Phidias and REO -- a complementary choice

Brad Murray;2614838 said:

I have had a lot of good fortune in my life and not the least of it is the discovery, courting, and marriage to my sweetheart. She's done a lot for me, been there for me when times are hard, and celebrated when times are great. Over the past while she's been vaping and collecting mods and having a great time with the devices and the community. I have been known to smoke a cigar on occasion and a pipe in winter but I've never been a "smoker" per se -- I stop for months or years without missing it and I don't crave it when I'm done. So I am talking now as someone who just enjoys vaping -- I like puffing clouds of vapour, I like the nicotine, I like the taste, and I like the gadgetry. There is no sense in which I am interested in these devices in order to kick a habit. It's just about pleasure.

So now that I've admitted to my hedonism, I want to talk about the two mods that my girl has given me because I have had a chance to use both for some time and am aware of the rivalry (sometimes good-natured and sometimes not) between fans of both. I'll say this before going too much further: they are both wonderful. They both have flaws and they both have features that make them stellar, possibly unique, and certainly (for me) indispensable. So if you want to hear about one getting beat up to the advantage of the other, click on.

My first mod was a REO mini in red anodized aluminum with a black aluminum door. It's compact and elegantly designed. It fits in my breast pocket with no risk of triggering, the juice bottle is very hard to squeeze accidentally, and it operates when I need it to. Using it is straightforward: put in a 14500 Li ion battery, fill the juice bottle (a pretty standard bottle that's had the lid hacked to take a flexible feed tube), squeeze the bottle to vacuum-feed juice up through the bottle to the base of the atomizer, trigger, and vape.

The door is where the action is. It slides slickly into a grooved slot that is machined to very impressive tolerances and locks in place by mating two small niobium magnets. This is secure but releases easily, something that's typical of magnetic clasps. The door has an oval hole in it right over the juice bottle, so when you need to reload the atomizer, you put your thumb in the hole and push. It's trivial to see when the atomizer is ready to roll as a little juice appears at the vents in the base. Don't squonk any more, you're done.

One of the side-effects of this system is that the feed system will often continue through capillary action for an extended period -- you really only rarely need to squonk this device at all. It mostly feeds itself when primed conservatively and used frequently.

The electrical action of the REO is extremely elegant. There is not visible solder and the switch is a simple plastic cylinder that depresses a conductive plate against the battery. The tension of the plate keeps the button up. The plate itself is the direct connection between the positive terminal of the battery and the atomizer, which is the clever bit: there are no wires here and therefore no solder or epoxy that I can see.

The REO has a few failure modes that you need to watch for and sometimes you have to do a little detective work to figure out which one you're dealing with. The battery can drain to the point where your vaping is weak. The atomizer can be overloaded (flooded) with juice, making your vaping weak. Or it can dry up (or get vaped up more likely), making your vaping weak. So when your vaping gets weak you are on a bit of an investigative adventure, but you quickly get a feel for the subtleties of these modes and make a good guess most of the time.

The REO Mini is a precise little machine with some well-selected compromises and makes an ideal device for carrying regularly. I don't worry about it my pocket (and if I do, it has a simple little locking mechanism to safe the button, making accidental triggering unlikely) so that's where it goes.

Now this would be the only vapourizer I need forever under normal circumstances. My wife, however, is not satisfied with me having less than everything. So when she saw the Phidias she secretly bought me one. I've been using it for several days and it, also, is a joy. It is undeniably different, though.

First, the Phidias is beautiful. It is decorated with contrasting wood marquetry that uses the golden ration as its guiding design principle (hence it's name). The corners are rounded precisely and by hand. The wood choices show the eye of a craftsman and an aesthete. It's a beautiful thing to own.

The feed system is slightly different. It also uses a hacked standard squeeze bottle, but instead of a feed tube it has a steel hollow needle attached to the top. This means it cannot be vacuum fed but rather must be fed with a little assistance, helpfully provided by the entire planet: gravity. On the rear of the box is a contrasting wood button that is held under tension with a flexible rod of some kind (I am not certain whether it is bamboo or plastic) that is epoxied to the inside of the door. This button contacts that squeeze bottle directly, so to feed the Phidias you invert it, press the button for a while, and you are done. It seems to be very very hard to overfeed with this design, though I find the need to invert it a little inelegant. Regardless, I appreciate the reasons for it and it seems a worthwhile compromise in the design.

A side effect of this feed system, however, is that it does not ever auto-feed. Your atomizer will run dry at the usual rate and you will need to invert and squonk.

The electrical system in the Phidias is far more traditional for a mod than the REO. The triggering button is a two-terminal electrical switch mounted on the front of the device. It protrudes at least a quarter of an inch and, couple with the relatively large size, is not well-suited to a breast pocket. Or any pocket really. It will certainly trigger itself if pocketed and there is no easily used safing system (it does come with a non-conductive disk that you can put under the battery terminal when transporting, but this is not convenient for real portable use).

This electrical system uses wires, solder, and epoxy, which is a potential problem, especially with something built by hand -- bad solders happen to the best of us, and so it's a risk here. My Phidias looks to my eye to be expertly assembled, but you can't see inside a solder joint.

The vaping on the Phidias is steady and reliable with a simple rhythm relating solely to the feeding of the atomizer. And this is one of the major features for me: the failure modes are fewer and the solution requires less investigation. The atomizer can and does run dry, but it does not slow down so much as sputter and halt. The battery of course can run down, slowing your vaping. But the experience in these failures is distinct and the solution obvious, and so the little detective show you sometimes put on with your REO does not happen with the Phidias.

In both devices, the voltage is similar or the same and the atomizers identical, so the vaping is really very similar. The differences for me come down to utility alone: the REO is the perfect portable, pocketing easily, functioning reliably, and adding little weight or bulk. The Phidias is my lounging vape, the simple marquetry matching my burgundy leather sofa and, if I had one, my smoking jacket and silk cravat. The Phidias is an elegant gentleman's vape, a work of art as well as a pracitcal vapourizer. The REO is my marching smokes, my reliable every day jacket pocket companion in sturdy, precise, engineer-arousing aircraft aluminum.

Get both unless you never go outside.

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