These words are my own, they are copyleft for anybody to use as they wish as long as they credit me as being the source. POTV are not responsible for my opinions. I bought the Fogger a month ago via Paypal for the princely sum of £24.99 plus postage from Vape Geek - whether you believe me or not is your problem. Wood not only looks good but also has an attractive appearance.
The review I was planning to do on this got put on hold. I was going to sit down and type up words like “fantastic” and “amazing” and “I need to go check a thesaurus to find another superlative”. But halfway through loving a tank Vape Geek’s new juice the vape went. I sat looking at my mech mod like a caring mother who has just found out her child has been caught shoplifting.
Then it dawned on me.
When I first took hold of the atty, around a month ago, I thought I could skip a couple of the important jobs and just leave them till the unit shorted. Mistake. If you’ve just received your unit or you’ve had it a while with no problems then I still STRONGLY recommend doing what I’ve done. It’s not a case of if it will short – eventually it WILL short.
Here’s why:
There are two main places where this atty is going to short out. The first is the easiest to fix: the 510 connection. I’d already sorted this but you might not be aware of it so…unscrew the pin until it comes out of the unit. Grab your little baggy of spares and look for the tinniest opaque o-rings. It is just the right diameter to pop into the hole vacated by the screw. Now you can screw it back in. This will prevent the connection from moving about and touching the sides.
The second reason is why I left it until now.
Stupid me.
Split the base section apart…this is easier to do on some models than others, if you are having problems I would suggest popping the base into hot, hot water for a while before using covered molegrips/adjustables/pliers. DO NOT try to use a screwdriver through the wick channels – the walls of the well are not strong enough and I have seen pictures of broken units as a result).
To the left is the air control ring section, we will return to this in a second as there are two other fixes you can do while it’s all apart). We are going to focus on the right-hand side piece for the minute.
You will see that the positive terminal overlaps the hole where the air post goes. The air hole post is what the 510 connection screws into. After repeated use (in my case almost constantly over a month) the post moves about as you thread it onto a mod due to it sitting on top of an insulator disk. As this post moves about it gradually wears away the flimsy insulation o-ring separating it from the positive post base.
Using the tool of your choice slice off a part of the positive post base so that it now clears the edge of the hole. This is where my short was resulting from – the o-ring had been pushed out of shape after repeated movement and the positive post was making contact with the air post.
That’s it done for shorting problems.
So, let’s look at the section with the air-control ring:
If you look carefully you can see the three airholes. You can note that I have sliced off a section of the insulator next to the airholes.
The reason for this is that although I have no problem with airflow I wanted to do something to free up airflow in order to get rid of the noise the Fogger made while in use.
At the same time I looked at the base of the air post and decided I would also enlarge the holes. Using the ‘stone from a horses hoof’ part of my Swiss Army penknife for the very first time ever, a quick poke is all you need to double their size from original. Go gentle as this is monkey-metal soft and you don’t want to chop the post off!
Does it work? The only noise I can hear now is that of the coil producing vape. It has made an outstanding difference to the air intake noise while not making the vape too loose. I swear that the control ring makes a difference now too, but that could just be my mind willing it to do so. Prior to doing these mods it was a pretty much on or off thing whereas there really does seem to be a sense of finer adjustment now.
Which brings us to wicking.
The first thing I did when I received the Fogger was try out the built in mesh coil. I’m like that. Stupid, mainly. It’s utter gash. Never do this. Dusgusting burnt mesh taste and bugger all else.
So microcoils and cotton it was.
Using 0.3 A1 Kanthal, I preheated the wire so that it would hold its shape on the screwdriver.
I made 7/8 wraps, coiling each wrap as close as possible to the previous without over-lapping.
This always trots out a resistance of between 1.2 and 1.3 ohm depending on where the +ve and -ve leads leave to the coil for the posts.
I’m in the habit of just ripping off a piece of cotton now, I don’t bother to measure it, but you can get a good idea of how big the piece is from the pictures. I gently roll the cotton to make it longer and thinner while trying not to compact it too much.
The cotton is gently threaded into the coil and I use tweezers to encourage it out the other side till the point my fat fingers can grasp it.
I don’t find the coils separate during this process but it wouldn’t take much to pinch them back together. Pre-heated wire of this thickness retains its structurial integrity much better than the thinner Kanthals.
Although you can keep testing the resistance of the coil remember not to attempt a dry burn – cotton is flammable. It will burn. I know from experience.
I told you I was stupid!
Priming the cotton and coil will allow you to do a burn to check it’s all working well before lobbing on another couple of drops and attaching the chimney. I do not use the supplied o-ring at the base of the chimney, cotton fills the wick holes and prevents any flooding.
You will note from my picture that I crop the cotton using nail scissors near the entrance to the wicking holes. I don’t use scissors as the shearing motion can pull on the cotton and cause it to move the wick. The vertical cut of nail scissors prevents this.
Before anything else, at this point I make sure the coil is seated below the top of the well rim. a gentle prod with something blunt just to ease it down if required. I do this to ensure the coil does not short on the chimney.
Do not push the coil too far down or the coil will heat the insulator. This has become less of a problem in the V2 version but I have not seen a V3 as yet.
Do not tighten the chimney too much. I go to the point it is just finger tight – because I build my cotton wick to the full height of the rim the chimney gently draws the wick in and lightly compacts it as you screw it down, leaving the wick flush with the outside of the chimney.
Now the unit is ready for the tank to be placed on, I do this while rotating it to ensure it is evenly seated.
Then fill, on with the cap and a final check of resistance.
So, what is it like?
Let me tell you what it’s not like – it’s not like a bloody Foggatti atomiser, it’s like trying to compare a lion and a panther with the word ‘Lion’ painted on its arse. Jiloong are less guilty of cloning the Fogger than Mr. Foggy Foggatti is of borrowing ideas for his genny atomiser. I find the entire notion ridiculous – and for him to get his panties all bunched up on UKV over the use of a font that he neither owns nor trademarked is the height of pathetic. I do not accept for one minute that the Fogger is a clone.
It’s an evolution of the Taifun without the descending deck – which does make the Fogger more tricky to build. But it’s not an impossible build, and using microcoils means I can simply remove the cotton, dry burn then place in new cotton when changing flavours or needing a freshen up.
I find the vape to be of a greater volume than my OEM Kayfun-lite running an identical build. I also find the vape warmer, much warmer, and of a far fuller flavour.
The Fogger V2 does come with issues but, as I’ve shown here, they are not insurmountable and for the £24.99 plus postage that I paid I have an outstanding atty which bests everything else in my collection. I strongly recommend you to have one Fogger V2 in your collection.
- The V2 is now £22.49 on Vape Geek
- The V3 is now availble from Vape Geek for £24.99 (slightly larger and with attractive metal tank shield)
