The Vapeium Story
Vapeium sell vape gear and are looking to build a vast range of eliquids to try and cater for all their customers. Founded in 2014, Vapeium has come a long way from its beginnings in a home office, Manchester, England. From the moment they founded Vapeium, their vision was help people kick the habit of shisha, hookah and cigarettes and to enjoy vaping, this gave them the impetus to turn hard work and inspiration into to a booming online retail store. They will be supplying brands like Vampire Vape, Anna Mae's Gourmet E-Liquid and many more.
About Wotofo
Shenzhen Wotofo Technology Co., Limited, established in 2009, is a professional electronic cigarette manufacturer from China. With strong passion, rich resources and advanced equipments, we strive to bring a better experience for our customers.
Serpent Presentation
The Serpent arrived in a black cardboard presentation Box, plain in design with just Serpent written in red on the top of the box, and the Wotofo logo on the side.
The lid slides off the reveal the contents of the box. Securely held in place with a foam surround.
The kit includes.
1 X Serpent RTA
2 x Twisted Kanthal Coils
1 X cotton
1 X Multi tool.
1 X bag of spares
Specification
Model : Serpent
Manufacturer: Wotofo
Type : RTA
Body Material : High Quality Stainless Steel
Tank Material : Glass
Tank Capacity : 4ml
Air Flow Control : yes
Juice Control : Yes
Coil Capacity : Single Coil build
Top Fill : Yes
Connection : 510 Gold Plated Centre pin
Width : 22mm
Height : 67mm
Weight : 0.068KG
Price : £23.49
Supplied by : www.vapeium.com
The Serpent is available in either black of stainless steel.
The Serpent comes fully assembled ready to install your coil, as with any RTA or RDA, I would recommend giving it a good wash in hot soapy water to remove any machine oil, saying that this one was clean as a whistle straight out of the box. For the purpose of this review we will break it down into its component parts, and have a look in detail, before sticking a build in it, and letting you know my thoughts on how it Vapes.
The Serpent can be broken down into four main parts.
Drip Tip.
The Serpent comes with a wide bore stainless steel 510 drip tip, which is held securely in place with a fat black o-ring
Top Cap.
The drip tip fits snugly into the stainless steel top cap. Which is approximately 15mm in diameter, with a knarled top edge to allow you to get a slight grip, when screwing down.
The top cap has outer recessed lip, with very precise machining that fit perfectly into the top section of the tank, the top cap threading, is located around the inner edge, which threads into the top of the chimney.
The Tank.
The glass 4ml tank is in cases in a stainless steel outer skeleton, and encases the none removable inner chimney.
With the top cap removed, it gives access to the fill section of the tank, surrounding the inner chimney, are two large kidney shaped slots that allow you to effortlessly fill the tank up to the top. Using both needle tip bottles, and drippers. Great design.
The serpent features independent chimney control, which allows you to raise and lower the chimney section, by rotating the top control ring, located on the top of the tank. Turning it clock wise, lowers the chimney, shutting off the juice flow to the wicks, whilst turning it anti-clockwise raises the chimney allowing juice to flow to the wicks. This juice control can be fine tuned depending on the PG/VG blend of your chosen juice.
510 Connection & Build Deck.
The Serpent features an adjustable 510 connector, with gold plated centre pin.
Engraved around the 510 connector, you have the Wotofo logo, Serpent and the serial number, mine was W4431.
The Serpent draws its air-flow from under the build deck, from two fully adjustable slots measuring 13mm by 1.5mm on each side.
They can be fully adjusted by rotating the Air-flow Control Ring (ACR), which has a nice amount of resistance.
Just below the ACR is some well machined knarling to allow you to get good purchase when unscrewing from the mod. And also allows good grip when removing the deck section from the tank.
The air flow runs in, up under the deck, coming out through a huge hole directly under when the coil sits.
The deck has a large clear o-ring sitting at the base of the side wall threading, which threads up into the outer wall of the base of the tank frame.
The Serpent has a single coil two post deck, with large off set post holes, Natural Orientated for a Crossing Build.
The negative post is machined directly into the deck, whilst the positive post (right) sits on top of a peak insulator.
The posts have Allen Grub screws to securely hold your builds in place.
