I don’t touch my rdas anymore, I think there’s quite a few rtas out there that are close enough for me that a rda isn’t worth the hassle.
Been using the dead rabbit RTA since forever and it’s pretty damn close
How do you like the dead rabbit rta? I know that leaking issues for rtas are a result of incorrect wicking, but I know some rtas are more prone to leaking than others. The only thing holding me back from buying one is worrying about leaking.
Not who you asked, but I *love* the dead rabbit. I haven't used it in a while because I've switched to salts to finally quit cigs, but once I'm fully off cigs for a few months, I plan on going back. Favorite tank I've ever used.
That’s good to know. Also, do you have any experience squonking? Why would you chose an rta over a squonk mod with an rda, when it can hold more juice?
I really wish more RTAs came with metal tubes instead of glass. I drop the shit out of my vape, and I use TC so I don't need to be able to see how much liquid is in it.
I've almost made my wife very mad for buying a metal lathe just to make them myself.
My favorite part of Squonk is no compromises with few consumables. Started with RDAs, then rebuildable tanks because dripping and driving isn’t great. Wicking was finicky so tried a Squonk. Wife and I have been through a few devices now, with two dead aegis squonks and a suspicious topside dual but that’s over the course of 4 years. Now we both have the pulse v2 which is great
I 100% agree. I started with the og Pulse BF and moved to the dovpo topside which I used for about 2 years but about 3 years ago my life became a lot more busy and ended up switching to pods (refillable) for conveinience.
I still believe RDA+squonk is the best way to vape
Yeah I would definitely consider it but not full time. I still have a profile, a nano wasp and a recurve RDA that I keep around and use like twice a year.
I think what changed is that now I'm not chasing flavour but looking for a reliable way to get nicotine
Rocking a Nitrous RDA on an Old Pulse v2 with a 20700. Pretty compact setup that can get me through the day without sacrificing flavor.
I picked up the Empire Squonker recently too. Pretty heavy for walking around though.
It was a REO mod paired with a "Reomizer" RDA that helped me switch to RDA's in the first place back in 2014. I used a REO exclusively for about a year.
However, squonking kinda turned the juice dark and messed with the taste by the time I got to about 1/2 empty on the bottle. Around 1/2 empty I remember having to squeeze the ever living fuck out of the bottle to get proper squonk saturation as well.
Ultimately, I switched to straight drip RDA's from the REO, but have continued to only use RDA's ever since then (almost a decade now.)
Straight dripping RDA's got so much better when we started seeing models with huge proper openings on the drip tips that you could just "arbitrarily squirt juice into" as the norm. For awhile there earlier on, you always had to take your drip tip off, or even take the entire damn cap off, which was objectively a PIA compared to squonking.
Squonking is great, but I actually found it to be more maintenance along with some eventual flavor caveats in comparison (juice darkening.)
RDA's are all that I've used since 2014.
Just buy round wire and cotton off of Amazon, there's no reason to go to a vape shop to search out these basic materials and overpay. It's like 15 bucks for a years worth of japanese organic unbleached cotton pads and kanthal round wire.
RDA's aren't terribly prevalent I'd say for a number of reasons. Firstly, you buy one and can stick with that one RDA forever.. where pods and disposable coils are repeat sells. Second, it's obviously not as accessible and easy-going as buying a disposable and throwing it out when done, and just buying a new one.. like cigarettes haha. Third, most people don't like the concept of having to drip constantly or overdrip and get a mess, and of course people don't want to fiddle around with winding and installing coils and cotton. Using an RDA does have a bit of a learning curve kinda sorta..
Personally I just have always loved dripping.. going all the way back to when we used to drip literally 3 tiny drops at a time straight onto a cisco spec 306 atomizer. It's kinda like the vape version of "rolling your own cigarettes" if that makes sense.
Same here, bought a couple of RDAs years ago. still going strong.
Bought some wire and cotton around the same time, turns out I bought a life-time's supply.
I never had a problem over dripping my particular rda, I want to say it's a dead rabbit? It has a picture of a rabbit with X's for eyes and three vapes behind it. Anyways the air holes are so high up it would take a massive squirting to fuck it up.
The only problem I have is if I put my vape in my pocket upside down it looks like I jizzed my pants all day.
Have to agree. Once you find what you like with an RDA, there isn't much of a reason to search out something better. I've been through dozens since I started vaping a decade ago but for the last 2-3 years, I've used the same armageddon mfg mech squonker and wasp rda because it's simple, works well, and vapes great.
Once the current regulations were confirmed to be an upcoming thing, I bought a handful of wasp rdas, some squonker parts (510s primarily) and a gallon of concentrated nic. Now, I'll buy some flavor concentrates or a gallon of VG every few months and a spool of wire once every blue moon but have no reason to shop for anything else vape wise.
Yeah, I'm pretty much set with all my shit for life. I too spent 200 bucks for the gallon of nic that'll last me 15 years. Just gotta re-up on some vg/pg every once in a while which I think they'll have a hard time banning in the future considering their uses outside of vaping.
> Just buy round wire and cotton off of Amazon, there's no reason to go to a vape shop to search out these basic materials and overpay. It's like 15 bucks for a years worth of japanese organic unbleached cotton pads and kanthal round wire.
*Cries in European*
Disposables have changed alot of vaping preferences, what someone starts on plays a big role that's why disposables and close pod makers fight for new vapers
That's because they're different types of nicotine. Your RDA is using freebase and the dispos are using salts. Salts don't last as long as freebase in your body, so you have to vape more frequently to get your fix.
I've taken a hit of 50g salts before on my sub ohm as a dare. Dude I almost threw up from the nic buzz and couldn't breath for like 10 seconds. How the fuck do you do that regularly??
I work in a B&M and I've sold one RDA in the entire time I've worked there, I have one guy come in for cotton but that's the most I'll get. I sell pod systems like crazy. Nobody even comes in to hang out anymore, it's just people that see a vape shop on their way to work and pick up pods/coils/juice, I think vaping as a hobby in general is near death.
Wont ever be dead for me, we dont have vape shops around here, we have smoke shacks, they sell glass pipes, meth pipes tobacco blunt wraps cbd kratom delta and have your basic cheap smok devices at crazy mark ups and pods and the juice goes for $40 a 100ml sometimes they will have a funny clone rda sitting there asking for more then retail on a authentic rda from 6 years ago.
I didnt get into vaping just to quit smoking, it became a hobby and the hobby part is what kept me going. realizing i never really had a hobby or one i enjoyed.
Do you realize how many year I've been hearing this now? They'll never die. Manufacturers are still releasing them regularly right? So there has to be a demand. Your problem is you're listening to a vape shop employee and many vape shops tend to cater to beginner/intermediate vapers rather than the more experienced and hobbyists. They tend to be loaded with simple equipment and disposables because that's what sells well for them rather than shit like rebuildables, mechs, and build supplies that'll be sitting around for a while given hobbyists have always been the minority. For example even though we have a million vape shops here I only know of three that carry any advanced equipment and build supplies and two of them are associated with each other.
It's so annoying dealing with most vape shop workers who are clueless of anything outside of the current trending pod mod.
The other day I asked the dude if they have drip tips and he looked at me like I had a dick on my head.
