The RTA
One of the prettiest (in my opinion) and luxurious atomisers you can get on the market right now. Infamous for their luxury high end products, DotMod’s Petri RTA is the first outing away from the much loved RDA’s. Everything about the product screams quality, but is it any good?
To save you from scrolling to the bottom for the verdict, answer is yes… and no. Read on and you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
Specs
- Genuine 4 layer 24K gold plated
- Post-less floating Deck
- Elevated airflow holes
- Adjustable airflow
- 22mm diameter
- 2ml juice capacity
- Top fill design
- Knurled top cap for easy juice fill access
- Textured airflow control ring
- 2x framed staple clapton coils
- Spare o-rings, hex screws and key, glass and 510 pin included
Who is it for?
For those who want style, great flavour* in a small non-leaking* tank this is for you.
What’s with the * you may ask? Let’s get something straight, flavour is subjective. Your taste verse mine, depending what you’ve just eaten or drank, which flavour and for how long you’ve been vaping it, plus the build will all affect the flavour you get personally but you’ll get a general idea by what I’m about to say.
Flavour, it is very good. On the framed stapled claptons that came pre-packaged with the tank (reading 0.12 Ω), Japanese wicking cotton, juiced with Moku Oyatsu White Gummi’s, on a DotMod Lite V2, with a Sony VTC-6 18650 battery… it is amazing. I love it. I’ve been vaping on that same set up for at leasts 6 months now. In the beginning I loved it so much I bought 2 of the tanks, and at £65 a pop it’s an investment so I could have 2 flavours going at once.
Here’s where the * comes into it, I cannot replicate or find these coils anywhere. I’ve tried about 10 different builds so far in this tank and cannot for the life of me replicate the flavour from the original coils. Luckily, the original coils have lasted me since I bought the tank, 6 months or so ago, dry burning every 3-4 weeks and cleaning the coil. My fear is now, what happens when these coils die? I’ve come close to replicating the flavour with other coils and builds but I would say there’s still that 10% missing, something I could live with? Probably.
And now the second *, if you wick it correctly, it won’t leak. However, it took me multiple attempts to get the right wicking method for the tank so there’s the balance of efficient wicking, flavour and no leakage. Too much cotton and it will not wick efficiently, meaning you’ll end up dry burning the cotton, never nice. Too little and it’ll leak all over your hands and mod. It doesn’t help that the build deck isn’t straightforward. You get used it to it over time and I’ve never had an issue since. Great for when you want to just have your vape in your pocket without the fear of your tank making it look like you’ve just wet your pants, yes I keep it in my trouser pocket on the go.
Quality & Performance
The tank breaks down into a mass of different pieces. A non-vaper colleague watched me rebuild the tank and compared it to assembling an assault rifle, not that I know what that looks like in the UK and she is an American.
You have:
- Drip tip – unusual in the fact the o-rings are visible through the transparent tip. Gathers condensation over time, not the biggest deal but worth mentioning. Also you can put a standard 510 drip tip in but it’s quite ugly as the o-rings will be visible.
- Top cap – super smooth threading revealing the fairly sized juice fill ports. Always easier when you have a unicorn bottle to fill rather than a dropper.
- Glass tube – pyrex, like every other tank.
- Chamber – 1 piece chamber connected to the juice fill ports.
- Terminal deck – floating post-less deck, more on that below.
- Airflow deck – the terminal deck sits inside the airflow.
- Airflow control ring – sits outside the airflow deck.
- 510 pin – YOU CANNOT REMOVE THE DECKS UNTIL THIS IS LOOSENED! – Yes this irks me.
One of the unique features of this tank is the deck section. Post-less floating deck housed inside a conical chamber to enhance flavour, lovely. Did I mention is completely covered in the 4 layers of 24k gold? It’s not all pretty though, the deck is quite small to build on. If you wanted to build something larger than 3mm ID on a dual coil build, you simply won’t have enough space to to accommodate positioning the coils over the airflow which will mean a lost in flavour.
The chamber, due to it’s conical design, will restrict how much height you have to play with when moving the coils as well. Last thing you want is the coil touching the chamber, too much heat and burn. I’ve tried a single coil, it’s ok, feels hollow. To keep it even, the coil is positioned in the middle so the air coming in the chamber just flows around without hitting the coil directly. I’m sure there’s another clever way to do single coil but to me, this is a dual coil RTA.
Performance on a regulated mod, I had mine on the Wismec Reuleaux RX2/3, it’s seems to overcook the atty. Under 80W’s and the flavour seems weak and muted, around 110-120W was where I thought it performed best the regulated mod but spat too much.
Performance on a mechanical mod is where the RTA really shines for me. Smooth delivery with no spitting, nice even flavour throughout.
Summary
So why yes and no? All of us here at Vapare either own or have tried this RTA after we got our hands on it when released late summer (2016), and we’ve had mixed reactions to it. Despite it’s niggly problems, I still love it. Vaping is a hobby for me, spending time and care to rebuild and discover the correct build is fun, whilst a little frustrating too.
It’s not for everyone, and if you are thinking of making the purchase be aware this is not a beginner tank. You will need to find the build that suits you.
Pros
- The supplied hex screws are ok, 6 months and I’ve wasted 1 out of 8 supplied, not bad.
- The obvious quality sign here is the threading. It is buttery smooth.
- Airflow adjustment has a nice restrictive movement to it, the textured feel helps control the airflow.
- Can have excellent flavour rivalling RDA’s.
- Does not leak at all providing you wick it correctly (obviously if you left it upside down for a while it will).
- Looks great on black mods, got mine sitting on my black DotMod Lite V2 with button upgrade.
- Alignment of the airflows is ensured with grooves, I’m also going to put this as a con though.
- O-rings work perfectly fine.
Cons
- The 510 pin, I do not understand the design thinking here. Yes it tightens the entire deck but unnecessarily so, just makes building that little more cumbersome.
- Restrictive build space, avoid if you want big builds in here.
- Alignment of the airflows grooves makes rebuilding the tank once juiced quite fiddly.
- Visible condensation build up in drip tip.
- You have to cut your coils leads different lengths due to the PEEK insulator. As it’s post-less, you cannot see and just cut the required length. If you didn’t measure correctly you could end up cutting the lead too short to bend the coil over the airflow.
DotMod Petri RTA
£54.95
Pros
- Superior quality machining
- RDA flavour in a tank
- No leaking
- Good airflow control
- Easy top fill
Cons
- The 510 pin
- Restrictive build space
- Fiddling to build on
- Visible condensation build up in drip tip.
- Assembly can be tricky
