Vandy Vape Pyro V4 RDTA
Hello and welcome back! Today I have quite a treat for those of you who are flavor chasers and don't mind tooting out some big clouds (from your face, of course
). I'm constantly looking around to see what people claim to be "the best" RDA, RDTA, RTA, SRBA, purchasing them, and then being let down. In the past 6 or so months, I've seen a lot of clout around the Vandy Vape Pyro V4 RDTA, Damn Vape Nitrous RDA, and Vandy Vape Drop (OG and V1.5) RDA from a number of people claiming each of them to be "the best". Of these, I've purchased the Drop V1.5 RDA and now have acquired the Pyro V4 RDTA for the purpose of this review, thanks to Sue over at HealthCabin.
Understand that comparing a squonk capable RDA to an RDTA or RTA isn't directly applicable, as they both play a different role for a different setup/purpose. Even though the Drop V1.5 RDA does produce very good flavor, my liking to it is actually in the build deck - it's wide open allowing you to do some
pretty cool things with it. Now, if we were to solely compare pure flavor output, despite it's flaws, I can without a doubt say that the Pyro V4 RDTA is now one of the cleanest tasting and best rebuildable decks that I own. This review will remain as unbiased and objective as I am able.
Ready for some pictures!
-Main Features and Colors-
Color Options:
- Stainless Steel
- Matte Black
- Rainbow
- Gunmetal
- Gold
- Frosted Grey
All colors come with a black resin 810 drip tip.
Main features:
- New air path design to make smoother airflow and a fuller taste
- Increased e-juice capacity for longer use time
I have no experience with previous editions of the Pyro RDTA, but when taking a quick peek at the Pyro V3, I see these two things being nice upgrades. The airflow in the Pyro V3 was a thin band of honeycomb air holes that ran along the middle underbelly of the coils aiming to capture the airflow from the bottom up. The Pyro V4 took this to a whole new level offering honeycomb airflow fully surrounding the entire underbelly of your coils in a bowl shape, offering airflow from a much greater number of airflow holes, most of which aimed at the central point of the coil(s). I see this working well for both a single and dual coil configuration however, I think you're better off running dual coils simply to fill in the chamber space that may otherwise dilute the flavor of the vape.
Also, the tank has been upgraded from 4 mL to a 5 mL capacity from the Pyro V3 to the V4.
First off, this is a postless deck if you hadn't already noticed. The 4 larger holes surrounding the center of the deck are where your coil leads (legs) will be screwed in. If you're ever confused about the orientation of your coils, look for the PEEK insulator (the tan plastic piece separating 2 post holes from the other 2). Whichever side of the PEEK insulator covers the center of the deck, that's your positive connection. In this case, the smaller cutout noted by the [+] covers the center of the deck, and is thus the positive end. When installing the coil(s), one lead needs to be connected to the positive side and one needs to be connected to the negative side.
Using the numbered post holes in the right picture, you can see that post hole 1 and hole 2 can go together as well as 3 and 4. If you're going to go with a single coil, you can use this same configuration by simply removing a coil or, you can run them diagonally. In this case, you can run a single coil from post hole 2 to 4, or 1 to 3.
Whichever way you plan to build this, there's a lot of airflow directed at your coil(s) which is sure to guarantee at least a decent output of flavor.
The coil measuring tool that comes with the kit is marked at 8 for this particular deck. I don't remember if I went ahead and used the 8 mm slot or not. If you plan to use a single coil and go with a cross post coil installation (2 to 4 or 1 to 3 as mentioned above), I'd recommend maybe clipping at 9 or 10 mm just to make sure your leads will reach each post hole; enough to ensure they can be properly secured with the post screws. 8 mm is a good starting point for dual coils. If you feel your coils are sitting too high, feel free to clip off a mm or two.
