Squidgy
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Following on from my review of my other favourite Single Coil DTL RTA. This is a heads up on another tank that forms a regular part of my rotation. This is not a new device, it came out towards the back end of last year. The Kylin Mini II firstly caught my eye because of its top air entry and honeycomb air flow which makes it practically leak free and offers a smooth and quiet inhale. Wide open it provides a slightly restricted direct to lung pull but in my opinion the restriction is minimal.
Like many other potential purchasers, I scanned through a load of reviews, and after a little deliberation, jumped right in and got it.
As I’ve already mentioned there are lots of reviews out there, if you want details on all the features, specs, colours, contents etc. I’ll point you in the direction of the POTV review produced by @red5 available in the review section on the home page.
https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/reviews/rba/vandy-vape-kylin-mini-ii-rta.html
My review will highlight some of the issues I’ve had over the last couple of months using this tank and what I’ve found to overcome them.
It should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway as I have before. We all have our own ways of doing things and in no way am I trying to convince you that you’re doing it wrong or mine is better than yours. This is a great forum with some interesting characters and a vast amount of knowledge readily to hand. I find this is an easy way for us to learn from each other and if I can help out a fellow ape, I will do my best. If anyone reading this thinks they have anything further to add to this review, I’d gladly welcome their input and give it a try, even if it’s just to appease my own sense of curiosity.
This leads me onto my obligatory disclaimer… I have no affiliation to Vandy Vape, I purchased this item with my own hard earned cash, I do not receive payment for reviews and what follows are my own opinions based on my own experience.
There’s a pattern forming here… I know I said I wasn’t going to go into detail about the technical specs and all that, but there are a couple of things that others haven’t mention. Maybe it’s a secret? Right? So I’m going to say this on the quiet! Don’t tell anyone!
Capacity (The Dark Secret)
As you know, those of us in Europe are restricted to 2ml tanks, and the Kylin Mini II, is a “Mini” so it must be only 2ml. But Is It? The tank part of this RTA does hold 2ml, but the filling well has room for a little more juice. With the straight glass it’s possible to squeeze in a massive 3ml and with the bubble glass a gargantuan 5.5ml. So if you’re feed up with refilling your old tank every 5 minutes and looking to increase that to every 7½ minutes this could be the ideal tank for you.
Clean your new Shiny-itus purchases
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you just bought it, please clean it, no matter how shiny it is. There’s some precision engineering gone into this tank, during production individual parts would have been soaked in some form of oil, vaping it don’t taste good and you don’t know what you might be inhaling from it. It’s not stated in the manual, but in my opinion it’s a MUST.
All the other specs I’ve seen mentioned around are correct, the only other thing I can add is that with the bubble glass the overall diameter increases to 29.7mm.
Coil Type
There are two contacts on the build deck which are adequate for numerous types of coils, the space between the honeycomb air inlets would suggest you could fit a monster coil if you so desired, but I would suggest you read on before jumping in.
As with the Destiny I’ve tried several different coil types in the Kylin Mini II, mainly to confirm for my own piece of mind, it wasn’t just a fluke with the Destiny, and after all, there’s nothing wrong in confirming a consistency.
Due to the extra room available I tried out larger diameter coils as well. For the purpose of this review, and not to bore the pants off you too much, I’ll just let you know how I got on with a 3mm single 24awg, my favourite 3mm Flattened Clapton and a 4mm Juggernaut.
The 3mm 8 wrap SS316L 24awg coil (0.38ohm) was ok, if your vaping on a budget, or throwing away the coil every time you come to re-wick it then this will probably suit you fine. At 30-35W it produced dense enough clouds to provide plenty of flavour, once it was wicked right that is. We’ll come onto wicking later.
The coil type I’ve found, that in my opinion performs the best with both the Kylin Mini II and the Destiny is the Flattened Clapton, to save you going back to my previous review the wire I used was a 25/32AWG specified as 5.6ohm/m produced by The Crazy Wire Company. I will add though that the difference between coil type was not as significant with this tank, but was still noticeable…I think…or is it just my head playing tricks…maybe. Anyway it is my preferred wire and I’m sticking with it. At 3mm i/d with 6 wraps (spaced) it comes in at 0.31ohms and performs fine in this tank at around 40W.
Now for the big one, the 4mm Juggernaut. Being a larger coil, providing more surface area and taking up more space between the airflow, I expected big things from this, but alas no, unfortunately when your expectations are set high, you also set yourself up for a bigger fall when it lets you down. In my opinion this was a disappointment, no matter what I tried I just couldn’t feed the coil with enough juice to push the coil above 50W. I’ll expand further later.
