CoilArt DPRO 133 kit review by KingPin!

[KingPin!]

Hi Folks

Ever thought about taking the plunge using a mechanical device? One of the areas universally agreed upon in the vaping scene is do your homework first because these sort of devices have no safety features and absolutely need to be treated with respect. If you have done your homework and want to cut your teeth first, or just want a similar experience to a mech but with all of the usual safety features from a regulated device...... the good news is CoilArt have released the “unregulated” Dpro 133 kit for just that purpose.

The way you control the vape is not via turning the wattage up or down, instead it’s via the coil build you put in the atomiser (just like a mech) it’s one of the main reasons experienced coil building hobbyist love them so much, you get to directly control every aspect of your vape experience.

CoilArt sent me through the Dpro kit 133 to give it the once over. Whilst I received the kit I did already purchase the DPRO RDA separately a few months back, I just hadn’t the chance to drop its review yet because there’s only so much I can genuinely test and review at once. This gives me the opportunity to combine it in here. One last thing to cover, I don’t like to make recommendations in my reviews rather I’ll go over all my findings to bolster further research should you be interested in the product.




What’s in the box?

• 1 X DPRO 133 Mod
• 1 X DPRO RDA
• 1 X Bottom Feeding Pin
• 2 X Cotton pads
• 2 X Fused Clapton Coils
• 1 X Allen key
• 1 X Accessories Bag (O-rings and post screws)

As with all kit reviews I’ll go over the Atomiser first then the mod second

Part 1 - The DPRO RDA

Manufacturer Specs

• 24mm Diameter
• 36mm Overall Height
• Postless Deck
• Material: SS/ Aluminium
• 24K Gold Plated Deck
• Airflow: 2
• 810 Ultem Drip Tip

Available Colours: Black, Red, Silver, Golden, Blue, Purple
Product Information: http://www.coilart.net/dpro-133-kit

Build Quality, Looks & Initial Impressions

The DPRO’s drip tip is one of the most comfortable 810 (Goon/Kennedy) sized drips tips I’ve ever used, whilst some people might find the walls to be really thick I personally love it because the narrow 510 bore is spot on for my draw style. I also find it to be the perfect height to avoid my lips touching the top cap. Playing devil’s advocate it does make centre dripping without removing the top chamber trickier which is a pain unless you happen to be squonking.



The Paintwork and finish are excellent throughout although as with all aluminium top caps/chambers it does make it miss out on the premium feel somewhat being lighter. The payoff is faster heat dissipation when cooking the coils and a good degree of insulation from the paintwork itself which I appreciate for chain vaping.

I’m not a massive fan of the way coil art puts their brand on everything perhaps a simpler version of their logo would suffice although I very much doubt this is something they will change, thankfully with the painted options this is largely obscured more to my personal taste.

There are two side airflow holes angled down towards the deck so coil placement and wicking are going to be key on this to get the most from it. The airflow cap is a single piece aligning with the airflow holes in the deck making breakdown and cleaning easy. This also means fewer O-rings to worry about fitting correctly or perishing.




Considering how shallow the deck is dripping isn’t too bad for spillages as there is plenty of space for wicks at each end, you just don’t get many puffs between drips. In some regards it’s a bit of a strange pairing, I’d say it’s much more suited to a Squonker kit where dripping is no longer an issue.



The cap is secured in place with a two O-rings. The fittings aren’t overly tight but offer ok resistance to stop any leaking, once juiced up they could have been a little tighter in all honesty. Another thing I’ve noticed is condensation and excess juice around the edges will be pushed down towards the base when you plonk the top cap back on, something to keep an eye on when dripping especially on the Dpro 133 mod (more on that later)

Looking inside the airflow cap it has a very shallow conical design at the top of the chamber. The paintwork extends inside the chamber itself as well as the outside something to bear in mind over repeated high temperatures and wear.



The Deck itself is gold plated again left with a great finish. Postless decks can be annoying when learning to build coils but this one is a doddle even the post screws are designed not to twist the legs.

Underneath the base are the adjustable positive post screws, to remove one requires a Hex (the bottom feeding pin), or Philips (for normal dripping). When inserted the bottom feeding pin sits flush inside the deck. If you over squonk it will drain some juice back into the bottle, ideal for this deck and its reduced capacity. The positive Pin itself extends out a fair way from the negative threading making this safe for future hybrid mechanical use.

Finally with the kit you get a thin Ultem disc which can be placed under the base of the RDA serving multiple roles, 1) To stop scratches on the top of the mod, 2) Reduces heat transfer to the mod 3) Acts as a seal stopping juice sitting around the 510 plate on the mod. This is an excellent addition and is something I wish more manufactures included as standard.

 

[KingPin!]

Building and Wicking

You are free to run this with both single and dual coil options.

