Review: Goblin Mini V3 by UD

The Goblin Mini tanks by UD (or Youde) have been some of my favourite mini tanks. I have both the V1 and the V2, and I've loved them both. Have to admit that the V2 has been used a lot more than the V1, simply because it has top filling. In my opinion these are pretty much equal when it comes to building (takes some trial and error to get the right amount of cotton), flavour and of course capacity, but of course ... you don't need to bring a screwdriver to fill the V1. For me the filling mechanism on the V1 is the reason I haven't used it as much as the V2. Now, it's time to try out the V3.

In the box

• Goblin Mini V3, dual coil velocity style deck installed
• Stainless Steel drip tip
• Optional delrin drip tip with heat resistant top cap cover
• Spare Pyrex glass tank section
• Allen key
• Single coil deck
• Spares pack with o-rings and screws

Specifications

• 22mm diameter, 33mm height (without drip tip and 510 connector)
• 2ml juice capacity
• Stainless steel and pyrex glass
• Dual coil and single coil deck included
• Velocity style decks
• Adjustable juice flow
• Bottom airflow control
• Top filling
• Anti-spitback
• 4ml extension tube available

Look and feel

This little thing look pretty good in my opinion. Quite simple design with the logo printed on the chamber section inside the tank and only some indicators for the juice-flow and air-flow on the outside. Not that there is much space to print anything else on there. The spare top o-rings are different colours from the original one so you can spice up the looks with some colour if you like that. The threading is nice and smooth and the whole thing feels pretty solidly built. Available in stainless steel and black, and I think you'll be able to get pyrex tubes in different colours as well.

In use

Let's start out with the build decks, cause they're awesome and a big improvement from the V1 and V2 in my opinion. The dual-coil deck is a velocity style deck, which I love, and the single coil deck is... well pretty much the same style except they've moved the posts to one side so there is only one air-hole in the deck. The post holes are big enough to fit some pretty thick clapton wire, so no limitations here. If you push the limit of the post holes you probably won't be able to fit the coil in the chamber anyway. It is pretty easy to build on both decks, I've been running both single and dual claptons in there. I also feel it's more forgiving when it comes to the amount of cotton you need to put in there to avoid leaks. Both the V1 and the V2 have some problems with this if you don't put enough cotton in there, and they struggle with wicking if you put in too much, so you need to be pretty spot on. On the V3 I've had no problems with wicking even on quite high wattages and 100% VG juice, and I've had no leaking issues at all.

To change the deck you need to unscrew the center pin and just pull the deck out. There's a system to make sure the deck is correctly aligned with the juice canals so it's no problem getting the decks lined up correctly. The juice flow control system will automatically open when you screw the atty onto a mod, and you just twist it slightly back again to close it, so it will also close when you unscrew the atty from your mod. Works great if you ask me. I only have it on fully open or fully closed though, as the juices I vape are usually at least 50% VG. It might be useful to close the juice flow down a bit if you have very thin juices, I don't know, never tried it.

The airflow is also improved a bit from the previous Goblin Mini versions. It is
now slightly raised from the bottom of the tank, so it is a lot easier to adjust it. Fully open it gives more than enough air for proper direct lung hits and I've been running it on wattages up to 60ish with no problems. There is also an optional delrin drip-tip included that will also cover the top cap so you don't burn your lips if you crank up the watts and the tank gets pretty hot. I've been using the V3 mostly on like 35ish watts so I haven't felt the need to use the delrin tip though.

The top filling is nice and easy with huge fill holes so you can just pour the juice in there from pretty much any bottle you like. Works great. The juice capacity isn't huge though... only 2ml compared to the 3ml of the first two versions. I guess this might have something to do with the TPD, but also the build decks and chamber are a bit bigger on this one. You can, however, buy an extension tube, doubling the capacity.

There is also a spit-back protection system than should be mentioned. It consists of a small part that you screw into the chamber from the inside. I thought it looked like a pain to get in there but it was actually quite easy. Just use your allen key or something like that, stick into one of the holes and use it to tighten the thing. With this installed I've experienced no spit back at all, so it seems to work. However... I didn't have any spit back problems before I installed it either... so to be honest I'm not sure it's needed. Guess it might depend on your build.

