Smoant Battlestar RDTA
Chinese manufacturers Smoant are a busy little outfit, with plenty of new releases in the past few months, most notably the Charon 218W, Mobula, Knight and the previously reviewed Battlestar. The Battlestar RDTA is one of their newer releases, and one they have sent over to us for review.
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by Dan Willis
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Chinese manufacturers Smoant are a busy little outfit, with plenty of new releases in the past few months, most notably the Charon 218W, Mobula, Knight and the previously reviewed Battlestar. The Battlestar RDTA is one of their newer releases, and one they have sent over to POTV for review.
Smoant’s Battlestar RDTA (Rebuildable Dripping Tank Atomiser) features a large 17.5mm Velocity styled build deck, for ease of build and maximum performance. Alongside this, you have a very generous amount of airflow for big clouds, and a 4.5ml juice reservoir to keep you going. It's available in six different finishes, and sports a 304 stainless steel construction and quartz glass tank section.
Specs
- 24mm width
- 38.5mm height
- 304 stainless steel construction
- Quartz glass tank section
- PEEK insulators
- 4.5ml juice capacity
- Large 17.5mm Velocity styled build deck
- Top filling
- Adjustable airflow
- Wide bore drip tip
- Available in a range of six different colours
- Easy to disassemble
- 510 threaded
What’s in the box?
The Smoant Battlestar comes nicely packaged within a black presentation box, and an outer sleeve over the box featuring the Smoant branding and a picture of the Battlestar RDTA itself. Inside the box you get the Battlestar RDTA, a spare glass tank section, screwdriver, four spare screws, two spare o rings, a warranty card and a user manual.
Design and build quality
Smoant are becoming quite well known for producing well made products available at a low cost, and the Battlestar RDTA has some fairly decent build quality, although I did find a couple of minor issues there was nothing deal breaking to be found. It looks smart too, available with six different finishes, designed to suit the Smoant Battlestar mod. I gave my Smoant Battlestar mod away to a fellow ape, however I found it suited the Smoant Charon 218W perfectly.
Constructed of 304 stainless steel, with a quartz glass tank section, 4.5ml capacity and adjustable 510 connector, the Smoant Battlestar RDTA is pretty solidly built. PEEK insulators are used to help guard against excess heat, and a Delrin top cap/airflow control and drip tip are present. The drip tip is removable, however it is a non standard fitting so if you wish to switch your own drip tip in, you would need to ensure the fitting is of the same size. The standard drip tip was quite loose with my Smoant Battlestar RDTA, I did find on occasions that the drip tip came off in my pocket.
On the outside of the stainless steel top cap sleeve, there is a skull logo engraved on one side, and Smoant Battlestar RDTA is engraved on the other. The skull logo looks pretty cool, I quite liked the look of that, but I thought the Smoant Battlestar RDTA engraving was rather large and unnecessary, dampening the look slightly. I did feel that this would probably work better being engraved on the base of the tank.
I would mention that I did find a small amount of machine oil present around the post holes on the deck, and all parts of the Smoant Battlestar RDTA were fitted together very tightly out of the box. I needed to apply some VG to all of the o-rings once I had managed to disassemble the RDTA fully, however once I had done this it made things a whole lot smoother.
Building the Smoant Battlestar RDTA
Boasting a large 17.5mm Velocity styled build deck, you have a very fair amount of room to build on. You have the ubiquitous two post Velocity styled arrangement, set up for a dual coil build primarily, with four large post holes in total. There is no option for a single coil build, however quad coil builds are possible.
There is a wick hole cut out at each corner, you need to ensure each one of these is filled with wick with no gaps, otherwise the Smoant Battlestar RDTA will leak if left on its side or tilted for short periods of time. I've found that when wicked correctly, I didn't get any leaking issues whatsoever.
With the generous amount of deck space, Velocity styled build deck and large post holes, the Smoant Battlestar RDTA is very easy to build on I would say, even novice rebuilders would get to grips with this quickly.
Airflow
On the top cap sleeve, there are two large airflow cutouts at each side, which need to be positioned in line with your coils for best results. You can close down and open up the airflow slots by rotating the top cap itself, I would highly recommend applying some juice to the o-rings however to make this easier, as I found it to be very stiff out of the box.
There is a hell of a lot of airflow available here, however if you prefer a tighter draw there is an airflow setting that has two small holes on each side of the airflow control ring, using this will tighten the draw down considerably.
Performance
I built the Smoant Battlestar RDTA with a dual stainless steel clapton coil build, which came out at 0.27ohm, and my experiences with this build in the Smoant Battlestar RDTA are what I have based my review around. I also tested the Smoant Battlestar RDTA at a wattage range of 35-218W.
Firstly, I found that the flavour from the Smoant Battlestar RDTA was very good indeed, it's ranked up there with the better RDTAs that I have tried. I got a smooth, flavourful draw from this RDTA, and it is quiet too- I have only noticed a small whistle from the airflow slots. A small drawback was that I do get occasional spitback from the clapton coils I have fitted, the wide bore drip tip could benefit from a spitback protector to guard against this.
Secondly, the Smoant Battlestar RDTA is capable of some exceptional cloud production, it's very airy indeed and this was my favourite aspect of this RDTA. With the airflow slots wide open and the wattage turned up, you get some huge clouds! The sleeve on the top cap does get pretty hot when using the Smoant Battlestar RDTA at upwards of 60W, however the drip tip prevents any major heat transference to your lips.
Finally, the Smoant Battlestar RDTA comes with a 4.5ml juice capacity as standard. With low ohm, high wattage use this does not last long at all, it does wick impeccably well. I've had a couple of (very hot) toots on it at 218W without sustaining a dry hit! I'd easily manage to get through 4-5 tankfuls of e-liquid a day when using this RDTA, it can definitely chug through the juice.
Conclusion
I couldn't help but think what a fun dual coil atomizer the Battlestar RDTA is, as it is easy to build, offers some tremendous airflow and excellent flavour delivery to match. It's a great little atty, and one that I have genuinely enjoyed my time with immensely. However as it stands, the 4.5ml version I received for review is not compliant with the TPD regulations that cover the United Kingdom, and as such I can't presently find a vendor within the U.K. stocking the Battlestar RDTA.
With the TPD regulations now coming into play, and confusion abound as to whether RDAs and RDTAs need to be notified in order to be sold within the United Kingdom, it will be interesting to see whether a TPD compliant Battlestar RDTA will be released by Smoant to the U.K. and EU markets. I for one would like to see it happen, as in my opinion it is a very good RDTA and I do believe it would sell well!
Many thanks to Smoant for sending the Battlestar RDTA into us for review! You can check out their products on their site here http://www.smoant.com/. We are giving the Battlestar and the Charon in our competition here.
Dan Willis
Reviewer at POTVDan was an early adopter of vaping as a way to quit smoking and has seen and done pretty much all there is to see and do in the vaping world! From Ego batteries to mechs and from rebuildables to pods there isn't much that Dan hasn't tried.
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