Nautilus coils on eBay

[KonaNeil]

After being away from vaping and from the forum for several years I bought 20 nautilus coils for $20 from eBay
50X Nautilus 0.7/1.6/1.8ohm Head Replacementt BVC Coils² for Nautiluss Mini | eBay

I now know I should have read up on it here before sending my money or just stopped after reading in the ad that it did say "clone".

The box and the coils look legitimate. The only thing odd is the box doesn't say BVC. Installed the first one yesterday. It vapes at least as well as the real thing but has a funny taste like water from the fountain in an old funky gas station in the wrong part of town. After several puffs the taste minimized and I'm not even sure it's there this morning.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does cleaning them help? Any other suggestions?

 

[sonicbomb]

You bought knockoff dropin coils from Ebay, your'e lucky they work at all.
Officially made dropin coils are produced as cheaply as possible with possibly dubious QC to maximize profits. Now consider the potential QC and manufacturing conditions of your cloned coils, and that the vapor they produce is going in your lungs.

Saving a few bucks isn't always a good idea.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

After being away from vaping and from the forum for several years I bought 20 Nautilus coils for $20 from eBay
50X Nautilus 0.7/1.6/1.8ohm Head Replacementt BVC Coils² for Nautiluss Mini | eBay

I now know I should have read up on it here before sending my money or just stopped after reading in the ad that it did say "clone".

The box and the coils look legitimate. The only thing odd is the box doesn't say BVC. Installed the first one yesterday. It vapes at least as well as the real thing but has a funny taste like water from the fountain in an old funky gas station in the wrong part of town. After several puffs the taste minimized and I'm not even sure it's there this morning.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does cleaning them help? Any other suggestions?

It could be that they are legit but that they are the very old BDC version (bottom dual coil), which is why there is no "BVC" on the box (bottom vertical coil).

The BDC version was probably made with a silica wick so naturally they will not taste as good as the cotton BVC (although the early BVCs were not cotton either).

Or they are clones lol.

 

[r77r7r]

Never had a coil not taste funny to start. I just don't inhale first several puffs. Another guy here did fine with those clones.

 

[KonaNeil]

Thanks much for the input. It helped.

I switched back and forth with a known Nautilus coil and after a few hours the eBay coil tasted just fine. I'm still using it several days later though switching between it and a Sense Herakles coil in a different mod.

Looking closely at the Nautilus coil and comparing it visually to what I know is the real thing I see absolutely no difference. A part of my job for over 20 years was designing metal parts for a consumer electronics company. Knowing how difficult and expensive repeatability is unless you're doing huge quantities makes me think that these were made in the same factory with the same tooling as the legitimate Aspire product and while they could have been made surreptitiously after the Aspire product was built and shipped I think it likely that this is nothing other than real Aspire product being sold with the story of clones so as not to make the US dealers angry.

Thus now my only real complaint is that they took over 7 weeks to receive by which time from reading this forum I bought a more powerful mod then my old Provari and I'm likely to take years to use up the 25 Nautilus coils I just received.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

Out of curiosity, are they vertical coils and do they have the scratch authenticity code on the back.

Thus now my only real complaint is that they took over 7 weeks to receive

Well that seller from Ebay is from China and it is taking longer in most cases to receive orders from China due to pandemic and god know what else.

Glad to hear they are OK.

 

[stols001]

There were some rather elderly coils I got that were original (I presume) that had a horrible sort of plastic-y break in taste and whatnot. I only had a few boxes, but the authenticity checked out.

Some of Nautilus stash is made up from FT clone coils. I got a few, tried them out and saw absolutely no difference.

Of course, this is a calculated risk on my part but well, it' s been okay for me. IDK. Generally I do not buy clone coils on purpose but these were well-reviewed, etc.

Anna

 

[KonaNeil]

They don't have the authenticity code but in every other way they appear identical to recent production.

I tried a second one and it functions identically to the first: tasted a little off at first and then was fine.

Knowing how expensive tooling is and how perfect these appear and function I'm left believing that either Aspire is making their own clones so as to increase sales but not hurt their retail dealers or the OEM factory that does the production for aspire finishes making the legitimate orders and then surreptitiously makes more to sell themselves. Other than the authenticity code the only possible difference I can perceive is that maybe the legitimate ones go through a final wash to get rid of the short-term nasty flavor.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

I read once last year that, in china, all product plans are available to anyone and anyone can make anyone else's product. Therefore, you get clones galore. Some a good, some are bad and some are better than OEM.

I have no idea if this is true.

BTW: If you go on Aspire's website forum, they have a defamatory list of sites that sell Aspire clones, many of which are reputable sellers who would not likely sell clones. If a business does not buy their stock directly from Aspire (like a distributor instead) they will defame them as a clone seller. They would never get away with this if they were a US company.

 

[KonaNeil]

What you say about China is somewhat inconsistent with my experience designing products for an American electronics manufacturer with some custom parts acquisition and finished product distribution in China. When a Chinese company copied the look of one of our products our patent attorney told us that China has intellectual property protection laws but that their courts are glacially slow and that they're known for favoring a Chinese company over a foreign one.

As far as disclosing plans, in China and every other country I know of when you take out a patent you have to give full disclosure of what you're doing that's so special that it deserves protection, however in no country would you make available the computer programs that the machines use to make the parts for your product. Without these CAD programs a clone manufacturer is really starting from scratch.

Thank you for pointing out the list of dealers on the Aspire site. If the rest of this batch are as good as the first two I may use their list as a place to start shopping next time.

Getting back to the issue of the authenticity code on legitimate product, I don't know anything about printing but I would guess that it would be much easier to forge an authenticity code than it would be to forge a product.

All of this leaves me thinking that the authenticity code may be the way that a manufacturer separates the product that he demands the retailer sell at full price from the product, sometimes B stock, that he permits be sold at a lower price using the claim that it isn't his product. Wouldn't it be interesting if they did this in the car business? Would you buy a clone Mercedes for the price of a Kia?

 

[stols001]

I would never buy a clone Mercedes but that is because they suck.

I would buy a clone Saab but only because it would be the only kind I would be able to get. Sometimes if something looks like something and acts like something.... Who really much cares?

That does lead me to the question of like, replacement parts.

The way cars are nowadays I will be buying an AIRPLANE. I hate flying but it will be the only way for me to get any kind of a mental thrill.

Anna