Unfortunately the refilling process is probably the biggest irk I have about this tank other than the top cap being extremely difficult to adjust airflow and/or remove to refill after the reservoir has been filled. I'll talk about this more later. While I am able to seal off a 120 mL Gorilla bottle nozzle while filling the juice reservoir, it's very finicky. You must keep the bottle tip at a near perfect 90 degree angle while squeezing the bottle and the bottle must be over half full with juice, otherwise you have to tilt the atomizer to its side like you see in the picture above which enables juice to oversaturate the lowest sitting juice ports and drain out freely onto your hand and whatever else that's sitting below the atomizer. DO NOT fill the reservoir holding the atomizer horizontally to the ground. You can avoid this by making sure your bottle is at least half full of juice or not filling the reservoir all the way to the top.
This begs the question however; what good is an upgrade in capacity from 4 mL to 5mL if you're not able to fill the reservoir to the top - especially with this refill process being a bit more of a pain than most others? I think a downward slanted refill hole that's a millimeter or two wider in diameter could have alleviated pretty much all of these issues.
This RDTA comes fully apart for easy cleaning. This exploded view helps to identify what people are talking about if you're still in the beginning stages of rebuilding. If a tutorial says to remove the top cap, you can look at this and say "Ayyy, I bet they're talking about the Airflow cap!"
Also remember, if/when you change out the 510 positive pin, that the tan PEEK insulator (second item in on the far left) doesn't get lost in the shuffle. This will cause an immediate short in any mod. In a regulated mod, this just means the mod won't fire, but you may have a difficult time diagnosing the problem if you didn't know that a PEEK insulator needs to be there. In an unregulated mech mod, this could lead to much more drastic things like batteries exploding.
-What To Expect In The Box-
- Pyro V4 RDTA
- Accessories Bag (Lots of O-rings, 4 deck screws, Phillips Driver, Allen Wrench, 510 drip tip adapter)
- Instruction Manual
- 2x Triple Fused Clapton Coils 3 mm ID (inner diameter) @ 0.41Ω each (0.2~0.21Ω if installed as a dual coil)
- Coil Lead Guide
- Spare Pyrex Glass
- Gold-plated 510 BF "squonk" Pin
These photos were pulled directly from Vandy Vape's site. As far as I know, the TPD version will likely come with a rubber bung only allowing 2 mL of e-juice, not 5 mL. HealthCabin only has the Standard Edition available at the moment. I'm not sure if they plan on supplying the TPD version in the future.
-Specs-
- Dimensions: 37.45 mm height * 25.5 mm diameter
- Construction: Stainless steel, Pyrex glass tank, Resin drip tip
- E-juice capacity: 5 mL (2 mL for TPD Version I'd assume?)
- Deck style: Postless
- Coil options: Single or Dual Coil
- Squonk capable: Yes
- Airflow control: Dual sided airflow control ring
- Airflow positioning: Top airflow
- Drip tip: 810 resin drip tip (without O-rings)
-Personal Observations & Experiences-
The Vandy Vape Pyro V4 RDTA arrived in good health. The box is presented in an orderly fashion with almost everything you'd need to get it up and running. The Stainless Steel finish looks immaculate and isn't quite the fingerprint magnet you'd think it would be. The machining is top notch with very few things to be desired. However, this design doesn't come without a few flaws, as great of a vape as it is.
The kit comes with pretty much everything you need, with the exception of cotton wick and a flat head screwdriver. Now this may seem rather trivial, but why include a hex wrench and phillips head driver, but not a flat head to remove the solid 510 pin? Seems kind of odd to me, especially when they could have just thrown this into the kit:
I don't remember which kit I pulled this tri-bit tool from, but I store a few of these in different configurations in my rebuild kit for quick access.
