My two favorite portable vapes are hard to clean. When I recommend them to people I have to warn about the cleaning methods, and a significant amount of people turn the Venty and the Frolic down due to their cleaning challenges.
For people who don’t want to pick, scrub, and soak - what are the easiest to clean vapes?
Arizer Solo 3 wins the category for me. I can’t think of any easier vape, other than maybe the Dynavap G3.
For sure, Arizer products are hard to beat in the easy to clean department. I find the Lobo pretty quick and easy to keep clean, and it can be done in under five minutes with some iso and a Q-tip.
I’m not recommending the vape, but my favorite vape to clean is the PAX Flow. I find it incredibly easy to get it back to new after every session, so I do it.
is a frolic with the direct oven adapter that hard to clean? tinymight/solo3
i’d imagine is pretty easy if you have a good stem.. lil qtip and iso and really after every session you can have fresh glass in a jiffy
my Frolic DTO setup is actually harder to clean than the cooling unit 
the ball/screen configuration I hacked together is a pain in the ass. It would probably be easy with a bigger nipple stem, or something without moving parts
and it also stays clean, because it sucks so bad it never gets used =D
Have to agree with the Arizers and the G3 these are my daily drivers and super duper easy to cleanup and keep rockin’ in the sesh without virtually any downtime.
The Tafee Bowle and the Tempest 2 are probably the easiest in my collection for low maintenance. You can basically toss the whole Tempest in iso to soak and air dry and you’re good. Plus the Tempest 2 stays clean for a long ass time. It surprised me compared to the original.
The TB2 you just soak the stem every week or two since it’s a single piece and let it dry and it’sgood to go. The pots don’t get too dirty too quickly and if you have multiple you could have many many sessions before bulk soak time. The only gripe about the TB2 is that the silicone moutpieces never lose that sharp odor.
Edit: Also, I’m surprised to hear issues with cleaning the Frolic. It looks brand new if i take a stiff brush to it for like 10 seconds. It is just more of a honey magnet and I can’t go longer than a week of consistent use before I have to disassemble and soak the CU. The biggest difference it has with regard to cleaning is the (in my case, at least) requirement of applying a thin layer of food safe silicone grease (molykote or something from dupont is what I use). I can still use the device without it, but it’s MUCH more difficult to separate parts again next time you clean.
I agree the S3 is great for maintenance but I’ve managed to get my Frolic to be just as easy. One way I like to use it is with ALVP capsules and a 14mm glass cooling stem with dimples. I remove the screen from the adapter and push the stem in as far as it’ll go with a silicone collar or o-ring to stabilize to stem near the top of the adapter. See this post. Capsules are a bit of work but they keep the Frolic clean.
The Frolic is so convection-forward that I find a capsule adds just a nice touch of conduction, as well as adding some restriction that’s necessary without AFC when using the DOA.
Other times I’ll just load the joint of the 14mm mouthpiece and use that as a bowl. The proximity to the heater using a 14mm joint as a stem-loading bowl allows you to dial back the temps but still get great rips and great taste. Things can still get a bit hot but I can handle it and the taste is great. Using it this way makes it just as easy to maintain as the S3.
on my recent re-test of the TB2 i found myself cleaning 2 pots every other day - the screens would get clogged up and create restriction. I usually clean the stem with a spritz of iso and a brush or q-tips. not bad, but not easy
How do you empty your pot? I pull mine out shortly after my final draw and blow from the bottom with a quick burst of air. I only use the TB2 outside really, so I’m not concerned about where the ABV goes. I’ve been using the same pot for probably 100+ bowls and it looks the same as around 5 bowls.
Oh and I do use a stiff brush every 5-10 bowls just to help keep the screen clean. That’s an important point, but it takes seconds.
usually with a debowler, gently though.
i inhale pretty hard and long, super sticky weed will gunk a screen after 8 or 10 uses for me
It’s been a while since I’ve had some really sticky stuff, so that may be a factor in our different experiences… from what I’ve found though if the bowl is evenly cooked and the pot is still pretty hot from the last draw unless I’m nowhere close to full extraction it seems to release without issue. If I let the pot cool for any period of time it gets a lot harder to have a clean purge, though.
Of all my vapes none are as ease to clean as the Arizer Solo 3
Arizer solo 3 and HR rogue 2, both very easy to clean
I usually use a wooden toothpick to clean out my pot.
I find the Vapman click does not need much maintenance/cleaning. The reclaim seems to melt down the stem in longer sessions and gets vaporized by the hot screen. So far i only wiped the screen when it was still hot and i sometimes clean the mouthpiece with a pipe cleaner. There are no o rings to take care of, nothing to soak in iso.
I guess after some time you can soak the whole unit in acetone to get all the reclaim out of the wood but so far i got away with just wiping it away.
The older units are a bit different since the screen is screwed in but they are great in other ways and also easy to keep going.
Stem loaders have an advantage since you generally only have to clean the stem, but the straight glass tube that makes it so easy to clean also does nothing g to cool the vapor. Granted, TM then shoved those difficult to clean cooling chunks in the stem.
For me, the easiest would be the TB2. The stem itself seldom needs cleaning for me, and while I do empty the bowl with a debowler, I then blow it out and give it a brush. As soon as I see junk sticking, a quick iso spray and done. I never found the Lobo to be bad at all unless it gets away from you.
Worst is DaVinci IQC.
If you can commit to exclusively using the dosing capsules with it, the POTV Lobo gets my vote, since you can completely remove the screen in that usage case.
All I need is a wet q-tip between capsules if the unit is warm, or use alcohol otherwise.
I think any stem loader would be easiest as all the cleaning is external to the vape. Even with a bunch of cooling balls packed in the stem it is very easy if done frequently. I just pull out the herb screen, spray in some iso, shake, rinse with hot water, blow it out, put the screen back in and load it up. The residual water in the stem provides additional cooling through evaporation and also humidifies the vapor. Even easier is an open path cooling J-hook like shitsnacks likes.