Merlin by Augvape and Roxy

[Alter]

Just wanted to add a quick update to say that I finally had my "Aha!" moment with wicking, after seeing this guy's easy-to-understand video

Thats great you found a wicking method that works. It goes with saying more than one way to skin a cat. I don't wick it with the wick sitting on top the well. I did try that method a while back to see if wicking was the reason for the seeping... it wasn't.
With rayon I thin the tails(after a few times I know how much to thin so just enough is in the well), juice the tail, comb the fibers(I use a dental pick and a box cutter blade as a base underneath the tail) all straight then trim to length, make the tail into a circular looking form and with tweezers put into the well then again comb downward so all the fibers are inside the well covering the hole and none are outside the well. Poke and push all the fibers covering the hole with so spaces then since I cut the tails longer than needed push some of the wick back toward the coil to be sure the outside wraps have wicking and not the top part exposed from putting the wick into the well and maybe cutting the tail a bit short.

 

[Fernando Mercerat]

OBS Engine Nano is one of the 6 tanks in my daily rotation: IJoy EXO, 2 Merlin, extended length Goblin V3, Ammit and OBS Engine Nano. I build 4mm coil with all of them and only use single coil deck, OBS Engine Nano. is good in delivering flavor and definitely NOT the last one in term of flavor quality among the 6 of them.

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.

 

[hiclass]

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.

 

[Fernando Mercerat]

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.

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. Already ordered the Merlin, I was in a hurry, a friend of mine will bring it to me from the US and he is returning in a few days (I'm from Argentina).
I can stand the seepage if it performs as I expect, actually I have a Toptank that has a little seepage and doesn't bother me.
Exo will probably be my next buy, but having disliked the Serpent Alto I tend to distrust the tanks with similar side diagonal airflow configuration (Ammit, Exo)
Thanks again and sorry about my not good enough english.

 

[hiclass]

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. Already ordered the Merlin, I was in a hurry, a friend of mine will bring it to me from the US and he is returning in a few days (I'm from Argentina).
I can stand the seepage if it performs as I expect, actually I have a Toptank that has a little seepage and doesn't bother me.
Exo will probably be my next buy, but having disliked the Serpent Alto I tend to distrust the tanks with similar side diagonal airflow configuration (Ammit, Exo)
Thanks again and sorry about my not good enough english.

I am OK with the "bottom up + side diagonal" airflow mechanism as in Ammit and Exo, it is totally different from the side airflow of OBS engine which lacks bottom-up airflow.

IMO, side diagonal airflow design is an add-on to the main bottom up airflow in the tanks, i.e. if you are not satisfy with Serpent Alto, the side diagonal airflow should not be the major factor, unless the Serpent Alto does not have bottom up airflow at all.

Ammit:
This tank is my third favorite (after Exo and Merlin).
But I don't like its juice well designed, it restrict the quantity of cotton one can place in it.

There is also a common weakness in both Ammit and Merlin tanks, that is too small gap between the chamber and glass tank. If you use high VG e-juice, you will easily find bubble get stuck at the juice hole... sometime covering the whole juice hole. I don't know about others, but for me, the bubble that get stuck at the juice hole is really frustrating - it implies I have a good wicking setup, the juice flow into the chamber quick and efficiently and the design of the tank simply can't catch up with it, the air that is trying to escape from the juice hole simply forms an air pocket at the door... man every time I look at the bubble, I have real impulse to flip my tank up side down just to get rid of the bubble...

 

[hertigg]

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.

I would not say it is a certainty that the merlin will seep. I use 3 daily that have not seeped once. Two of them I have been using daily since last July, 1 has been used daily (well actually 5 days a week at work) Between the 3 of them I go through about 20 mls of juice a day. Not once have any of them seeped. I had a couple of leaks when I was getting the wicking correct initially, but since then they have been dry on the exterior. I acknowledge that other people have had seeping problems, but some people have not had them.

 

[hittman]

I have four and have tried three. All three of mine seep underneath but it's not bad enough to not use them.

 

[sos2001]

I have four and have tried three. All three of mine seep underneath but it's not bad enough to not use them.

I have 2 4/5 Merlins (the 4/5 is because I killed the threads on the chimney of one) and still use them constantly...even with the occasional seepage. If they made a v2 that solved the seepage problem, I'd buy 10 of them.

 

[DaveP]

My Merlin 22mm (22.5?) with the velocity style deck is in the ultrasonic cleaner with some Palmolive dish soap right now. I'm hoping my Tootle Puffer build won't lead to leakage like some have experienced.

On my Pico it appears to be very slightly closer to the battery cap than my Kayfun LPV2. That's why I wondered if it's the 22.5mm edition.

I've settled on 2mm coils again after years of building 3mm and then dropping to 2.5mm about a year or two ago. The smaller the coil the more flavorful the vape in my experience. That, and the smaller coils seem to increase airflow for me.

 

[hittman]

Is the 22mm merlin the new version? I saw they were coming out with a new one a while back but it wasn't available for order then.

