Thanks for sharing all of the content in this thread here brother. I've stopped using dab pens for a year or more now. I've always felt like with every dab pen I've used, that I'm compromising the experience in some way (flavor, cleanability, reusability, materials safety are all common compromises in this regard vs other options such as some portable flower vapes).
Pens never taste as good as dabbing on a SiC or Sapphire enail (I haven't dabbed on quartz since 2014 or something, so that is a moot comparison for my purposes). I find that a number of portable flower vapes do a better job of vaporizing concentrates than pens where flavor is concerned, some can even compete on quick and large cloud production, but not necessarily battery life. Metals can get red hot in a lot of pens during normal use (although not necessarily with the right TC setup) and I refuse to breathe off of metals that are able to get red hot if I ride the button a little too long. Cleaning a lot of pens is a fucking nightmare - too many nooks for debris and residues to get stuck in, too many flimsy components that simply won't stand up to rigorous cleaning. The use of polymers including PTFE and Silicone in pens is frequently questionable. A lot of pens are poorly assembled and frankly, of such shit quality that even without materials safety concerns, are IME not reliable enough to be worthy of a purchase - this has been my experience with the Source pens for example. Multiple and repeated failures of a variety of their components IME.
Uptech have to their credit always tried to improve materials safety of their pens, G has typically had the safest pens available at any given time and despite my general dislike of most pen designs, deserves credit for this. For a very long time, I've said that if you have to use a pen, that uptech are one of very few companies to look at.
The triton cartridges look like something that may finally bring me back to using pens again. Tell me, do you think that any of these carts might work out for portable full melt use? I'm especially interested in the nail-like carts. That 1701 w/ quartz dish and titanium wicks seems like it could be quite well-suited for my purposes!
