Gearbest.com sell a wide range of electrical products, with a impressive selection of vaping gear, from coil, mods, tanks and batteries.
About Geekvape.
Geekvape is located at Shenzhen, China-home of worldwide branded E-cig manufacturers. Established in 2015, Geekvape obtains strong support from an innovative group consists of experienced and enthusiastic vapors.
The Geekvape Griffin RTA is described on the Gearbest website as follows :
"The first RTA with the biggest deck and Clapton Coil Compatibility."
Presentation.
The Griffin arrived in a nice presentation box, with a graphical sleeve over the top, displaying an image of the Griffin on the front,
On the box of the box, it gives you a brief description of the tank, and contents of the box.
The outer sleeve, simply slides off, to reveal the clear hard plastic case.
Once the lid is removed, you can empty out the contents of the kit.
The kit includes:
1 x Griffin RTA,
1 x Big Hole Drip Tip,
1 x Replacement Glass Tube,
1 x 510 Drip Tip Adapter,
1 x Spare Parts Polybag
Model : The Griffin
Manufacturer: Geek Vape
Type : RTA
Body Material : High Quality Stainless Steel
Tank Material : Glass
Tank Capacity : 3.5ml
Air Flow Control : yes
Juice Control : Yes
Coil Capacity : Dual
Deck style : Velocity-design
Top Fill : Yes
Connection : 510 Gold Plated Centre pin
Width : 22mm
Height : 48.5mm
Weight : 0.110 kg
Price : $24.99
Supplied by : www.gearbest.com
The Griffin comes fully assembled, excluding the coils, so we will start by stripping it down into its component parts, before reassemble back up and stick a build on it. And see how it Vapes.
The Griffin can be fully disassembled, which allows you to fully clean each component.
Top Cap.
The Griffin, comes pre installed with a wide bore delrin drip tip with a 13.5mm width. Which can be removed and swapped out with the included, 510 Adaptor.
The Drip tip sits very snugly in the stainless steel top cap, with Geek Vape engraved around the edge. Under neath, you have deep recessed threading, which screws down, onto the top of the chimney, and unscrews to allow access the the fill section at the top of the tank.
Inner Chimney.
The inner chimney section, has threading which receives the top cap, surrounded by a large black oring, which prevents any leakage from the top cap.
There are two kidney shaped slots machined into the top, to easily allow for juice filling.
The inner chimney is 7mm wide, allowing for great airflow up from the Deck. Which is then machined seemlessly into the threaded section of the chamber top.
Chamber
The stainless steel chamber section, has a threaded top lip, which allows the chimney section, to tighten down onto.
The chamber has a nice engraving of the griffin logo on the side, which sits just above the four large juice holes. One on each side.
At the base of the chamber, there is a lip that runs around the edge that the base of the tank sits down onto, once the oring has been installed.
The inner edge of the chamber has smooth threading machined along the inside edge, which allows the base section to securely screw into.
The two sections then simple thread together, holding the glass tank securely in place.
Base section & Deck.
The base section features a stainless steel 510 threaded connection, with a fully adjustable gold plated centre pin.
The lower section of the base houses the fully adjustable air-flow control, which has two opposing slots, which can adjusted by simply rotating the outer ring, which has some nice knarling machined into it,to give it a little grip. The ACR has stoppers on each end, stopping it from rotating around all the way, meaning that the air flow adjustment, is always in the right place, it has a really nice level of resistance to it.
The airflow runs up through the base, exiting through two massive airflow holes located on each side of the deck, directly under were each coil will be located.
The deck mounted air holes have a good size lip running around them, to prevent any unwanted juice escaping down them.
The build deck features a velocity two post design, with a removable ring running around the outer edge, which can be removed to assist with the placement of your wicks whilst building. Although I found it easier leaving it, in place.
The posts themselves feature large 2mm holes and securing grub nuts, to hold even the fattest coils in place.
The Griffin Build.
For the purpose of this build, and to show the size of the coils you can run on it, I installed two fat 'Alien Clapton' Coil that run out at 0.45ohms each,
The pre-wrapped coil fit with ease, through the large post holes, offsetting each tail through the upper and lower holes, allowing the coils to sit parrel.
Once the tails have been trimmed, and the coils straighten, a short dry burn sets them in place and ready for wicking.
Using two Scottish rolled Kendo Cotton pieces, which slide through the coils with ease.
I then cut the cotton off tight to the edge of the deck, you only need little short cotton tails for the build.
I found that the best way to get it to wick, with zero dry hits, is to just gently tuck the cotton on top of the juice groves, don't run them down into the wells. Just rest them at the top. Trust me it wicks a lot better as the juice is not restricted.
You can then just pre-juice the wicks, allowing the juice to soak right in, with over loading them.
Once soaked, you can the simply screw the base into the tank section.
Juice Control.
The juice flow is controlled by simple rotating the tank section over the deck, whilst holding the lower part of the base. which opens and closes the four round holes, as it passes in front of the solid section of the deck.
Note: Make sure you rotate to open all the holes, as it is possible to only have two open, depending on how far you rotate it, just check before vaping, or you will restrict wicking, and result in dry hits.
Before you begin fill the tank or even remove the top cap, fully close off the juice holes the prevent it flooding the deck.
Once filled, and the top cap screwed back on, you can the open the juice holes.
Aesthetics and Build Quality
The Griffin has a great look and feel, and has a real premium finish. The bottom draw air flow does add a little bit of height to it, but in no way makes it feel unbalanced. I like the open face tank, and gives it a really clean, uncluttered look. The notches machined into the base ACR really adds to to overal look, and gives it a great feel in the hand when making adjustments to your air-flow.
The addition of the delrin fat boy drip, adds real attitude to the profile of the Atomizer, and balances out the height.
I like the additional detailing of the Griffin Logo on the inner chamber, and the Vape Geek branding around the neck.
The threading on both ends of the device is well machined, and very smooth, although the top cap threading does take a little time to line up some times.
Performance & Real World Experience
The Griffin, as I have shown, is mega easy to build on, with its two post Velocity style deck, and will take some of the fattest Coils I have ever tried to fit in a tank, with room to spare. The only down side of installing fat coils, is they do like to drink your juice.
On the juice front, this thank, with its wide juice holes, seems to perform equally well on all blends, even when vaping on Max VG.
I found the air-flow, running in under the coils, through those massive air channels, allowed for huge inhales of vapor, more inline will a dripper, than a tank.
The wide open draw, did in no way detract from the flavour that this tank manages to produce, with a rich warm, flavour full Vape. Not quite up there with the Serpent, on the depth of flavour, but still a great Vape.
I was also really impressed, by how cool the device stayed, even when vaping on fat coils, at high wattages. I think due to the coils, being sat quite high up on the base, up inside the tank, surrounded by juice.
Filling up really is a pleasure, twist the tank, to close at se off the juice control, twist of the cap, and fill away. Simple as that.
I have been vaping on the Griffin, for the past few weeks, and using the shorter floating wicks have had zero issues with dry hits or flooding, I have seem people wick, with longer wicks. Running further down the channels, but have found the short wicks, just draw the juice up so much better, and does block of those juice channels.
Conclusion & Recommendation
If your looking for a tank that is mega easy to build on, and will take the fattest coils you wrap, then Griffin should be your tank of choice. Great Flavour, with room filling clouds.
