~The Billet BoX~

[syndicate2083]

night....out....?

6 weeks ago this past saturday my wife and I had our first son.

Feels like minutes ago, and like I haven't left the house in years, let alone being alone with the wife..

Wouldn't trade it for the world though

 

[2423kids]

night....out....?

6 weeks ago this past saturday my wife and I had our first son.

Feels like minutes ago, and like I haven't left the house in years, let alone being alone with the wife..

Wouldn't trade it for the world though

Awwwwww! Congrats my Dear! Many more fun filled years to come ( and you will eventually get time alone with the wife ;-) ) LOL! My "kids" are both grown (with kids of their own) and it seems like just yesterday they were running around driving me crazy! Sigh! Good times! My situation is a tad bit different than yours, but not totally ... Sorta role reversal! My parents are both almost 85 and their health is not the greatest ... Especially my Dad as of late ... Sooooooooo I'm back home in VA (my kids are in FL - hence my location of VA & FL) most of the time now. Rather confining sometimes ... But like you ... I wouldn't change it for the world!

 

[RichPA]

I actually had to hop in my car and go chase down my "mail lady" as she just threw my mail on my back porch with a "missed delivery" card. I'm out in the sticks and my mail person goes out of her way to NOT toot her horn in my driveway or do anything to get my attention. She likes being stealthy, even though I know her personally, give her yearly Christmas gifts and so on....At least she did actually come up the driveway and didn't just leave the "missed delivery." card in my mailbox down on the highway like she usually does. Sad part is she knows I'm disabled and I'm home every day at mail delivery time....but I digress....

Anyhow, finally got my Billet Bridge after about a 2 week wait from placing the order. It definitely works just fine, and is almost as easy to use / change as a Carto. I do suggest adding a few drops to the top hole on the heads before placing them in the tank, and even letting them pre soak in the tank for 15-30 minutes prior to first use. I have 3 tanks for my BB that are in constant rotation with different flavors. I will certainly be picking up a few more Bridges and phasing out the cartos over time, though will keep a few boxes around for emergency use.

My opinion only. so YMMV as to if you like them or not. I like em, and all my tanks will be changed over to use Billet Bridges, well, until the next latest and greatest comes out 5 minutes from now....

 

[Kataphraktos]

Disclaimer: I use all of my attys with microcoils and cotton. I find silica and Ekowool setups are less satisfying for me. My opinions will be colored by these preferences.

Test setup for BilletBridge, Ikenvape and Boge:

All 3 were set up to target 8.9 Watts. All 3 use Ahlusion Banana Cream Pie, 0mg nic, 90VG/10PG. I find this juice produces rich vapor, but the flavor is subtle, and can be overwhelmed in many attys. Disclaimer: the best atty for this juice IMO is the Diver, another reason I picked this juice, since it frequently occupies my BB.

BilletBridge: 1.8 ohm Aspire coil, 4 Volts. In the Billet Box, as it cannot work in any other setup.

Ikenvape: 2.2 ohm slotted carto, 4.4 Volts. In a GP SnP with SS tank, on Provari v2 Chrome.

Boge: 2.9 ohm slotted carto, 5.1 Volts. In a Phiniac Phinique with titanium caps, on a Provari Stealth Mini v2.5.

First impressions:

BilletBridge: First coil kept giving me dry hits. Swapped for a new coil, which is working fine. I concluded the first one was defective. Good vapor production, similar to a Diver. Flavor is there, but about 70% of what I get from a Diver with cotton and microcoil. Not a fair comparison, of course. I recently spent about two weeks playing with silica and a regular coil setup in my BB with Diver, and I can say the performance between that setup and the Aspire is almost indistinguishable. Opinions from silica lovers would be more valuable, but I'll venture to guess that many folks using the Diver with silica in a BB will want to try the BilletBridge, as it may give them the same performance without the rebuilding hassle. Let's not forget, there are many people who HATE the flavor of cotton, and find silica to be the best wicking medium.

