Have you ever seen a convection oven? If you have, you already have an idea of how they operate. Convection ovens use fans to disperse heat, cooking food faster and more evenly than standard ovens. Many restaurants use convection ovens because speed and consistency are everything in a professional kitchen. Even with that knowledge, though, it may not be immediately obvious to you how convection applies to herbal vaporizers. The type of vaporizer that you buy can have a drastic effect on the type of vaping experience you have. There’s also usually a significant price difference between convection and conduction vaporizers, making it doubly important that you choose the right one for your needs. So, you aren’t sure how convection vs. conduction vaporizers compare? This is the article for you.
The Difference Between Convection and Conduction Vaporizers
A conduction vaporizer carries heat from the heating element to your herbs through physical contact. A convection vaporizer, on the other hand, uses air to carry heat to your herbs.
In a conduction vaporizer, the heating element usually touches the chamber in which you pack your herbs. The heating element might be on the underside of the chamber, for instance. When you turn your vaporizer on, the heating element makes the herb chamber very hot. Since you fill the chamber with ground herbs packed closely together, the physical contact between the herb fragments carries the heat to the center of the chamber, heating the herbs through.
In a convection vaporizer, the heating element doesn’t touch the herb chamber. The heating element might be at the bottom of the device, for example, while the herb chamber is at the top. When air passes through the vaporizer, it carries the heat from the heating element to the herb chamber. Some conduction vaporizers use fans, and others use the air pressure that you generate when you inhale.
Now that you understand how conduction and convection vaporizers work, let’s learn about what their benefits are.
Benefits of Convection Vaporizers
Ready When You Are
In a convection vaporizer, there’s enough distance between the heating element and herb chamber to ensure that the beneficial compounds in your herbs will not vaporize until air passes through the vaporizer. With a conduction vaporizer, the compounds in your herbs can potentially begin to vaporize while you’re waiting for the oven to preheat.
Suppose, for example, you’re using an herb with a compound that vaporizes at 320 degrees, but you’ve set your vaporizer’s temperature to 420 degrees. While your vaporizer heats from 320-420 degrees, some of the compounds in your herbs will vaporize and escape into the air. Since the herbs in a convection vaporizer won’t vaporize until you inhale or turn on the fan, convection vaporizers are typically less wasteful than conduction vaporizers.
Better Oven Heat Penetration
In a conduction vaporizer, the heat starts at the outside of the herb chamber and gradually penetrates through to the center of the chamber. That means the outer chamber and inner chamber heat at different rates; when the herbs in the center of the oven are just beginning to vaporize, the herbs at the edges of the oven will be thoroughly cooked. Because of the uneven heating, you may find it necessary to open your vaporizer and stir the herbs midway through your vaping session. A conduction vaporizer only gives you the best flavor at the beginning of the session.
With a convection vaporizer, the hot air penetrates the entire herb chamber simultaneously. You’ll enjoy fuller, bolder flavors because you’ll taste the delicate terpenes in your herbs – which typically vaporize at lower temperatures – all at once. You also won’t need to worry about stirring your herbs during the vaping session.
Since the heat penetration with a convection vaporizer is so complete, many people find that they can use less herbs to achieve the desired effect. Switching from a conduction vaporizer to a convection vaporizer will almost certainly cut your herb usage, and that means a convection vaporizer can actually pay for itself before long.
Benefits of Conduction Vaporizers
Low Cost
As you may have already guessed, the design of a convection vaporizer is often much more complex than that of a conduction vaporizer. Convection vaporizers typically have more components than conduction vaporizers, and they are often the most expensive herbal vaporizers on the market. Conduction vaporizers, on the other hand, are usually very affordable. While more expensive conduction vaporizers do exist, those devices are usually more costly because they are small and fashionable – not because they work better than less expensive conduction vaporizers.
All that a conduction vaporizer really needs is a heating element, a chamber made from a conductive material such as ceramic or stainless steel and electronic components to control the temperature of the heating element. With such modest requirements, it’s possible to build a working conduction vaporizer with a very low retail cost. If you want to try herbal vaping without spending a lot of money, you’ll probably want to buy a conduction vaporizer.
More Reliable Than Ever
One of the great things about conduction vaporizers is that their designs have consistently improved throughout the history of the herbal vaping industry. The original conduction vaporizers were expensive, complex and unreliable. They either required frequent stirring because they couldn’t heat the herbs all the way through, or they got too hot and burned the herbs. In those days, you needed to buy a convection vaporizer if you wanted to have a great vaping experience. Conduction vaporizers required constant fiddling and troubleshooting.
Today, the herb vaping and e-liquid vaping industries share technology, and both industries benefit from that. Conduction vaporizers are better than ever; they have better airflow than they once did, and they also sense temperatures more accurately. Uneven heating – from the outer edge of the chamber to the middle – is still a shortcoming common to all conduction vaporizers. With many modern devices, though, there’s no need to stir your herbs during your vaping session because today’s devices use very efficient and powerful heating elements.
Jason Artman is the owner and author of eCig One. A professional freelance writer and SEO consultant with more than a decade of experience, Jason works with vaping companies around the world to increase their targeted web traffic and improve their revenue
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