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Anthony Vapes: Wismec Active Kit Tech Review

SirRichardRear

AKA Anthony Vapes on Youtube
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 3 Years
Reviewer
Hi All, Anthony Vapes back here with my review of the Wismec Active kit. Please see bottom for disclaimers and links. Note: This is marked as a sample version

Introduction:
The Wismec Active Mod is one of the newest mods from popular manufacturer Wismec and paired with their armour NS plus tank. Sadly i haven’t been very impressed with output as of late as they’ve had a lot of stinkers for me in my reviews so hopefully they can turn the tide at some point. The active is an internal battery mod rated at 80 watts and made to be rugged and waterproof and includes a bluetooth speaker. The tank is made for MTL and low watt DTL vaping. Looking around I see the kit for 60-70 USD so a little on the pricey side. It’s available in 3 colors black, orange and silver which is the side panel colors and they have a few color options for the silicone cover that goes over the middle of the frame of the mod like green, orange, sky blue, and black.

Manufacturer's Specs: Mod
  • Dimensions - 94.5mm by 55.6mm by 26.6mm
  • Weight - 166.4g
  • Integrated 2100mAh Rechargeable Battery
  • Wattage Output Range: 1-80W
  • Voltage Output Range: 0.5-9.0V
  • Resistance Range - Temperature Control: 0.05-1.5ohm
  • Resistance Range - Variable Wattage: 0.05-3.5ohm
  • Temperature Range: 100-315°C/200-600°F
  • Supports Ni200, Titanium, and Stainless Steel
  • Temperature Control Mode
  • Voltage Mode
  • BYPASS Mode
  • TCR Mode
  • Music Mode
  • Zinc-Alloy Chassis Construction
  • 0.91" OLED Screen
  • Intuitive Tactile Firing Button
  • Two Adjustment Buttons
  • Bluetooth Connectivity
  • Waterproof - With Silicone Casing
  • Shockproof - With Silicone Casing
  • Micro USB Port
  • 510 Connection
  • Available in Black, Orange, Silver
Manufacturer's Specs: Tank
  • 27mm Diameter
  • Weight - 47.5g
  • 2mL Standard Juice Capacity
  • 4.5mL Expanded Juice Capacity
  • Superior Stainless Steel Construction
  • Pyrex Glass Reinforcement
  • Wismec WS Coil Line
  • 0.2ohm WS01 Triple Coil - Rated for 40-80W
  • 1.3ohm WS04 MTL Coil - Rated for 8-14W
  • Sliding Top-Fill Method
  • Dual Slotted Bottom Airflow - Adjustable Ring
  • Stainless Steel 510 Connection
Included in box:
  • 1 ACTIVE 80W Box Mod
  • 1 Armor NS Plus Tank
  • 1 Ergonomic Hook
  • 1 0.2ohm WS01 Triple Coil
  • 1 1.3ohm WS04 MTL Coil
  • 1 QC Micro USB Cable
  • 1 Spare Parts Bag
  • 2 User Manual
Coil Options
  • 0.2ohm WS01 Triple Coil - Rated for 40-80W
  • 1.3ohm WS04 MTL Coil - Rated for 8-14W
  • 0.25ohm WS02 Triple Coil - Rated 40-120W (not included)
  • 1.5ohm WS03 MTL Coil - Rated 7-13W (not included)
Picture Album
album



Initial Impressions and features
When I first got this Mod, I wasn’t sure what the point of having a speaker in your mod. I mean I would rather companies focus on making a good well built mod that does it’s job before adding features nobody asked for. I was however happy they went with a durable waterproof design as there aren’t many rugged options especially with internal battery so that could be useful for some. I liked the changeable silicon covers as well. They sent me all 3 colors (orange, sky blue, and green) in addition to the black that comes with it. The green was my favorite for sure and it is a nice simple looking mod that could pass got a speaker alone. Overall i was a little torn on it but hopeful it would do its job as a rugged internal battery mod on the market would be nice to have.

Watt Mode Performance (chart and spreadsheet in picture album)
Now let’s get into some data. I ran my normal testing. Battery is internal and appears to be a dual 18350 battery config in parallel. Batteries were labeled as 3.7V and 2100mah for the pack so likely 2 18350 1050mah batteries and they are wired in parallel. Testing resistances were done at .11, .15, .2, and .6 ohms. wattage points were max (800), 60, 40, and 20. At .11 ohms it maxed out at 68 watts and 25 amps. For the rest of the testing it was on the low side 3-7 watts. At .15 it maxed out at 62 watts. The rest again were a struggle hitting 3-14 watts low. For the .2 test it maxed out at 68 watts. Again it struggled low 2-7 watts. For the .6 testing it maxed out at 76 watts and 6.732 volts. For the rest of the testing slightly low 1-3 watts. The volts shows there is a boost circuit in this mod like most internal battery mods have.