Ikenvape: Pre-soaked it for an hour, adding drops as it absorbed. Feeding well, especially considering this juice is like SYRUP. Very good vapor production, the equal of the BilletBridge and Diver. Flavor: now, here's the strange thing. If I take five sequential drags, some of them have outstanding flavor, and some have almost zero flavor. The outstanding ones are at least as good as the BilletBridge. Please note: none of these draws are "bad", there's no bad taste, these are not dry hits. Probably needs some time to break in.

Boge: Pre-soaked as with the Ikenvape. Not feeding properly, not getting dry hits, just every draw is off, like it is on the verge of a dry hit. I may swap it out for a new one.

Short follow-up:

After letting the 2 cartos soak for a few days, I tried all 3 setups again.

The Boge is still giving me dry hits. I suspect a dud. I will swap it out and start pre-soaking a new one.

The Ikenvape got its consistency, so the soak must have filled out any dry areas in the filler. Really great vapor, and a stronger juice would have very good flavor, but it does mute the taste of this Banana Cream Pie compared to RBAs. But there is flavor, which is an accomplishment for any atty with such a mild, subtle 90% VG juice. Even some of my (now retired or sold) RBAs couldn't bring out flavor from this juice. I suspect cartos have somewhat limited flavor potential, as the coil is meshed in with the filler, and does not allow the air flowing up through the carto to effectively pass over the whole coil. But you know what? Unlike all the cartos and clearos and ready coil tanks I tried last year, this gives a consistent vape, feeds liquid flawlessly, produces good vapor, and handles a difficult 90% VG juice reasonably well, and without any burnt or metallic taste, the universal problem I have has with other cartos and clearos and ready coil tanks in the past. I imagine with a high-PG juice delivering more overt flavor, and perhaps higher nic for those who want or need it, this is a very solid and easy option.

The BilletBridge - hot dog. Vapor is very similar to the v2 Diver. Flavor is more pronounced than the Ikenvape, noticeably so. It's all about the airflow. The Aspire coil works like an RBA, air flows over the coil directly, no filler acts as an air baffle to keep some of the coil screened from the air coming up. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much, even though Konstantinos of Atmistique raved about how surprisingly good the vape was from these Aspire coils. Is it a v2 Diver? No, flavor isn't quite there. But I'd say that the flavor you sacrifice, if you are averse to doing the rebuildable thing, is a small price to pay for that ease of use, if that ease of use is important (which it is for at least 95% of vapers).

As with anything, that last 25% performance will take ten times as much work as the first 75% performance.

Definitely going to keep the Billetbridge as not so much a backup, but for short trips out of town, where I'd rather not take a rebuilding arsenal with me.

As BB production hopefully ramps up, I will be getting my "never gonna RBA" friends to pick one up along with the Billetbridge, as the two are a very clear upgrade - performance and aesthetics - from their current iTaste VV3s (a solid starter setup IMO).

 

[Logjam]

Does anyone actually give a rip?
Seems like someone craves attention - I am sure there are better ways, dive medic or whoever you are today

 

[Katdarling]

My first few hits were the nastiest dry hits I've had in... perhaps ever. Worked properly afterwards. I thing the coil needs a drop of juice dripped in before being inserted into the tube and tank. Not surprising, any coil&wick needs to be primed.

And I think my 3. something years of vaping need a drop of...
D'oh! Are you kidding me?? I never thought to prime it, or as Rich in PA (nasty mail lady Rich) said, let it sit for a few minutes. What was I thinking! Me of "soak yer karto for a week". SMH, and giggling.

Hmmmmmm ... I'm gonna take that as a hold on to yer horses ... ;-) Soooooo yep ... I AM curious and I did read about the Aspire clearo tanks awhile ago. If I remember right the coils didn't go much higher than 2.0's (or somewhere around there). Hmmmmmm .... Running a "tad" hot ya say? LOL! ;-) I'll wait.