Performance

Great flavour and great vapor production. Simple as that. I liked the flavour of the first versions and I don't think this one stands back compared to those. Among the configurations I've tried I think I like a single coil Clapton the best, but also a dual twisted setup have given me great flavour. One of my favourite tanks when it comes to flavour lately have been the serpent mini, and the V3 is almost as good in my opinion. If not as good... haven't really decided yet, guess I need to test them with similar single coil builds to make up my mind.

Pros and cons

+ Great flavour and
+ Nice airflow control and juice flow control
+ Easy to use and clean
+ Great build decks
+ Size
- Juice capacity

Conclusion

To me, the V3 wins over the V1 and V2 in all other aspects than juice capacity. This is the reason I'll hang on to my V2 as well. Then again, the top filling on the V3 is very good so it's still a good option to bring out and about. Priced at around $30 (NOK 263,20 at dampevarer.no right now, 20% off until monday it seems) it's worth every penny if you ask me.

Thanks a lot to Dag Einar at dampevarer.no for making this review possible.

Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

Review: Goblin Mini RTA by UD

The first sub-ohm tank I tried out was the Kanger Sub-tank, the first edition they released. Pretty big thing, works like a charm though, but a while ago I wanted to try out the mini version of it. I remember I wanted it pretty quickly, since I needed something smaller for a trip I was going to. I checked dampoteket.no, which is located pretty close to where I live (like 15 minutes by car) and lets me come pick up the stuff I order online. However they were all out of mini Kangers, so I asked Birger, who runs dampoteket, for alternatives. He suggested I tried the UD Zephyrus, claiming it was the best sub-ohm tank out there when it comes to flavour. I decided to trust him and ordered one, and I was totally amazed. The Zephyrus is a fantastic tank. Since then I've been meaning to try out more stuff from Youde, and I've had my eye on this Goblin Mini for quite a while. Now, finally I've got to try it out.

In the box
The Goblin Mini is indeed... mini. So they've packed it in quite a mini box, well protected by a foam insert. Pretty classy as well, looks like a small black jewellery box. In the box you get:

• The RTA (of course)
• A spare tank section
• A spare driptip
• Spare o-rings (one of each I guess)
• Spare screws (one for the build deck and one for the fill hole)
• A 510 driptip adapter (the Goblin driptips are just plain glass tubes)
• A single coil adapter (blocks one of the air holes if you want to do single coil builds).

Looks and feel
I really do like the looks, and size, of this little thing. Putting it on my Hana One mod I have a great, lightweight but powerful combo, small enough to almost fit into the palm of my hand... RTA included. I even like the logo quite a lot. Fits the name in a way.

In use
This RTA being so small of course also means it has a pretty small build deck. Still I think it's pretty easy to build on. It does have 2 holes in the center post as you can see, which in my opinion makes building it easier as you can do one coil at the time if you're doing dual coils like I've been doing.

The airflow control is quite unique on this one. The air comes in through holes in the bottom which can be adjusted in size by adjusting a slider at the bottom of the RTA. When fully open the holes are pretty big giving you more than enough air. I've run it up to 60W (that's all I've got right now) on around .4 ohms without any problems, which means the wicking is also great. Well of course that also depends on how you wick it. I've put just enough cotton in there to go slightly down into the 4 juice canals, and that seems to work very well. Almost no leaking (just some times slightly wet when I unscrew the atty), and no dry-hits whatsoever. I've seen some complaints about the airflow control with the slider, as you do have to unscrew the atty a bit to adjust. For me it's not a problem at all, since I don't really adjust it that much anyway.

Filling is done through a hole in the bottom, plugged by a small screw with an o-ring. This means you have to have a screwdriver with you at all times, and this can be an issue. They should have included one in the box to be honest, preferably a really small one that you could keep with your keys or something like that. Then again, I guess most vapers who use RTAs already have quite a few of those tiny screwdrivers so might not be a problem. To tighten the screws on the build deck you need a tiny Phillips screwdriver, while the fill screw is slightly larger and needs a flat one. They could have made these the same and included the screwdriver needed. Other than that, if you have the screwdriver at hand, and good lighting so you don't loose the tiny screw, filling is no problem. The size of the hole matches the tip of most juice bottles.

