Hardest hitting China clone; out of the box

[Colonel]

I agree with much of this. China vs $ xxx.xx mod, whatever you like. Sure they perform different out of the box maybe, easy fixes. I tossed all my free vivi novas. I just dont like them. I use bottom feeds. Same quality? Sure. Different preference, yep. Juices and vapes are sooo different person to person. I hate my rsst even though my rda at the same ohm is awesome. Wick, wire, juice, battery. So many variables. Find what works best. Dont die of cancer.

But my sigelei works good. I need better batteries and did mod the contacts for a bit more power...but I dont have $ xxx to spend on some metal tubes. Others do, and I love looking at the pictures of them. Point being, I really dont think youll be able to tell a huge difference between 30 and 300 after a few weeks. Heck I love everyrhing at first amd always find somerhing better the next week. Haha. Last year I was so excited about the edo t.

 

[ukeman]

Things are in flux right now:
Even if you can afford a good mech... i mean one that meets all your desires, like in my case a great conductive tube with a flat bottom button that works great, flat top of course (rba's rda's), 18350 to 18650... (i don't like silver contacts- want to try brass or copper), you have to be damn lucky to find one at a decent (retail) price without a ton of markup.
I have an ELA coming so going to give rhodium a real spin... bottom button is not stand-up friendly, i can live with that... but to get the above, its not happening really.
I may seem picky, but is this really too much to ask for? No.

I've had P+, Legacy, Poldiac... the first two have standing upright issues, the Poldiac, silver contacts not for me.

If you're not a DIY type, clones are merely a passing phase that don't really satisfy for very long at all.

But I do like my K100's ... so far they are my favorite China mod.... and they are something to be tickled about for $25 definitely.

 

[donnah]

Things are in flux right now:
Even if you can afford a good mech... i mean one that meets all your desires, like in my case a great conductive tube with a flat bottom button that works great, flat top of course (rba's rda's), 18350 to 18650... (i don't like silver contacts- want to try brass or copper), you have to be damn lucky to find one at a decent (retail) price without a ton of markup.
I have an ELA coming so going to give rhodium a real spin... bottom button is not stand-up friendly, i can live with that... but to get the above, its not happening really.
I may seem picky, but is this really too much to ask for? No.

I've had P+, Legacy, Poldiac... the first two have standing upright issues, the Poldiac, silver contacts not for me.

If you're not a DIY type, clones are merely a passing phase that don't really satisfy for very long at all.

But I do like my K100's ... so far they are my favorite China mod.... and they are something to be tickled about for $25 definitely.

Ahh.. the ELA.. if it had a nice sturdy bottom, I'd have jumped on the preorder a couple months ago.. everything I want, but I can't have it falling over or worry about turning it on and off all the time.

On the subject of the less expensive devices... my $30 RSST performs just as well and is much easier to set up than my $100 DIDs. For my first mechs.. I decided to get the EA and a Roller because I heard different tales on the China mods and I didn't want to waste money on something that I wasn't sure would work well (been there, vaped that) Right or wrong, good decision or bad.. that's what I decided to do. Lately, I've heard some great things about the K100.. if it had been available when I was in the market for a mech, I would have probably gone with it.

 

[StaircaseWit]

While I agree a bit on the 'bandwagon' of voltage drop measurements, they're also very real.

Case in point: Months ago I got an iSeason mechanical (Adam clone, pinkie button flat-top). Out of the box it drops almost a volt and simply does not vape well at all. It comes down to the bottom spring. Replace it with a brass bolt or sand the tube to accept an 18490 and it drops 0.19V with a 1.7ohm coil on an AGA-T2. That kind of gain in vape quality can't only be attributed to 'jumping on the bandwagon', it's a very real gain in performance, and places is on-par with *much* more expensive mods in voltage reaching the coil, which is what we're all after in the long run.

 

[Lavaca5]

The Chi Chi / China GG / CCTS gets dissed regularly, mainly because they look as cheap as they are - or used to be, I should say. Some vendors are now selling them for upwards of $40, which I think is crazy. The Sigeleis, on the other hand, are often less expensive than the Chi Chi, but they look and feel more like their high-end cousins. In terms of functionality, however, the roles are reversed. Both of my Chi Chis worked perfectly out of the box - no sanding, no swapping the springs, no nothing. I've used them every day of the couple of weeks now that I've been futzing around with 3 different Sigeleis trying to bring them up to the same level of performance.

 

[Oktyabr]

If there was ever a Sigelei fanboy I'm it. Just needed to get that out of the way up front

"Voltage drop" IS an improvement to *minimize* a number, or taken inversely, to increase the amount of voltage making it to the coil... it will still never exceed what the battery itself is capable of... barring some new super conducting switch or something! We are working towards a net loss of ZERO. Zero is as good as it can ever be, theoretically, and no mod made of metal today will ever reach it. So we can only talk about how close to nothing we can get. Doesn't matter if it cost $30 or $300, the numbers are the same. We are talking about a fraction of a volt... if the loss is more than a volt it DEFINITELY can see a lot of improvement, usually with very little effort or cost. The closer you get to zero the harder it is to make any more improvement. It's the nature of the beast, so to speak.

