I received my IPV D2 from NW Vapers this afternoon and have been playing around with it this evening. I'm thankful it came with the silicone wrap. The wrap is open around where your topper would go, and on the bottom of the device - where the out gas vents are. The wrap is pretty thin, which was fine by me, but I can see it possibly tearing in the future after taking it on and off several times to switch out the battery.
I had to slip the wrap off to get the battery installed. The D2's finish actually looks pretty good, but I'm aware the black painted finish wears easily, so I'm glad to have the wrap. The battery cover was pretty tight, didn't rattle at all, and was actually pretty difficult to get off the first time. I'm using new eFest 2800 mah 35A batteries because that's just what I happen to have. 3 of them.
Slipping the silicone cover back on after installing the battery was difficult, as the battery cover kept wanting to slide off while I was doing it. This is because the wrap is fairly tight all around, including where the the D2 nicely tapers in at the bottom.
Setting up the D2 has taken a little getting used to as there are quite a few menu options, but it really isn't that complicated. You click the power button 5 times to bring up a menu that shows one option at a time, including shutting off the device - which you would click the + button to select. Clicking the power button again and again runs you through other options you can set with the + and - buttons. Then you power button through to the EXIT ON screen and click the + button to get back to vaping with the power button, and adjusting power with the + and - buttons. For TC mode, once your room temperature topper is screwed on, you just press the + and - buttons at the same time to read the resistance of the coil and lock that in.
My coil resistance readings tended to run a little high over what was expected by about 0.1 to 0.2 ohms. I understand that is fairly normal. During normal TC operation the rather small, but bright when in use, screen displays joules with easily readable numbers, but the max temp setting and current ohm reading are rather small and difficult to read. Remaining battery power is well displayed, but just shows and simple and typical progress type bar, not a percentage.
I first tried on a Mini Nautilus with vAir-T ni200 0.25 ohm coils. A few Domestic U.S. reviews on these coils have been bad, but UK reviews have been good, so I had no idea what to expect. I slowly ramped power up from 10J to about 13.5-14J, with max temp set from between 370F and 395F. After several minutes of vaping, and finally starting to get fairly good results (with no dry hits), the coil just simply died. I'll see how well the rest of these I have work out, but I'm expecting they may all equally disappoint me. Next time I'll try the twice as expensive Vaporshark Mini Nautilus coils. No bad reviews of those I've read so far, but I'm not sure $17 for a 5-pack is worth it. The vAir-T coils where $8 for a 5-pack, so of course I bought 2. You get what you pay for, so buyer beware.
Next up was the OBS T-VCT 6ml juice capacity top fill sub ohm tank, using 0.25 ohm ni200 coils. Though not a perfect design (it leaks when the juice is low), the tank itself is pretty nicely made and has a nice combination of features. I got it on sale for $20, plus $10 for its RDA I may never use. Once again I started at low joules, and low max temp setting, and have been slowly ramping up both power and max temp from there.
So far so good with this OBS tank. I'm using a narrow drip tip combined with the air intake turned way down low for MTL vaping. I'm currently running the setup at 13J with max temp still set at a low 370F. That seems to work pretty well for MTL hits. My current juice is 12mg high VG stuff, but I've got some 6mg max VG juice coming in to try out soon. That'll let me run this setup for more vapor without getting too much of a nicotine burn. For sub ohm'ing with this tank, I'd definitely drop the nicotine down to 3mg or even 1.5mg as the throat hit can get that harsh when you turn everything up.
Thank you to those who gave me suggestions on where to start with my initial settings, and how high I should eventually be aiming for mouth to lung vaping with this device. Starting low and slowly working up has worked out well. It looks like I'll be keeping max temp under 400F, but will further increase power up from 13-14J as I decrease the percentage of nicotine I'm using in my juice. I'm keeping max temp down because tight, low airflow mouth to lung hits tends to run a bit hot with the joules set high enough to get satisfactory vapor production.