What bad hardware have you bought ?

[Rule62]

I have enough stuff boxed away to start my own vaping museum. Stuff that I thought was the greatest at the time. CE2s alone went through 4 or 5 upgrades, getting them to not leak, or more accurately, leak less. I probably have unopened boxes of each version.
As far as mods, I always used tube mechanicals, before getting into squonkers. I always bought authentics. I've never been one to buy clones. They all worked. Some may have required more maintenance than others. But I can't say that any of them were a bust.
I just eventually found my way to mechanical squonkers, and that's where I've stayed, for the past 3 1/2 years or so.

 

[Alter]

I have had only a few bad buys in all my vaping years.
Evic with that crap software... bricked it.
DCT tanks and cartos...they were the rage back then but I had so many issues with dry hits and flooding. I took the cartos apart, revamped the coils and still problems. I eventually gave them all away.
2 years of spending untold amounts of bucks on tobacco juices that just open the new jug, take a whiff have a mild dry heave and never vape it....DIY and Hangsen concentrates solved that.
Not a bad buy but getting so frustrated with its 2 hits then dryhit, leaking right after a rebuild and its random juice dumping was the TFV4 RBA. So bad I shelved it for a long time but also solved that just recently by thinning the tails so its back into the game. Not a problem now with the TFV4 once I got its wicking down.
Again not a bad buy but bought without proper research is the Merlin and it has seeping issues from being a metal to metal pressfit base. Its a great atty for vape quality but very limited use cause it can't sit on a hitter with a floating 510 for any length of time. I'm not frying a expensive mod with a 20 dollar seepy atty.
As for hitters, so far(knock on wood) I've had no bad buys at all. Still use some of the old mechs bought years ago, IPV2, Istick100 and of course our provaris are over 4 years old and still going.
Generally speaking except for the crappy juices I've not really wasted much money on bad gear, looking at the bigger picture of the large chunk of coin spent on vape gear over our 4 years.

 

[sketchness]

Hmmm.

I would say the freakshow was a bust. Flavorless and leaky.

The Fogger v4. Could never get the taste of machine oil out of it. Airflow was restrictive, My vaping style not so much the atty.

For me the nautilus mini. Yeah I know it is beloved by many. But the coils would go bad to fast and there was a batch that were terrible. The base wound up bent after a short time. But that device showed me vaping could work for me.

All the single battery regulated devices I have ever bought. Once again this is my vaping style and not a device issue. Just not enough power to drive my favorite builds. And very diminished performance below 50% battery.

Edit and basically every RtA I have ever purchased lol

 

[TheTinMan]

The Digiflavor Pharoah and the Geek Vape Ammit dual coil. Both for the same reason, horrible leaks around the AFC ring. Still a fan of Geek Vape because my Griffins have served me well as has the Tsunami.

I would include the OBS Engine in the list but I traded it for a Limitless Plus so in the end I got a good piece of hardware.

Best piece of hardware for the price was the Smok TF-RTA for $5.95. Love those things.

 

[bombastinator]

Omg. By today's standards most of it. Stuff that was top of the line 5 years ago is pretty much junk today. There are some classic exceptions. Any tank that really doesn't leak or have shatters glass Hold onto. I'd say 90+% of tank designs leak to one degree or other. Almost any clone of a really complicated device like a kayfun 5 is almost certainly going to suck. Clone rdas though are usually pretty good. They're harder to cheap out and mess up on.

As far as really great failures go I had a smok pipe style mod that lit two batteries on me. The thing had no button safety system whatsoever. Another one was a A-mod clone mechanical whose "brass" turned out to have a really high lead content and turned my hand black.

Just to throw one probably contractor overtial opinion out there I label ANY device who's only charge point is micro USB2 as junk.

Micro USB2 has a massive inherent design flaw. It's fantastically fragile. This is why usbC got rushed out.

 

[vapdivrr]

It would be hard for me to answer. I've never bought a piece of gear that I thought was a mistake at the time. Plus, many things I've bought were things that I thought were pretty good at the time; but looking back in the rear view mirror, today they look pretty sad. But that's where technology was at the time, which is quite different from what we have today.
CE2s are a good example. They were my next step after cartomizers. I thought they were fantastic, at the time. But looking back; yeah, they were pretty bad.
After that, I became a big fan of genisis RBAs for a time. The first one I bought was a Chinese knock off that we used to call a 'DIDalike'. It was a knock off of an authentic genny called a 'DID'. It was a pain to build on, because you had to have fingers like Kermit the Frog. But once it was set up, it worked; and it was the device I learned to set up mesh wicks on. It led me to buying several much better gennys later.

