Vaporizer FAQ — Types, Temperatures, Cleaning, Batteries & Australian Law

A dry herb vape heats ground flower in the 170–220°C range. A concentrate vape (a wax pen, dab pen or e-rig) runs much hotter and vaporises extracts like wax, rosin or shatter, often 230–350°C+ on a coil or quartz dish. Some devices, the dual-use ones, do both with different chambers. They're not interchangeable: pack concentrate into a herb oven and you'll glue the thing shut.

Conduction heats by contact with a hot surface. It's cheaper, faster to warm up and easy to live with, but it can scorch herb that sits against the wall. Convection pushes hot air through the herb instead, so the flavour's cleaner and there's no scorching, but it costs more and some only make vapour while you draw. Hybrids like the Mighty split the difference. For most people a good conduction or hybrid portable is the sensible pick.

A portable runs off a battery and goes in a pocket or bag. A desktop plugs into the wall, makes the biggest, smoothest vapour going, and stays on the table. Desktops like the Volcano use a balloon or a whip. If you mostly vape at home and want the best clouds, a desktop's hard to beat. If you want to vape anywhere, go portable. Loads of people end up with one of each.

Start around 180°C and work up. Roughly 180–190°C gives you flavour and a gentle, clear-headed effect, 190–205°C is the balanced middle most people settle on, and 205–220°C makes thick, heavy vapour with a stronger hit. Above about 220°C you're getting close to combustion and the taste turns harsh. Go low first, you can always step it up, but you can't un-cook a bowl.

The tasty, aromatic compounds come off at lower temperatures, and the heavier stuff needs more heat. Crank it and you get dense vapour but you've burnt past the delicate flavours, so it tastes toasty. Many people start a session low for taste and finish hot to wring out what's left. It's the same bowl, just worked through in stages.

A quick once-over every few sessions and a proper clean every week or two if you use it daily. Brush out the oven and wipe the mouthpiece regularly. Soak the glass stems, screens and removable paths in isopropyl alcohol (90%+ is best) when airflow drops or the taste goes off. The longer you leave it, the harder the gunk is to shift, so little and often wins.

Only the bits that are meant to come off. Glass stems, screens, mouthpieces and removable cooling units can usually be soaked. The body with the battery and electronics in it never goes near water, and on a Mighty or similar you don't fully submerge the cooling unit if the manual says not to. When in doubt, isopropyl on a cotton bud and a pipe cleaner does most of the job.

Isopropyl alcohol (IPA, also called rubbing alcohol) dissolves the sticky resin that builds up in your vape and then evaporates clean, leaving no residue. Aim for 90% or higher, sold at chemists and hardware shops. Soak the removable glass and screens, let them dry fully so there's no alcohol smell, and you're sorted. Don't use it on plastic parts or painted surfaces, it can cloud or strip them.

Usually one of three things. It's new and you're tasting the 'new device' smell, which burns off after a few empty heat cycles. It's dirty and overdue for a clean. Or you're running it too hot and scorching the herb. Work through them in that order: do a couple of break-in runs, give it a clean, then drop the temperature 5–10°C and see if it comes good.

On a charge, a portable typically gives you somewhere between 5 and 12 sessions depending on the device, the temperature and how long you draw. Over its life, a lithium battery is good for a few hundred charge cycles before capacity noticeably drops, which is usually a couple of years of regular use. Higher temperatures and long sessions drain it faster.

If you vape a lot or travel, yes. Removable 18650 batteries mean you carry a charged spare and swap in seconds instead of waiting on a cable, and you can replace a tired battery for a few dollars instead of binning the whole unit. Built-in batteries make for a neater, slimmer device you charge over USB-C. It's convenience now versus convenience later.

Don't leave it flat for weeks, don't cook it in a hot car, and don't habitually run it to zero. Lithium batteries are happiest sitting somewhere in the middle, so if you're shelving a device for a while, leave it around half charged. Use the charger that came with it or a decent USB-C one, and unplug it once it's full rather than leaving it on the cable for days.

Yes, but far less than smoking and it clears fast. There's a fresh, slightly popcorn-ish smell while the herb's hot that fades in minutes instead of soaking into your clothes and curtains. Higher temperatures smell stronger. A portable used by a cracked window is pretty discreet compared with a joint.

It depends what for, and it's genuinely complicated. Medical cannabis is legal as a prescription medicine through your doctor, not something you buy over the counter, and the vaporiser devices represented for medicinal cannabis are regulated as therapeutic goods. The nicotine vape reforms from 2024 are a separate framework again. We've written a full, heavily-disclaimed rundown on our vaporiser law page, start there, and check the TGA for your own situation.

To use cannabis itself, yes, it's a controlled substance and using it without a valid prescription is still an offence, with penalties that vary by state and territory. With a script you're using a regulated medicine. The device is a separate question from the substance. This is general information, not legal or medical advice, so talk to a doctor and read our law page for the detail.

Through a doctor or nurse practitioner, usually under the TGA's Special Access Scheme (SAS-B) or via an Authorised Prescriber, and sometimes with state or territory approval on top before a pharmacy can dispense. Whether it's right for you is a conversation for your prescriber, not us. Our vaporiser law page links the official TGA pages where the access pathways are spelt out.

It depends on the brand. Premium makers like Storz & Bickel have historically offered long cover (the Mighty came with multi-year warranty), while budget devices run shorter. Warranties typically cover manufacturing faults, not wear-and-tear parts like screens and seals, and not damage from dropping it or using the wrong charger. Keep your proof of purchase, and remember Australian Consumer Law guarantees sit on top of any manufacturer's warranty.

Screens, seals, O-rings, glass stems and mouthpieces wear out with normal use and are treated as consumables, so you replace them as they go. A fault is something that shouldn't fail, like a battery that won't hold charge early or a heater that dies, that's what a warranty is for. Cracking a glass stem by dropping it is on you, not the maker.

Not at the moment, the shop is paused. The rules around supplying vaporiser devices tightened under TGA therapeutic-goods regulation, and rather than get the regulatory side wrong we stepped back from selling. There's no cart and nothing to check out. You can read the full story on our shop paused page, and pop your email in the form below to hear if we reopen.

Because the questions don't stop just because the shop did. We spent years learning this gear and helping people pick and look after it, and that knowledge is still useful whether you bought from us or not. So the guides, cleaning walkthroughs and explainers stay put, kept as accurate as we can manage.