Following on from talk on another thread, it occurred to me that it might be an idea to have peoples comments on kit they've actually had and loved, and also stuff that's been utter tosh - as online reviews don't seem to give the true picture these days.
Not saying list everything you've ever owned, just the stuff that has been really good, or really bad.
I'll kick it off with my thoughts, views and tips:
Smok Alien Mini and Big Baby Beast tank
Mod was ok. If any juice got onto the mod it seemed to find it's way down the fire bar on the side, so whilst it never stopped working, it did feel like it was sticking slightly.
The tank.....hmm.... Flavour, pretty good. Massive clouds (not that I wanted them at the time, but figured big flavour must have to = big clouds). Used to go through juice like nobodys business.
Coils....ugh...the fucking coils. They didn't seem to last long at all. I had, I shit you not, 4 packs of 5 coils, and not one of them was right. The one that came preinstalled in the tank was fine, so bought the same type in a pack of 5 from Greyhaze. Of the first pack, 2 of them I have no idea what was up, but they'd simply leak all the juice out the tank, and were unusable. The other 3 all had wildly varying resistances showing on the mod. Were all supposed to be 0.4ohm, 2 were reading at barely above 0.1 ohm, the other one didn't register at all. To be fair Greyhaze sent out a replacement pack (and other subsequent ones without quibble). Second pack, the same, but all coils read between 0.12 - 0.16 ohms. Third pack, mixture of not registering at all, low resistance and a piss-juice edition. Repeat. I gave up, that put me off Smok products for good.
Kanger Dripbox 160
Brilliant. Was my first dual 18650 mod. Standard tank is a bit pony, looks and feels cheap. I had a Vandyvape Pulse 22 on it which was dead easy to build, plenty of tolerance for coil position and wicking. Was a good setup - only moved on because it was like lugging a house brick round.
iJoy Capo Squonk
Massive waiting time, hyped up and was sold out everywhere for ages, loads of pre-orders. Ultimately, a waste of time when I finally got it Not that amazing.
Battery life was not as good as dual 18650 by a long way. Juice bottle used to leak for no reason, just seemed to be the way it was built that juice would leak out of the silicon bung that fitted into the top of the bottle when installed.
Standard tank was equally uninspiring.
Bought a Pulse 24 (based on having had the pulse 22). Not as good as the 22 was, but was ok.
Eventually gave up using this after a month or so, due the battery and leaking.
Modefined Sirius Mod
Love this mod. Still have it now. Got the black and gold version, and it looks like it's worth £100+ IMO. Bargain for £40 I paid for it. Well built, decent operating range, not too chunky. nice screen - not flashy, just does the job. 3 buttons for menu navigation, which a lot of others seem to be doing now too.
Uwell Crown 3
Flavour - great.
Build quality - crap.
Heat build up - insane
Bearing in mind the 0.4ohm coils are 55-65w and the 0.25 are 75-85w, this tank gets way too hot in my view. After 4-5 drags in close succession, the tank is hot to touch by hand and drip tip is uncomfortable. Hot enough in fact that you physically can't undo the top cap to refill, as everything has expanded due to the heat.
Incidentally, top cap fitting is horrid. Threading feels awful and grinds open and closed, you've never really sure if the cap is on properly, or if you've just stripped the threads.
Honks through juice.
Coils scenario has reminded me of the Smok fiasco, and hence it's putting me off using it. I only use sub ohm tanks when I want to be sure I'm not going to get a pocket full of juice on a day/night out. Reviews say coils last for weeks. Bullshit. No different from any others. Coils also seem to leak, well, 3 of the 4 I've had so far have leaked juice through and out the air holes.
OBS Engine 2
Over hyped and underperformed, for me at least.
https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/.../threads/obs-engine-2-lacking-flavour.163798/
Nicely built, looks good and isn't huge. Fill system is good.
Build deck, ok. Reviews make out building it is brain surgery. It's not. A bit fiddly, yes. You can't put bigger than 2.5mm coils in it in my experience. As someone else said, less metal in this is a good thing.
I couldn't get any real flavour out of it though. It wasn't completely absent, just very muted.
Wicking - process simply. Quantity needed is a fine line between too much and too little. Too little and it floods and spits when refilled and you'll easily loose half a tank of juice in this process (it must siphon out). Never really got a dry hit as such, just took much wicking and what little flavour you can get is dulled further.
Best results I got with it were 6 wrap, 26g ni-80 flat wire, positioned as high as possible to the posts without touching the post screw area, running at 50-55w depending on the juice. For me, this worked better than having them lower down.
Quite restricted draw on it due to the cramped deck once wicked. Not terrible, just not as much airflow as any other tank I've had.
VandyVape Kylin Mini
Good little thank this. Got the bubble glass and it holds plenty. Single coil deck is a doddle to build. Top cap easy to get on and off and juice ports underneath are huge so easy to fill.