And Noooooooooooooooooooo ... I don't remember what a night out is like! Ugh! But soon ... MAYBE!! I hope anyway! It is MUCHO needed!

No, let the horsies run free, ####. Get one. You know you're going to.

As far as warm goes, yes, it's a much warmer vape than a SR karto. Kata, the coils are 1.8Ω, correct? I'm not quite sure how to measure them. I did attempt the lovely multi meter maid read but I don't know where to put the leads. It didn't measure anything that made sense. And it certainly isn't a 510 thread so that one can connect it to an Ω reader.

Invitation still stands, VA/FL. The wackiness of Kali and this Kitty await your arrival.

 

[willowize]

Here we go again........

 

[Katdarling]

? ?

What was THAT all about?

 

[willowize]

Please return to regularly scheduled program.

 

[Katdarling]

Okie dokie, willow.

night....out....?

6 weeks ago this past saturday my wife and I had our first son.

Feels like minutes ago, and like I haven't left the house in years, let alone being alone with the wife..

Wouldn't trade it for the world though

syndicate, congratulations on your creation. I'm sure the day will come when you'll once again be free to feel the nite air and spend long hours with your wife. Say, in around 18 years?

I actually had to hop in my car and go chase down my "mail lady" as she just threw my mail on my back porch with a "missed delivery" card. I'm out in the sticks and my mail person goes out of her way to NOT toot her horn in my driveway or do anything to get my attention. She likes being stealthy, even though I know her personally, give her yearly Christmas gifts and so on....At least she did actually come up the driveway and didn't just leave the "missed delivery." card in my mailbox down on the highway like she usually does. Sad part is she knows I'm disabled and I'm home every day at mail delivery time....but I digress....

Anyhow, finally got my Billet Bridge after about a 2 week wait from placing the order. It definitely works just fine, and is almost as easy to use / change as a Carto. I do suggest adding a few drops to the top hole on the heads before placing them in the tank, and even letting them pre soak in the tank for 15-30 minutes prior to first use. I have 3 tanks for my BB that are in constant rotation with different flavors. I will certainly be picking up a few more Bridges and phasing out the cartos over time, though will keep a few boxes around for emergency use.

My opinion only. so YMMV as to if you like them or not. I like em, and all my tanks will be changed over to use Billet Bridges, well, until the next latest and greatest comes out 5 minutes from now....

Rich, now I don't like your mail lady.

Yes, the B Bridge does work, and it works well. I'm not sure I'd give up my karto use for them tho. One of the things I'm liking most about the Bridge is the change in flavor (more purity) and the increased throat hit. But I'm liking it as a change of pace, not necessarily as a "this is SO much better" vape. At least not yet. It's still brand new to me.

 

[Kataphraktos]

And I think my 3. something years of vaping need a drop of...
D'oh! Are you kidding me?? I never thought to prime it, or as Rich in PA (nasty mail lady Rich) said, let it sit for a few minutes. What was I thinking! Me of "soak yer karto for a week". SMH, and giggling.

I opened the first Aspire coil up, the bad one that wouldn't feed. I've never seen this setup before. The coil sits in the metal cup, and the outside of the metal cup is wrapped with a piece of some sort of fabric-like material. If you look in the juice hole on the side, you see white inside. That's the fabric wrap, which acts as a pre-wick of sorts, drawing juice in through the hole and into the chamber, at which point the silica takes over. Due to the tiny juice hole, it probably takes a while for that to get soaked from the tank chamber, wihtout an initial nudge.

Fascinating design.

The coils come in 1.8 ohm and 2.1 ohm. You should be able to get a multimeter reading. If you keep the Billetbridge ring attached to the Aspire coil, touch one lead to the Billetbridge ring and the other to the center of the pin sticking out of the bottom. Set the multimeter to the lowest ohm range, likely 200 on most. It may jump around at first, but keep the leads attached for a few seconds, and it should settle at the right resistance reading.

