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Review Time with a kanger sub tank

Diablo

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Oct 14, 2013
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Since getting the sub tank a week or two back i have been using it solidly. I like kanger tanks generally so am slightly biased. My users prior to the sub were kanger aero mini, mega and giant. I even tried the turbo and quite liked that but its bloody huge proportions can be an irritation. All these tanks i used NV coils in as kangers own are a bit hit and miss for my liking. The giant atop a 26650 stingray or 26650 4nine has been the mainstay until the sub came along though.

Since switching to the subtank i have invested in a couple of decent batteries and last week bought an aspire cf mod to house the appropriate power cell of choice.

Before carrying on, i should add a note about the aspire cf mod. i bought the replaceable battery version for three reasons, one was the fact i can swap batteries out and replace with fully charged, second reason was that if a battery fails i can replace it easily, unlike the dedicated sealed version, but the main reason was that i dont trust ego chargers and aspire not giving one with the battery is a careless omission in my opinion.

anyway, to the sub. Its been used solely with the .5 coil until today. A configuration i was getting along with just fine. It was as good, in fact slightly better than the turbo in terms of vaping flavour, albeit with a different draw. I wouldnt say massively better, just better without the mass. But it does look better than the more industrial looking turbo.

i havent had any leaks from the tank that others have mentioned recently beyond an occasional bit of liquid from the airhole. I wouldnt say that was a leak as such. Enough to get your fingers wet and think that something was wrong, only to find nothing else amiss when checked. Its happened two or three times in a couple of weeks use and is a negligible loss, certainly nothing like one or two others have had happen to them.

So today, i decided to take the beauty ring off my setup but the bastard wokdnt come loose. I eventually stripped the tank down to go bare minimum and removed the coil only for the insulator and pin to get pulled free as i removed the coil. Gutted. Easily fixed but the damned thing has had a hint of gurgle since and i hate that, so its consigned to the rewire bucket for later as it doesnt look too hard to recoil. All in all, two weeks of custard like vapour later and its done well but was likely due a change anyway. Especially looking at how gunked up the coil now looks.

so rba time. Wicked up, topped up, stuck on the cf mod and press the button..... Flashing light and no fire. Arse.
take the tank off and bugger me if the top of the rba bit stays stuck around the centre tube of the tank. Grrrrr. Lesson learned, be more agressive tightening the rba chamber top next time. Anyway, checked coils, looked ok, still no fire. Then realise the bottom pin of the rba section is threaded. A couple of turns, refit and alls well. So refit everything and have a toot.

i dont have many wow moments in vaping. But tonight i had one with the subtank in rba mode. Its fecking awesome. I know everybody has different ideas of perfect, there are ce4 users for whom their weapon of choice is perfect for them and this would be awful. For me though, its a genuine wow.

the draw is tighter, which i like anyway, not bad tight, but definitely less airy than in occ mode. The taste is better, considerably so.

I tried a dripper last year, it was damned good, but i hated the need to keep arsing about keeping wicks wet. This, to me at least, is as good as the dripper i was using. I am not trying to start a war on which is best, but for a tank user, the rba mode in the sub is as near as most people would likely need.

ome other thing worthy of note. It looks better in rba mode than in occ coil mode. Somehow the thing looks more impressive.

its a well built tank, the threads are like silk, more akin to something much more expensive and less mass produced.

Its a shame that a few users have had tanks with badly levelled glass or have suffered from unexplained leaks. But for me, providing nothing untoward shows itself, the sub tank is well and truly staying. Very probably in rba mode all the time from hereonwards.

as always, for anyone considering buying a subtank, atlantis, or any other form of sub ohm device, make sure you get a battery that will play happily with it. Lets not feed the daily mail trolls with stories of people putting themselves and others in danger.
 

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Vape Superstore
I had a go of one of these on saturday in a b&m in Sale, and was pretty impressed.......with the added bonus of having a rebuildable part is a great idea ;)

It seems better built then the atlantis (to me) and i think that kanger have really pulled there finger out with this.....

A thanks for the review dude ;)
 
You dont really need the rebuildable bit to be honest. The coils are an easy rebuild. I followed vaping shozza's excellent guide on youtube and rebuilt the one ohm coil to 0.5 ohms and it works just as well as the factory built one
 
Vape Green
You dont really need the rebuildable bit to be honest. The coils are an easy rebuild. I followed vaping shozza's excellent guide on youtube and rebuilt the one ohm coil to 0.5 ohms and it works just as well as the factory built one
Will check that out....cheers
 
You dont really need the rebuildable bit to be honest. The coils are an easy rebuild. I followed vaping shozza's excellent guide on youtube and rebuilt the one ohm coil to 0.5 ohms and it works just as well as the factory built one

My Subtank is arriving today and that's what I plan to do with the heads, as it doesn't seem much more complicated than rebuilding the Naturevape coils, which are simple.