Off set to the posts are two large 3mm by 5mm Half Circle Wicking Ports, which the wicks will sit directly above. Although a tricky configuration to install you coil on, it is perfectly laid out once the coil is in place.
The Serpent Build.
Although the serpent came with two coils pre-wrapped, I found it easier to coil my own using slightly thicker 24awg wire, as I find the thicker wire slightly easier to work with on this deck.
Once you have wound your coil, and loosened the grub nuts, simple insert one of the tails through one hole, and snip of any excess.
Then remove the snipped tail, and insert the remaining long tail through the opposite post, pulling the coil tight to that post, to allow you the space to insert, the pre-cut tail. Then whilst holing in place with your coiling tool, tighten down the grub nut, and straighten the coil,
Snip off the remaining tail, ensure the coil is not touching anything it shouldn't be, using the coiling tool. Give it a slight lift, and centre. It should be sitting directly over the air hole underneath.
Then check the resistance of your finished coil, (0.65ohms). Then it's ready to pulse heat, and squeeze, to ensure its nice and tight.
Once the coil is set just right, we are ready for wicking. For this build I used Vapeium's Kendo Organic Cotton. Which once rolled can be feed through the coil.
Then cut off roughly parallel with the sides of the deck. You don't need much cotton.
Once cut the length, they can then be fluffed up, to ensure the cotton is as absorbent as possible, for the best wick results.
As you prime the wicks with juice, you can gently begin to poke the wicks down towards the deck, just using the lightest touch, ensuring not to squash them to much.
Ideally you want the wick just sitting on top of the juice ports, not down in them, as this results in restricted wicking of the juice. It took a bit of trial and error, to work out the best possible position of the cotton.
Once juiced up, you can screw the deck into the tank, lower the chimney, completely shutting off the Ejuice flow. Then you can unscrew the top cap and fill it up. It's important to remember to close off the juice flow, before removing the top cap, or it will flood the coils.
And finally adjust the airflow to suit, I like it half and half.
Aesthetics and Build Quality
I love the minimalistic look of the Serpent, it's clean lines, and stepped top end, with a classic design.
The Serpent is machined to high standard, with smooth threading, on both the top cap, and when connecting the build deck.
I think to be ultra critical I would have liked a slightly bigger viewing window. And a little bit of knarling on the ring, that adjusts the chimney.
Performance & Real World Experience
When I first receive the Serpent from Vapeium, I must admit I did have a few issues with the wicking, I just could get it just right, it seemed to give a bit of a hit a miss performance, but that was purely down to the way I was wicking it, and no reflection on the device. I was packing the cotton to tight, and placing to much cotton into the juice ports. Which had the effect of strangling the coils of juice, and producing dry hit.
After a few attempts at rewicking it, I managed to perfect it, as shown in the pre mentioned build. And when coiled and wicked correctly the performance of this single coil RTA are outstanding, producing a warm flavourful Vape. More inline was Th a dripper than a tank, if your looking for cloud chasing, then this tank may not be for you, it's definitely all about the flavour, don't get me wrong, this tank has massive airflow, and does chuck out clouds, when cranked up and open, but I found its sweet spot, with the air-flow half open at about 40w, amazingly dense warm vapor, with crisp precise flavours.
I found that I had no need to reduce down the juice control, as I had zero issues with flooding the coils, even when using the thinner blend juices.
Even though there is a massive air channel sitting beneath the coil, due to the clever the clever design of the deck, I had zero leakage out of the air slots.
Due to the offset holes in the posts, it can be a little fiddly to install the coil, and defiantly found it easier using a thicker wire, and the didn't take long to get the hang of it. Just take your time.
The amazing flavour coming off the coil. I did find myself loosing track of how much juice was left. due to the reduced window size, the juice level is less noticeable.
Conclusion,
I have been using the tank for about the last weeks, and have been really enjoying Vaping on it, and since the initial wicking issues, have found it faultless. All of the tanks coming out today seem to be dual coil, and I found it refreshing to find a quality RTA designer for the single coils out there. I still think that you get a better flavour from a single coil build.
So if your after a flavourful single coil RTA, look no further than the Serpent.
Supplied by :
www.vapeium.com