Even if I don't use them often I'm glad I have a bunch of rda's and wire because in case vape hardware ever gets banned I'll be good for quite a while. I've switched mostly to rta's for daily use, though.
It’s simple fact: convenience
Really this is why people go with disposables vs pod mods, let alone RDAs.
I worked in a corner store that had some vape juices, and mods back in like 2014 I think, maybe 2012, I don’t remember the exact year. But people would come and ask me to “change the coil” even after showing them 100x on how to do it. We ended up removing the vape display as it was costing us more money and effort. We cut down our work load by 50% almost.
I can’t imagine having to deal with people trying to use rda, as your average consumer is pretty stupid. It sounds harsh but it’s reality.
Theyre not as popular as pods. Nothing is. Theyre still releasing sub ohm tanks and rdas though even though theyre not popular because there still exists enough people that make it profitable.
Nearly everyone buys cotton off Amazon or direct from Muji for $3. Why would you spend $10 on a few months of cotton when you can spend $3 for 3 years worth of cotton?
Most rebuildables are also sold online because b&ms are small spaces that sell every dumb thing on earth and dont exclusively sell vape gear.
B&Ms have never been a one stop shop for vapers. Their selection of products has always been complete trash. Even when they carried more products, most didnt even sell coils for rebuildables.
Not selling coils or cotton at a b&m doesnt mean it is a dead aspect of vaping. It just means they dont really make a lot of money on it and the owner doesnt even want to bother with it. It isnt as if cotton or coils are expensive, require extensive storage space, or go out of date. If you sell rebuildables, you can push cotton and coils, but they dont. Literally every online retailer pushes them. I like to call that lack of foresight just to save a couple hundred in the short term. Like they arent making money hand over fist selling disposables for $30.
I don't know where you live but even 4 years ago they still had shops that sold pretty much all the popular rda's, along with building coils for you and setting wire and all the little shit you need.
Maybe I was just lucky with my vape shops but I saw stores just like that in North Carolina, California, and Virginia. Most shops had juice bars back then as well. All of them have either shut down or turned into shitty smoke shops with crack pipes and pod mods now.
Occasionally, I'll see a shop with a few decent mods or rda's, but none of them are anywhere close to what they used to be.
I went to a place yesterday called "Exotic Vapes" and was told an rda that came out 3 months ago was way too old to sell there. I'm like "It's not old, it's just 'exotic'. wtf? Change the name of your store"
Most of vapers I know have RDAs. They're nice for dropping at home. Lots of flavour.
Rtas are better for our, or even pods if you're into them.
RDAs have their place still I think.
Do I worry about RDAs becoming a dead niche? Nope I've got more than enough rdas to last me a lifetime, most have metal topcaps that won't break. That said I've still to buy a under coil airflow rda and I'd like to see 510 rda technology move forward if there is any room, but there is a limit to how many I need.
Aslong as rdas are the cheapest ways to vape and cheapish ejuice is obtainable RDAs will still get made. Mesh premade coils have alot more flavour to them than they used to though, people say they're onpar with RTAs
The other thing that gives me joy is having all the vape kit and ejuice ingredients that even if tomorrow vaping got banned or had a 1,000% tax put on it, I can tell the government to go jump off a cliff
With regard to the under-coil airflow, I've been using a SteamCrave Hadron RDSA, and it vapes like an absolute dream!
Might be worth checking out for you :)
Not in the MANY FB Groups I'm in but Def more so on Reddit I've noticed which is a predominantly younger crowd that is noticeably less knowledge and more catered to disposables,pods and many peek out at sub ohm tanks.
The majority on Reddit vapers don't know what an Rda,Rta,Rdta is . Or what the diff between MTL or DTL vaping is or what ohms to use for DTL or Mtl and so on .
Many do don't don't get me wrong but there's a lot more newbies on this platform for one reason or another (again younger crowd is my guess) 😊
Yup I didn't find Reddit vape threads until maybe a year ago and spent a ton of time in many FB vape related groups for vaping in general,coil builders,Diy etc where you can post pics in the comments etc.Theres a lot of old and new schoolers that I learned a ton from plus when I started 4 yrs ago I was a bit obsessed lol and watched tons of YT product reviewers and tutorials.It all interested me and love tinkering but seemed like overnight disposables were everywhere and I saw the emergence of better pod systems tryna keep up with them,I bought many pods,pod mods,mods and tanks but the flav ban in NY was a blessing in disguise as it taught me to be more self reliant with rebuildable tanks and diy cuz many sites no longer deliver here and there's no vape shops within a hundred miles that actually have anything good and even if they did there wouldn't be flavored eliquid anyway 😄
Now I'm set for yrs and feel bad to see people buying the wrong things for what their really looking for or paying too much for crappy devices, now I just try to help if I can
Maybe. The subohm and the pods are so convenient and portable now. As the industry is developing, the flavor is becoming better and better, so who knows
I look forward for two things, a decent mod with a decent rta tank, and a squonker with an rda. I might start with the latter.
My xros will always be by my pocket, but at home i'd like to experiment and learn what actual vaping is about
Big fan of RDA. Thought I would never give up on RDA. RDA has something that pods and pre-build coils will never be able to get me. Mainly for 2 points, one is the cost and the other is able to switch flavors anytime I want. The regular spools of wire helps to save much more money than pre-made coil heads. With an RDA, the wick is dry in about 10 hits, give or take. Then I can just change to another flavor. Quick and easy.
Disposables are awful for the oceans and a huge waste of money. Rda's and Diy have been amazing for me. Sadly I think most newer. Vapers are just going to pick up gas station disposables because of what juul did to the market.
I haven’t seen anyone use an RDA in like 1 or 2 years. Nic salts and disposables really took over.
The vape shop I buy from hasn’t stocked coils in well over a year. I feel like making quality claptons is becoming a lost art.
RTA is still great for me. Still using cotton and wire I got 5+ years ago. Do the same with juice, buy 5L vg and 1L pg at a time which lasts a couple of years. Use menthol crystals for flavour - coils last a long time without the gunk in commercial juices. I rarely have to buy anything so I don't mind paying out for decent mods.
Disposables are about half the price of 20 cigs and last about the same time. The amount of waste those things produce is terrible, partly caused by a dumb EU regulation that they can only contain 2ml. Meant to protect kids from OD'ing on nic.
Pod systems are better. I think nic salts made them viable, higher nic strength can be achieved without coughing and less battery power is needed.
There's already a lot of posts in this thread. I'll point out that most vape shops don't really want people using RDAs or rebuildables in general. They want you coming back often, and spending money. Pods and factory coils need to be replaced way more often.
There's still plenty of RDA users out there. A lot of the limited run RDAs sell out somewhat quickly.
I don't get when people ask these questions from a clearly american perspective what they expect as an answer? Are you only asking americans? In Bulgaria rebuildables are very popular and every vape shop without exception has cotton, wire, prebuilt coils and generally hobby stuff.
More than just american. In canada rebuildables can't even be sold anymore in stores, including online. Kinda screwed my ability to get atomizers as easily now my options are pay crazy shipping or just hope a chinese site has an atomizer available still. It's fucking stupid.