 

[Alter]

you will easily find bubble get stuck at the juice hole... sometime covering the whole juice hole. I don't know about others, but for me, the bubble that get stuck at the juice hole is really frustrating - it implies I have a good wicking setup, the juice flow into the chamber quick and efficiently and the design of the tank simply can't catch up with it, the air that is trying to escape from the juice hole simply forms an air pocket at the door... man every time I look at the bubble, I have real impulse to flip my tank up side down just to get rid of the bubble...

Thanks Hiclass....I have a airbubble that has taken up residence at one of the juice holes in my merlin and never thought to flip and spin the atty to remove it. I haven't noticed it be a problem, just that its there and drives me nuts to have to see it.
I have corralled the seeping enough by adding extra oring into the base and jaming a qtip shaft into the airflow so the ring doesn't move along with occasionally tapping the base solid again to still use the merlin regularly. Its vape quality with a nasty low ohm build is excellent enough that I can overlook the seeping even though it seeps very little now.

 

[DaveP]

Is the 22mm merlin the new version? I saw they were coming out with a new one a while back but it wasn't available for order then.

I ordered this one from FastTech in late March. On the bottom cap of the deck it says, "Merlin RTA by Augvape and Roxy". There's a number that I assume to be a serial number - 23151. It has the Velocity style deck with grub screws.

It's a black RTA that measures 22mm. The polycarbonate clear section was a smoked color out of the box. It had what looked like a defect in the finish. When I rubbed it with my thumbnail the finish started to come off in flakes! Now, it's a nice clear center tube section, which is fine with me. I don't care for looking through a smoked glass tube to see the juice level. I don't know if it was meant to be a protective coating to prevent scratches or what.

So, I put all the parts from the Merlin and the SXK Kayfun Mini from that shipment in the ultrasonic cleaner and let them run for about 40 minutes with some dish soap in the water. Everything came out nice and clean. I'm vaping the SXK KF mini V3 now and there's no oil taste or smell.

I haven't coiled the Merlin yet. It's next.

 

[MMW]

@DaveP the Merlin is 23mm

 

[MMW]

22.8mm.

 

[DaveP]

@DaveP the Merlin is 23mm

You made me get out the micrometer! it reads 23.02mm. Before, i just grabbed a tape measure and eyeballed it.

I calibrated the micrometer a little closer and I get 23.03mm. That's probably within tolerance for mass production.

 

[MMW]

You made me get out the micrometer! it reads 23.2mm.

Let us know how you get along sir!

 

[Alter]

The polycarbonate clear section was a smoked color out of the box. It had what looked like a defect in the finish. When I rubbed it with my thumbnail the finish started to come off in flakes! Now, it's a nice clear center tube section, which is fine with me. I don't care for looking through a smoked glass tube to see the juice level. I don't know if it was meant to be a protective coating to prevent scratches or what.

Polycarbonate? lolol. I hated the dark tube for seeing inside the tank so had a bunch of clear in cart ready to order but on the first wash I noticed my black was coming off so with a knife I scraped my tubes clear....happy camper. I have broken my 2nd merlin glass trying to get the tank apart, its cracked and still holding on with 2 thick vape bands while gearbest's singapore shipping is really taking their time(only place I found merlin glass). Even though I lube the orings before I put the tank together and being careful to lightly tighten the fill cap its still very hard to get apart again.

 

[DaveP]

Let us know how you get along sir!

I have it cleaned, dried, coiled, wicked, and juiced. The UC apparently removed any metal taste from machine oil. First vapes are surprisingly flavorful and mild at 10W. My 10 wrap 28ga Kanthal coil reads 1.43 ohms. The wide drip tip feels like a piece of 1/4" tubing, but I can change that.

I installed the coil in the bottom holes which places the coil close to the air intake. I left the insert in the air hole and with the AFC set to minimum it draws like my Kayfun LPV2. That's really good! I think it's a keeper.

Oops! I forgot to open the JFC and vaped the wick down to a burnt taste. Yow! After opening the juice feed up to a partial view of the wick tails and some primer puffs it's back to normal, but with a twinge of scorch in the flavor. Time to rewick ...

 

[DaveP]

Polycarbonate? lolol. I hated the dark tube for seeing inside the tank so had a bunch of clear in cart ready to order but on the first wash I noticed my black was coming off so with a knife I scraped my tubes clear....happy camper. I have broken my 2nd merlin glass trying to get the tank apart, its cracked and still holding on with 2 thick vape bands while gearbest's singapore shipping is really taking their time(only place I found merlin glass). Even though I lube the orings before I put the tank together and being careful to lightly tighten the fill cap its still very hard to get apart again.

The tube feels like glass to the teeth, but it felt a little like plastic to my tongue. It's obviously glass if yours cracked. If that's true, then it's not a tank I need to drop. My Kayfun with the polycarbonate tank has survived multiple drops on the floor. It's top heavy on the Pico. One touch and it falls over. It's hit the floor several times coming our of my jeans pocket.

My smoke tint came off completely with a little hot water and a thumbnail urging it on.

 

[Alter]

28 gauge kanthal is my fav wire with 28 SS running close behind. Thick enough to be robust yet thin enough to heat up efficiently. 28/32 kanthal claptons coming up as 1.2 ohm is mighty fine subtank vape with the provari. Looking forward to wrapping claptons with 34 so its ramp up time and heat transfer will be faster.