Getting the original packaging out to use the straight glass for some pics, I opening up the bag of bits that comes with it. Just for reference the supplied pre-built coil is a 6 wrap fused Clapton (2 x 24awg cores with a 32awg outer) made from Kanthal coming in at 0.3ohms. Close to the Flattened Clapton above.
Coil Placement
This tank comes with a handy coil leg trimming jig allowing you to accurately trim the coil legs at various lengths. A large arrow on the side of the jig suggests you should trim the legs at 7mm and for a 3mm coil I think their suggestion is spot on. It lines the top of the coil nicely with the top row of holes on the honeycomb air inlet.
I have tried lowering the coil and the flavour does fade slightly, I think it might be due to the top row of holes missing the coil and diluting the vape with fresh air.
Now I have a confession to make, when I first started using this tank and fellow apes were asking me how it was, I advised that it was a great tank, but the only issue with it was that the coil had to be wrapped in a certain direction because of the coil contacts. What poppycock! but I will admit it when I’m wrong or talking shite.
It actually doesn’t matter what way your coil is wound, it might be a tad more fiddly but that’s about it. If your pre-built coils are wound anti-clockwise, just cut the legs to 8mm and cross them over, you might need to ease the coil up a bit to line the top of the coil up with the top row of holes, but that’s it, jobs a goodun.
Wicking
As some of you already know I use e-liquid at 70~80% VG which is a little on the thick side, this has caused me lots of issues with wicking this tank.
I’ve tried several wicking techniques on this tank, tried different cottons, followed different wicking guides, so on and so on. I’ve found two issues relating to the wicking on this tank. The first and most obvious are the tiny itty bity juice holes in the side of the coil chamber. Several guides tell you to make sure you don’t wick past the bottom of the wicking channel and sit you wick on the bottom ledge.
The juice passes through the tiny itty bity juice holes and absorbs into the side of the wick. By wicking this way you block up the juice holes, as you vape the juice goes down in the tank producing a vacuum, this causes air to be sucked back through the tiny itty bity juice holes in the opposite direction, with the cotton up against the hole the air struggles to get in and reduces the flow of juice.
The second problem is the straight glass, there’s very little space between the inside of the glass and the outside of the chamber, this dramatically slows down and sometimes blocks the returning air into the tank, this stops the juice getting to the coil altogether and dry hits promptly ensue.
BUT, there is a way to overcome this. First, I would say bin the straight glass, but no, put it back in the box, it may just get you out of a sticky spot one day when you drop your tank and the glass breaks, you know it will, and if you have no backup it’s even more likely, Judge Murphy has a lot to answer for. Put the bubble glass on, that's the first issue solved.
Now comes a wicking tip, thread the wick through the coil as normal, not too much, not too little, if you’re having to twist the cotton to get it through the coil, in my opinion it’s still too much (maybe a separate guide on this is needed). Now trim the cotton as if wicking to the bottom of the wicking channel. Rake though the cotton tails, not to thin them, but just to align the fibres as it helps with capillary action. Now cut the wick tails back further so the tail ends fall around 1-2mm short of the wicking ledge at the bottom.
When you fold the tails down into the channels dry you should see that the cotton at the back is slightly longer than at the front, leave it as is, that’s just how you need it. Now juice up you wick, lay it into the channel, tidy it up, put the tank together and you should be good to chuff away.
You would expect this to leak like a sieve, well, flood the chamber as this thing is leak proof. I certainly know I did, but it doesn’t. I was that surprised I had to check further. I left the tank full with the top unscrewed slightly overnight and it still didn’t leak. I think this is due to the sides of the wicking channel, they have been purposely widened as shown above. The distance between these edges to its diagonal opposite is 18.4mm, the same as the inside diameter of the chamber, it’s tight, not even enough room for a gnats gonad.
So anyway, with this method, juice and air can pass unrestricted, juice is absorbed into the wick at the end and not into the side, and you can get enough juice into the coil, but not a 4mm Juggernaut, still working on that one, I suspect some modification to those tiny itty bity juice holes would be needed, something I’m reluctant to do considering how well this tank performs with the 3mm Flattened Clapton.
Conclusion
I think this is another superb RTA, it performs just as good as the Destiny and provides the added benefit of being leak proof with the top air flow. This tank is currently a permanent resident in my rotation and in regally use. It fits in with my style of vaping, and when wicked well, this thing is outstanding. As I’ve said before I’m not trying to tell you this is the best tank and you must have it, but if you bought one or are thinking of getting one, the purpose of this review is to help you and maybe save you some time and effort to get this tank to sing.