This is the deck flipped upside down to show you both the gold-plated solid and squonk 510 pins. The solid pin comes pre-installed and requires a flat head driver to remove. The squonk pin to the right uses an allen wrench which they did correctly. I've been seeing brands such as Oumier with their VLS, Wasp Nano, and Wasp King (these are the RDAs I can attest to) using open ended flat head squonk pins. If you were to imagine the solid 510 pin above on the left with a hole drilled down the middle, so you see where juice might go if you're squeezing a bottle that's feeding juice up through the pin? Yes, right out the ends of the flat head driver slot. This creates a massive mess down in the 510 compartment of the mod, and is sure to cause issues down the road with juice eventually leaking into the mod. Be aware of this when purchasing future squonk capable RDA and RDTAs.
The picture on the left shows the tiny refill hole just above the knurling. Not only is this difficult to get juice into, but I believe it also leaks juice out of it. How have I come to this conclusion you ask? Well, I mentioned before that the top cap is very difficult to slide to adjust airflow and just as difficult to twist and pull to remove it from the deck. Every time I've removed the top cap, there's a solid coating of juice covering the entire area between the two visible O-rings encapsulating the refill hole. I can't imagine anywhere else that juice would be coming from. Furthermore, the leaked juice creates quite a suction on the top cap - enough that I don't dare remove the top cap while it's on a mod. You're sure to loosen or pull out the 510 plate on pretty much any mod over time - most definitely on press-fit 510's. Be weary of this Vaporesso Gen users. I've been removing the Pyro V4 from the mod to adjust the airflow and to refill. It's kind of a pain, but it's a fair trade-off for the flavor output.
I also wish the knurling along the bottom of the deck was just a tad bit wider. There isn't enough knurling between the top and bottom ring along the bottom of the tank to grip when trying to spin or loosen the top cap.
The top cap sports its own O-ring, so you're able to use whatever 810 drip tip you'd like that doesn't have O-rings on it. There's also included in the accessories bag, a 510 drip tip adapter as well. The knurling along the top is more cosmetic than anything. Even this amount of knurling doesn't allow me to adjust the airflow without removing the RDTA from the mod.
If you match the airflow slot in the top cap (near the bottom of the picture) with the airflow inlet on the deck, you can see how the airflow can be adjusted by spinning the top cap. The airflow is infinite meaning you can freely spin the top cap without it stopping. The variation in airflow is very well done (a full range of MTL to a DL) however, on settings of around 1/3 open or less, I notice a tendency for the atomizer to want to whistle.
Here's an exploded view to give you a better overall idea of how this thing comes apart and reassembles. The machining on this beast is spectacular, other than the tightness of the top cap. Still, I'd rather have it be too tight than too loose, which would likely lead to some leakage.
-Pros/Cons-
==Pros==
- No leaking other than from user error
- Very well built
- Stainless steel isn't a fingerprint magnet
- Airflow variation is very well done (MTL to DL)
- Honeycomb airflow for days
- Flavor output is outstanding
- 810 drip tip sits firmly
- 510 drip tip adapter comes in the kit
- Squonk capable
- Deck is very forgiving to build on
- 5 mL tank
- Disassembles nicely/easy to clean
==Cons==
- Top cap is incredibly hard to turn for airflow or to take off to refill once it's been filled
- Refill process is cumbersome
- Knurling at the base of the deck could be just a tad wider for better grip
==Preference Considerations==
- Missing a flat head driver
- No cotton in the package
- Any further airflow restriction beyond 2/3 closed can cause a slight whistle
- Can get a little warm when chain vaping with dual coils
-Overall Rating-
For the Flavor Chaser: 9.5-10
Overall experience: 9
Also, you can follow HealthCabin on
Twitter or one of their various IG accounts for product news and giveaways.
There really isn't much to nag on. Sure, a few things could be improved, but overall this is a great product. Currently at Healthcabin it's
$24.00 before S&H. If you're looking for a quality rebuildable that won't break the bank, has top notch flavor, and is very easy to build on, look no further.
Again, I want to thank Sue over at HealthCabin for giving me the opportunity to review this product. Hopefully you learned all you need to know about the Vandy Vape Pyro V4 RDTA. If you have any questions, comments, or you see errors, don't be afraid to point them out. Thanks for reading!
Happy vape hoarding!
