I am seeing very little mention of the Eleaf iStick around here. I see there is a 40w TC version in stock in the US. I would rather have a removable battery, but this thing is TINY.
The istick 50w has some bad history of auto firing and blowing up. People tend to stay away from eleaf products.
The problems with the iStick were pretty much constrained to the original 20W version, which had soft metal 510 threads that many seemed to cross thread their atty's into, and the 50W model, which more significantly had auto fire problems. I have an original 20W (still going strong) and a newer 30W, (also still going strong), and my 40WTC is due to be delivered tomorrow. I used one of the 10W "mini" iSticks for a week before my friend showed up to claim it, and that worked just fine as well, within its limits. It's their size and the feel and how well they work (for me). I am a huge fan of the iStick line, until you get to the 50W or 100W models. Once you get past the 20/30/40 watt iStick sizes I don't feel they're as good a choice, with many other mods offering more. I have some monster rigs which I love and use at home, but when I'm out and about I don't want to carry or use something that big, and the eGo batteries and their ilk just weren't cutting it for me anymore. Anyway, as you can probably tell, I'm a fan. There are other mods coming out now that are
beginning to approach the size and feel the iSticks pioneered, but since I'm already a fan of the iStick line, when I decided it was time to switch to TC, I stuck with the 40WTC. The price being so low doesn't suck either.
I think the only thing I do not like about my istick is TC is locked at 40w. I think the TC would be smoother if the wattage could be lowered, but otherwise it's working well for me on an rda. I think i can hear some splatter when I first push the button, but it backs off pretty quickly so I am not really noticing any extra mess.
Phil Busardo just released his review on the iStick 40WTC, and as usual it's very informative and there are scope pictures of the fast initial ramp up and how it subsequently falls off as temperature regulation kicks in. One of his more interesting reviews. I always prefer more adjustability to less, so being able to set the max watts in tc mode would still be a plus for me, but I couldn't think of why I'd want to limit the watts if I were temp controlling until you mentioned the effect on a dripper, smoothness of initial hit and splatter, etc., which I hadn't considered. In TC mode, the wattage setting ultimately controls how much energy can be dumped into the coil(s) to get them to temp, and how-much/how-fast of a "load" change can be handled. (Don't get me started about Joules. The mod makers that use Joules instead of watts are misusing the term. Joules are akin to watt-hours (really watt-seconds), not to watts. Joules add time to the equation; like the difference between mA and mAh. Imagine your standard (non-TC) mod read out in Wh instead of W when you were firing it. But I digress).
Phil's iStick 40W TC review.
@fernand: Phil gets into the differences between the DNA40 and the sx350J and iStick TC control schemes. (The DNA200 is going to be interesting because
supposedly we're going to be able to program everything. He's also had enough hands on time with a number of the different chips and atty's that he is full of insights as to why some stuff works reliably and some stuff doesn't. Useful info. Also, the iStick 40WTC apparently goes down to a real 1W, with no PWM, so in non-TC mode we should be able to run our atty's as
low as we want. We'll see.).
Just ordered a
2.5 ceramic donut atomizer from Divine Tribes to play around with.
Funny you should mention that. I've been using one all week. I love it! (I got the 0.8Ω deep well version). Too early to say for sure, but I think it's my favorite concentrate "dripper" yet. Cleans up easily as well. I'm finding I get MUCH bigger clouds with less throat irritation and cough, and the residue is MUCH cleaner than when I'm dripping into a coil/wick based RDA. I'm currently running it on the iStick 30W at 12.5 watts. I've been cleaning it at 17.5W (when I wanted to change concentrates and wanted the fresh flavor/effect right from the beginning). It also cleans well with a bath in iso or ethanol. It's supposed to work even better (whatever that means) with a TC mode, so I'm looking forward to checking it out on the iStick 40WTC when it gets here tomorrow. I've also noticed that there's no nasty taste build up when multiple loads have been consumed without cleaning. And the residue is NEVER black, it's usually dark golden. There is a lot of splatter in the inside of the top cap.
Picture for everyone else, click it to take you to the ineedhemp website.
In anticipation of the pending iStick 40WTC, I've been winding some coils. I made up two Kanger atty's for my aerotank mini in Ni200 and RXW, and a few coils for the RoseV2.
@2clicker: I think I'm gonna try one of your inside and outside RXW designs for the RoseV2. I have both sizes of RXW here and plenty of Ni200 and Kanthal. For those who don't know, the RoseV2 build surface is like the Evil Moon RDA surface in that there are no exposed posts; the wires are held by set (grub) screws below the surface of the plate. The RoseV2 also comes with an integral ceramic cup which you can chose to use or not. But the RoseV2 is a tank device, not an RDA like the Evil Moon, so using it as a dripper is a bit frankenstein-ish.
It's good to be back. Nearly a year on the road is too much.