Sometimes you just can’t wait to get home to light up. With a Da Vinci in your bag, you’ll be able to medicate on the road, without having to fumble with lighters or replacement batteries.
What Is It?
A travel vapouriser. Wait, no it’s an essential oil boiler. Or is it more of an aromatics diffuser? Oh hell, it’s all three.
Who’s It For?
Anybody who enjoys vapourising with the option of adding a lemon, sage, and/or lavender scent.
Design
Like an early 1990’s phone — seriously, this thing is a brick and a half. Even the mini-whip bears more than a passing resemblance to my old StarTAC’s extendable antenna.
Using It
Easy once you know what you’re doing. The vape chamber is accessible via a flip-top mechanism that also holds the whip. The system employs dual power buttons — a master switch and a secondary to activate the heating element itself. The Da Vinci is digitally adjustable up to 221°C (and the answer to your question is 185°C, with an active range of 179 to 196).
The Best Part
This is actually a triple action vapouriser. Not only does it accept shake and other vegetated material, it also can be used to vapourise essential (read: hash) oils with an included oil adaptor — essentially a hollow aluminium bullet. What’s more, if you remove the whip, the unit can also be employed as an aromatic diffuser (the included Lemon Balm Lavender test tincture smelled wonderful and effectively hid the scent of the previous bowl).
Tragic Flaw
The taste of the herb is masked with the taste of sucking hot air through a straw. Because, y’know, that’s what you’re doing.
This Is Weird…
The temperature consistently climbs a few degrees over what I set it to — however, if I suck hard enough, I can draw the temperature back down by to my original setting with a single inhalation.
Test Notes
- Relies on a rechargeable lithium-ion power source rather than batteries or butane. A big plus.
- Except: the battery life is crap (three hours max per charge)
- Heats fast, usually in about a minute
- You may need to sacrifice a bowl after using this as an aromatic vapouriser to clear the system.
- I never want to inadvertently inhale lavender vapour again
- Give the essential oil chambers a second to cool before removing them from the Da Vinci, they get hand-searingly hot.
Should You Buy It?
Even if you don’t mind the clunky design and ballpark temperatures but instead focus on how utterly blunted you can get using it, I’d still say meh. It’s good, it’s handy, but there are plenty of other better — and more affordable — toking tools out there.
Da Vinci Vapouriser And Aromatic Diffuser Specs
• Dimensions: 10.16 x 5.8 x 2.5cm
• Weight: 453g
• Power:Three lithium-ion
• Operational Temp: 0 – 221°C
• Price: $US249