Using a single coil size of up to 4mm ID, I try and position my coil so the top of it lines up just above the top of the inside post. This is slightly lower than some people out there but creates better airflow each side of the coil in my opinion. It does mean for coils above 3mm you can’t use the edge of the deck to lay your coil tool across which is a pain.



Although it’s more of a faff to mount a single 4mm ID coil I did get a slightly more flavourful vape using this option over dual coils. Another benefit is it allows you to sculpt the cotton either side of the coil to create a wall leaving a narrow channel for the airflow to circulate around the coil itself (like so) perfect for dripping.



When squonking I found dual 3mm ID coils to be the better option because there is a little more room under the coil to refill from the pin. As I mentioned earlier wicking is crucial and although I use a little less for squonking I don’t vary it massively on this deck because you need to use it to channel that airflow.





The DPRO is one of those RDA’s that doesn’t require crazy builds to get a decent vape from it. There was little difference in flavour between that single staggerton and some fused claptons so I suggest instead experimenting with wicking and creating a channel something that might be good for budding builders learning the ropes of the simpler coil builds.

You will need to pre measure and cut coil legs to length being it’s a postless deck. So chop away in stages until you get that coil spot on then then use it as a guide going forward when putting fresh coils in. You can also lay your coil tool at the edge of the deck leaving the legs hanging down, then use the bottom O-ring as a rough cutting guide (although you may need to chop slightly above this).



The securing screws are out of the way and you can really wrench them down, I found them to be hard wearing so they should last. You get a total of 8 hex screws with the kit and four flatheads.

I was using Koh Gen Doh cotton pads it’s my go to wicking for RDA’s now super impressed with its ability to hold juice for dripping and not burn as easily as cotton bacon when drying out.


How’s the Vape?

Difficult one this… I bought this RDA at the same time as the Aura RDA and I prefer this in every way over the Aura except for the flavour it’s somewhat muted in comparison for my liking and I’ve tried multiple different builds, heights and cotton placements trying to get the best from it. It’s not awful by any means but it’s more of a cloud first RDA than a flavour RDA, so depends what you are looking for.

I prefer to use a single coil in here in conjunction with dripping to paint the coils in order to squeeze that extra bit of flavour from it, but as I mentioned earlier the deck has a small capacity which does become tiresome.

The draw is semi restricted fully open and is smooth to start with which I like although you do need to offset the airflow ever so slightly therefore reducing it further to avoid whistling which doesn’t bother me because I reduce it down anyway to enhance flavour.

Pros

• Good build quality and paint job (on both of mine)
• Mounting screws are really excellent and you get plenty of spares
• Fantastic 810 drip tip (with a 510 restricted bore)
• Very easy to measure and mount up to 3mm coils
• The kit comes with a thermal disc (not available when buying RDA on its own though)
• Comes with a squonk pin for bottom filling at a future date (not to be used with the 133 mod)
• Stood up to ultrasonic cleaning
• Decent clouds and semi restricted draw

Cons

• Flavour takes a back seat to clouds
• Over dripping or squonking can be problematic with the deck capacity size
• Not so easy to centre drip and removing/replacing airflow cap does push residual juice to the base of the RDA
• Not fond on the branding
• O-rings offer ok resistance but need to be a little tighter
• Can whistle on the draw you have to offset airflow to stop this
• Have to muck about with wicking to channel airflow

Final Conclusion

They have some good ingredients for this RDA and for those reasons I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get the best from it over the past few months, unfortunately I was never able to dial it in through coil or wicking options to get it to be a flavour performer, unless of course I closed the airflow to a slither which kind of defeats the purpose somewhat.

I don’t want to see them completely throw away what they have here rather tweak the design, make the conical chamber more bell shaped inside, lower the deck slightly to increase capacity, also lift the airflow holes higher so it can accommodate the large single coils ok ……these kind of things are what its missing right now.

 

[KingPin!]

Part 2 - The DPRO 133 Mod



Manufacturer Specs

• 84.5mm x 44mm x 28mm
• Dual battery in parallel
• Battery voltage output (3.7V)
• 0.08ohm low resistance support
• Aluminium anodizing body
• 24K gold plated fire connection
• Internal self-adjustable connect pin (that’ll be a spring loaded pin then)
• Features self-adjusting battery contact (that’ll be a spring loaded positive contact then)

Available Colours: Black, Red, Silver, Golden, Blue, Purple
Product Information: http://www.coilart.net/dpro-133-kit

Looks Build Quality & Overall Impressions

As I mentioned in my intro an unregulated device is indeed what this one is. Chuck in the normal safety features of a regulated device including reverse polarity, low resistance protection, short circuit protection and finally low voltage cut off you now have the good bits from both worlds. In my humble opinion this is definately something to think about if you want to learn how different coil builds affect the vape experience you get with a mech without fear of completely ballsing it up.