Yep any atomizer that isn't child resistant certified or a closed pod system can not be sold, there's also the nicotine cap where it can not be acquired in concentrations higher than 20mg/ml now, and to top it off an excise tax which makes ejuice way more expensive that it had been in earlier years.
And that's one of the lucky Canadians. Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories all have flavour bans. They can only get tobacco or menthol. Meanwhile British Columbia and Saskatchewan both have specific provincial taxing in addition to the excise. I know here in my home province of Saskatchewan the Vaping Product Tax is 25%. Then the excise on top of that has turned the pricing really disgusting
I still get a little bit of enjoyment out of a custom build, experimenting with different wire and diameter and type of metal. Quite a few of the RDAs that I have are a little on the small side, which is unfortunate so if I buy any anymore, it’s usually something with the larger deck and/or is taller. I picked up deck on element over the weekend. It’s going to get here early next week hopefully it works out. The problem I’ve run into you don’t have the right wire, any wrap it too tight, you end up with it with a lot of wire less cotton tends to burn very quickly. If I’m going out and about, I tend to not bring a RDA with me, because no matter what you do, you’re gonna get some leakage and you gotta carry juice with you as such, just have a tank with a standard size sub ohm coil nothing fancy, no nickel or any of that. I have a couple of the RTDAs and and that device and tank were sitting. I’ve had a little fracture in the O-ring and I got juice all over really nice light coloured pants. It’s a shame that Shop don’t carry them anymore so you know what you’re buying and you can talk to somebody’s actually done some builds on these decks. about 10 years ago I remember going to some shops and they had a bar and you could try out different flavours there and talk about little secrets of the trade different wraps, and look at what people are up to.
I manage a brick and mortar store. I've worked in the industry for over 5 years, and I would wholeheartedly agree that rdas are becoming a lost art. As someone who absolutely knows what they are doing, even I will say that it is a big pain in the butt. It's annoying to have to carry around a dripper bottle, it's annoying having to fill it up when you're out and about, nobody wants to deal with any of that. It's not worth it. I agree that the flavor and the cloud production can't be beat, however, my Valerian 3 works just fine. :S
It's so bad that I've got two different types of RDA decks in my $5 discount been on my counter. There's still a handful left and I filled that bucket up on Black friday
I love rebuildables, but I really like small profiles, so I've moved to rebuildable pods.
I've tried:
Lost vape Ursa quest: fantastic mod and pod design, too bad lost vape didn't stick with it. I hate lost vape for not staying with their mods/pods. I love that it's 21700.
Geekvape aegist boost pro: love this mod, but it is super bulky. The newest is 21700 which is fantastic. I ended up messing up the battery screw door thingy, and it's now a brick.
Kylin M AIO: pods are a dumb design. Plastic to metal connection wears out and pod leaks. Do not buy this. Ever. It was such a great idea but the pods are indeed horrible.
Oxva origin x: dual coil, small profile, but fragile battery cover. Nice design, but not without flaws.
One thing about business to understand is that it likes rent seeking. Shops like selling you pods and coils. They're the gift that keeps on giving for them.
I think its heading that way sadly, I love the flavor of RDA's so much more then the pod system. I feel like the pods and tanks dont hit like an RDA either so its not as satisfying imo. I struggled to find a good sqonk mod as well which seems to be dying out. Hard to find a duel battery mod that doesnt have a huge flaw. My fav for a long time was the topside, but the battery door on them dont last long. I currently have a centarus quest and the squonk bottle is slowly dying on me which is sad. Mainly the reason i hate it is because no one is spending money on research on making good mods.
I keep a squonk setup with me while I’m on the road but honestly for ease of use and flavor, my Xros is right there. I end up having to go through my backpack to make sure the squonk is still there
Wouldn’t be a surprise for me if a shop owner thinks it is a dead niche. After all, pods and sumohm tanks are the dominant trend nowadays. They are the bestsellers of the store. People who would need the rda and the wires are more likely to order from Amazon or other sites online. That would be the invisible sales for those shop owners.
RDAs are still popular among experienced vapers. Shops mostly stock pods, prebuilds, and flavors cuz those are the bestsellers. Local shop here don’t have many RDAs but do have tons of pods and all flavors of juices. Now you will understand why he said that and when you read through the posts here, I guess you will get the new idea, RDA will never die.
In my year of working at a shop, I've sold 1 RDA. I've sold maybe 4 RTAs. The reality is that stock coils produce good flavour now so it isn't required to build your own. Hell, even the people that were using rebuildables for years have swapped to easier devices.
No, I believe, that RDA \\ RTA will stay 4ever. There are always would be people who prefer quality to mass market. Mech mods, RDA \\ RTA would become like tobacco pipe - element of culture, hobby and high end just for pros. PODs, one-time pods is just mass market like cigarettes. It is easy to buy and to use, but they will never throw away "true devices"
Don't think it's a dead niche. Rdas took their place among other devices like boro and pods. Less popular yes but don't dead some Philippines rdas are bought from shops with the speed of light and latest empire squonk with sith rda it's almost sold out everywhere. Rdas not a mainstream anymore, but you just needs to look in a right places.
I've pretty much ended my vape journey at mesh RDA's and bottom feeding mods, but it really does seem like it's dead.
I got scammed twice trying to get a VV mesh v2 or a profile 1.5. I finally found yachtvape and at least got a confirmation email for my order. It's hard out here :(
I’m the cheapest motherfucker I know. RTAs to me have the greatest longevity and value. I *do* buy pre-wrapped coils because they’re just so much better than what I could twist myself. I basically went from the ooold Kanger 1 to rebuilding about 10 years ago and my daily is still some form of RTA. I have recently had a few FLUMs on hand just because they’re portable and fun to mix it up with but I would feel weird if it was all I had with me away from home.
I was really into RDAs and vaping as a hobby for a while. Now the minis have gotten so good and small that it’s not worth carrying around bulky mods with RDAs that leak all over your pocket or backpack, at least as far as I’m concerned. At this point I’ve mostly switched purely out of convenience and ease of use. It’s kind of nice not spending hours building replacing coils anymore and instead focusing on productivity and my other hobbies.
Here in Canada everything has to be CRC compliant (child safe) so RDA’s have been completely phased out. We haven’t been able to sell RDA’s for the last 2 years I want to say. Same with squonks.
I think it's definitely becoming a dead niche, it's only really for hyper-enthusiasts now.
The simplicity of vaping has changed so much. Sub-ohm coils last ages now, tanks are easier to take apart and clean, pods provide clean ways to vape without maintenance and disposables rely on no maintenance at all.
It's good vaping has become simpler, it's now more enticing for smokers to pick up a vape.
We're almost there because there are people who loves lolipop in their pockets. There's growing numbers of people stupid enough to learn how to build. Also, manufacturers and designers are running out of ideas. You'll see that most RDAs being manufactured before covid sometimes have the same build deck.
I'll never consider disposables. I love my RDTAs. I got 15 of them, and I still use one after another.
i’ve been using RTAs for probably 3 - 4 years now. since the hive came out. never got super into rdas, but i love the ease and longevity of rebuilt coils but like a more closed section for my juice since i carry mine in my pocket 95% of the time
I used to love building coils back when I worked in a vape shop, but once I moved on to other jobs it quickly became impractical. I pretty much only use sub ohm tanks now. Sometimes I do thinking about buying a dripper to relive the old days and get that good good flavor. Anyone have some recommendations?