 

[willowize]

Hey Kataphraktos what setting do you set the ohm meter to read r wire when building nr-r-nr wires?. I've basicly been guessing the lenght when zapping wires by using an already made up wire I had on hand. I'd like to build a few higher ohm coils but don't know how to use this ohm meter (other than to check batteries), lol. Yep, I'm a girl, but I do have some good qualities at least I hope I do.

 

[Katdarling]

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much, even though Konstantinos of Atmistique raved about how surprisingly good the vape was from these Aspire coils. Is it a v2 Diver? No, flavor isn't quite there. But I'd say that the flavor you sacrifice, if you are averse to doing the rebuildable thing, is a small price to pay for that ease of use, if that ease of use is important (which it is for at least 95% of vapers).

As with anything, that last 25% performance will take ten times as much work as the first 75% performance.

Definitely going to keep the Billetbridge as not so much a backup, but for short trips out of town, where I'd rather not take a rebuilding arsenal with me.

As BB production hopefully ramps up, I will be getting my "never gonna RBA" friends to pick one up along with the Billetbridge, as the two are a very clear upgrade - performance and aesthetics - from their current iTaste VV3s (a solid starter setup IMO).

I lead the pack in this group, Kata. Firstly, I found the Aspire heads to be surprisingly good, and (like you) that was unexpected as I've never taken a shine to a clearo (top or bottom coil). Secondly, I do not want to wind wires. I don't want to figure out the resistance. I don't want any part of that. I just want to buy it, ready made, toss it on/in, and vape away happily. Your comment about performance hit it perfectly!

I still recommend the iTaste V3 as a fantastic, small footprint starter device, and a wonderful back up/out and about one as well. I have almost shelved my Twists and eGos for the iTaste.

I opened the first Aspire coil up, the bad one that wouldn't feed. I've never seen this setup before. The coil sits in the metal cup, and the outside of the metal cup is wrapped with a piece of some sort of fabric-like material. If you look in the juice hole on the side, you see white inside. That's the fabric wrap, which acts as a pre-wick of sorts, drawing juice in through the hole and into the chamber, at which point the silica takes over. Due to the tiny juice hole, it probably takes a while for that to get soaked from the tank chamber, wihtout an initial nudge.

Fascinating design.

The coils come in 1.8 ohm and 2.1 ohm. You should be able to get a multimeter reading. If you keep the Billetbridge ring attached to the Aspire coil, touch one lead to the Billetbridge ring and the other to the center of the pin sticking out of the bottom. Set the multimeter to the lowest ohm range, likely 200 on most. It may jump around at first, but keep the leads attached for a few seconds, and it should settle at the right resistance reading.

The design you described for the innards of the Apsire coil was what attracted me initially. It sounded like it was somewhat of a RBA/karto hybrid in essence.

I was able to get a read, thank you. The first attempt failed because I had the lead in the wrong place. Of course.
The Aspire heads are also labeled with their resistance (for those who are wise enuf to put on glasses and check 'em out)...

 

[ThreeDJ16]

Hey Kataphraktos what setting do you set the ohm meter to read r wire when building nr-r-nr wires?. I've basically been guessing the length when zapping wires by using an already made up wire I had on hand. I'd like to build a few higher ohm coils but don't know how to use this ohm meter (other than to check batteries), lol. Yep, I'm a girl, but I do have some good qualities at least I hope I do.

You can also use a table and ruler too. It is pretty accurate. Three inches of 30 gauge kanthal works out to 2 ohms and 3.5 inches about 2.5 ohms. So even though I have a good multimeter, It isn't a must. But if you ever want a multimeter tutorial, I would be more than happy to explain. Just typing on a damn phone right now. PM me if you like.

 

[willowize]

You can also use a table and ruler too. It is pretty accurate. Three inches of 30 gauge kanthal works out to 2 ohms and 3.5 inches about 2.5 ohms. So even though I have a good multimeter, It isn't a must

Seems like I've seen a chart somewhere about the measurement. Mmmmm must google this.