So with that out of the way mods like this are simple in their nature that’s the point, less to go wrong! Although if you are looking to use this a stepping stone try to use it like you would a mech to get you into good habits early on.

The paint job matches the DPRO and has been very well applied with no blemishes on mine. The body is made of anodized aluminium. With this in mind the mod weighs just 100 grams out of the box which makes it feel somewhat underwhelming, once you plonk the DPRO RDA and load 2 18650 batteries it weighs roughly 222g which is better for its size.

The mod itself is tiny for a dual battery which makes it very portable, ergonomically it’s very comfortable to use in either hand using thumb or finger firing.

Being it’s easy to get to I took a peek inside, the 510 is a press fit with a free floating positive pin. At the moment that 510 is solid so might have something other than friction holding that inside ring in place, but I do worry about it working lose over time. It actually looks remakedly similar to the guts of the Smok Alien from pics I've seen.



The positive and ground wire are nice and thick in comparison though (18 gauge) and the soldering job is ok although could have been finished better at the top there, also those positive and negative contacts are really bloody close when reassembled.

I advise using that Ultem Disc at all times even when using other atomisers on here because that 510 is not sealed (floating positive pin) so juice seeping inside is going to be a problem if you have a leaky tank.



You get 4 blue LED lights to signify whether it’s on (5 clicks on/off). These show you the remaining voltage the batteries have left…they eventually go out one by one. It will deliver full power at full battery and significantly reduce its output the longer you vape (just like a mech) you’ll notice around the 3.6v at rest mark (roughly half way) it’s starts dropping off and this is normally the time for a change. If you are using this as a stepping stone it’s good to get used to recognising this drop off and what it feels like, as I said earlier there is no such low voltage protection on a mech.

I vaped all the way to cut off. The final LED blinks when reached and recoded a cut off at 3.26V. I also tried the batteries in reverse polarity position and series configuration, the mod did nothing which is good.

The fire button is irritating, all I’ll say is you know you have pressed it! To me it sounds just like the D-Day Cricket (look that one up) ….it’s not like I need to call out “flash” or “thunder” while I’m vaping. It hasnt ever got stuck so its doing its job ok.

The battery door it a nice snug fit opens and closes without any gaps although it doesn’t take much to pop it open so perhaps a little more friction is required to hold it firm. Whilst on the battery door this is a parallel mod so you can use one battery if you want (not sure why would but there you go).



I noticed when the device is powered on and you open the battery door, obviously its off at this point but when you engage the door again the mod remains on, this is not a big thing just something to bear in mind if you place it straight in the bag or pocket as there is no lock feature.

Since you are limited to 133 watts on here there is little point building below 0.1ohms which is roughly where you’ll be depending on the mods internal resistance and battery voltage drop using it. The bench testers out there will verify this aspect, with the avoidance of equipment I just assume a nominal voltage drop of 3.7V under load which takes you to roughly max performance. I’m detecting a slight drop in performance when vaping side by side against my parallel mech but it’s not really noticeable or something I’m overly worried about. (Bearing in mind here the mech doesn’t have silver contacts).

Pros

• Portable and lightweight
• Great option for transition over to using a true mechanical device
• LED’s are a great feature
• I think Parallel is the better option for budding coil builders
• Battery life is great
• Comfortable to hold and fire
• Performs well with the right build (look up building for parallel mods)

Cons

• The fire button is really LOUD
• Could have been slightly heavier but this is subjective
• The 510 is press fit which could work lose and is susceptible to leaking atomisers
• It’s fairly easy to knock and open the battery door

Final Conclusion

It has withstood my normal month’s usage before this review and has remained stable throughout so it’s not all bad. It reacted to different coil resistances as I would expect behaving fairly similar to my parallel mech. I do have concerns about that 510 though.

I really like the idea of a stepping stone mod like this but I question some of the design decisions taken on the 133. New coil builders need something that’s capable of taking punishment using many different atomisers, standing up to dodgy builds and leaking due to questionable wicking. With this in mind it would be good to see my findings addressed in future releases.

 

[zephyr]

Thank you for a good review. I will mention that if I finger-fire my 133 towards the bottom of the button and keep some pressure on it, it's quiet, and I swear the whistle in my RDA has disappeared.

I'm one of the few who does use this mod with one battery because I am short on batteries, and use one 25r while charging the other two - had 3 for my RX200 but they weren't all paired so the one is separate now.
Love the smooth finish and small size for my pocket, and the voltage drop isn't as bad as I expected it would be, not for my 0.18-0.25 ohm builds anyway.

Thanks again!

 

[CoilART vapor]

Thank you for your nice review.

 

[KingPin!]

