personally I really like a regulated mod. with mechs I feel like I'm changing out the battery once it drops off a little, but in the dna it can go almost twice as long without the vape dropping off, right up until the battery is really low, much lower than I can go on a mech without the sense of losing output power. I can vape at 5 volts actual, even when my battery is down to 3.4v for example. because of this I installed dna's into my metal reo grand and my woodville. both were done with extensions of the reo body to house the dna. on my metal reo I installed the module below the reo and added ~ 3/4" to the height of the mod, on my first woodville I added a side brass housing for the dna adding 1/4"-3/8" to the width of the mod. I originally wanted to add some wood to the side cap matching the door but it would have added thickness that I didn't want to add so I made it just all brass. I haven't finished the up/down buttons on the woody yet but I never adjust it anyway it just stays pinned at the 20w so these buttons have become low priority
the dna is actually flush with the body in this woody but the cap with the button raises a bit
now, my latest ideas are to embed the dna more into the body of the reo itself, keeping the same size as original with nothing added to it's size. I have milled out the bottom of my second woody and have made enough room for the module underneath the bottle and battery. the screen now will mount from the inside of the mod and it will be exactly the same size as a regular woody but with a screen embedded into the side. it will be all sealed up and covered and waterproofed of course. this one will now be dna30, haven't decided if I'm going to use buttons or an internal dial for up/down yet
the next reo with a dna30 I want to build is a lightweight swiss cheesed metal reo as soon as I free up some funds, I want to build it into the side, similar to my first woodville, but with a matching aluminum cover instead of the brass, perhaps matching the door for esthetics. then ideally I really would love to get my hands on another woodville to build one more really fancy one with a snakewood door and snakewood inlaid bezel. something really fancy and jewelry like for special occasions, so far my builds have been more about function and get used and abused every day but I'd really like to build one special really pretty one too
I can see using a metal body reo as a box for a dna mod I guess, I mean it's certainly better than an altoids box or some generic aluminum box, but then again I wouldn't do that, I'd rather keep it as bottom feeder. hell if I had a hanna mod I'd probably want to mod it to hold a juice bottle inside so I can squonk that too