Astral
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Vapefly Brunhilde “Top Coiler” DTL RTA.
Disclaimer: This is an independent review of a vape device kindly provided to me by @Sourcemore and is not associated with Planet Of The Vapes or any other organisation. The opinions here are purely my own and I am not receiving any payment or inducement for them.
If longevity equals quality then @Sourcemore asking me to review a tank that’s already been around eighteen months suggests they think it’s still worthy of talking about.
Whether that’s true or not is something I don’t know but as this is such a striking tank in terms of looks - and one that I’ve never used before - I had no hesitation in accepting their kind offer and was very keen to find out.
The tank they’ve asked me to review here is the Vapefly Brunhilde, a large industrial, chimney-like affair named after a popular Norse goddess, one that you can’t fail to notice perched on any mod, large or small, and one that even a few steeplejacks may balk at climbing.
The Brunhilde they’ve sent me here is the original and first incarnation of the design, the so-called DTL ‘top-coiler’, and constitutes an enormous 8 ml behemoth, that sports a distinctive helmet like shell casing that imposes itself so successfully with its brutal and imposing looks Vapefly continued the theme with the newer and more compact second model.
In this case Vapefly has chosen to name their tank after the Norse Goddess Brunhilde - a powerful, central, pre-Christian pagan Valkyrie queen who brings about the death of the legendary hero Seigfried after he deceives her into marrying the Burgundian king Gunther.
The modern interpretation of her though is more likely to be shaped by thel Marvel comics character Valkyrie where she is an Asgardian mainstay and appears as the fictional one-time love interest of Thor, rather than the earlier interpretation of Germanic myth or Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle where she also features.
The real Marvel here though is that Vapefly has forged something as strong and beautiful as Brunhilde’s sword Dragonfang from something as simple as Stainless Steel and glass.
It's so good it’s almost as if Odin himself had a hand in it - and probably the reason it’s already been on sale for so long.
At 25.2mm in diameter and 65.5mm in height it’s an extremely tall and wide affair and needs a large and statuesque mod in itself to avoid looking silly - and for this reason I’ve mostly been using it a-top my Seigfried stick mod - whether or not this is a good idea though I have no idea because in the legend Brunhilde ultimately kills Seigfried, and I don’t want to bring trouble on myself!
That said, they do pair wonderfully, and with their matching diameters look magnificent together, but on something smaller it could easily look mismatched and ridiculous.
Nevertheless, the helmet styled outer shell is certainly something you'll either love or hate but it’s so nicely done it’s something you can’t help but admire.
It also has the added bonus of offering a little protection for the glass too.
The beautifully engraved nosepiece of the helmet - depicting a helmet design in itself - bridges the glass tube and essentially protects it
Should this fail however, you do at least get a spare one, along with an instruction manual, two pieces of Firebolt Cotton, a 510 adaptor, a bag of spare parts, a set of O-rings and screws, an Allen key, two pre-built 26GA (KA1) + 36g (NI 80) 0.35 ohm coils and a Stainless Steel Wicking Wire, all to help ill-equipped new builders along - not that you’ll need too much help. It isn’t exactly too difficult to build.
It’s so big, my first build actually took me less time than more familiar ones, and only left me with no pricks and scrapes at all, despite me never having seen it before.
It assembled easily and with precision, and took the pre-built coil and plenty of the provided Firebolt cotton with no trouble at all.
The enormous dual-coil deck would require huge amounts of cotton for standard coverage, but the traditional method of building a Brunhilde is to only use a little cotton and let the four wicking ropes do all the work.
This works by something called capillary action where the ropes draw up the juice when the tank is tilted or used, rather than relying on the cotton sucking it up like most modern RTAs - but an experienced Brunhilde builder’s tip is to leave lots of cotton sitting on the deck to keep it wet and make sure there’s always enough liquid available to avoid dry hits - so I bowed to this knowledge, and my superiors, and went with them.
Time will tell whether this was right.
Either way, Leonardo da Vinci would have approved - this was a phenomena first observed by him during his era in the renaissance!
The other advantage of the wide set posts and large dual-coil deck is that you can use all sorts of fancily wrapped wires and coils including aliens, Clapton's and the like - something Vapefly planned for all along.
It didn’t take much experience to work everything out though, it’s all very simple.
The cap covering the deck simply presses on rather than screws, and the top-fed air-flow is adjusted through eight air flow holes stacked in two pairs of four simply by rotating the upper part of the cap which acts as an air flow ring.
The enormous 8 ml reservoir fills easily through a side-fill juice port and allows for good clean air-flow, excellent ventilation and no whistling from the domed upper chamber.
The vapour production is outstanding.
It also has an extremely wide range of draw.
On it’s tightest settings, the air-flow is almost down to restricted MTL levels - almost, but opened up it’s almost straight through.
This tank can funnel some serious air.
As a predominantly MTL user though I could never use this tank to it’s full capacity for more than a few puffs, but more hardcore users will tell you that when opened up this tank will guzzle through all its 8 ml in around twenty minutes, and I can well believe it.
If you’re going to make full use of this tank's range though you’re going to need pockets as deep as it’s well.
But for me, I’m quite happy to use it on it’s tighter settings, and for that I’m pleased to report it’s liquid usage is far less but still quite high.
So, all in all this is a remarkably versatile tank.
Despite looking like it was forged in the fires of Muspelheim by Surtr himself, with its four almost Archimedes screw-like pillar wicking columns and dual-coil deck, it builds easily, vapes beautifully and draws attention wherever it goes - particularly in its Rainbow, Gold and Blue variants, although the Black, Stainless Steel and Gunmetal incarnations look pretty good too.
But what you actually have here is a very simple piece of old school engineering that’s user friendly, and so simple to work on you’ll soon be throwing all sorts of builds at it - rather than it during its builds... and that’s where it really shines. It’s an advanced tank that’s so accessible it'll soon make even beginners feel like experts.
If Vapefly were in the confidence business they’d be onto a real winner here - and as a tank maker that’s no different.
Brunhilde herself may have drawn blood with her sword Dragonfang, but this atty won’t - although it might just make you look you might!
Ultimately though, it’s a shame to still be mentioning this tank in the same breath as a comic book character - there is nothing comical about this incarnation of Brunhilde. This is a serious bit of kit, the German 103 team are serious designers and Vapefly engineers are serious craftsmen - and this collaboration together is a serious triumph, and it’s still worth getting even after all this time.
And if you want one, you can get one here for the very meagre sum of $23.48 by using the coupon code: BRFS at @Sourcemore - and I thoroughly recommend that you do.
https://www.sourcemore.com/vapefly-brunhilde-rta-tank-atomizer.html