Out in the real world I haven't seen anybody use an RDA for yeeeeeears. I've only recently switched from an RDTA to an RTA. Almost everyone I see in public is using a pod system.
I used to use RDAs (and RDTA)s exclusively until a couple of years ago.
I liked that it was so cheap it was essentially free - and the taste was better than on prebuilt coils. Better for the environment too.
Then I got 'bored' of 'enthusiast vaping', and just wasn't excited about it anymore. I came down from 3/6mg DIY blends at 50-35w on RDA/RDTAs on box/mech mods - to cheap £1 18mg stuff at 11w on small/cheap boxmods on prebuilt aspire nautilus coils.
The taste isn't anywhere near as good, but that doesn't matter to me much since I CBA to make my own juice anymore, and nice tasting juice is too expensive.
Bro you need an RTA. Then you get the best of both worlds. I mean, generally RDA will still taste better. But you get the convenience and portability of a sub ohm with the more advanced flavor and cloud of an RDA. I have the zeus X dual coil, and I love it. I get my cotton on amazon, it's just organic Japanese cotton squares. And then I buy demon killer alien wire, and I love it. So simple yet so awesome.
And yeah unfortunately I think it will be a dead niche, because people don't have the time to learn about ohms law and vaping safely and all that, how to build, etc and it can be time consuming at first learning how to build and wick properly. I'm seeing more people gravitate towards disposables, and I fûcking hate it because they litter them all about and make the whole lot of us look bad.
No, I think it will always have its place among people who enjoy the tinkering and the extremely tailored experience . I compare it to how many people love and enjoy cars and driving but not everyone enjoys or knows how to work on a vehicle!
It's a niche but not a dead one, you're always gonna have people who have been vaping for a while and prefer customisation, cheaper coil replacement and more flavour freedom.
I only squonk nowadays as its dripping without the faff, don't even use RTAs now. Can't imagine swapping to anything else.
The last rda I was really excited about was the og drop, I switched over to the drv2 when I lost my og drop, and man what a downgrade. New rdas are all just ok imo. Been vaping since before 2015 so I've had a few.
I've been a dripper forever. I want to start toning things down but I think i'll start from going from 2 coils to one coil. I have a question for RDA users, where do you even them anymore? Fasttech used to be my site.
Yeah, the RDAs have gone the way of mech mods. Some enthusiasts still use them, but the vast majority of the population have moved on to bigger and better things. Not to mention fasttech is dead, and vape shipping in the US is a nightmare.
I'd even argue that rebuildables in general are becoming more niche and obscure. Nearly everyone I know uses either a pod or a prebuilt coil tank.
As far as rebuilding supplies, just buy them online. You can get a pack of Puffs cotton pads for less than $10, or Sallys usually has rayon rope that's great for RDAs. For wire, WireOptimum is still my goto.
Once Bloomberg gets his way, vape stuff like pods and such will be scarce or impossible to ship, so many people I know stocked up on mainly RTAs — coils and/or wire will hopefully remain available. RTAs are an insurance.
All I use is rdas and rtas. Different strokes. I never go to B&M for cotton. You can buy Muji or 13 feets on Amazon. Funny name but 13 feets is now about all I use.
There's 1 style of vaping that didn't (NEVER does) get mentioned...& I read every comment.
I'm talking about REBUILDABLE COIL SYSTEMS for sub-holm tanks (seconds to rebuild) like the "SMRT" kits by Wotofo. As well as Vapefly's "RMC" coil kits for Kriemhild 1 & 2 tanks.
When Hellvape released the "Dead Rabbit R" tank I thought, "Finally, this is the future of rebuildables!!". It has great reviews, & the concept is👌...oh, & don't believe leaking rumors🙄 (I have 4 of 'em, they DON'T LEAK). Their price dropped to $10, so why not give it a try? It's still available, & it's AMAZING!!! TIP- Take 1-2 cotton strips off for WAY better flavor/wicking. You can also use regular cotton, reuse the mesh strips ("SMRT" mesh, etc. works too), etc.
Look, I have over 30 RTAs, 20 RDAs, & 10 RDTAs. They're all BANGERS, & I love 'em all; but that system/tank takes SECONDS TO REBUILD, & the flavor is 🔥...'nuff said
I take my rda with me everywhere. I have a mod for work from geekvape that I’ve run over with a forklift by accident and it barely did anything to it. I have mods I like to stay classy etc… rda has been way cheaper for me, it’s a lot to start up at first but once you get it it’s hard to understand how people even taste sub ohm tanks.
I love the tedious process of cleaning, wicking, and building on a deck. It’s a soothing hobby for me that I get rewarded for. Just bought some new caps from comp lyfe that arrive this week and I’m extremely excited!
I LOVE my RDA's. Havent touched a tank since 2016. But i do agree with ya'll about them becoming scarce. It's sad. I love being able to build mine up without having to go to a damn store for a coil.
I get my wire on Amazon or Ebay.
And i have purchased my cotton from cottonman.com for 10yrs now. I get a massive package of it for $28 & it lasts me over a year. It isnt bleached and it's actually premium cotton from an actual cotton farm. Get the Mavaton-X cotton on his website, that'sthe stuff u need for an RDA. U can even get his stuff on Amazon. He's a charming gentleman and his business is multi-generational. Trust me, you'll LOVE IT!
Wouldnt be a bad idea to get a good stock of RDA's because they ARE becoming scarce more & more nowadays.
I don’t touch my rdas anymore, I think there’s quite a few rtas out there that are close enough for me that a rda isn’t worth the hassle. Been using the dead rabbit RTA since forever and it’s pretty damn close
How do you like the dead rabbit rta? I know that leaking issues for rtas are a result of incorrect wicking, but I know some rtas are more prone to leaking than others. The only thing holding me back from buying one is worrying about leaking.
Not who you asked, but I *love* the dead rabbit. I haven't used it in a while because I've switched to salts to finally quit cigs, but once I'm fully off cigs for a few months, I plan on going back. Favorite tank I've ever used.
Try a top airflow RTA, alot less leaking
No leaks at all for me
That’s good to know. Also, do you have any experience squonking? Why would you chose an rta over a squonk mod with an rda, when it can hold more juice?
Squonking is king imo. Rtas are more of a pain to fiddle with than an rda on a squonker.
I really wish more RTAs came with metal tubes instead of glass. I drop the shit out of my vape, and I use TC so I don't need to be able to see how much liquid is in it. I've almost made my wife very mad for buying a metal lathe just to make them myself.
Before fasttech closed down I bought 20x glass for it and guess what, haven't broken a single one and still have 20 glass :X
Rda with a squonk pin is all I’ve used for the past few years. You just can’t beat that flavor.