 

[Akdare]

Willow, I always wrapped the coil, torched it, clipped the legs short, and then zapped the NR wire onto the legs. Used a toothpick to keep the zapper from deforming the coil. Much easier on the welds. Took a few times of trial and error to get the right resistance, but once you've got it, you've got it.

 

[Kataphraktos]

Hey Kataphraktos what setting do you set the ohm meter to read r wire when building nr-r-nr wires?. I've basicly been guessing the lenght when zapping wires by using an already made up wire I had on hand. I'd like to build a few higher ohm coils but don't know how to use this ohm meter (other than to check batteries), lol. Yep, I'm a girl, but I do have some good qualities at least I hope I do.

i use a Tsaf VRD wire welder. On the Tsaf, you can clip a length of wire onto the two alligator clips, and it will tell you the resistance of the wire length between the two clips.

On any multimeter, you want to set it to one of the settings on the section of the dial marked with the omega symbol, the symbol for "ohm". You want to set it to the lowest possible number that is higher than the resistance you are measuring. On most multimeters, that is usually the lowest available number, which is usually "200".

Akdare would take issue with your gender self-disqualification!

 

[Kataphraktos]

I lead the pack in this group, Kata. Firstly, I found the Aspire heads to be surprisingly good, and (like you) that was unexpected as I've never taken a shine to a clearo (top or bottom coil). Secondly, I do not want to wind wires. I don't want to figure out the resistance. I don't want any part of that. I just want to buy it, ready made, toss it on/in, and vape away happily. Your comment about performance hit it perfectly!

I still recommend the iTaste V3 as a fantastic, small footprint starter device, and a wonderful back up/out and about one as well. I have almost shelved my Twists and eGos for the iTaste.



The design you described for the innards of the Apsire coil was what attracted me initially. It sounded like it was somewhat of a RBA/karto hybrid in essence.

I was able to get a read, thank you. The first attempt failed because I had the lead in the wrong place. Of course.
The Aspire heads are also labeled with their resistance (for those who are wise enuf to put on glasses and check 'em out)...

I have been preaching to a few modders for going on 7-8 months now about their target audience. Why are they making devices for what amounts to 5% of vapers, and ignoring the other 95% who want a decent vape with ease of use? Why are they ceding this market uncontested to the Chinese?

Just because a vaper wants ease of use doesn't mean they aren't willing or able to spend money to get the best possible device. I have a friend who makes gobs of money every year, the kind of guy who wears Prada every day. He'll never build a coil. Ever. But give him an expensive mod and atty/tank, made from good materials, that is easy to use and looks pricey, and he will jump on it. That's the Apple crowd, and it is a very large crowd.

Let the Chinese service those who want to spend as little money as possible, and the same modders can continue to make products for the tinkerers like me. But they need to start targeting what is probably the easiest crowd to please, and the crowd to which they stand to make truly epic sales.

The Grail here would be a device with the styling of a BB, the ease of use of a VW mod, and the sales/service/support of a Provape. Couple that with a tank/atty made from surgical steel and food grade insulators, that takes good ready coils like the Aspire, and you have the makings of a monster.

 

[Hrathor]

I need to get that wire welder. Thanks for the plug. I finally got my diver working good, but making my own nr-r-nr wires would be a bonus. I just used a coil jig I made and it Ida working really well with a cotton microcoil so far. Do you know how that TSAF VRD holds up to the mev?

 

[Kataphraktos]

Not familiar with the Mev. The original Tsaf was the original wire welder, which means Manolis (the guy who makes them) gets bonus points.

The Tsaf has an excellent success rate with producing welds. It takes 2 10440 batteries (included). The only minor drawback is you cannot charge in the device, you have to remove the batteries to recharge, and that means unscrewing the back. It is well built. If you want one that stands out in terms of build quality, there's the Wire Welder on Vaporwall. I have one of those coming as a second welder (good to have a spare of everything).