The Stacked RTA was sent to me for review directly from Kaees. This a collaboration project between Kaees and Tony B. from the Vapor Trail Channel. This is a dual coil rebuildable tank with a unique “stacked” clamp system. In Tony’s announcement of the Stacked RTA, he talked about how Kaess started with a design and Tony helped to improve it, including making it easier and safer to use. From the sounds of it, it seems like Tony really improved this tank over several iterations.
So let’s talk about it.
Specs:
- 24mm diameter / 46mm tall
- Bottom airflow
- 3ml / 5ml e-juice capacity
- Made with 304 stainless steel
- Clamp coil system
- Two colors; black and silver
In the box:
- Stacked RTA
- Spare straight 3ml glass tube
- Two Clapton coils
- 810 drip tip
- 510 drip tip adaptor
- Screwdriver
- Spare parts
- User manual
Design
It’s a nice looking tank. I have both the black and silver models and they both look great. From what I understand, the paint on the black one goes through a special process so that it won’t chip on the inside, so that’s good to know.
You can use either the pre-installed bubble glass or the straight glass tube depending on how you want it to look.
It’s also really short and that was one of the things Tony set out to do with this. He wanted it as short as he could get it. So overall, I think it looks nice.
Drip Tip
You get two drip tips to pick from; one black 510 Delrin tip and a larger 810 acrylic drip tip. The acrylic tip is much shorter than the black one, but the black tip has the same outer diameter so it fits into the 810 sized top cap, which is nice.
The accessories bag also comes with a 510 adaptor so that you can use other smaller 510 drip tips.
Top Cap and Filling
There are grips on the top cap making it easier to unscrew and fill.
Something I want to point out here is how the top cap fits over the glass and chimney section. The inside of the top cap fits around the chimney section, creating a seal, while the outer part of the top cap goes over the metal rim of the fill piece. This makes it so that it’s less likely to leak and so that you don’t have to crank that top cap down to prevent leaking. One of my biggest complaints with tanks that have threaded top caps is that they get so tight that it’s damn near impossible to loosen them without pliers. Well with this design, you don’t need to tighten it down so much, which makes over-tightening less likely, so I like that a lot.
And here’s another little tiny feature they added. There are these little notches in the top cap.
This is designed to let air escape while you’re sealing it up. So that should help prevent building up too much pressure and causing leaks.
The fill ports are also really big making the Stacked RTA easy to fill.
Airflow
There are two airflow slots, one on each side. Both are pretty big and provide a lot of airflow when it’s wide open. You can get quite a lot of air through this tank. And obviously, you can close it down as much as you’d like too.
The airflow isn’t super smooth, and maybe even a little loud, but it’s not too bad. The airflow control ring is really tight and hard to turn right out of the box. I was getting finger cramps trying to turn this damn thing. But after you use it for a while, it really loosens up. I think the condensation and e-juice are what gets it going. The ring also comes off if you want to clean behind it.
Also, a common issue I’ve heard is that the airflow control ring doesn’t turn while it’s on the device because it sits so low on the base of the deck. It’s flush with the base, so it gets sandwiched against the device you’re using, so you just can’t turn it. That probably depends on the device you’re using and how tight you screw the tank down, but on the few that I tested, the airflow control ring still turns, but because of how close it sits to the device, it’s a little hard to get your fingers in there to turn it.
The Deck
In Tony’s demonstration of the Stacked RTA, he mentioned that the deck was inspired by the Lit and Layer Cake RDA and he wanted to make that design better. So if it looks similar to you, that’s because it is.
The insulators sitting between the metal plates are made of ceramic zirconia which is also really unique. They are non-conductive and high-strength, so you shouldn’t have to worry about melting them. Tony says that they are little more expensive, but Kaees took his advice and used them anyway without passing the cost on to the consumer.
The posts on the deck use spring-loaded clamps so it’s pretty easy to open and close and install coils. And it’s really cool that Kaees included spare springs in the package in case you lose one, which might happen. You can unscrew those post screws all the way out. The screws don’t just fall out, so you would have to pull it out to lose a spring, but once the screw is out, that screw can go anywhere if you’re not careful.
Building The Deck
If you tighten down the coils without clipping the leads, it’s really hard to get in there to clip the lower leads, so I’ve found that it’s easiest to get your coils in place, lock down one side, position the coils where you want them on the open end and clip the lower lead. Then you can tighten it down where you want it, and then do the other side. It’s really not too difficult.
You’ll want to make sure the coils are placed directly above the airflow holes to get the best flavor. That’s pretty easy to do anyway since you’ll need to keep the coils close to the clamps so that they fit inside the chimney section. You can fit some decently sized coils in here, but if you’re like me and you like to space your coils, you’ll have to be careful that they fit inside the chimney-piece and don’t cause a short by touching the metal.
You can also use mesh in this tank since the clamp slots are flat. I don’t have any mesh to test it out, but Kaees mentions it as a feature.
To wick the Stacked RTA, you can put your cotton all the way into the juice well if you want, but you really only need it to poke through the wick holes. As long as the wicks are below the deck it’ll wick just fine, but the longer the wicks are, the better they’ll wick when you start running low on juice. You just don’t want to stuff the juice-well with cotton because it won’t improve performance in any way and it’ll just waste space. The benefit of shorter wicks though is that they’ll wick faster and prevent dry hits.
Performance and Flavor
It performs well. You can get some nice big hits depending on your build and there’s plenty of airflow to get big clouds.
The flavor is good too. It’s not the most impressive flavor ever, but it’s pretty good. Wicking is good too, but that’s something you’ll have to play around with and learn what works best for you. For me, shorter wicks work best because it allows me to chain vape without getting a dry hit.
Final Thoughts
So that’s the Stacked RTA. It’s a nice dual coil rebuildable tank with good flavor, especially at higher wattages. It has lots of airflow and it wicks well if you wick it the right way. The clamp coil system is easy to use and I like the little features that Tony added, such as the thick ceramic zirconia insulators and the air slots on the top cap. The main con I have is that the airflow is really tough to move since it’s flush with the base. But really, it’s a nice RTA.
So you can get the Stacked RTA online for around $30-$35 if you’re interested.
Here are few places I’ve seen it: (affiliates)