I still take the iCare mini with me to work just about every day. Well, just randomly the iCare stopped working.
The green light lit up, but it acted like the battery was completely dead. I put it on the charger anyway and it charged all the way up but when I took a hit, the green light would still light up, but it wouldn’t actually fire.
The Eco12 Tank comes from a company named Cigpet (a sister company of iJoy). I received the ECO12 from HeavenGifts.com for the purpose of this review. I’ve been using this tank for nearly 3 months now and I’m finally ready to talk about it.
HeavenGifts.com sent me the OBS Engine Sub Mini for the purpose of this review. This is a 3.5ml tank. You can get it in either silver or black and it costs $30.
Continue reading Hardware Review: OBS Engine Sub Mini Atomizer
HeavenGifts.com sent the OBS Sub Engine to me for free for the purpose of review.
You can pick up the OBS Sub Engine from HeavenGifts.com for $31.00
OBS calls this a “tribute to the classic” referring to the original OBS Engine which was their very popular rebuildable tank. The OBS Engine Sub is a non-rebuildable tank that uses replaceable coil heads. So does it live up to the hype of its predecessor?
Let’s check it out!
About a week ago I received the Cigpet ECO12 for review from HeavenGifts.com.
I opened it the day I got it and I’ve been vaping it non-stop (about a week now). It’s an awesome tank.
This is appears to be very similar to other very high-wattage tanks like the Smok TFV12 and from what I’ve been hearing, it performs nearly identical. I don’t own a TFV12, so I can’t say for sure. The Cigpet ECO12 comes from Cigpet, which is a sister company of iJoy, so it might be more similar to iJoy’s Maxo V12.
I’m almost positive all of these guys are using the same coils. They even use the same naming conventions, such as T12, Q4, and X4.
The design is a little different than the rest, but the one big difference here is that this tank will also support T14 and T16 coils. Yup. that’s up to 16 coils in one coil head. The T16 can handle up to 400 watts.
That’s crazy!
The T14 and the T16 weren’t included with the tank but that’s ok because I don’t even have a device that can fire 400 watts! Does anybody? The only device that I think can do it is the Smok Power Engine (did this ever come out? I can’t find it anywhere and Smok took their page down from their website). The iJoy Maxo Quad mod can do 315 watts, so that’s closer.
Anyway, these coils can handle 400 watts if that’s something you’re interested in.
I’ve been using the T12 coil, which has been working great. Tons of vapor at 200 watts and the flavor is pretty damn good.
It’s also comes with a really cool resin drip tip, which Cigpet says are unique to every person. None are alike due to the unique manufacturing process.
It’s on pre-order right now from HeavenGifts.com for $34.90, which seems like a great deal to me. That’s about $15 less than Smok’s TFV12, so if it is indeed nearly the same thing, you might as well get the Cigpet.
Full review coming soon!
This week I want to talk about the newly announced Aspire Nautilus 2. I don’t own one and I haven’t tried one, so these are just my thoughts about the Nautilus 2 after doing some research on it.
This was sent to me by HeavenGifts.com for the purpose of review. You can get this tank from HeavenGifts.com for $20.50.
The Wotofo Conquerer Mini RTA was sent to me by HeavenGifts.com for the purpose of this review. You can pick it up from HeavenGifts.com for $30.30 in either Black or Stainless Steel. (affiliate links)
First, I want to thank SmokStore.us for sending this over to me for the purpose of review. If you want to pick one up from them, they sell the Big Baby Beast for $24.99.
I’ve been using this for a couple of weeks now and I want to give you my thoughts, so first let’s start with the specs.
The kit comes with two coils:
The X4 Core with quadruple coils has 4 coils, two coils stacked on top of two in parallel. This coil is rated at 30-70 watts, but is recommended to be used between 45-60 watts. I’ve found that those recommendations are perfect. I get great flavor all the way up to 60 watts and it’s practically the same at 70. I didn’t push it any further out of fear of burning the cotton.
The T6 Core with sextuple coils has 6 coils, three coils stacked on top of three in parallel. This coil is rated at 40-130 watts, but is recommended to be used between 70-90 watts. I’ve pushed this one to it’s max and it definitely can’t handle 130 watts. You can get one hit at 130 watts, but if you take another hit quickly after the first, you’ll taste a dry hit. I was using 70vg/30pg e-juice, which is usually pretty good at wicking, so maybe a 50/50 ratio would wick better at 130 watts, but I don’t like 50/50 e-juice. As for flavor, it’s still quite good, but I think the flavor is much better in the quad coils at 60 watts.
I can’t speak to any of the other coils that are available for this tank since I haven’t used them, but the quad coil is my favorite. It has great flavor and awesome vapor production. You’ll get more vapor production from the sextuple coil, but I’ve found that it has less flavor then the quad coil.
All coils designed for this tank are also compatible with the Baby Beast tank as well, so you can use them in both tanks if you have both of them.
The RBA base is taller than the coils, which is why it comes with an extra, larger, glass tank. Unfortunately, I was not able to test the RBA base because I seemed to have received a defective part.
There were two major issues that made the RBA base unusable for me; it would constantly short and it would not seal in the tank correctly.
First let’s talk about the short. I don’t know exactly where the short is happening, but it seems to be in the post screws somewhere. I’ve tried adjusting the screws in every way I could and I would just randomly get shorts. I tried installing single coils in all of the slots and I would still get shorts.
As for the improper seal, this is another one I couldn’t figure out. Everything appears to be seated into the tank correctly, but as soon as I put e-juice in, it just pours out of the airflow holes. I’ve cranked down the coil as far as it will let me so I know it’s all the way in, but it still leaks. I think it just so happened that I got an RBA base with a manufacturing defect.