How does it perform, flavourwise, compared to RBA's?
 
The Electronic Cigarette Company
Trying to answer all who asked or said anything is going to massively increase posts or make me have to remember names and questions and i will only get things wrong so heres a single post trying to answer the questions or respond to statements.

yes the coils look easy to redo. Plenty of room and not rocket science, so as long as the (lets call the block on top a chimney as despite being short and squat it is easier to keep inline with other coils) chimney comes off easy enough its a definite option.

as to not needing the rba section, i would probably have agreed if i hadnt actually used it. But the fact is i prefer it to the kanger occ coil setup now its in use. The vape is warmer, tighter and also somehow 'different' to the coil setup. I cant really quantify that different beyond the statement though. Without doing back to back comparisons i would be hard pressed to nail that down. Also its not different in a 'one is better than the other' way, it is just as good, but different.

in terms of better than or equal to a dedicated rba? Thats never going to end well. I dont feel qualified to answer that fully. I have used a kayfun clone and didnt get on with it too well, steamboy was ok, have tried others and even had a go with a dripper for a few days (courtesy of a win in here and now used as a juice tester). But laziness always pulled me back to nv coils in kangers and i was happy with those. I personally think that its good enough to stand with the big bames in the rba world in its own right. Unfortunately the only real way for anyone to answer that for sure is to try it yourself. What makes it equal better or worse is an individuals viewpoint on it and i cant answer that for you any more than i can suggest which tv would suit you best, after all, a 76 inch tv sounds awesome, unless you live in a caravan. The only way to get a true answer is to try one yourself.
 
My Subtank is arriving today and that's what I plan to do with the heads, as it doesn't seem much more complicated than rebuilding the Naturevape coils, which are simple.

How does it perform, flavourwise, compared to RBA's?

Now that really depends on your ability to wind coils and wick them. It's fair to say that it tastes better than a rebuildable that has been built badly but the stock coils are not in the same league flavourwise as a nicely built kayfun/heron/rose.

It's certainly the best flavour I've had our of a tank with factory built coils.
 
AcmeFog
Now that really depends on your ability to wind coils and wick them. It's fair to say that it tastes better than a rebuildable that has been built badly but the stock coils are not in the same league flavourwise as a nicely built kayfun/heron/rose.

It's certainly the best flavour I've had our of a tank with factory built coils.

I've been using it for a few hours now and although it's got the best flavour of any Clearo-type I've tried, I don't think it's flavour is up to the RBA's that I have.

I'll give it a bit longer, but may end up bunging this in the classifieds, not that it's a dud at all, but I'm just after the flavour in the end and I've got better already.
 
3 days on the rba. Had a couple of hints of dry hits earlier today. So tonight replaced the first wicks for new after i had cleaned and dry burned coils. Now taste is better than it was earlier today and back on par with day one. I had Not used the wicking material that comes with the tank prior to getting the sub, but had decided to use it (rather than my usual wick/cotton supply) solely to keep any thoughts of the tanks performance in league with what was supplied in the subtank box. I may have tamped it down too firmly or it may just be that it was too tight, slack, fat, thin? Either way i hadnt got it perfect if it was dry hitting so soon ( i expect longer from a wick than two or three days, then again, the drifter by vintage vapes is a coil and wick fouler and this is a .5ohm coil set we are talking about here).

anyway, strip,clean,dry burn,rewick went without fuss. Original Wick was definitely heat darkened more than i would like at one coil face so i am thinking it was my error that caused it and i had perhaps strangled it on one one side of a coil. I always prime/soak a wick before putting everything back together, so the strangled wick wouldnt immediately have shown itself on initial use. More confident in how todays wick looks.

still very impressed with the subtank. More so now its back to how the rba was on day one.
 
Vape Club
Something i forgot to mention but was just reminded of. Switching from kanger coils to rba mode obviously involves swapping the top of the tank out. The two screws were tight from the start. The screwdriver you get with the tank isnt the best item in the world. It did the job, but i wasnt overly impressed with how close i came to slipping or chewing the head of the screw. If you have better quality small screwdrivers i would suggest using them over the supplied item.
Not sure how easy it would be to sort if you do screw the head up, especially so as you would be stuck in whatever mode you were in at the time until you got it out, something you were obviously trying to change if you have murdered the screw.
 
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