If you like my take on this review then great, if not, no bother, take it or leave it as they say. I’m always open to suggestion and if you think there could be further improvements, let me know.
Like many other potential purchasers, I scanned through a load of reviews, and after a little deliberation, jumped right in and got it.
As I’ve already mentioned there are lots of reviews out there, if you want details on all the features, specs, colours, contents etc. I’ll point you in the direction of the POTV review produced by @red5 available in the review section on the home page.
https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/reviews/rba/vandy-vape-kylin-mini-ii-rta.html
My review will highlight some of the issues I’ve had over the last couple of months using this tank and what I’ve found to overcome them.
It should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway as I have before. We all have our own ways of doing things and in no way am I trying to convince you that you’re doing it wrong or mine is better than yours. This is a great forum with some interesting characters and a vast amount of knowledge readily to hand. I find this is an easy way for us to learn from each other and if I can help out a fellow ape, I will do my best. If anyone reading this thinks they have anything further to add to this review, I’d gladly welcome their input and give it a try, even if it’s just to appease my own sense of curiosity.
This leads me onto my obligatory disclaimer… I have no affiliation to Vandy Vape, I purchased this item with my own hard earned cash, I do not receive payment for reviews and what follows are my own opinions based on my own experience.
There’s a pattern forming here… I know I said I wasn’t going to go into detail about the technical specs and all that, but there are a couple of things that others haven’t mention. Maybe it’s a secret? Right? So I’m going to say this on the quiet! Don’t tell anyone!
Capacity (The Dark Secret)
As you know, those of us in Europe are restricted to 2ml tanks, and the Kylin Mini II, is a “Mini” so it must be only 2ml. But Is It? The tank part of this RTA does hold 2ml, but the filling well has room for a little more juice. With the straight glass it’s possible to squeeze in a massive 3ml and with the bubble glass a gargantuan 5.5ml. So if you’re feed up with refilling your old tank every 5 minutes and looking to increase that to every 7½ minutes this could be the ideal tank for you.
Clean your new Shiny-itus purchases
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you just bought it, please clean it, no matter how shiny it is. There’s some precision engineering gone into this tank, during production individual parts would have been soaked in some form of oil, vaping it don’t taste good and you don’t know what you might be inhaling from it. It’s not stated in the manual, but in my opinion it’s a MUST.
All the other specs I’ve seen mentioned around are correct, the only other thing I can add is that with the bubble glass the overall diameter increases to 29.7mm.
Coil Type
There are two contacts on the build deck which are adequate for numerous types of coils, the space between the honeycomb air inlets would suggest you could fit a monster coil if you so desired, but I would suggest you read on before jumping in.
As with the Destiny I’ve tried several different coil types in the Kylin Mini II, mainly to confirm for my own piece of mind, it wasn’t just a fluke with the Destiny, and after all, there’s nothing wrong in confirming a consistency.
Due to the extra room available I tried out larger diameter coils as well. For the purpose of this review, and not to bore the pants off you too much, I’ll just let you know how I got on with a 3mm single 24awg, my favourite 3mm Flattened Clapton and a 4mm Juggernaut.
The 3mm 8 wrap SS316L 24awg coil (0.38ohm) was ok, if your vaping on a budget, or throwing away the coil every time you come to re-wick it then this will probably suit you fine. At 30-35W it produced dense enough clouds to provide plenty of flavour, once it was wicked right that is. We’ll come onto wicking later.
The coil type I’ve found, that in my opinion performs the best with both the Kylin Mini II and the Destiny is the Flattened Clapton, to save you going back to my previous review the wire I used was a 25/32AWG specified as 5.6ohm/m produced by The Crazy Wire Company. I will add though that the difference between coil type was not as significant with this tank, but was still noticeable…I think…or is it just my head playing tricks…maybe. Anyway it is my preferred wire and I’m sticking with it. At 3mm i/d with 6 wraps (spaced) it comes in at 0.31ohms and performs fine in this tank at around 40W.
Now for the big one, the 4mm Juggernaut. Being a larger coil, providing more surface area and taking up more space between the airflow, I expected big things from this, but alas no, unfortunately when your expectations are set high, you also set yourself up for a bigger fall when it lets you down. In my opinion this was a disappointment, no matter what I tried I just couldn’t feed the coil with enough juice to push the coil above 50W. I’ll expand further later.
Getting the original packaging out to use the straight glass for some pics, I opening up the bag of bits that comes with it. Just for reference the supplied pre-built coil is a 6 wrap fused Clapton (2 x 24awg cores with a 32awg outer) made from Kanthal coming in at 0.3ohms. Close to the Flattened Clapton above.