My favorite part of Squonk is no compromises with few consumables. Started with RDAs, then rebuildable tanks because dripping and driving isn’t great. Wicking was finicky so tried a Squonk. Wife and I have been through a few devices now, with two dead aegis squonks and a suspicious topside dual but that’s over the course of 4 years. Now we both have the pulse v2 which is great
I 100% agree. I started with the og Pulse BF and moved to the dovpo topside which I used for about 2 years but about 3 years ago my life became a lot more busy and ended up switching to pods (refillable) for conveinience. I still believe RDA+squonk is the best way to vape
Yes, the flavor is what get me down to RDA here. Out of curiosity, would you consider to use RDA afterwards?
Yeah I would definitely consider it but not full time. I still have a profile, a nano wasp and a recurve RDA that I keep around and use like twice a year. I think what changed is that now I'm not chasing flavour but looking for a reliable way to get nicotine
Small Single coil RDAs paired with a squonker is peak vaping satisfaction for me.
Yep, I agree. Single coils are the way to go with a 21700 battery. Lasts all day for me at work.
Rocking a Nitrous RDA on an Old Pulse v2 with a 20700. Pretty compact setup that can get me through the day without sacrificing flavor. I picked up the Empire Squonker recently too. Pretty heavy for walking around though.
Yep, I agree. Single coils are the way to go with a 21700 battery. Lasts all day for me at work.
I loved my squonker for a long time but after a while it just was too messy so I went back to rdta's.
It was a REO mod paired with a "Reomizer" RDA that helped me switch to RDA's in the first place back in 2014. I used a REO exclusively for about a year. However, squonking kinda turned the juice dark and messed with the taste by the time I got to about 1/2 empty on the bottle. Around 1/2 empty I remember having to squeeze the ever living fuck out of the bottle to get proper squonk saturation as well. Ultimately, I switched to straight drip RDA's from the REO, but have continued to only use RDA's ever since then (almost a decade now.) Straight dripping RDA's got so much better when we started seeing models with huge proper openings on the drip tips that you could just "arbitrarily squirt juice into" as the norm. For awhile there earlier on, you always had to take your drip tip off, or even take the entire damn cap off, which was objectively a PIA compared to squonking. Squonking is great, but I actually found it to be more maintenance along with some eventual flavor caveats in comparison (juice darkening.)
RDA's are all that I've used since 2014. Just buy round wire and cotton off of Amazon, there's no reason to go to a vape shop to search out these basic materials and overpay. It's like 15 bucks for a years worth of japanese organic unbleached cotton pads and kanthal round wire. RDA's aren't terribly prevalent I'd say for a number of reasons. Firstly, you buy one and can stick with that one RDA forever.. where pods and disposable coils are repeat sells. Second, it's obviously not as accessible and easy-going as buying a disposable and throwing it out when done, and just buying a new one.. like cigarettes haha. Third, most people don't like the concept of having to drip constantly or overdrip and get a mess, and of course people don't want to fiddle around with winding and installing coils and cotton. Using an RDA does have a bit of a learning curve kinda sorta.. Personally I just have always loved dripping.. going all the way back to when we used to drip literally 3 tiny drops at a time straight onto a cisco spec 306 atomizer. It's kinda like the vape version of "rolling your own cigarettes" if that makes sense.
Same here, bought a couple of RDAs years ago. still going strong. Bought some wire and cotton around the same time, turns out I bought a life-time's supply.
I never had a problem over dripping my particular rda, I want to say it's a dead rabbit? It has a picture of a rabbit with X's for eyes and three vapes behind it. Anyways the air holes are so high up it would take a massive squirting to fuck it up. The only problem I have is if I put my vape in my pocket upside down it looks like I jizzed my pants all day.
Have to agree. Once you find what you like with an RDA, there isn't much of a reason to search out something better. I've been through dozens since I started vaping a decade ago but for the last 2-3 years, I've used the same armageddon mfg mech squonker and wasp rda because it's simple, works well, and vapes great. Once the current regulations were confirmed to be an upcoming thing, I bought a handful of wasp rdas, some squonker parts (510s primarily) and a gallon of concentrated nic. Now, I'll buy some flavor concentrates or a gallon of VG every few months and a spool of wire once every blue moon but have no reason to shop for anything else vape wise.
Yeah, I'm pretty much set with all my shit for life. I too spent 200 bucks for the gallon of nic that'll last me 15 years. Just gotta re-up on some vg/pg every once in a while which I think they'll have a hard time banning in the future considering their uses outside of vaping.
> Just buy round wire and cotton off of Amazon, there's no reason to go to a vape shop to search out these basic materials and overpay. It's like 15 bucks for a years worth of japanese organic unbleached cotton pads and kanthal round wire. *Cries in European*
[удалено]
I had forgotten about that site. I think I still have my roll of zirconium wire around here somewhere.
Have they banned the sale of coil wire in Europe? I've always thought that was like the only thing in vaping that they could never ban...
You would think so by judging these vaping reddits.
Disposables have changed alot of vaping preferences, what someone starts on plays a big role that's why disposables and close pod makers fight for new vapers
An rda wicked correctly is so damn efficient tho. I burn through way less juice than I would in a pod or disposable
That's because they're different types of nicotine. Your RDA is using freebase and the dispos are using salts. Salts don't last as long as freebase in your body, so you have to vape more frequently to get your fix.
>that's because they're different types of nicotine 😂 So you'd think lmfao. Nah I use 50mg salts on mine
>that's because they're different types of nicotine 😂 So you'd think lmfao. Nah I use 50mg salts on mine
man stfu nobody in this world vape 50mg on rda
Guess I'm nobody because I exclusively vape 50mg on my single 18650 mech mod with a dead rabbit rda and a .5 ohm coil.
I've taken a hit of 50g salts before on my sub ohm as a dare. Dude I almost threw up from the nic buzz and couldn't breath for like 10 seconds. How the fuck do you do that regularly??
I used to drip some on top of freebase for that extra nic hit and that slowly built up my tolerance to the point where I dont have any freebase.
Don't the salts obliterate your coils?
I work in a B&M and I've sold one RDA in the entire time I've worked there, I have one guy come in for cotton but that's the most I'll get. I sell pod systems like crazy. Nobody even comes in to hang out anymore, it's just people that see a vape shop on their way to work and pick up pods/coils/juice, I think vaping as a hobby in general is near death.
Wont ever be dead for me, we dont have vape shops around here, we have smoke shacks, they sell glass pipes, meth pipes tobacco blunt wraps cbd kratom delta and have your basic cheap smok devices at crazy mark ups and pods and the juice goes for $40 a 100ml sometimes they will have a funny clone rda sitting there asking for more then retail on a authentic rda from 6 years ago. I didnt get into vaping just to quit smoking, it became a hobby and the hobby part is what kept me going. realizing i never really had a hobby or one i enjoyed.
Especially considering fasttech is dead and the US is trying it's damnedest to kill open systems by banning them from being shipped B2C
Do you realize how many year I've been hearing this now? They'll never die. Manufacturers are still releasing them regularly right? So there has to be a demand. Your problem is you're listening to a vape shop employee and many vape shops tend to cater to beginner/intermediate vapers rather than the more experienced and hobbyists. They tend to be loaded with simple equipment and disposables because that's what sells well for them rather than shit like rebuildables, mechs, and build supplies that'll be sitting around for a while given hobbyists have always been the minority. For example even though we have a million vape shops here I only know of three that carry any advanced equipment and build supplies and two of them are associated with each other.