Good Ole DID days

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[Sylvie]

since i started vaping in late 2009 and bought pretty much whatever new non-cig like stuff (other than my first cig-like kit that is) that came out till like spring of 2013, there are just way too many bad hardware/accessories to list, let alone remember which was actually bad/worse...i remember hating every new clearomizer type/version that came out, so i guess i will have to pick those as bad buys!!

i am more opt to remember my first great, best buy ever really, the original eshot phoenix rda i got in 2012, drilled a 1/16th air-hole and it was my first actual enjoyable vaping moment since i had started. that little thing kept me happily vaping for like 3+yrs straight after getting it, just loved that thing but, it did make all rda's i tried after getting it all bad to me (till recently when i got some RM2's RDA's, my second best buy!).

 

[vapdivrr]

Mini volt by council vapors was a pos, not sure why I even bought it...I think that was the only mod. As for tanks, bought a couple km3 clones for the wife and they were both doa. I know it's just bad luck on my part, and not indicative of most, but basically the only times I bought bad stuff is when I tried the lower end Chinese stuff...hopefully I'm don't have to put on my boxing gloves for this

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[Rule62]

Good Ole DID days

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The authentic DID was a good genny. Well machined, and fairly easy to build, as mesh gennys go. I still have a couple of them in a box, somewhere. But the DIDalike was a pain. If you could get a good build on it, there wasn't a genny you couldn't build.

 

[vapdivrr]

The authentic DID was a good genny. Well machined, and fairly easy to build, as mesh gennys go. I still have a couple of them in a box, somewhere. But the DIDalike was a pain. If you could get a good build on it, there wasn't a genny you couldn't build.

Never tried the didalike but remember it was one of the first clones I can recall. But as you said, the did, was awesome and was my first rebuildable

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[Rule62]

Never tried the didalike but remember it was one of the first clones I can recall. But as you said, the did, was awesome and was my first rebuildable

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It wasn't really even a clone. It only bore faint resemblance to the authentic DID. But there weren't a lot of genesis RBAs around at the time.

 

[KenD]

A bunch of Geekvape Griffins and Obs Crius' that leaked from between the air flow and juice flow control rings, and a Smok Tf-RTA that I never could get to stop leaking.

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[vapdivrr]

It wasn't really even a clone. It only bore faint resemblance to the authentic DID. But there weren't a lot of genesis RBAs around at the time.

Maybe something like the a7 compared to the Phoenix? If I remember they were kind of close, but then again different

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[DPLongo22]

So much opinion here, but I don't even value my own (in this regard) so I'll keep them to myself.

The one thing that I laughed myself silly over, and still do, was some plastic tank that was the rage at some date. Stardust something-or-other? Colored plastic, absolutely horrid/muted flavor?

I'm sure some remember it.

The Blu kit that I got, straight out of the vaping womb, that one didn't work out so well either. I said to myself, "I know why they named it Blu! That's the color you turn trying to get a decent hit off it."

 

[Kickingthesticks]

Couple mods I junked. Vaporfi rocket(battery died after a month) ipv 4( wouldn't read my atty) smok al85(dead on arrival) and many more clone rtas and rdas. Also had some fake lg browns that I junked. Can't forget the old rechargeable cigalikes. probably more mods where junked but can't recall.

 

[Grimwald]

There are several equipment purchases I made that I reget. Not because they were bad devices but because they just did not work out for me and my MTL style.

My absolute worst purchase was juice. I was just 3 weeks into vaping and it was the first holiday sale (Labor Day). Bought 20 bottles of the cheap tobacco liquid I was using at the time. 2-3 weeks later, I hated that stuff because my sense of taste and smell had returned. Kept it until Xmas and gave it to my son-in-law when he came to visit (never liked him much anyway).

 

[ENAUD]

There's a couple on my list, but I like to think about the things I bought that worked for me, it's been a journey. Best thing I ever bought was my first order of nic and PG and VG with a few flavorings...that was the biggest game changer. Once I figured out the DIY thing for my juice, vaping became pretty much a no cost endeavor day to day, so hardware expenses were pretty easy to write off if they didn't work out.

 

[six]

It's hard to define "bad"

... but once upon a time, there was boge-gate

 

[sonicbomb]

1. The abysmal cigalike that I got back in 2010, but it got me off cigarettes so in a way it was the best.
2. A Vapor Flask clone, inaccurate TC and wattage and a 510 that disintegrated after a few short months.
3. A bunch of Chinese RDA clones - screws that instantly stripped, useless o-rings and build tolerances, missing parts etc.
4. A cheapo Panzer Mech mod - janky threads and the worst voltage drop of any mechanical device before or after.

 

[dangkhoa02106]

Eh?
1. Fuchai: It is not bad but I don't like it so... It's bad. Ugly shape.
2. Aromamizer RDTA: Love the design, love the flavor but it's leak like a tap.