Hi BC 80122,
That's a tough question to answer because there are a lot of dimensions to your decision. Its probably the most common question asked in the forum. I'm one person, so this is my truth. Caveat emptor.
The "state of the art" in vaping is a moving target for both mods and rebuildable devices, whats true today will be different tomorrow. There are two parts to your question, and one is technical and the other is aesthetics.
The technical part is function - does the rebuildable effectively support your vaping style and what you want to achieve? There are a lot of posts on the board that would constitute user reviews of drippers and tanks. Part of the fun of getting into vaping in depth is the research, spending the time reading the forums to see what other members have discovered and YouTube is full of reviewers presenting indepth breakdowns of drippers and tanks with pros and cons. They are worth spending time looking at before you make any decisions. If you don't like research, you're liable not to like this part of vaping. Those people should just stick with commercial tanks and replaceable atomizers.
The second part is aesthetic. What look do you like? This comes down to design elements such as color, size, materials, style, build quality etc. Answering this question is like estimating if someone will like the particular layout and furniture choices for a living-room. Only you can answer that particular question, and generally, you'll know it when you see it - again research. I know my aesthetic - I wear expensive watches so my aesthetic leans towards high quality complex items with unique look and qualities. Have you thought about yours?
For blowing clouds your juice will also be important. Higher VG gives you denser voluminous clouds, but it also tilts your flavor to sweetness and makes the juice thicker. This can gum up a tank, coil and wick faster so YMMV. In a dripper its not as big a deal as there is no complexity to feeding juice, but with tanks it can be a problem with some of them. You need a tank with great juice flow and great air flow (thats technical and easy to assess with research).
I would say watch out for "more is better" syndrome. More power, more wick, more coil turns, monster batteries, etc - this is cold war linear thinking. I've seen folks blow fantastic clouds at 15W with a regulated mod and a minimalist setup - its not always about more, its about the arrangement of the parts to make the whole. As I write this I am blowing great clouds off a fresh 1.3ohm coil at 10W with a japanese cotton wick off a regulated mod. I've also done it with a Kanger Sub Mini with a 1.5ohm OCC for $30 of an iLeaf mini. Remember Goldilocks? She always picked from the middle - thats good advice in vaping and in life.
Tools - you can get Gucci if you want, or not. You can build a coil with something as simple as a screwdriver with the right diameter, or you can buy a jig - several out on the market, a quick Google search will find them. I have a simple coil jig that cost $15. I like to pretreat my coils so I have a hand torch for that. Since I have a LOT of tanks and drippers I bought a tray to hold them (and its overflowing, I'll need another). I have different needle syringes for filling different tanks - thats for convenience and some cases necessity depending on the fill method. And since I have CSS syndrome (Can't See S**t) I have a tabletop light and magnifying lamp. To me those are my essentials.
For me being happy is variety and experimenting so I buy a lot of tanks, drippers and have a mix of 10 mods, some mechanical, some regulated, some expensive, some inexpensive clones. This is all because I chase the vape and look for new things - but thats me, YMMV depending on everything I just said and budget.
But these are my choices - you need to discover yours or you may just copy someone's setup and not be satisfied with the results.
Hope that helps. Happy vaping!
thanks soooo much!!!!
