can eliminate the pre-heat and have a device that’s ready to rip at any time.
- Smart plugs! While most ball vaporizers pre-heat in less than 5 minutes, you can eliminate any waiting by incorporating a smart plug that has pre-set on and off times. This can also make sure your devices get turned off at night when your brain may be a little fried.
- Clean baby clean! We know it’s no fun, but the best way to enjoy the incredible flavors and remarkable efficiency of these devices is to keep them, and your glass, nice and sparkly clean. At a minimum make sure you replace the water in your glass every day you session.
- Play around! The only way to find your favorite session style is to try! These are really fun devices so make sure you’re having a good time.
