well, while indeed five will work and give max smoke, it will be short. It is my experience that as the unit is almost dry, the vaporization rate really increases. try fifteen drops. these units have a large basin. fwiw 15 is what lgb typically has recommended. this is now what i use and it avoids waste.
prolonged high voltage running even when properly filled may produce warping and or discoloration of the grate. this is simply the result of the hot smoke vapor over a period overheating the plastic. I have one stainz like this.
other than looks, no big deal.
one can , if they chose, carefully remove the grate, in part or whole, by...cutting. It seems i did this to one unit, for some reason. Doesn't look the best, imho, or is advisable for mis placed fingers. it does, slightly increase the perceived output.
they can actually hold a fair amount of fluid, like a full eye droppers worth. , however, there is a point when you can overfill them and they wont smoke at all. avoid this too, as prolonged running (like 5 minutes or so, when the entire basin liquid gets really really hot) at high voltage with a over filled unit can actually melt the stack, and or loosen the epoxy base seal. if you overfill, remove a bit. typically , if enough, you will see a wisp in a minute or so, and then as the volume slowly reduces and the heating chimney gets hotter (by not heating the surrounding liquid) smoke increases.
avoid allowing water into the funnel. if this happens, turn it over, and empty it, run it dry for a couple of minutes, and then refill. if there's water in the fluid, it wont smoke.
