A few days ago, I received my Aqua clone by Tobeco (ordered from 101vape.com). I know that the aqua clones fall into the "hype beast" category, as in everybody who touches it seems to be raving about how great it is, but I have some issues with the apparently low quality standards that Tobeco put into producing this particular clone. I don't know if these types of issues are present in all of the aqua clones by Tobeco (or all Tobeco products for that matter) or if I just happened to get a sour grape. Here are some pictures of the quality issues I encountered.
First, a picture of the box for those who aren't sure what I'm referring to:
The first problem involves the "o-rings". I'm not exactly sure what particular material they are made out of, but mine degraded rapidly. I was not using any kind of acidic juice or doing anything else to cause this. See below for two examples, the drip tip o-ring and the lower deck o-ring (these images speak for themselves).
Luckily some replacement o-rings came in the box, so that's not a huge deal right now since I've replaced them but who knows how long these replacements will last. Moving on, did you notice anything else that was off about the image of the deck? Take a close look at the upper threading in the image below.
See how there appears to be debris all through the threading? This is just a direct result of poor machining. These are the threads you screw the "chimney" onto, and they are extremely crunchy and all-around horrible. They snag cotton like it's going out of style and cause all kinds of trouble. The last thing I want to mention is the air flow holes. Take a look at the image below:
Yes, those holes are so poorly punched that there are actually chunks of metal still attached to them. I was able to remedy this using a small ice pick. Nonetheless, pretty poor quality. There is no picture to represent the last issue I had but I need to mention it- the tank portion is incredibly difficult to thread onto the lower deck. It loves to go on lopsided or just not thread at all. It takes me about 10 attempts to get it threaded on there correctly.
I'll be doing a full review of this clone in the near future (the actual performance- as in the vapor production/flavor/etc is really quite good), but in the mean time I wanted to bring these issues to the attention of anybody looking to pick up a Tobeco aqua clone. I won't be purchasing any more Tobeco items and I look forward to trying an aqua clone by a different manufacturer.
First, a picture of the box for those who aren't sure what I'm referring to:
The first problem involves the "o-rings". I'm not exactly sure what particular material they are made out of, but mine degraded rapidly. I was not using any kind of acidic juice or doing anything else to cause this. See below for two examples, the drip tip o-ring and the lower deck o-ring (these images speak for themselves).
Luckily some replacement o-rings came in the box, so that's not a huge deal right now since I've replaced them but who knows how long these replacements will last. Moving on, did you notice anything else that was off about the image of the deck? Take a close look at the upper threading in the image below.
See how there appears to be debris all through the threading? This is just a direct result of poor machining. These are the threads you screw the "chimney" onto, and they are extremely crunchy and all-around horrible. They snag cotton like it's going out of style and cause all kinds of trouble. The last thing I want to mention is the air flow holes. Take a look at the image below:
Yes, those holes are so poorly punched that there are actually chunks of metal still attached to them. I was able to remedy this using a small ice pick. Nonetheless, pretty poor quality. There is no picture to represent the last issue I had but I need to mention it- the tank portion is incredibly difficult to thread onto the lower deck. It loves to go on lopsided or just not thread at all. It takes me about 10 attempts to get it threaded on there correctly.
I'll be doing a full review of this clone in the near future (the actual performance- as in the vapor production/flavor/etc is really quite good), but in the mean time I wanted to bring these issues to the attention of anybody looking to pick up a Tobeco aqua clone. I won't be purchasing any more Tobeco items and I look forward to trying an aqua clone by a different manufacturer.
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