Thank you for a good review. I will mention that if I finger-fire my 133 towards the bottom of the button and keep some pressure on it, it's quiet, and I swear the whistle in my RDA has disappeared.

I'm one of the few who does use this mod with one battery because I am short on batteries, and use one 25r while charging the other two - had 3 for my RX200 but they weren't all paired so the one is separate now.
Love the smooth finish and small size for my pocket, and the voltage drop isn't as bad as I expected it would be, not for my 0.18-0.25 ohm builds anyway.

Thanks again!

Many thanks Meg yeah agree it’s performance isnt too bad at all and good to know some out there are using it fine with single battery.

Not a bad little starter kit to get used to building on first. it’s size it’s definitely one of its pro points just wish that the 510 was sealed and secured differently to make it a little more rugged in that regard

Haha both of my DPROs had the whistle offsetting the airflow just very slightly stopped it though

 

[KingPin!]

Thank you for your nice review.

thanks for sending the product through CoilArt hopefully there’s some useful feedback in there to help with future products

 

[zephyr]

Many thanks Meg yeah agree it’s performance isnt too bad at all and good to know some out there are using it fine with single battery.

Not a bad little starter kit to get used to building on first. it’s size it’s definitely one of its pro points just wish that the 510 was sealed and secured differently to make it a little more rugged in that regard

Haha both of my DPROs had the whistle offsetting the airflow just very slightly stopped it though

That 510 though, only mod I have that will take Any atomizer with no gap! And it does come back up fine

 

[KingPin!]

That 510 though, only mod I have that will take Any atomizer with no gap! And it does come back up fine

It hasn’t played up yet for me Meg as I said in my review its perfectly functional at the moment.

it’s one of those things in my opinion that “could” become problematic so thought it best to point it out let people decide themselves whether they care or not.

I’ll report back if I get any issues over next few months (actually even if it’s still going well I’ll report back) I’m going to continue using this to see how it fares.

Likewise let me know how youre getting on as well

 

[zephyr]

Just wanna say I've been using this mod heavily for months now, 7 months at least! And it's in killer shape- it's taken the ridiculously long 510s, and even teeny short ones as well. Battery door is 100%, and finish I'd say about 90%, here see

That glossy/glittery black coat is 100% still


The gunmetal accents are worn just a hair from constant table touches


And the battery door! Thing is tough as nails.

 

[KingPin!]

Just wanna say I've been using this mod heavily for months now, 7 months at least! And it's in killer shape- it's taken the ridiculously long 510s, and even teeny short ones as well. Battery door is 100%, and finish I'd say about 90%, here see

That glossy/glittery black coat is 100% still
View attachment 115641

The gunmetal accents are worn just a hair from constant table touches
View attachment 115642

And the battery door! Thing is tough as nails.
View attachment 115643

Excellent feedback thanks meg thanks for the reminder as well

No issues to report my side either ...though I was last using it couple of months ago cause others came through I had to test so it’s good too see daily usage hasn’t knackered yours

 

[zephyr]

Excellent feedback thanks meg thanks for the reminder as well

No issues to report my side either ...though I was last using it couple of months ago cause others came through I had to test so it’s good too see daily usage hasn’t knackered yours

It's a great mod, my favorite "one button" mod lol

I covered those bright blue lights with stickers though, to keep from being blinded should I vape in the middle of the night

 

[KingPin!]

It's a great mod, my favorite "one button" mod lol

I covered those bright blue lights with stickers though, to keep from being blinded should I vape in the middle of the night

The lights never bothered me really but then I don’t vape in the middle of the night

Blue dazzle time!

 

[YoungGirl]

Hi friend,this is emily from HCigar Tech,we are trying to find some one who writen reviews for our new products,are you interested in?if deal how we begin? is there any requirements?
hope can get your back soon!
thanks
Emily

 

[KingPin!]

Hi friend,this is emily from HCigar Tech,we are trying to find some one who writen reviews for our new products,are you interested in?if deal how we begin? is there any requirements?
hope can get your back soon!
thanks
Emily

Hi Emily,

Hmmm requirements let me think ....I require a bag of skittles (with all the green ones removed), a tank (literally a battletank .....T-34 always been fond of them), and a metal coat hanger (because, well they just come in handy)

haha PM me is the first point of call and we can discuss further , In the meantime Ill sort out a vendor badge for you

 

[YoungGirl]

Hi Emily,

Hmmm requirements let me think ....I require a bag of skittles (with all the green ones removed), a tank (literally a battletank .....T-34 always been fond of them), and a metal coat hanger (because, well they just come in handy)

haha PM me is the first point of call and we can discuss further , In the meantime Ill sort out a vendor badge for you

Hi could you please give me your email address?it is easy to talk more

 

[KingPin!]

Hi could you please give me your email address?it is easy to talk more

See my PM please