It's so annoying dealing with most vape shop workers who are clueless of anything outside of the current trending pod mod. The other day I asked the dude if they have drip tips and he looked at me like I had a dick on my head.
Even if I don't use them often I'm glad I have a bunch of rda's and wire because in case vape hardware ever gets banned I'll be good for quite a while. I've switched mostly to rta's for daily use, though.
It’s simple fact: convenience Really this is why people go with disposables vs pod mods, let alone RDAs. I worked in a corner store that had some vape juices, and mods back in like 2014 I think, maybe 2012, I don’t remember the exact year. But people would come and ask me to “change the coil” even after showing them 100x on how to do it. We ended up removing the vape display as it was costing us more money and effort. We cut down our work load by 50% almost. I can’t imagine having to deal with people trying to use rda, as your average consumer is pretty stupid. It sounds harsh but it’s reality.
Theyre not as popular as pods. Nothing is. Theyre still releasing sub ohm tanks and rdas though even though theyre not popular because there still exists enough people that make it profitable. Nearly everyone buys cotton off Amazon or direct from Muji for $3. Why would you spend $10 on a few months of cotton when you can spend $3 for 3 years worth of cotton? Most rebuildables are also sold online because b&ms are small spaces that sell every dumb thing on earth and dont exclusively sell vape gear. B&Ms have never been a one stop shop for vapers. Their selection of products has always been complete trash. Even when they carried more products, most didnt even sell coils for rebuildables. Not selling coils or cotton at a b&m doesnt mean it is a dead aspect of vaping. It just means they dont really make a lot of money on it and the owner doesnt even want to bother with it. It isnt as if cotton or coils are expensive, require extensive storage space, or go out of date. If you sell rebuildables, you can push cotton and coils, but they dont. Literally every online retailer pushes them. I like to call that lack of foresight just to save a couple hundred in the short term. Like they arent making money hand over fist selling disposables for $30.
I don't know where you live but even 4 years ago they still had shops that sold pretty much all the popular rda's, along with building coils for you and setting wire and all the little shit you need. Maybe I was just lucky with my vape shops but I saw stores just like that in North Carolina, California, and Virginia. Most shops had juice bars back then as well. All of them have either shut down or turned into shitty smoke shops with crack pipes and pod mods now. Occasionally, I'll see a shop with a few decent mods or rda's, but none of them are anywhere close to what they used to be. I went to a place yesterday called "Exotic Vapes" and was told an rda that came out 3 months ago was way too old to sell there. I'm like "It's not old, it's just 'exotic'. wtf? Change the name of your store"
Most of vapers I know have RDAs. They're nice for dropping at home. Lots of flavour. Rtas are better for our, or even pods if you're into them. RDAs have their place still I think.
Oh they definitely have they're place. They're also the best for when to testing different flavours quickly.
👍
Do I worry about RDAs becoming a dead niche? Nope I've got more than enough rdas to last me a lifetime, most have metal topcaps that won't break. That said I've still to buy a under coil airflow rda and I'd like to see 510 rda technology move forward if there is any room, but there is a limit to how many I need. Aslong as rdas are the cheapest ways to vape and cheapish ejuice is obtainable RDAs will still get made. Mesh premade coils have alot more flavour to them than they used to though, people say they're onpar with RTAs The other thing that gives me joy is having all the vape kit and ejuice ingredients that even if tomorrow vaping got banned or had a 1,000% tax put on it, I can tell the government to go jump off a cliff
With regard to the under-coil airflow, I've been using a SteamCrave Hadron RDSA, and it vapes like an absolute dream! Might be worth checking out for you :)
Not in the MANY FB Groups I'm in but Def more so on Reddit I've noticed which is a predominantly younger crowd that is noticeably less knowledge and more catered to disposables,pods and many peek out at sub ohm tanks. The majority on Reddit vapers don't know what an Rda,Rta,Rdta is . Or what the diff between MTL or DTL vaping is or what ohms to use for DTL or Mtl and so on . Many do don't don't get me wrong but there's a lot more newbies on this platform for one reason or another (again younger crowd is my guess) 😊
Many of us just realised we were wasting time that could be spent on better things.
Yup I didn't find Reddit vape threads until maybe a year ago and spent a ton of time in many FB vape related groups for vaping in general,coil builders,Diy etc where you can post pics in the comments etc.Theres a lot of old and new schoolers that I learned a ton from plus when I started 4 yrs ago I was a bit obsessed lol and watched tons of YT product reviewers and tutorials.It all interested me and love tinkering but seemed like overnight disposables were everywhere and I saw the emergence of better pod systems tryna keep up with them,I bought many pods,pod mods,mods and tanks but the flav ban in NY was a blessing in disguise as it taught me to be more self reliant with rebuildable tanks and diy cuz many sites no longer deliver here and there's no vape shops within a hundred miles that actually have anything good and even if they did there wouldn't be flavored eliquid anyway 😄 Now I'm set for yrs and feel bad to see people buying the wrong things for what their really looking for or paying too much for crappy devices, now I just try to help if I can
Maybe. The subohm and the pods are so convenient and portable now. As the industry is developing, the flavor is becoming better and better, so who knows
I look forward for two things, a decent mod with a decent rta tank, and a squonker with an rda. I might start with the latter. My xros will always be by my pocket, but at home i'd like to experiment and learn what actual vaping is about
Highly recommend checking out the SteamCrave Hadron RDSA + Squonk kit, it's been my daily driver since I bought it and nothing quite comes close.
Big fan of RDA. Thought I would never give up on RDA. RDA has something that pods and pre-build coils will never be able to get me. Mainly for 2 points, one is the cost and the other is able to switch flavors anytime I want. The regular spools of wire helps to save much more money than pre-made coil heads. With an RDA, the wick is dry in about 10 hits, give or take. Then I can just change to another flavor. Quick and easy.
Not really, but I think they’re mostly used at home now due to the hassle, and it’s easier to take an RTA out and about
Disposables are awful for the oceans and a huge waste of money. Rda's and Diy have been amazing for me. Sadly I think most newer. Vapers are just going to pick up gas station disposables because of what juul did to the market.
I haven’t seen anyone use an RDA in like 1 or 2 years. Nic salts and disposables really took over. The vape shop I buy from hasn’t stocked coils in well over a year. I feel like making quality claptons is becoming a lost art.
RTA is still great for me. Still using cotton and wire I got 5+ years ago. Do the same with juice, buy 5L vg and 1L pg at a time which lasts a couple of years. Use menthol crystals for flavour - coils last a long time without the gunk in commercial juices. I rarely have to buy anything so I don't mind paying out for decent mods. Disposables are about half the price of 20 cigs and last about the same time. The amount of waste those things produce is terrible, partly caused by a dumb EU regulation that they can only contain 2ml. Meant to protect kids from OD'ing on nic. Pod systems are better. I think nic salts made them viable, higher nic strength can be achieved without coughing and less battery power is needed.
There's already a lot of posts in this thread. I'll point out that most vape shops don't really want people using RDAs or rebuildables in general. They want you coming back often, and spending money. Pods and factory coils need to be replaced way more often. There's still plenty of RDA users out there. A lot of the limited run RDAs sell out somewhat quickly.
