Hello Hiclass, the tanks you list there are exactly the tanks I have in mind and I can't decide which one to buy. I guess that in time I'll buy all of them, but for now I must choose only one.
Can you guide me a little ?
I like dense vapor and not too hot.
What I like to use now is kanthal 26 and 28 between 0.7 and 1.3 ohm, ni200 at 0.20 on TC, and claptons at about 0.5 or 0.6. Don't think I'll be going lower than 0.5, don't like too hot vape. Neither I plan to vape at more than 40 watts.
To give idea of the air flow I'm used to, I use the Toptank with the air 3/4 open for claptons and TC, and 1/3 open for higher ohms. Also had a Goblin Mini V2 that I liked, and used it on single coil mode with air fully open (that will be half of the air in dual mode)
Well, any advice you could give me regarding ease of use, leaking, airflow, and quality of vape will be highly appreciated.
Thanks.
PS: Forgot to say that I buyed a Serpent Alto and didn't like it, ended selling it. Tried everything I know (it's not much, hehe) and couldn't get a pleasant vape with it. Short capacity, short drip tip so your lips touch the top cap, couldn't get a dense vapor nor throat hit, airflow ring extremely hard to move.
Every tank I own has its pros and cons. When a tank has too many cons or a certain flaw that I couldn't put up with, I simply shelved it.
OBS engine:
The latest tank shelved by me is my OBS engine. I just couldn't avoid burnt hit when chain vaping with it.
At first I suspect it is due to the way I wick it, but then after a thorough study, I believe it is because of its airflow design. The air flows into the chamber from the side then up towards your mouth and you must place you coil rather high otherwise there could be less flavor and burnt-hit. There simply is too little air blows DIRECTLY towards the coil therein.
If you were to buy only one tank, my suggestion would be to go for IJoy Exo RTA. The biggest problem with this tank is the join between the chamber and the chimney. After extensive use for about a month, may be the quality of the o-ring at that join degrades, it become so easily to be unscrewed. 9 out of 10 times when I attempt to unscrew the base (for cotton replacement or re-coil) I end up unscrewing the chamber from the chimney. This can be a terrible situation if I still have lot of ejuice in the tank. However, the problem can be solved (if you dare) by applying glue at that join, i.e. you give up the possibility of disambling the chamber, chimney and the glass tank in the future. Another cons is the lack of spare glass tank (the long one), if you break the long glass tank (the one with 6 ml capacity), as at this point of writing, I believe your only option is to buy a new set.
For Merlin, trust me, you will ended up with seeping problem. I have used 3 Merlin tanks (I keep only two of them as of today) and they are from 3 different batches, all end up with seeping problem - that is you will find juice wetting the area between bottom of your tank and your mod. But unless your are very unlucky (like someone was, have missing o-ring out of the box), the seeping normally won't deteriorate to an unacceptable extend. i.e. you will need to accept the fact that every time you unplug a Merlin from your mod, you will need to wipe the juice smearing the surface of your mod near the 510 connector area and of course the bottom of your Merlin tank.
In term of performance (flavor and cloudiness), Merlin can't match the IJoy Exo. And remember, the latter has 2 other advantages:
1. Bigger capacity (up to 6 ml)
2. No pressed-fit base. You can disamble every part of it for cleaning or o-ring replacement. Even the AFC ring can be taken away from the base.
Man, I have written such a long message, but let me put my last sentence before I end this up.
I wish the designer of the IJoy Exo make a small and easy change which shall make the tank a perfect one - simply reverse the screwing direction of the join between the chamber and the chimney, make it anti-clockwise to tighten them and clockwise to unscrew them.