Overall I felt the performance of this mod wasn’t very good. Much like the wismec MF mod i tested it didn’t perform well at .2 ohm or less. It’s really better used at higher resistances then that. On top of that it reads resistances off pretty badly at higher ohms. I used a .84 ohm build on it and it read at .71 ohm. It gets way off the higher you get on the low side. Under .5 ohms though it’s acceptably good enough reading resistances. I was able to get 76 watts max, so I consider it to be accurately rated at 80 watts, but only hits it with higher resistances while most internal battery mods can hit their max at almost any resistance. The 6.732+ volt limit shows there is a boost circuit as it should be. Their manual lists the max Volts at 9V I would have needed a higher resistance coil to check that but the volts i tested shows it’s good enough and shouldn't be an issue. They list an amp limit on this mod of 50A. The most i got was 25 with a .11 ohm coil. The 50A output is grossly overstated and a BS rating. To even get to 50 amps you would need a .032 ohm resistance and the mod lists a .05 as the minimum meaning theoretically the most it could do is 40A but really it’s only a 25A max output. That 50A rating is just gross BS overstement at this point. The 25A puts it in the lower end of the average range for internal battery mods however which is normally 25-30 so not a bad maximum amp limit, just horribly overstated. The mod never got warm when stressing it at all.

Simplified TLDR Power Performance summary
Mod performance is not very good. Struggles under .2 ohms and reads resistances way off on higher ohms. Accurately rated for watts (76), Yes boost circuit, lower end of average amp limit of 25A but falls way short of the 50A listed.

Temperature Control Performance
Using SS316 wire in SS mode, i’ll keep this short and sweet. I tested 2 builds a single coil round wire build and a fancy single coil build. Both kicked me out of TC pretty quickly. Not sure how many times i have to repeat this to get them to fix this issue but their TC at this point has to be the worst out there of any company and really needs to be addressed. Easy fail for TC usage.

Durability, Water Testing, and Speaker
Ok so since this mod has a bluetooth speaker, and is rugged and waterproof we need to test these things. Luckily they sent me 2 mods so i was able to use 1 normally and test it and use 1 for the durability and water testing. So let's start off with the water testing. I tested it like I did the geekvape aegis legend. I put it in the hot tub which is about 3 feet deep give or take at 102F temp for 10 mins. It appeared to survive it as it was still turned on when i took it out and was working fine. I then put it on my shelf for a week. After picking it back up off the shelf a week later so i could test the durability i went to turn it on first and it was toast. Wouldn’t turn on at all so the water killed it. Even a week later you can see in the pics above all the water that was still inside the mod. Everything was just soaked pretty much. So easy fail on the water test.

So i saved for durability test to use on my other mod until after my power mode testing. I dropped it from 3 feet and it was good, dropped it from 6 feet and it was good, throw it up to about 10 feet and it was still good. All 3 were dropped onto concrete. So i gave it a couple of soft tosses across a room after that into a wall and onto a hardwood floor. After all that the mod still worked just fine and there was no physical damage so it gets a pass for durability and is a pretty rugged mod that shouldn’t break from normal drops

For the speaker test, i’m no audiophile by any means and there are people much better suited to talk about the quality and such. What i will say is the bluetooth worked fine and was easy to connect as did the volume adjustments and track changes. It’s decently loud no complaints on the volume. I have a cheap like 15-20 dollar altec lansing rugged speaker i use for golfing and the speaker on this is comparable to the untrained ear. All in all good speaker and i’ll likely keep this mod strapped to my golf bag and use it as a backup speaker for golfing.
 

SirRichardRear

AKA Anthony Vapes on Youtube
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 3 Years
Reviewer
Other Usage Notes
The mod uses a standard 5 click to turn on and off. The menu system is basic but works well. Not a lot of features on this mod. 3 clicks of fire goes into the menu where you can cycle modes and pressing fire accepts it. It has power, bypass, and TC for SS, Ni200, and Ti, as well as 3 TCR memory spots. Holding fire and up lets you change on the display between a live amp reading, a puff counter, and a puff timer. Holding fire and down turns stealth mode on or off. Holding down and up locks the adjustment buttons. With the mod off holding down and fire flips the screen or holding up and fire lets you set your TCR modes. None of that is mentioned in the manual however. 2 clicks with the mod on lets you set the logo to on or off. There is no preheat on this mod which makes no sense at all and it’s crazy to have to turn your mod off to adjust TCR but would be more of a negative if TC mode actually worked. They do need to update their menu system but since it’s really only usable in power mode all you need to do is adjust watts which is easy to do.