Coil Placement
This tank comes with a handy coil leg trimming jig allowing you to accurately trim the coil legs at various lengths. A large arrow on the side of the jig suggests you should trim the legs at 7mm and for a 3mm coil I think their suggestion is spot on. It lines the top of the coil nicely with the top row of holes on the honeycomb air inlet.
I have tried lowering the coil and the flavour does fade slightly, I think it might be due to the top row of holes missing the coil and diluting the vape with fresh air.
Now I have a confession to make, when I first started using this tank and fellow apes were asking me how it was, I advised that it was a great tank, but the only issue with it was that the coil had to be wrapped in a certain direction because of the coil contacts. What poppycock! but I will admit it when I’m wrong or talking shite.
It actually doesn’t matter what way your coil is wound, it might be a tad more fiddly but that’s about it. If your pre-built coils are wound anti-clockwise, just cut the legs to 8mm and cross them over, you might need to ease the coil up a bit to line the top of the coil up with the top row of holes, but that’s it, jobs a goodun.
Wicking
As some of you already know I use e-liquid at 70~80% VG which is a little on the thick side, this has caused me lots of issues with wicking this tank.
I’ve tried several wicking techniques on this tank, tried different cottons, followed different wicking guides, so on and so on. I’ve found two issues relating to the wicking on this tank. The first and most obvious are the tiny itty bity juice holes in the side of the coil chamber. Several guides tell you to make sure you don’t wick past the bottom of the wicking channel and sit you wick on the bottom ledge.
The juice passes through the tiny itty bity juice holes and absorbs into the side of the wick. By wicking this way you block up the juice holes, as you vape the juice goes down in the tank producing a vacuum, this causes air to be sucked back through the tiny itty bity juice holes in the opposite direction, with the cotton up against the hole the air struggles to get in and reduces the flow of juice.
The second problem is the straight glass, there’s very little space between the inside of the glass and the outside of the chamber, this dramatically slows down and sometimes blocks the returning air into the tank, this stops the juice getting to the coil altogether and dry hits promptly ensue.
BUT, there is a way to overcome this. First, I would say bin the straight glass, but no, put it back in the box, it may just get you out of a sticky spot one day when you drop your tank and the glass breaks, you know it will, and if you have no backup it’s even more likely, Judge Murphy has a lot to answer for. Put the bubble glass on, that's the first issue solved.
Now comes a wicking tip, thread the wick through the coil as normal, not too much, not too little, if you’re having to twist the cotton to get it through the coil, in my opinion it’s still too much (maybe a separate guide on this is needed). Now trim the cotton as if wicking to the bottom of the wicking channel. Rake though the cotton tails, not to thin them, but just to align the fibres as it helps with capillary action. Now cut the wick tails back further so the tail ends fall around 1-2mm short of the wicking ledge at the bottom.
When you fold the tails down into the channels dry you should see that the cotton at the back is slightly longer than at the front, leave it as is, that’s just how you need it. Now juice up you wick, lay it into the channel, tidy it up, put the tank together and you should be good to chuff away.
You would expect this to leak like a sieve, well, flood the chamber as this thing is leak proof. I certainly know I did, but it doesn’t. I was that surprised I had to check further. I left the tank full with the top unscrewed slightly overnight and it still didn’t leak. I think this is due to the sides of the wicking channel, they have been purposely widened as shown above. The distance between these edges to its diagonal opposite is 18.4mm, the same as the inside diameter of the chamber, it’s tight, not even enough room for a gnats gonad.
So anyway, with this method, juice and air can pass unrestricted, juice is absorbed into the wick at the end and not into the side, and you can get enough juice into the coil, but not a 4mm Juggernaut, still working on that one, I suspect some modification to those tiny itty bity juice holes would be needed, something I’m reluctant to do considering how well this tank performs with the 3mm Flattened Clapton.
Conclusion
I think this is another superb RTA, it performs just as good as the Destiny and provides the added benefit of being leak proof with the top air flow. This tank is currently a permanent resident in my rotation and in regally use. It fits in with my style of vaping, and when wicked well, this thing is outstanding. As I’ve said before I’m not trying to tell you this is the best tank and you must have it, but if you bought one or are thinking of getting one, the purpose of this review is to help you and maybe save you some time and effort to get this tank to sing.
If you like my take on this review then great, if not, no bother, take it or leave it as they say. I’m always open to suggestion and if you think there could be further improvements, let me know.
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