The Orchid clone

Last year, this was a real game changer for me.  It seems like it was so long ago but it was less than a year when I first discovered the Orchid clone.  I used it in stock from for a few weeks until I started to mod it/ them.  I will show you the progression in which I started to modify the orchid.  I read a signature of someone on the fasttech forums that the orchid isn't an atomizer, it is a platform or something to that effect.  To me it really is.  There are so many ways to customize it to your liking.

The first thing I did was to drill out the stock air holes to 2.6mm. I have read that others have drilled theirs out to 3mm but I haven't had such luck. Maybe I was letting the drill bit get too hot. I did drop a few drops of e-juice, as lube, in the holes before I drilled but maybe I just need to take it slower and use more lube.

I was getting tired of filling from the bottom which in itself isn't that bad but for fear of losing the screw and having to carry a screwdriver to fill up was getting old. This was when the Kayfun V4 came out and a few people who bought one tried to use the evaporation chamber on the orchid. Success, it fit perfectly and wicked just as good if not better than the stock chimney of the orchid. 

I was using this setup with a bellcap which worked out great, I just had to be careful with my choice of juice because certain juice will crack the tank. I figured since the Kayfun V4 tank only attaches to the evaporation chamber, I said why not. It uses either a SS tank section or glass. So I bought a Kayfun V4 top tank and used a Kayfun top cap.

It worked fine for me for a few months but wanted a more leak proof fast wicking tank. This is where I took the base to the mill I had at my last job. I milled out the vertical and horizontal juice channels. I have read some people have used dremels to do this task but haven't tried myself. As you can see the channels are huge now and you can stuff the thickest pieces of cotton in there so say goodbye to leaking tanks.

This where my orchids are at today. There are plenty of other new rebuildable tanks that have come out since, but I stick to my orchids. It fits my needs and is fairly cheap. I hope you enjoyed this weeks blog post. Enjoy.

-Eric

Fasttech Nemesis Clone Mods to fix crunchy switch throw.

***Disclaimer:  I'm not responsible for damage you do to your device or harm to yourself from doing these mods.  This is just simply what I do and should not be taken as official.  When using a Hybrid cap/ style mod, you have to make sure the center pin protrudes enough where it will clear the threading so only the center pin comes in contact with the battery.  Please be careful and be safe.***

As promised, here are the mods I do to the Nemesis clone from Fasttech.  In the beginning, it seemed that the tubes themselves have been too short causing an extremely long throw thus putting the switch cap far enough out to catch on the end of the mod tube.  This is where the crunchiness comes from.  Somewhere along the line, they have lengthened the tube so that the switch will now thread all the way into the tube and bottom out and you are unable to depress the switch at all.  In this case all you would have to do is back the firing pin out a bit until you get a short throw and avoid the crunchiness all together.  Simple easy fix.

Now, if you own an older or shorter tube, this will be how to fix the crunchiness.  As stated before, I have swapped the 510 center pin for the firing pin and all together did away with the top cap.  You will first have to disassemble the switch and make sure not to lose the little pin (rice pin) it is very important that you don't lose this.  If you will be switching to magnets, this is the time to replace the spring with them.  If you chose to use the spring, that is fine too.  It won't affect the way the switch performs mechanically.  Some have reported electrically it conducts and gets hot, but I have never used a nemesis with a spring so I can't comment on that.

 

First off I take the Delrin (this one is black but can be done with the white Delrin as well) and sand about half of it off.  Then I take the firing pin and sand it down so when assembled it will sit below the upper most part of the sanded Delrin.  If not sanded it will cause an auto fire as soon as you assemble the mod.

At this point it's ready for assembly.  If you are going to put in magnets, now is the time to do it.

here are the magnets that I used.

Now that you have it assembled again, you can fine tune with the same method I talked about above.  if you sanded too much, you can back the firing pin out and dial in the switch to where you get a nice short throw and no crunchiness.

To finish up the mod, I use a hybrid cap also from Fasttech.  it just shortens the mod and puts the atomizer center pin in direct contact with the battery.  Beware that the 510 pin protrudes enough where the threads won't come in contact with your battery or you will cause a hard short and possibly battery venting or worse.

There you have it.  Those are the mods I do to my Nemesis Clone from Fasttech.  Again, I buy my Nemesis clones from fasttech because I know the hybrid caps will fit properly.  I have two Nemesis clones from other vendors which the hybrid cap from fasttech did not fit.

Remember, be careful when using a hybrid cap because if not setup properly, you can get seriously hurt or worse.

The Nemesis Fasttech clone

Today I will be reviewing the Fasttech Nemesis clone.  I want to really do this mod the justice it deserves.  Let me start off by saying I love the Nemesis.  There are mods one must do to really dial in the switch to really make this mod shine.  But I'll get into modding the nemesis in another blog post.