The Big Baby Beast is really easy to fill. All you do is push down on the top and slide the top of the tank over to the side. There’s an arrow on the top that shows you the direction you need to slide it. After it’s opened, you can easily fill it up.
My only complaint is that the fill slot is a little small. I can fit a regular e-juice dripper into the hole to fill it up, but I have to take it a little slow or it will or it will clog and spill over.
The airflow control moves smoothly. There are two airflow slots, one on each side of the base of the tank. With the airflow control wide open, it has a nice amount of airflow. It’s not as open as you would find on some RDA’s, but it’s still nice and airy.
When the airflow is almost completely closed, the draw is very restricted. With the airflow all the way closed you can get a short MTL hit, but I don’t think it would be very satisfying for MTL vapers.
One issue that I noticed with mine is that with the airflow set at about 1/3 of the way open, it whistles.
The size of the drip is very wide, which I like a lot. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it’s not really snug in the tank. It doesn’t just fall out or anything like that, but it has popped out on me a few times while I was opening up the tank to fill it up.
They’ve also included a drip tip adapter so that you can use your own drip tips. The adapter seems a little more snug than the included drip tip, so you have that option too if you don’t like the included tip.
I really like the included drip tip, so I’ve been sticking with it.
For the RBA deck you get a hex screwdriver, four extra grub screws, and a pyrex glass tank. Other accessories included are a drip tip adapter if you want to use your own drip tips, a replacement e-juice filling cap, and an extra o-ring for all o-rings on the tank.
Leaking seems to be a pretty common issue with tanks. It’s more of an issue with custom builds, which is usually caused by improper wicking, but I’ve also seen it happen in tanks with pre-built coil heads. With the Big Baby Beast, I haven’t had any leaking issues at all, even with leaving it sit on its side all night. This is a huge plus for me.
This is a great kit. You get both clouds and flavor with this tank, the performance is amazing, and it’s affordable at only $24.99. For only $25, I think it’s an awesome deal.
The biggest problem for me is that that RBA deck was defective, but I don’t see anyone mentioning this problem online so I don’t think it’s a common problem that you need to worry about.
So big thanks to SmokStore.us for sending this to me for review. You can pick up the Big Baby Beast from their website for $24.99.
The Invader Mini is an older device that was really popular somewhere around mid-2015. I never ended up getting one when it was popular, but it was something that I always wanted. Well, a few months ago I saw vendor having a clearance sale on these for only $10 so I finally picked one up.
When the Invader Mini first came out, I watched a lot of reviews and they all showed how awesome and durable the device is. People have recorded videos showing the Invader Mini being run over by cars, taken outside thrown as hard and far as possible, and even submerging it underwater. YouTube reviewer “Fresh03” did a water test during one of his entire live shows, and if you’re familiar with his shows then you know they usually last around 2-3 hours.
In all of the tests I’ve seen, the Invader Mini came through working perfectly so I’m not going to do any of those tests. I’m just going to talk a little bit about the device and give you some of my thoughts on it.
It feels very comfortable in the hands for the most part, but I it feels a little uncomfortable when firing it with my thumb, with the firing button facing towards me. I much prefer firing it with my index finger, with the device facing outward. That’s just personal preference, though.
Another annoyance is the rubber piece at the top of the device that looks like a button. I keep accidentally pressing it thinking it’s the firing button.
The battery tube is a thick, solid metal tube. There doesn’t appear to be anything that could break or wear down in there. It looks extremely durable and high-quality. The biggest con with the battery compartment is that there is no indicator showing which direction the battery goes into the device. Using typical battery configuration, I assumed (correctly), that the positive end of the battery faces the 510 connection.
The 510 is not spring loaded, which means that if your atomizer doesn’t have a long enough 510 pin, it might not make a good connection. This would have to be an extremely short 510 pin to cause an issue and is not at all likely, but it could happen.
Because the pin is not spring-loaded, this also means that many atomizers will not sit flush on the device. Heatvape considered this and smartly included an adjustable ring at the top of the device that allows you to adjust to remove gaps.
The reason Heatvape did not use a spring-loaded 510 was so that the device would be water-resistant. If the 510 was spring-loaded, water would be able to get through to the chip. It’s a minor inconvenience to have a great feature like water-resistance.
It works great! I’ve used the device for several months now with no issues at all. It also seems to fire at the 50 watts they say it does and I’ve used it with many different atomizers and haven’t had any problems with it not firing.
The biggest con with functionality is that the menu system is extremely confusing. Having to lock the device before changing some of the settings makes it very difficult to use and not at all intuitive. Without a user manual, some of the devices features would probably never be figured out by someone who hasn’t used the device before. Heatvape really should have come up with a better menu system.
Another drawback is that the Invader Mini does allow the user to fully shut off the device. It will turn off automatically after a few seconds and will fully shut down after an hour without use, but there’s no way to manually force the device to fully turn off without removing the battery.
The Invader Mini does temperature control only with nickel wire. I’ve tested it various situations:
With coils only and no cotton, the temperature control worked well enough not to heat up the coils hot enough to turn red, which is exactly what we want.
With dry cotton installed, the cotton did not burn at all. Again, temperature control worked perfectly.
And finally, with soaked cotton. The temperature control allowed the device to fire until the cotton dried out, then would not push enough wattage to burn the cotton.
In all three tests, the temperature control worked great.
These are all opinions and may or may not be pros and cons to you, depending on what you’re looking for in a device.
Overall, this is a great device. It’s durable and rugged. It’s shockproof, practically waterproof, and can fire up to 50 watts. It’s a device that would work great on an outdoor trip, such as when kayaking, or regularly on a physically demanding job such as with construction work.
