I love the Kennedy but folks should be aware of a potentially DANGEROUS flaw that occurred in the particular unit that I purchased. Also, this version is the competition version of the Kennedy. This defect is with a clone and I am not sure if it is found in the authentic.
I will expound a bit in case others have the same problem: To put it simply, the coils that I wound would only last for a day or so and would burn in half. One time I built a set of coils and they only lasted a couple of hours. Of course, this is not normal and I knew there was a problem but I couldn't seem to find the problem at first. My first thought was that the gauge of wire I was using was the wrong size (even though I knew better) and so I recalculated the current, voltages, resistance, wire diameter, etc ... and everything was fine. Even at the lower power settings of around 30W the coils would not last very long and would burn in half. So, I knew the coils themselves were not the problem. I usually keeps my builds at about 0.4ohms.
As always, on each build, I make absolutely sure that the coils do not touch any part of the connection posts or the metal top cap. So, since I could not see anywhere the coil was possibly touching, I was having trouble figuring out what was responsible for the coils failing.........
It wasn't until one day while I was cleaning the top cap and building yet another set of coils that I discovered what the culprit was..... The top cap on the competition version of the Kennedy has two long, hollow, metal, air tubes that come down from the area by the drip tip to about midway inside of the top cap. The air tubes are supposedly there to help cool the vape at higher wattage and vapor. What I discovered is that those MISERABLE metal tubes were so long that from time to time they would actually come in contact and touch the coils! Of course, this is disastrous because the outside top cap is negative in polarity and if it touches say the center of a coil then it effectively shorts out half the coil and reduces the resistance of the coil to HALF of what it should be. This thereby greatly increases current flow and burns out the coils.
Once I found what I suspected was the problem, I tried building several different coil diameters in order to determine if smaller diameter coils would be small enough to keep from touching those air flow tubes. No matter what I tried, I discovered that the tubes still touched the coils! Even if I kept the coils as low and as close to the deck as possible, the tubes still ended up touching the coils........ So, I then knew for 100% that there was a manufacturing flaw and that if I wanted to continue to use the Kennedy (which I love) then I would have to somehow remove the metal airflow tubes from the top cap. So, at first attempt, I tried to remove them by grabbing them with needle nose pliers and twisting them out. This did not work as the tubes are anchored to the top cap very well and the pliers kept slipping off. So, What worked for me was that I decided to use a drill bit that is slightly larger than the diameter of the tubes. The drill bit actually grabbed into the metal of the tubes and twisted them out in short order and all without damaging the top cap in the least.
So, now it is fixed and I have ZERO problems with coils malfunctioning prematurely, not to mention that it is dangerous to draw heavy amounts of currents with shorting coils. Of course, I do not know if this was a defect with just my particular unit or if it is to be found in some clones and knockoffs from China. It would not surprise me in the least to find that all of the clones where I purchased mine have the defect. I mean my gosh, they made the clone exacting and perfect in every way EXCEPT they made those air tubes too long and they end up touching the coils. Of course this type of defect can have harmful consequences, especially to new RDA users and coil builders. Not only is there the dangers of batteries but you can also wipe out the regulated board , if using a regulated mod. Even though regulated mods usually have short circuit protection, repeated shorts will eventually overheat the board and it will fail. Also, I know I inhaled much burning wire at times when the coils fried while I was hitting it.
I will expound a bit in case others have the same problem: To put it simply, the coils that I wound would only last for a day or so and would burn in half. One time I built a set of coils and they only lasted a couple of hours. Of course, this is not normal and I knew there was a problem but I couldn't seem to find the problem at first. My first thought was that the gauge of wire I was using was the wrong size (even though I knew better) and so I recalculated the current, voltages, resistance, wire diameter, etc ... and everything was fine. Even at the lower power settings of around 30W the coils would not last very long and would burn in half. So, I knew the coils themselves were not the problem. I usually keeps my builds at about 0.4ohms.
As always, on each build, I make absolutely sure that the coils do not touch any part of the connection posts or the metal top cap. So, since I could not see anywhere the coil was possibly touching, I was having trouble figuring out what was responsible for the coils failing.........
It wasn't until one day while I was cleaning the top cap and building yet another set of coils that I discovered what the culprit was..... The top cap on the competition version of the Kennedy has two long, hollow, metal, air tubes that come down from the area by the drip tip to about midway inside of the top cap. The air tubes are supposedly there to help cool the vape at higher wattage and vapor. What I discovered is that those MISERABLE metal tubes were so long that from time to time they would actually come in contact and touch the coils! Of course, this is disastrous because the outside top cap is negative in polarity and if it touches say the center of a coil then it effectively shorts out half the coil and reduces the resistance of the coil to HALF of what it should be. This thereby greatly increases current flow and burns out the coils.
Once I found what I suspected was the problem, I tried building several different coil diameters in order to determine if smaller diameter coils would be small enough to keep from touching those air flow tubes. No matter what I tried, I discovered that the tubes still touched the coils! Even if I kept the coils as low and as close to the deck as possible, the tubes still ended up touching the coils........ So, I then knew for 100% that there was a manufacturing flaw and that if I wanted to continue to use the Kennedy (which I love) then I would have to somehow remove the metal airflow tubes from the top cap. So, at first attempt, I tried to remove them by grabbing them with needle nose pliers and twisting them out. This did not work as the tubes are anchored to the top cap very well and the pliers kept slipping off. So, What worked for me was that I decided to use a drill bit that is slightly larger than the diameter of the tubes. The drill bit actually grabbed into the metal of the tubes and twisted them out in short order and all without damaging the top cap in the least.
So, now it is fixed and I have ZERO problems with coils malfunctioning prematurely, not to mention that it is dangerous to draw heavy amounts of currents with shorting coils. Of course, I do not know if this was a defect with just my particular unit or if it is to be found in some clones and knockoffs from China. It would not surprise me in the least to find that all of the clones where I purchased mine have the defect. I mean my gosh, they made the clone exacting and perfect in every way EXCEPT they made those air tubes too long and they end up touching the coils. Of course this type of defect can have harmful consequences, especially to new RDA users and coil builders. Not only is there the dangers of batteries but you can also wipe out the regulated board , if using a regulated mod. Even though regulated mods usually have short circuit protection, repeated shorts will eventually overheat the board and it will fail. Also, I know I inhaled much burning wire at times when the coils fried while I was hitting it.
Last edited:
