I know, wall of text. But if you are interested in the subject, you might find it worth the while. At least I hope so.
The KR8 and yours truly: That's not a marriage made in heaven. In fact, it's more of a meeting of two strangers in the night, not really expected to meet again. Not until they solve the burned plastic and the "gets too hot"-problem.
Let's start at the beginning
I have been vaping for two months now, on my beloved 510. Occasionally, I use a 901, and I do have a cigar, too, which I however use rarely. I first heard about the KR8 in a German forum, in a posting that came with pics of burned filling and a big, fat warning. Did not sound like anything I'd like to try. 2-parters are not all that popular in Germany anyway, and I don't think any of the popular stores even sells the KR8.
Then I came here, and a few people here promote the KR8 as if it sure beats sliced bread as the most important innovation since the wheel. In fact, listening to some people, it beats the wheel. Puzzled, I investigated. Checking everything I could find on the web, it seemed to me that several claims could just not possibly be true, while others remained questionable.
In the end, there was only one way to find out: Try it myself. (After smoking for almost 30 years, I figured, even if I'd get burned plastic, it could hardly make things much worse.)
If it came to the worst, I'd only waste 7$ for a pack of cartomizers and still have a cool 380mAh battery which fits my 901 atties and with an adapter my 510s, too, so I ordered. (380mAh battery, adapter for 510 so I could charge it in my 510 loader, and 5 blank cartomizers, all from heaven gifts.) It was delivered, I tried it for more than a week now – and I am still underwhelmed.
Now, as a fanboy already remarked: Me trying a KR8 and being underwhelmed was not the biggest surprise he ever had. Yes. Even before I tried them, I pointed out several problems that were due to design, and I was not mistaken about those. Not to mention that burned plastic, it would take a lot to overcome that. But I have done my best to be reasonably objective here, I freely admit that I was surprised just how good they can taste, and I do not think you will find anything here stated as a fact that just is not. Which is more than you can say for some people's claims. This is my personal impression of a KR8. If you have any doubts, check it out yourself.
I compared the KR8 to both a 510 and a 901, all loaded with the same flavour, Egg Liquor from TCT. This is a very biscuit-like flavour, which is neither too harsh for a test, nor too delicate. I also filled one cartomizer with my current favourite, but I think this cartomizer was slightly broken from the beginning, so I am not counting it in. (See here, and it did not taste all that brilliantly, either.)
The pros:
The cons:
Refilling:
I found three methods of refilling KR8s:
Whistle Tip mod:
There is also a related mod that does indeed make refilling easy: Remove the top and the silicone ring and use a 901 whistle tip mouthpiece. That makes refilling method one also very easy, almost on par with refilling a 901/510. (You still have to take more care and drip slower, but let's not be too nitpicky here.) You have to get the whistle tips first, though. (510 carts don't work, except the ones I have which are labeled "Smuke". Those fit even better than the whistle tip 901s.) And the vaping experience is quite different, too. While the KR8 delivers pretty hot vape after a few draws, with a whistle tip it is downright cold. Not to mention that at least my whistle tip sits very loosely in the cartomizer, so that holding it between my teeth is a bit risky. I most certainly would not try that while riding my bike. And considering that I do so without hesitation with a 510 at current temperatures (often below zero C°), you know I don't worry about loose carts/mouthpieces too much.
And wasn't the KR8 this absolute You'll-never-need-a-mod wonder?
Summary:
Don't bother. Taste may be great, just don't vape heavily, or keep several in rotation. Another undeniable plus is that they cannot leak. You can still overfill them, though, in which case they don't work very well, to say the least. I did that and it got incredibly hot. (Also, if you bother to learn how to refill your 510s, they don't leak, either.) You can get the KR8 going decently, although that is a lot of work and has quite a learning curve. Providing you don't mind the hassle of refilling them, they are probably not much more expensive than 3-piece PVs. Long-lasting batteries and cartomizers are nice, too, only, they also last so long because there is not all that much being used in the first place. Your food lasts longer if you only ever eat half of what you want, too, but somehow, that is not all that satisfactory. And the cart condoms. The cart condoms are great. I want to buy those in bulk. Without the cartomizers, please.
Everything else is either worse than a 901/510, or not better. Most is worse.
The very design is a problem. The execution of said design is cheap. (I know it is supposed to be cheap, but does it have to look that way?) Putting the actually atomizer right into the plastic filling is an invitation for problems. Such as burned plastic you will inevitably inhale. Refilling sucks. Vape gets too hot to be enjoyable after a very short time, and I refuse to rotate half a dozen of them things just so I don't burn my tongue! I don't mind rotating between tastes, but that is slightly different.