The Wismec Active adjusts by .1 watt increments under 20 watts and full watt increments 20 or more. Very well done there. The mod itself is built solid with no rattle at all, and is pretty lightweight as well. The silicon covers feel nice and doesn't scratch and protects the mod very well. The fire button is nice and clicky and a good size. It is a rectangle shape with bumps on it. It works well and It never gets stuck or anything though which is as it should be and is really comfy to use. The 510 pin gave me no issues and every atomizer i used on it worked great with no gaps. Also in my disassembly I found that it’s a very nice 510. Secured from the inside and properly grounded. Probably the best i’ve seen on a wismec mod to date so nice that maybe they are listening to me a little bit finally. While it didn’t fix TC at all at least I didn’t get any inconsistent output so it’s a step in the right direction but they really just need to make better chips and better firmware. The 510 is on a 25mm platform so overhang should not be any issue as long as you don’t use a 30mm atomizer which doesn't pair well with an internal battery mod anyway. The screen is an old school DNA style screen. Same size and black and white as the DNA200, DNA250, and DNA75 screens. Very old and outdated for today's mods. I don’t mind the size due to the type of device but would have been nice to be at least color. Also for branding the mod itself there practically no visible branding which is nice. Just a small wismec active engraved into the speak panel on the bottom right corner. They list 2A charging as well in my testing i never got 2A but I did get as high as 1.67A though most of the time it was around 1-1.25A. Since it did do over 1.5A some of the time i’m ok with the rating but probably would have called it 1.5A myself and most of the time it’s a little over 1A. Still not too bad for a 2100mah battery and charges fast enough. I have some pics in the album above of the charge rates.

Armour NS Plus Tank
Ok i’ll give a quick rundown of the armour NS Plus tank that comes in the kit. It’s a 27mm tank that is made for MTL vaping and low watt DTL vaping. It overhangs the platform on the mod but won’t overhang the mod itself and looks good on the mod size-wise. It comes with a 2ml and 4.5ml bubble tanks. It uses a standard 510 drip tip. The one in the silver is a smokey plastic (probably PC or PMMA) and the one with the black looks to be amber and the bubble glasses match the tip so nice overall looking. It uses a standard slide back top fill as well. The AFC is easy to adjust and has a small hole for the MTL coil and then 2 larger holes for your options on the DTL coil. Personally i found it best with the small hole for MTL and with half open (1 large hole and the small hole) for DTL. no complaints about the tank itself and a standard tank you see on the market from many companies.

Now for the important part, the coil performance. There is no RBA deck so you are limited to the coil options only. I used the 2 coils that came with the kit. The 1st coil was the MTL coil (WS04) It was good at around 11 watts and good for flavor but sadly died at around half a tank of the 4.5ml capacity. So only got 2-3mls of juice before it died. You can see the coil in the pics above taken apart. So no good there. The DTL coil (WS01) was just awful. Had no flavor other than a weird taste. I ran 3 tanks through it (about 13-14ml) hoping it would break in and it never did. It was just gross so i stopped using it. Overall really bad coils that makes the tank unusable.

Pros:
  • 3 color options and 4 interchangeable silicone covers
  • Accurately rated for watts
  • good volt limit for an internal battery mod (has boost circuit)
  • nice fire button
  • handles 25mm atomizers without overhang
  • easy to adjust wattage quickly
  • lightweight
  • very comfy to use
  • good durability
  • speaker works well
  • good 510 pin
  • charges fast (max tested 1.67A charge rate)
Cons:
  • Not waterproof (failed badly)
  • TC performance is bad
  • Power mode performance isn’t that good either
  • way overstated amp limit (lists 50A actual is 25A)
  • old style black and white small screen
  • no preheats or watt curves
  • menu system should be better
  • included tank coils are bad
Conclusion
So with all that said, do I recommend this kit or not? I don’t like to do a hard yes or no but this one has to lean towards the no. Outside of it being pretty durable for everyday drops there isn’t anything redeeming on this mod. The speaker works well but the mod itself just doesn't. Power mode performance wasn’t up to par, the ridiculous overstated amp limit is a joke, TC performance was awful, the tanks coils were awful, The waterproof doesn't work, the menu is old and outdated as is the screen, and it lacks basic features like a pre-heat. I think Wismec needs to focus on just making a good performing basic mod and less on adding more non vape features we don’t need. They missed a golden opportunity here to make a rugged lightweight mod that would have filled a nice need in vaping. I won’t be adding this mod to my sheet of recs linked down below.

This is Anthony Vapes just keeping it honest, hopefully you all can say the same and i’ll catch you on my next review.

Product Disclaimer
This product was sent to me from Wismec

Review Disclaimer
Due to possible QC difference your experience may vary.

Reviewer Disclaimer
I’ve been doing vape reviews since late 2016 and have done around 300 reviews to date. I enjoy helping vapers on forums as well and helping contribute to the great vape community. I’m not an “out of the box” reviewer. I do my best to be thorough at all times and have enough experience with many products to tell what’s good and what’s not. All mods get tested with an oscilloscope and stress tested and results are posted in my reviews.

Recommendations and Past Review Links
written reviews list here

Youtube Channel here

Spreadhseet of Recommendations here

Best of 2018 so far list here

Best of 2017 list here

Official Product Link https://store.wismec.com/us/wismec-active-with-amor-ns-plus.html
 
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