I like to paraphrase another member of these forums: "It's a metal tube that holds a battery, with a switch in it. Not a magical flying unicorn."

I'll take the Sigelei #19 as an example, since it's currently my favorite mech. I *hated* this mod when I first got it. How could a company the size of Sigelei screw up a simple "clone" any worse than they actually did?!! Did they ever bother to consider that maybe Nzonic put both magnets in ONE end of the mod rather than one at each end? ......!!!!! It took a lot of research, including reading a LOT on this forum, and a lot of experimentation, but I'm now confident I can take a brand spanking new #19 that costs maybe $35... take a five minute walk through my local hardware store, spend maybe $2, and when I walk out again I bet my "modded" #19 has at least comparable voltage drop to other mods costing many times more and very likely better than some too.

The #8 is really an impressive mod. It's built VERY solid and actually has pretty decent machining for something that costs less than $30. I would have paid twice that price and still felt good about it. A couple of minutes with a tiny square of fine sand paper and it's good to go too.

Of course everything gets a dab of noalox on the threads (I use a similar product called Ox-Gard), but I would do that to a mech in the $200+ range too.

Why buy expensive mods? As mentioned: resale value (?!?!), fit and finish, *maybe* not needing to spend a couple of dollars and a few minutes to improve it substantially.

Why buy China clones? Well made and cheap as such a device can be, considering the very simple task they all have to do in the first place. *Readily available.* I wouldn't wait two or three months to get *any* mech, but maybe that's just me

Just my

 

[porkchopharry]

I think resale value is a big part of it. And I'm not talking gouge resale to the fashionistas. I think you can sell a "big" namer for little to no loss. Then again if you can get a clone for $20 is that a benefit? Maybe if you make that initial $150 investment on say a Poldiac, $200 whatever, you can always sell it for little to no loss and try the next mod....say a...Paps. I'm just throwing random names and numbers here.

I think maybe the best part of spending for the "higher end" is just the support you get. I wasn't happy with my Roller's 510 connector threads, Atmizone/Atmizoo sent me 2 new ones. Big deal? Well, they did DHL them to me all the way from Greece on their dime. So all in all with shipping they ate maybe $50+?

 

[Oktyabr]

I think maybe the best part of spending for the "higher end" is just the support you get. I wasn't happy with my Roller's 510 connector threads, Atmizone/Atmizoo sent me 2 new ones. Big deal? Well, they did DHL them to me all the way from Greece on their dime. So all in all with shipping they ate maybe $50+?

Sure, of course. You will never find support like that at the price level of most Chinese clones. But then again you shouldn't *need* it either, not with a mech... not if it's been covered by the community and found to work "as is" or with little to no modification.

Last but not least I'll hammer on the price point aspect again. One $200 mod I might have to wait months to get? Or five or six different clones for the same price that I can have by the end of the week? This I think is the main reason for the growing popularity of these cheaper alternatives... even with those that already *own* the higher priced bits of steel.

It's all about trade offs in the end.

 

[porkchopharry]

I agree I own a clone as well. But Poldiacs and Rollers/Dingos are readily available now for the most part. But I think it's something they need to do. I think other manufacturers are following suit. If you want a product to remain relevant you need to keep evolving, make it more readily available, and hopefully you can eventually lower the cost. Can't just sit on your backsides and whine about it.

Speaking of not needing to fix anything what's up with that GGTS clone? Last I read some dudes were into it for more than the original! They've got more gusto than me, that's for sure.

 

[Oktyabr]

Yeah, you need to see qorax's CCTS. It's a thing of beauty, etched by a jeweler and all. Just goes to say "cheap" does not necessarily mean "ugly"

Actually I understand that one fires pretty nice right out of the box. I don't have one so I can't say. But you might have brought up a valid point... a cheaper mod provides the liberty to "play" and customize. Who takes a PAPS or Caravela and torches it or has it engraved?

 

[Colonel]

Who takes a PAPS or Caravela and torches it or has it engraved? [/QUOTE]

I actually saw a post someone had 3 caravelas and one was torched. I thought to myself, he must have balls to do that (or 2 other caravelas).

 

[cowboy6591]

I was quite surprised when my under $30 CCTS arrived a while back. Performance out of the box was as good as any other mech I have including some that are many times more expensive.

Attention moderators web authors, Please put an auto-acronym identifier in here for CCTS I have no clue what that is.
Huuummm? Acronyms AARRrrggg!!!

 

[Lavaca5]

Attention moderators web authors, Please put an auto-acronym identifier in here for CCTS I have no clue what that is.
Huuummm? Acronyms AARRrrggg!!!

LOL! I know how you feel. The problem is that some of these go by many names. "CCTS" refers to what is supposed to be a clone of the GGTS - a dubious claim at best. It's also sometimes called a "Chi Chi."


EDIT: I just realized I answered a question about an acronym with a reference to another acronym. What a derp. "GGTS" refers to the Golden Greek Telescoping mod.

 

[porkchopharry]

I was referring to the GGTS clone by... is it Rainbow? The one that is already $100 (retail), looks like some guys are into it for more than the real GG. Not knocking them, just saying they have way more patience than I do.