So, no, the KR8 is not for me. I'll stick to my 510, and when I want to vape delicate flavours, I use my 901. That is not exactly bad, either, and I save myself a lot of hassle – and burned plastic.
The KR8 and yours truly: That's not a marriage made in heaven. In fact, it's more of a meeting of two strangers in the night, not really expected to meet again. Not until they solve the burned plastic and the "gets too hot"-problem.
Let's start at the beginning
I have been vaping for two months now, on my beloved 510. Occasionally, I use a 901, and I do have a cigar, too, which I however use rarely. I first heard about the KR8 in a German forum, in a posting that came with pics of burned filling and a big, fat warning. Did not sound like anything I'd like to try. 2-parters are not all that popular in Germany anyway, and I don't think any of the popular stores even sells the KR8.
Then I came here, and a few people here promote the KR8 as if it sure beats sliced bread as the most important innovation since the wheel. In fact, listening to some people, it beats the wheel. Puzzled, I investigated. Checking everything I could find on the web, it seemed to me that several claims could just not possibly be true, while others remained questionable.
In the end, there was only one way to find out: Try it myself. (After smoking for almost 30 years, I figured, even if I'd get burned plastic, it could hardly make things much worse.)
If it came to the worst, I'd only waste 7$ for a pack of cartomizers and still have a cool 380mAh battery which fits my 901 atties and with an adapter my 510s, too, so I ordered. (380mAh battery, adapter for 510 so I could charge it in my 510 loader, and 5 blank cartomizers, all from heaven gifts.) It was delivered, I tried it for more than a week now – and I am still underwhelmed.
Now, as a fanboy already remarked: Me trying a KR8 and being underwhelmed was not the biggest surprise he ever had. Yes. Even before I tried them, I pointed out several problems that were due to design, and I was not mistaken about those. Not to mention that burned plastic, it would take a lot to overcome that. But I have done my best to be reasonably objective here, I freely admit that I was surprised just how good they can taste, and I do not think you will find anything here stated as a fact that just is not. Which is more than you can say for some people's claims. This is my personal impression of a KR8. If you have any doubts, check it out yourself.
I compared the KR8 to both a 510 and a 901, all loaded with the same flavour, Egg Liquor from TCT. This is a very biscuit-like flavour, which is neither too harsh for a test, nor too delicate. I also filled one cartomizer with my current favourite, but I think this cartomizer was slightly broken from the beginning, so I am not counting it in. (See here, and it did not taste all that brilliantly, either.)
The pros:
- Taste is good. It's even excellent, better than a 901 (because vapour on a 901 is fairly cool) and also better than a 510 (because it is less harsh). For about maybe ten puffs, then, unfortunately, the vapour gets to hot to enjoy. See below.
- Reasonably easy to use, as long as you don't want to refill and have enough light when you screw on the cartomizer. See below.
- Fairly large capacity for liquid (So has a 801, a cigar, or a mega-cart for 510s)
- Doesn't use as much juice or battery power as 510ers, or so I have been told. Hard to say, because I always have to put them down to cool off.
- 380 mAh batteries
- No leakage, due to design. (Can of course still leak from the bottom hole.)
The cons:
- Burned plastic. Yummy! Just a few pics: Burned filling I – II – III – IV – V
- Not as easy to refill as a 510/901, except with the whistle tip, which has other problems. See below.
- Expensive if you don't refill. In fact I suspect – but I have not burned enough atties/cartomizers of either model to say for sure – that it is slightly more expensive even if you do refill. Probably not a very large amount per day of vaping, though; a few cents at most.
- Vape gets hot for several people, so hot that some rotate their KR8s so they can cool off between vapes. I would have taken the possibility into consideration that I just got a whole pack of bad cartomizers, but then read about other people having the same problem. And I don't know, but remarks like "C’mon, do you really only have one battery?" don't exactly convince me. I may have more than one battery (and just for the record: I do only have one KR8 battery), but am I really supposed to rotate a few KR8s with the same flavour while out of the house, just because those things get that hot? I don't think so. I usually carry several 510s – but because they have different flavours each, not because they get too hot after a few puffs.