The juice capacity is said to be 3ml. For my use, this is more than enough, and actually quite a lot considering the size of the atty. But this also means that it is not the RTA you would bring as your only one for longer trips, especially outdoors considering how it is filled. Of course if you're inside and can fill whenever you want it's all good.

The Goblin does not use standard 510 drip tips, but there is an adapter included if you have some favourite you want to use. I haven't even thought about that since I think the glass tube ones included look awesome, and they don't get hot. They could, however, have used a slightly thicker o-ring in there to make it a tighter fit. It is pretty loose, and I have actually had it falling out in my pocket. Found it again though so I still have both :)

Performance
Now comes the really good part. Cause performance is amazing on this RTA. With my .4 ohm dual coil setup (28 AWG) I get huge amounts of vapour and equally huge amounts of clean delicious flavour. It's up there with my drippers, and definitely one of the best atties I've tried once set up. I've been running it mostly on 40W, and it is quite a thirsty thing. Guess it has to be to produce those clouds. You could probably set it up differently, and run on lower watts to make it less thirsty, but I haven't really had the need to do that by now. Again, flavour and vapour production is incredible on this, and one of the best I've tried so far.

Pros and cons
++ Insane flavour
++ Fantastic vapor production
+ Looks great (you can also get tank sections in different colors)
+ Size (if you want a small atty of course)
- They should have made all the screws the same and included a screwdriver
- Difficult to fill if you're out and about, would have been great if they figured out a way to fill it from the top as well (Maybe block the fill hole with the driptip or something like that).
- Driptip fit is a bit loose.

Also worth mentioning is that this is not the RTA you want to do super-advanced fancy big builds on, with thick clapton or twisted coils and all that. The build deck is to small for that. But I didn't really want to list that as a con either, since that is not the point of this atty. It performs incredibly well on quite simple builds.

Conclusion
Would I recommend this? Hell yes! Of course, the small size limits it's use a bit, but honestly it has not been a problem for me yet. I quite simply love it. I see it's listed at just below $40 most places, but you can easily get it for around $20 most places, and at that price I see no good reason not to try this out. Gearbest has it at 50% off right now at $18.99. It's worth every penny... and then some.

Big thanks to Gearbest for sending me this Goblin Mini for review.

Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product. 
• The device was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

Review: IGO-W8 (JAWS) by Youde

Ever since I started vaping I've been using mech-mods and genesis atomizers (and the occasional dripper from time to time) and I've been quite happy with my Hellfire atties and 18350 mods, but I figured with all the fuzz about sub-ohm coils and 100s of watts it was time for me to try something new. So to get started I figured I needed a regulated mod that could give me some watts and an atty that knew how to use them. With a little help from the guys at UKEcigStore I soon had a package en-route to Norway. The atty in the package was the IGO-W8 (or Jaws). I'll get back to  the mod later on and do a review of that as well.

A couple of words on safety first:
When dealing with low resistances you need to think about safety. If you don't know Ohm's law, learn it: http://www.ohmslawcalculator.com/ohms_law_calculator.php. I also highly recommend you read this post by Phil Busardo on battery safety: http://www.tasteyourjuice.com/wordpress/battery-information/. For your own safety and for the safety of those around you, please be careful and make sure you know what you are doing. By that I mean:

• Know your mod: What safety features does it have? Can it step down the voltage? Where is the vent holes?
• Know your battery: What is the safe discharge rate of your battery?
• Know your setup: That means measure your resistance and calculate how many amps are drawn at any given voltage you plan to use. This is where you get to use your knowledge of Ohms law.