One downside, and it's a major one until you figure the wicking out - it can and often will either dump the entire tank contents, or gradually leak relentlessly.
Flavour - OMG...best tank I've had for flavour. Period.
So, wicking.
Mixed reviews online as how to do it. IMO, the best way is to cut the wicks short. Like proper short, you'll be laughing thinking you're mad, kinda short. Don't cut to the outside of the base, that's way too much and it won't wick properly. You have to cut them to the edge of the inner bit that the deck is on. Then fan them out, don't rake it or thin them down. Then juice them up and with tweezers or something, spread the wick out so it fans across the opening. The wick should only go down as far as the top of the coil screws. Don't put it all the way to the bottom of the side channels.
The key is to spread each end of the wick out so that some goes a little way down the channel, the rest goes across the kind of v-notched bit in the deck. It'll make sense when you see one. You absolutely have to make sure there is not even a pinprick size gap anywhere on the v-notch bit. I use the side of my ceramic tweezers a bit like a plasterers float, to make sure all the juice wick is level and flush with the top of the deck and the sides. This is important so that the tank threads won't catch it ,and drag the wicking out of position. You won't know it's done that, until you open the air holes and the juice pours out.
It is fiddly, not going to lie - but it's only the wick thats tricky, and once you figure it out and know what to do, it's generally fairly leak free 90% of the time.
Geekvape Zeus Dual
Only had this less than 24 hrs, however:
Build quality - seems good, Lots of reviews moaned about the top cap fitting, but I have no problem with it to be honest.
Bubble tank is good for capacity, which you will need as it seems to drink the juice.
Flavour - running a 3mm dia. single (yes, in a dual deck...but it can do it) it's bloody good. Virtually on par with the Kylin Mini
Top airflow - like the OBS Engine 2 (or as the OBS was supposed to), doesn't leak . Genuinely the GVZ doesn't appear to leak.
Dual coils probably would be ok but wicking is tricky.
Fine line between too much and dry hit central, and too little where it spits lava. Even though if you believe any of the reviews online, you are supposed to be putting enough wick in to poke down slightly into the juice ports, Imo, the gvz needs wicking to just about reach the juice hole openings when dry. Prime it, and it should then it should just go into the juice holes (like 1mm into it). You also absolutely have to thin the ends out, and quite a bit too. On a 3mm coil you almost have to half the wick density at the ends, in my experience. Once right though, its banging.
Not saying list everything you've ever owned, just the stuff that has been really good, or really bad.
I'll kick it off with my thoughts, views and tips:
Smok Alien Mini and Big Baby Beast tank
Mod was ok. If any juice got onto the mod it seemed to find it's way down the fire bar on the side, so whilst it never stopped working, it did feel like it was sticking slightly.
The tank.....hmm.... Flavour, pretty good. Massive clouds (not that I wanted them at the time, but figured big flavour must have to = big clouds). Used to go through juice like nobodys business.
Coils....ugh...the fucking coils. They didn't seem to last long at all. I had, I shit you not, 4 packs of 5 coils, and not one of them was right. The one that came preinstalled in the tank was fine, so bought the same type in a pack of 5 from Greyhaze. Of the first pack, 2 of them I have no idea what was up, but they'd simply leak all the juice out the tank, and were unusable. The other 3 all had wildly varying resistances showing on the mod. Were all supposed to be 0.4ohm, 2 were reading at barely above 0.1 ohm, the other one didn't register at all. To be fair Greyhaze sent out a replacement pack (and other subsequent ones without quibble). Second pack, the same, but all coils read between 0.12 - 0.16 ohms. Third pack, mixture of not registering at all, low resistance and a piss-juice edition. Repeat. I gave up, that put me off Smok products for good.
Kanger Dripbox 160
Brilliant. Was my first dual 18650 mod. Standard tank is a bit pony, looks and feels cheap. I had a Vandyvape Pulse 22 on it which was dead easy to build, plenty of tolerance for coil position and wicking. Was a good setup - only moved on because it was like lugging a house brick round.
iJoy Capo Squonk
Massive waiting time, hyped up and was sold out everywhere for ages, loads of pre-orders. Ultimately, a waste of time when I finally got it Not that amazing.
Battery life was not as good as dual 18650 by a long way. Juice bottle used to leak for no reason, just seemed to be the way it was built that juice would leak out of the silicon bung that fitted into the top of the bottle when installed.
Standard tank was equally uninspiring.
Bought a Pulse 24 (based on having had the pulse 22). Not as good as the 22 was, but was ok.
Eventually gave up using this after a month or so, due the battery and leaking.
Modefined Sirius Mod
Love this mod. Still have it now. Got the black and gold version, and it looks like it's worth £100+ IMO. Bargain for £40 I paid for it. Well built, decent operating range, not too chunky. nice screen - not flashy, just does the job. 3 buttons for menu navigation, which a lot of others seem to be doing now too.