- Tricky to use. That is directly related to the "too hot" point. I found that the only way I could get more than maybe three puffs out of my KR8, I had to do two things: Make sure that the little gaps in the cartomizer were lined up very exactly to the small holes in the battery. That is not as easy as it sounds, because they are spaced out in slightly different distances. With the hardware I have, this is a matter of millimetres. With both my 510s and my 901s I just screw on the atty and am done. I also have to take the KR8 fairly deep between my lips. Now if you did that with your analogs, too – and many people do that – no problem at all. I never did, and I had to get used to it, so that the vape had an inch or two within my mouth to cool off, before it hits my tongue. Annoying, as far as I am concerned.
- Slightly uncomfortable to hold between your teeth, which I believe quite a few people do. The size is the same as round 510/901 carts, but those are slightly soft, while the KR8s are metal with a bit of paper around them.
- Paper label looks cheap. In fact, the whole thing looks quite cheap, on closer inspection. Which of course it actually is. (Yes I know this is subjective, but the white side of the black paper around my cartomizer stands out very badly.)
Refilling:
I found three methods of refilling KR8s:
- Remove the top and slowly, evenly drip. And I mean slowly and evenly, you actually have to pay attention, more than with a 510/901, because the cartomizers are very easily flooded. Works great for me, actually. Only, how exactly am I going to do that when I am not sitting at my desk? Or any desk? I need a tool with me at any time, and a place where I can put the top and silicone ring. Works, but not exactly something for when you are riding your bike or traveling by train or similar. And you are also not supposed to refill until the filling looks decently wet, as with a 510/901. So even that is refilling slightly blindly.
- Syringe. Works great as well. Means, though, that you need to carry a syringe with you, either a filled one or syringe and bottle. I already switched from a variation of the ADM-mod for 510 carts because this mod is easiest to refill with a syringe, and not that good with a dropper bottle. I like easy refilling, not one where I have to carry something that would get me a few very interested questions from every police person who sees me refilling. Hence it's Fluval and Straw for me now on the 510 – and certainly not refilling by syringe for the KR8, either.
- Dripping into the battery end. At least with this you only have to carry a dropper bottle. You need time, though, since it is excruciatingly slow, and you need to stand steady, because it is a very small hole you drip through, and you can really only drop one drop at a time. Wait. Another drop. Wait. Another drop. Wait. Another … Well, you get the picture. As with the syringe filling, you also have no idea when the cartomizer is full, so it is pure guesswork to refill.
Whistle Tip mod:
There is also a related mod that does indeed make refilling easy: Remove the top and the silicone ring and use a 901 whistle tip mouthpiece. That makes refilling method one also very easy, almost on par with refilling a 901/510. (You still have to take more care and drip slower, but let's not be too nitpicky here.) You have to get the whistle tips first, though. (510 carts don't work, except the ones I have which are labeled "Smuke". Those fit even better than the whistle tip 901s.) And the vaping experience is quite different, too. While the KR8 delivers pretty hot vape after a few draws, with a whistle tip it is downright cold. Not to mention that at least my whistle tip sits very loosely in the cartomizer, so that holding it between my teeth is a bit risky. I most certainly would not try that while riding my bike. And considering that I do so without hesitation with a 510 at current temperatures (often below zero C°), you know I don't worry about loose carts/mouthpieces too much.
And wasn't the KR8 this absolute You'll-never-need-a-mod wonder?
Summary:
Don't bother. Taste may be great, just don't vape heavily, or keep several in rotation. Another undeniable plus is that they cannot leak. You can still overfill them, though, in which case they don't work very well, to say the least. I did that and it got incredibly hot. (Also, if you bother to learn how to refill your 510s, they don't leak, either.) You can get the KR8 going decently, although that is a lot of work and has quite a learning curve. Providing you don't mind the hassle of refilling them, they are probably not much more expensive than 3-piece PVs. Long-lasting batteries and cartomizers are nice, too, only, they also last so long because there is not all that much being used in the first place. Your food lasts longer if you only ever eat half of what you want, too, but somehow, that is not all that satisfactory. And the cart condoms. The cart condoms are great. I want to buy those in bulk. Without the cartomizers, please.
Everything else is either worse than a 901/510, or not better. Most is worse.
The very design is a problem. The execution of said design is cheap. (I know it is supposed to be cheap, but does it have to look that way?) Putting the actually atomizer right into the plastic filling is an invitation for problems. Such as burned plastic you will inevitably inhale. Refilling sucks. Vape gets too hot to be enjoyable after a very short time, and I refuse to rotate half a dozen of them things just so I don't burn my tongue! I don't mind rotating between tastes, but that is slightly different.
So, no, the KR8 is not for me. I'll stick to my 510, and when I want to vape delicate flavours, I use my 901. That is not exactly bad, either, and I save myself a lot of hassle – and burned plastic.