Some specs:

• Coils: As you can see from the images the IGO-W8 has 3 negative posts and a common positive post (well depending on which way you put your battery of course), so it's built for a triple-coil setup.
• Adjustable airflow: It has an air-control system with one "hole" pointing at each coil, and an outer brass control ring, also with similar holes that can be twisted to line up more or less with the holes in the inner wall to give you more or less airflow.
• Juice wells: Under each coil (if you set them up where they should be of course) is a pretty deep juice well. Nice for stuffing a fair bit of cotton or silica in, so you can put quite a lot of juice in there without having it leaking out of the air-holes.
• Top-cap: The top-cap is constructed with fins that will get rid of some heat so you don't burn your lips when vaping. Nice feature that seems to be quite popular with dripping atties these days. If you have a look around you'll find quite a few with top-caps constructed this way. 
• Connector: Standard 510. 
• Materials used: 304 Stainless Steel and Brass (for the air-control ring).
• Size and weight: Diameter 22mm, Height 35.3mm, Weight 48g

Design and looks:
I think this atty looks quite nice actually. Using brass for the air-control-ring works quite well if you ask me. The top-cap fins also looks kind of cool in addition to actually having a useful function.

Set-up:
I'm not used to more than one coil in my atties, so this was a bit of a new experience for me. I decided to go for around .5 Ohms using 3x1.5 Ohm coils. Using 28AWG and a 2.5 mm drill-bit that means 9 wraps on each coil, something that proved to be a bit of a challenge for a guy with as many thumbs as I have. I didn't watch any videos before hand and that didn't make it easier. BUT, once you get the hang of it it's not that hard actually. After a little while I figured that I should just connect all the coils vertically to the positive connector, tighten the screw and then turn them all horizontally and connect the negatives, which would have been easier if I had 3 drill-bits of course. After connecting and adjusting the coils it's just a matter of pulling some cotton or silica through them (enough to fill the juice-wells) and juice up. I bet a lot of people can do this faster, and prettier, than me.

You can of course choose to set this atty up in a lot of different configurations but it's designed for triple coil setup and I'm pretty sure that is what will work best considering how the airflow control is designed, so you are a bit limited there. If you don't want sub-ohm setups you'll need to go for some higher resistance wire or maybe increase the diameter of your coils as fitting much more than 10ish wraps of 28AWG will give you quite a challenge. On the other hand, you don't have to use a lot of time wondering how you're going to set up your atty, so from a beginners point of view this limited setup options might as well be a good thing.

In use:
After the build was finally done, it was time to see what this thing could do. Now the mod I had at the moment did couldn't step-down the voltage below 3.7 so that means ... 25W. Around 10 more than I've ever tried before. Damn that is some vapor. Of course I had to crank it up to 50W pretty quick, and I was sure this little thing was going to explode. It snaps and cracks and makes all kind of noises and gives me a shitload of vapor and flavor. Playing around with the airflow a bit I find that it gives you more than you need at max and I prefer to keep it a lot less than that as I think it gives more flavour that way. The design of the airflow control makes it easy to adjust the amount of air you let into the atty to exactly what you want. The o-rings between the outer and inner ring is comfortably loose so its no hassle to adjust it either. The same goes for the o-rings on the top-cap actually. They're tight enough to keep the cap in place, but loose enough to make it easy to pop the cap off and drip when you need it. When it comes to the heat fins on the top-cap... they seem to be working fine... I didn't burn my lips even when vaping at 50W.

The 510 connector on this atty is not the longest I've seen. This could be a bad thing or a good thing depending on your mod-collection I guess. It will sit flush on most mods, but you'll need a mod with an adjustable center (or one that's a perfect fit). Now most mods nowadays have this so I don't think this would be a problem for many users. Anyway, if I was to say one thing I'm missing with this atty it would be an adjustable (or spring-loaded) centerpin.

Conclusion:
I'm quite impressed to be honest. This atty costs no more than £19.99, and to me it seems like a bargain. It seems to be solidly built, o-rings are not too loose, not to tight. I bet there are atties out there that are easier to set up, but it's not too bad actually. Now at this price you don't get any fancy materials like titanium body and gold plated contacts. Overall I'd say this is a lot of atty for your money, and a great way to start exploring dripping atties and multi-coil setups.



Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product. 
• The atomizer was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review contains affiliate links.