Uwell Crown 3
Flavour - great.
Build quality - crap.
Heat build up - insane
Bearing in mind the 0.4ohm coils are 55-65w and the 0.25 are 75-85w, this tank gets way too hot in my view. After 4-5 drags in close succession, the tank is hot to touch by hand and drip tip is uncomfortable. Hot enough in fact that you physically can't undo the top cap to refill, as everything has expanded due to the heat.
Incidentally, top cap fitting is horrid. Threading feels awful and grinds open and closed, you've never really sure if the cap is on properly, or if you've just stripped the threads.
Honks through juice.
Coils scenario has reminded me of the Smok fiasco, and hence it's putting me off using it. I only use sub ohm tanks when I want to be sure I'm not going to get a pocket full of juice on a day/night out. Reviews say coils last for weeks. Bullshit. No different from any others. Coils also seem to leak, well, 3 of the 4 I've had so far have leaked juice through and out the air holes.
OBS Engine 2
Over hyped and underperformed, for me at least.
https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/.../threads/obs-engine-2-lacking-flavour.163798/
Nicely built, looks good and isn't huge. Fill system is good.
Build deck, ok. Reviews make out building it is brain surgery. It's not. A bit fiddly, yes. You can't put bigger than 2.5mm coils in it in my experience. As someone else said, less metal in this is a good thing.
I couldn't get any real flavour out of it though. It wasn't completely absent, just very muted.
Wicking - process simply. Quantity needed is a fine line between too much and too little. Too little and it floods and spits when refilled and you'll easily loose half a tank of juice in this process (it must siphon out). Never really got a dry hit as such, just took much wicking and what little flavour you can get is dulled further.
Best results I got with it were 6 wrap, 26g ni-80 flat wire, positioned as high as possible to the posts without touching the post screw area, running at 50-55w depending on the juice. For me, this worked better than having them lower down.
Quite restricted draw on it due to the cramped deck once wicked. Not terrible, just not as much airflow as any other tank I've had.
VandyVape Kylin Mini
Good little thank this. Got the bubble glass and it holds plenty. Single coil deck is a doddle to build. Top cap easy to get on and off and juice ports underneath are huge so easy to fill.
One downside, and it's a major one until you figure the wicking out - it can and often will either dump the entire tank contents, or gradually leak relentlessly.
Flavour - OMG...best tank I've had for flavour. Period.
So, wicking.
Mixed reviews online as how to do it. IMO, the best way is to cut the wicks short. Like proper short, you'll be laughing thinking you're mad, kinda short. Don't cut to the outside of the base, that's way too much and it won't wick properly. You have to cut them to the edge of the inner bit that the deck is on. Then fan them out, don't rake it or thin them down. Then juice them up and with tweezers or something, spread the wick out so it fans across the opening. The wick should only go down as far as the top of the coil screws. Don't put it all the way to the bottom of the side channels.
The key is to spread each end of the wick out so that some goes a little way down the channel, the rest goes across the kind of v-notched bit in the deck. It'll make sense when you see one. You absolutely have to make sure there is not even a pinprick size gap anywhere on the v-notch bit. I use the side of my ceramic tweezers a bit like a plasterers float, to make sure all the juice wick is level and flush with the top of the deck and the sides. This is important so that the tank threads won't catch it ,and drag the wicking out of position. You won't know it's done that, until you open the air holes and the juice pours out.
It is fiddly, not going to lie - but it's only the wick thats tricky, and once you figure it out and know what to do, it's generally fairly leak free 90% of the time.
Geekvape Zeus Dual
Only had this less than 24 hrs, however:
Build quality - seems good, Lots of reviews moaned about the top cap fitting, but I have no problem with it to be honest.
Bubble tank is good for capacity, which you will need as it seems to drink the juice.
Flavour - running a 3mm dia. single (yes, in a dual deck...but it can do it) it's bloody good. Virtually on par with the Kylin Mini
Top airflow - like the OBS Engine 2 (or as the OBS was supposed to), doesn't leak . Genuinely the GVZ doesn't appear to leak.
Dual coils probably would be ok but wicking is tricky.
Fine line between too much and dry hit central, and too little where it spits lava. Even though if you believe any of the reviews online, you are supposed to be putting enough wick in to poke down slightly into the juice ports, Imo, the gvz needs wicking to just about reach the juice hole openings when dry. Prime it, and it should then it should just go into the juice holes (like 1mm into it). You also absolutely have to thin the ends out, and quite a bit too. On a 3mm coil you almost have to half the wick density at the ends, in my experience. Once right though, its banging.
From this I am assuming that you haven't discovered the various Reviews Sections on the forum? There are plenty of em so we really don't need yet another. Sorry and all that. Thread CLOSED.