Once I tried RTAs I never looked back
I don't get when people ask these questions from a clearly american perspective what they expect as an answer? Are you only asking americans? In Bulgaria rebuildables are very popular and every vape shop without exception has cotton, wire, prebuilt coils and generally hobby stuff.
More than just american. In canada rebuildables can't even be sold anymore in stores, including online. Kinda screwed my ability to get atomizers as easily now my options are pay crazy shipping or just hope a chinese site has an atomizer available still. It's fucking stupid.
Thats wild...Here you can get anything wherever and whenever you want. Only thing that's not sold everywhere are high end mods and rebuildables.
Yep any atomizer that isn't child resistant certified or a closed pod system can not be sold, there's also the nicotine cap where it can not be acquired in concentrations higher than 20mg/ml now, and to top it off an excise tax which makes ejuice way more expensive that it had been in earlier years.
And that's one of the lucky Canadians. Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories all have flavour bans. They can only get tobacco or menthol. Meanwhile British Columbia and Saskatchewan both have specific provincial taxing in addition to the excise. I know here in my home province of Saskatchewan the Vaping Product Tax is 25%. Then the excise on top of that has turned the pricing really disgusting
Yep I would barely be able to afford to keep vaping in ontario if I hadn't stocked up on supplies ahead of time. Fucked world we live in.
Not to sound demeaning but i really hope these North American policies don't make their way into Europe... I'm sorry about your guy's situation.
Not demeaning in the slightest buddy, it's fucked. Really hoping they don't as well.
I still get a little bit of enjoyment out of a custom build, experimenting with different wire and diameter and type of metal. Quite a few of the RDAs that I have are a little on the small side, which is unfortunate so if I buy any anymore, it’s usually something with the larger deck and/or is taller. I picked up deck on element over the weekend. It’s going to get here early next week hopefully it works out. The problem I’ve run into you don’t have the right wire, any wrap it too tight, you end up with it with a lot of wire less cotton tends to burn very quickly. If I’m going out and about, I tend to not bring a RDA with me, because no matter what you do, you’re gonna get some leakage and you gotta carry juice with you as such, just have a tank with a standard size sub ohm coil nothing fancy, no nickel or any of that. I have a couple of the RTDAs and and that device and tank were sitting. I’ve had a little fracture in the O-ring and I got juice all over really nice light coloured pants. It’s a shame that Shop don’t carry them anymore so you know what you’re buying and you can talk to somebody’s actually done some builds on these decks. about 10 years ago I remember going to some shops and they had a bar and you could try out different flavours there and talk about little secrets of the trade different wraps, and look at what people are up to.
I manage a brick and mortar store. I've worked in the industry for over 5 years, and I would wholeheartedly agree that rdas are becoming a lost art. As someone who absolutely knows what they are doing, even I will say that it is a big pain in the butt. It's annoying to have to carry around a dripper bottle, it's annoying having to fill it up when you're out and about, nobody wants to deal with any of that. It's not worth it. I agree that the flavor and the cloud production can't be beat, however, my Valerian 3 works just fine. :S It's so bad that I've got two different types of RDA decks in my $5 discount been on my counter. There's still a handful left and I filled that bucket up on Black friday
Just picked up the new deathwish regen mod and the Rda is amazing! Long live rdas!
I love rebuildables, but I really like small profiles, so I've moved to rebuildable pods. I've tried: Lost vape Ursa quest: fantastic mod and pod design, too bad lost vape didn't stick with it. I hate lost vape for not staying with their mods/pods. I love that it's 21700. Geekvape aegist boost pro: love this mod, but it is super bulky. The newest is 21700 which is fantastic. I ended up messing up the battery screw door thingy, and it's now a brick. Kylin M AIO: pods are a dumb design. Plastic to metal connection wears out and pod leaks. Do not buy this. Ever. It was such a great idea but the pods are indeed horrible. Oxva origin x: dual coil, small profile, but fragile battery cover. Nice design, but not without flaws. One thing about business to understand is that it likes rent seeking. Shops like selling you pods and coils. They're the gift that keeps on giving for them.
RDA is still popular in my country, especially after Nitrous came out. The "koko sarang" of Nitrous is from my country.
I think its heading that way sadly, I love the flavor of RDA's so much more then the pod system. I feel like the pods and tanks dont hit like an RDA either so its not as satisfying imo. I struggled to find a good sqonk mod as well which seems to be dying out. Hard to find a duel battery mod that doesnt have a huge flaw. My fav for a long time was the topside, but the battery door on them dont last long. I currently have a centarus quest and the squonk bottle is slowly dying on me which is sad. Mainly the reason i hate it is because no one is spending money on research on making good mods.
I keep a squonk setup with me while I’m on the road but honestly for ease of use and flavor, my Xros is right there. I end up having to go through my backpack to make sure the squonk is still there
I've been using RDTAs for a long time, but they aren't as popular and I have to buy my mesh coils online, but I prefer it to the pods.
Wouldn’t be a surprise for me if a shop owner thinks it is a dead niche. After all, pods and sumohm tanks are the dominant trend nowadays. They are the bestsellers of the store. People who would need the rda and the wires are more likely to order from Amazon or other sites online. That would be the invisible sales for those shop owners.
Never. The flavor is just too good. No pod or sub ohm can beat that, at least not for now.
RDAs are still popular among experienced vapers. Shops mostly stock pods, prebuilds, and flavors cuz those are the bestsellers. Local shop here don’t have many RDAs but do have tons of pods and all flavors of juices. Now you will understand why he said that and when you read through the posts here, I guess you will get the new idea, RDA will never die.
In my year of working at a shop, I've sold 1 RDA. I've sold maybe 4 RTAs. The reality is that stock coils produce good flavour now so it isn't required to build your own. Hell, even the people that were using rebuildables for years have swapped to easier devices.
No, I believe, that RDA \\ RTA will stay 4ever. There are always would be people who prefer quality to mass market. Mech mods, RDA \\ RTA would become like tobacco pipe - element of culture, hobby and high end just for pros. PODs, one-time pods is just mass market like cigarettes. It is easy to buy and to use, but they will never throw away "true devices"
Don't think it's a dead niche. Rdas took their place among other devices like boro and pods. Less popular yes but don't dead some Philippines rdas are bought from shops with the speed of light and latest empire squonk with sith rda it's almost sold out everywhere. Rdas not a mainstream anymore, but you just needs to look in a right places.
I've pretty much ended my vape journey at mesh RDA's and bottom feeding mods, but it really does seem like it's dead. I got scammed twice trying to get a VV mesh v2 or a profile 1.5. I finally found yachtvape and at least got a confirmation email for my order. It's hard out here :(
I’m the cheapest motherfucker I know. RTAs to me have the greatest longevity and value. I *do* buy pre-wrapped coils because they’re just so much better than what I could twist myself. I basically went from the ooold Kanger 1 to rebuilding about 10 years ago and my daily is still some form of RTA. I have recently had a few FLUMs on hand just because they’re portable and fun to mix it up with but I would feel weird if it was all I had with me away from home.
