Hellvape Fat Rabbit Solo RTA
One thing we know about rabbits is that they tend to multiply, so we were not surprised to see the new Hellvape Fat Rabbit Solo RTA!
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by Antony Lord
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Hellvape have put last year's Fat Rabbit RTA on a radical crash diet and the end result is the much more svelte Fat Rabbit Solo RTA, a single coil version of last year's dual coil behemoth. I was quite partial to the Fat Rabbit RTA, but I must confess I generally favour single coil RTAs so when Hellvape asked if I’d be interested in taking a look at the new slimmed down version, I practically snatched their hands off!
Specifications
- 25mm diameter
- 43.8mm tall (excluding 510 & drip tip)
- 70 grams
- Postless single coil deck
- Independent dual bottom and side airflow system
- 4.5ml straight glass / 5.5ml bubble glass
Included in the box with the Fat Rabbit Solo RTA, you’ll find a 5.5ml bubble glass, a coil cutting guide, a premade coil with shoelace cotton, and a bag of spare O-rings, and deck screws along with a handy screwdriver.
With the original Fat Rabbit RTA and the new Fat Rabbit Solo RTA sat side by side, you can immediately see the external design has been carried over pretty much intact along with the independent bottom and side airflow controls.
Whilst the Fat Rabbit RTA is a pretty chunky 28mm atomiser, the Fat Rabbit Solo sports a much more standard 25mm diameter which means it will fit on a wider range of mods than it’s forebear. It is still quite tall though at 50.8mm with the included drip tip installed.
This time around you get a pre-installed 4.5ml straight glass along with a 5.5ml bubble glass in the box, unfortunately the bubble glass makes the Fat Rabbit Solo look like it’s had a bit of a relapse following its diet and developed a muffin top! As the straight glass in the international version sent over for review has a fairly good 4.5ml capacity anyway, I opted to go with that, but here in TPD land this will be a measly 2ml so the bubble glass would obviously be a better option… check with your vendor before ordering though as there are two TPD editions, one with the bubble glass and one without.
The top cap has a knurled pattern which means it’s easy to get a grip of when you want to fill the Fat Rabbit Solo, this is a nice quarter turn design as well and removing this reveals two massive kidney shaped fill ports so filling is never an issue here. The top cap also uses a standard 810 drip tip if you want to use your own, but I quite like the included anti-condensation drip tip as this suits the RTA quite well.
Moving down to the base, there’s a nicely protruding positive pin with good insulation so I’d call this one hybrid safe if that’s your thing. The base features a bayonet fitting just like the original and, whilst I occasionally find that this can be a bit finicky to use on the Fat Rabbit RTA with it sometimes seeming to want to hold onto the tank section like a particularly determined limpet, the o-ring tolerances seem spot on here and it’s much easier to operate and, just as importantly, there’s no excess wobble on the bayonet fitting where the deck section mates with the rest of the tank which I’ve seen on some other tanks with similar designs.
The postless build deck is a pleasure to work with and can accommodate coils wound in either direction, the post screws come in from the side of the deck as well which means that they won’t distort your complex coils either. The included coils are once again Ni80 so I had to quickly spin up a kanthal fused clapton to use, and for the initial wicking attempt I cut the cotton just beyond the base and tucked everything into the wick holes being careful to make sure they were filled as shown without cramming them full.
This wasn’t the best as I quickly discovered that this leaked, a lot, particularly if it was laid on its side which is something that also happens on the older dual coil Fat Rabbit. I remembered that Hellvape had at one stage suggested putting more wick in the ports on the Fat Rabbit to counter this issue so I gave that a go but this was dry hit central, BAH!
After a bit of experimentation, I’ve found the best option is to cut the wicks a little longer, fill the ports as shown above but keep the cotton loose in the ports. This will result in there being quite a bit of cotton floating about above, but rather than giving this a short back and sides haircut, I used an old trick and with a bit of e-liquid I sculpted this around the top of the deck.
Here’s a picture which should give you a better idea. You obviously need to ensure that the cotton is clear of the bottom airflow, and I also found that covering the exposed coil legs was beneficial as well. This seemed to eliminate 99% of the leaking and it wicks like a champ in this configuration.
Playing around with the airflow configurations, I found that the side airflow was better than the bottom airflow which is quite restricted. As before, to get the full effect you need to use a combination of the two, and with my 0.25Ohm build at 55 watts using three out of four of the side airflow holes with the bottom airflow about two thirds open seemed to be the sweet spot for my tastes.
Pros
- Smaller 25mm design
- Easy to use postless single coil deck
Cons
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Can be tricky to wick
Conclusion
This leaner meaner Fat Rabbit Solo is a chip off the old block. The more traditional size makes it compatible with a much wider range of mods which I’m sure many will welcome. The single coil deck is easy to use, but once again the wicking can be a bit tricky to get right and it took me quite a few attempts to come up with the solution above which seems to work well.
On a side note, you also need to be careful when adjusting the airflow or filling that you don’t accidentally turn the whole tank. Whilst the tank is unlikely to come off the deck, it does unfortunately close the juice ports off and you’ll get dry hits which is something I’ve experienced a couple of times. With things properly lined up, this kept up with some pretty aggressive chain vaping
If you were put off by the bulk of the original Fat Rabbit RTA or you simply prefer single coil RTAs, then the Fat Rabbit Solo RTA is another great option from Hellvape.
Many thanks to Hellvape for sending the Fat Rabbit Solo RTA over for review.
Antony Lord
Reviewer at POTVI was a twenty a day smoker for 25 years and like most smokers I was always going to quit "next week". Having hit my mid forties and having the usual smokers cough and difficulty with anything more than moderate exercise it was obviously time to give up the cancer sticks. I bought my first e-cigarette in 2013 when they were expensive, difficult to find and quite frankly... crap. I used it for about a week then went back to the roll ups, mark up another failed quit attempt. The fact that I had just changed jobs and was under quite a lot of stress probably didn't help. Move on to 2016 and whilst I was browsing eBay I noticed that one of the suggested items that would occasionally pop up was for a cheap e-cigarette. It looked similar to the one I'd bought 3 years earlier but it was only £5 (about 8 times cheaper than before) so I decided to give it another go on a whim. Once the kit arrived I managed to gradually replace the cigarettes with my new kit over a two month period and got into watching YouTube reviews for newer kit. My cheap and cheerful kit was replaced by a more upmarket affair, and being a noob I made a mistake once it arrived... I put in the supplied direct lung coil, this was of course a complete revelation and I haven't touched a cigarette since. Oh and I no longer spend the first five minutes of every day having a coughing fit either.
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