I buy my Nemesis clones exclusively from fasttech.  I do this because I know the top cap threading is 20.5 x .5mm.  This is important because I like to use hybrid connectors, again I'll get into later on.  This Nemesis I'm reviewing today is a one piece aluminum design which I love in the 18650 mode.  I have the modular ones that have separate tubes to extend to allow for 18350/ 18500/ 18650/18650 with a kick.  I only use those for 18350 modes.

The top cap has an adjustable 510 center pin to adjust for battery rattle.  The switch itself adjust for battery rattle by screwing it in further into the body.  I first start off by swapping the top cap center pin for the switch firing pin and I ditch the top cap completely.  But I'll go over that on another blog post along with the mods I do.

To me, the Nemesis is the most atheistically pleasing and the design is great.  It's truly a classic and will be around for a long time.  I know there are plenty of other mods out there that might be "cooler" but I don't own any of them.  I have never really like the recessed button design, I'm sure a lot of people like them and even love them but I'll stick with the Nemesis.  Just for a sneak peak, here are all of my Fasttech Nemesis Clones.  Yes I love them.  I have read other Nemesis (all from Fasttech) are better than others, but I have a few different models and they all perform perfectly.  But keep in mind that you do have to do some tweaking to make it work just the way you want it to.

If you are contemplating a mechanical mod, give the Fasttech Nemesis a spin.  It is a great mod and very affordable.

-Eric

KangerTech KBOX

This is a review of my KangerTech KBOX that I have owned for about 2 months.  You can purchase it at various vendors but I found it at vaporbeast.com for 19.99 USD and with the code YEAHBABY you can get it for 17.99 USD.

This device's power range if 8 watts to 40 watts on a single 18650 battery.  That is a lot of power for such a cheap price.  It uses a standard 510 floating connection.  It has no display screen but uses LED lights to let you know battery life and what power setting you set.  Coming from mechanical devices, this is a great transition.  No screens and menu's to scroll through.  Just set the power level and vape.  I won't go into the details of what the little bells and whistle (or lack of) this device has because I'm sure you read them or watched them on Youtube already.

I'll talk about my impressions of this device.  Like I said, I was 100% mechanical user and this being my first and only regulated device, I have to say I love it.  Lots of power, easy setup and user changeable batteries.  The buttons are placed well and the LED lights can be seen easily even in the sunlight although, I don't really change settings once it's set, I just watch the battery level.

While we are talking about the battery level, let me tell you about the battery life.  As far as batteries go, the life of the battery is good.  The bad part is the cutoff voltage is set to 3.5VDC which in my opinion is a little too high.  I wish it would go down to at least 3.2VDC so that vaping time is longer between battery changes.  With that said, make sure you bring spare batteries with you if you are going out with it.

The device itself is light, feels nice in your hand.  Feels like it is very durable which I only had one drop and I only broke the glass tank that was on it, but the KBOX it's self survived the fall.

The only thing I can say is that the some of the coating/ paint isn't great.  Maybe I should have bought a silver one.  You can see in the pictures that the worst of it is the battery cover which almost the first day I had it started to wear down.  The screws have also worn off and left them silver.  There is some wear on the atomizer platform and on the corners.

So to wrap this up, I have to say it is well worth the 20 something USD I paid for it and feel that it will last me a long time.  If you are on the fence between black and silver, I would get the silver so you won't have the paint wearing thin like what happened on mine.  Ok, so on with the pictures.  enjoy.

-Eric

About Me

Hey everyone. My name is Eric. I have been vaping since 2009 and consider myself an average vaper. My intentions for this blog will be about me and the equipment I use and how I set up my gear. It isn't necessarily the right or wrong way but how I chose to run my vape gear.

My early days started out with what is known as "cigalikes."  Devices that looked similar to cigarettes. I quickly moved on to flash light mods and stayed with that and cartomizers until around 2012 and moved to flash light mods and DCT tanks.

The industry started to grow and got myself a regulated tube mod (SID if anyone wanted to know what type) and protanks. I started off rebuilding the heads and was happy with my setup for about a year.

Rebuildable just started to hit the scene and I picked up a mechanical tube mod and rebuildable dripper.   This is when things started to pick up. I was buying all types of drippers drilling out air holes and hi drain batteries.

Even then, I was just doing it to stay off of cigarettes. But last year things changed.   When the Orchid came out it was a whole new world to discover. New heights of pleasure were found and love for vaping came into place. I have kicked the need for cigarettes and only have love for vaping.

I started out with 48mg/ ml strength juice down to today, I'm at 3mg/ ml strength juice.   I think it's due to the efficiency of my devices.

Up coming posts won't be of new gear or the latest fad. There are plenty of YouTube videos for that. Rather, I will be posting stuff I use and not given to me just for review purposes, so you will get actually data from a used device not one that is meant solely for review purposes that was hand picked from the manufacturer for review.   I'll also be posting modifications I have done to make my vaping experience better.

So I hope you stick around and tell your friends about this place. I won't review anything unless I have used it for at least a month. Thanks for stopping by.

-Eric