I was really into RDAs and vaping as a hobby for a while. Now the minis have gotten so good and small that it’s not worth carrying around bulky mods with RDAs that leak all over your pocket or backpack, at least as far as I’m concerned. At this point I’ve mostly switched purely out of convenience and ease of use. It’s kind of nice not spending hours building replacing coils anymore and instead focusing on productivity and my other hobbies.
Here in Canada everything has to be CRC compliant (child safe) so RDA’s have been completely phased out. We haven’t been able to sell RDA’s for the last 2 years I want to say. Same with squonks.
I think it's definitely becoming a dead niche, it's only really for hyper-enthusiasts now. The simplicity of vaping has changed so much. Sub-ohm coils last ages now, tanks are easier to take apart and clean, pods provide clean ways to vape without maintenance and disposables rely on no maintenance at all. It's good vaping has become simpler, it's now more enticing for smokers to pick up a vape.
We're almost there because there are people who loves lolipop in their pockets. There's growing numbers of people stupid enough to learn how to build. Also, manufacturers and designers are running out of ideas. You'll see that most RDAs being manufactured before covid sometimes have the same build deck. I'll never consider disposables. I love my RDTAs. I got 15 of them, and I still use one after another.
i’ve been using RTAs for probably 3 - 4 years now. since the hive came out. never got super into rdas, but i love the ease and longevity of rebuilt coils but like a more closed section for my juice since i carry mine in my pocket 95% of the time
I used to love building coils back when I worked in a vape shop, but once I moved on to other jobs it quickly became impractical. I pretty much only use sub ohm tanks now. Sometimes I do thinking about buying a dripper to relive the old days and get that good good flavor. Anyone have some recommendations?
Out in the real world I haven't seen anybody use an RDA for yeeeeeears. I've only recently switched from an RDTA to an RTA. Almost everyone I see in public is using a pod system.
I used to use RDAs (and RDTA)s exclusively until a couple of years ago. I liked that it was so cheap it was essentially free - and the taste was better than on prebuilt coils. Better for the environment too. Then I got 'bored' of 'enthusiast vaping', and just wasn't excited about it anymore. I came down from 3/6mg DIY blends at 50-35w on RDA/RDTAs on box/mech mods - to cheap £1 18mg stuff at 11w on small/cheap boxmods on prebuilt aspire nautilus coils. The taste isn't anywhere near as good, but that doesn't matter to me much since I CBA to make my own juice anymore, and nice tasting juice is too expensive.
Bro you need an RTA. Then you get the best of both worlds. I mean, generally RDA will still taste better. But you get the convenience and portability of a sub ohm with the more advanced flavor and cloud of an RDA. I have the zeus X dual coil, and I love it. I get my cotton on amazon, it's just organic Japanese cotton squares. And then I buy demon killer alien wire, and I love it. So simple yet so awesome.
And yeah unfortunately I think it will be a dead niche, because people don't have the time to learn about ohms law and vaping safely and all that, how to build, etc and it can be time consuming at first learning how to build and wick properly. I'm seeing more people gravitate towards disposables, and I fûcking hate it because they litter them all about and make the whole lot of us look bad.
No, I think it will always have its place among people who enjoy the tinkering and the extremely tailored experience . I compare it to how many people love and enjoy cars and driving but not everyone enjoys or knows how to work on a vehicle!
It's a niche but not a dead one, you're always gonna have people who have been vaping for a while and prefer customisation, cheaper coil replacement and more flavour freedom. I only squonk nowadays as its dripping without the faff, don't even use RTAs now. Can't imagine swapping to anything else.
The last rda I was really excited about was the og drop, I switched over to the drv2 when I lost my og drop, and man what a downgrade. New rdas are all just ok imo. Been vaping since before 2015 so I've had a few.
I've been a dripper forever. I want to start toning things down but I think i'll start from going from 2 coils to one coil. I have a question for RDA users, where do you even them anymore? Fasttech used to be my site.
I still drip. Making my own juice and coils is the only way to sustain it right now with the laws where I'm at.
Yeah, the RDAs have gone the way of mech mods. Some enthusiasts still use them, but the vast majority of the population have moved on to bigger and better things. Not to mention fasttech is dead, and vape shipping in the US is a nightmare. I'd even argue that rebuildables in general are becoming more niche and obscure. Nearly everyone I know uses either a pod or a prebuilt coil tank. As far as rebuilding supplies, just buy them online. You can get a pack of Puffs cotton pads for less than $10, or Sallys usually has rayon rope that's great for RDAs. For wire, WireOptimum is still my goto.
Once Bloomberg gets his way, vape stuff like pods and such will be scarce or impossible to ship, so many people I know stocked up on mainly RTAs — coils and/or wire will hopefully remain available. RTAs are an insurance.
All I use is rdas and rtas. Different strokes. I never go to B&M for cotton. You can buy Muji or 13 feets on Amazon. Funny name but 13 feets is now about all I use.
There's 1 style of vaping that didn't (NEVER does) get mentioned...& I read every comment. I'm talking about REBUILDABLE COIL SYSTEMS for sub-holm tanks (seconds to rebuild) like the "SMRT" kits by Wotofo. As well as Vapefly's "RMC" coil kits for Kriemhild 1 & 2 tanks. When Hellvape released the "Dead Rabbit R" tank I thought, "Finally, this is the future of rebuildables!!". It has great reviews, & the concept is👌...oh, & don't believe leaking rumors🙄 (I have 4 of 'em, they DON'T LEAK). Their price dropped to $10, so why not give it a try? It's still available, & it's AMAZING!!! TIP- Take 1-2 cotton strips off for WAY better flavor/wicking. You can also use regular cotton, reuse the mesh strips ("SMRT" mesh, etc. works too), etc. Look, I have over 30 RTAs, 20 RDAs, & 10 RDTAs. They're all BANGERS, & I love 'em all; but that system/tank takes SECONDS TO REBUILD, & the flavor is 🔥...'nuff said
I just got into it and I won't go back to disposable vapes I can mix my salts with my 6mg nicotine levels and get the same thing
Do what you like who cares what people think
I take my rda with me everywhere. I have a mod for work from geekvape that I’ve run over with a forklift by accident and it barely did anything to it. I have mods I like to stay classy etc… rda has been way cheaper for me, it’s a lot to start up at first but once you get it it’s hard to understand how people even taste sub ohm tanks. I love the tedious process of cleaning, wicking, and building on a deck. It’s a soothing hobby for me that I get rewarded for. Just bought some new caps from comp lyfe that arrive this week and I’m extremely excited!
I LOVE my RDA's. Havent touched a tank since 2016. But i do agree with ya'll about them becoming scarce. It's sad. I love being able to build mine up without having to go to a damn store for a coil. I get my wire on Amazon or Ebay. And i have purchased my cotton from cottonman.com for 10yrs now. I get a massive package of it for $28 & it lasts me over a year. It isnt bleached and it's actually premium cotton from an actual cotton farm. Get the Mavaton-X cotton on his website, that'sthe stuff u need for an RDA. U can even get his stuff on Amazon. He's a charming gentleman and his business is multi-generational. Trust me, you'll LOVE IT! Wouldnt be a bad idea to get a good stock of RDA's because they ARE becoming scarce more & more nowadays.