Sorry to bump this thread!
WARNING: DO NOT USE YOUR RBA IF THEY COME WITH THE WHITE OR CLEAR INSULATORS! Only the latest brown ones are safe as of now. I wish I would have known this before I used mine which came with the clear ones. PLEASE UPVOTE THIS TO WARN OTHERS.
I received my Subtank Mini on Jan 31, 2015 from myvaporstore and had been using it soley with the RBA head and the premade coil that came inside the RBA. My battery is an Istick 30watt, and I vape primarily at 25-30 watts. Unfortunately I hadn't seen any of the forum posts at the time about the clear insulators also being bad, and had only saw Phil Busardo's video about the original white insulators and how the clear insulators fixed the problem. My Subtank came with a clear insulator (which at the time I thought were the fixed ones), and I am sure you can tell where this is going....
The insulators melted.
My first tankfull of e-liquid on the Mini seemed fine and I was very happy, but upon refilling, I started to notice a very strange and disgusting taste. I thought at first perhaps it was my e-liquid, so I cleaned my tank thoroughly with distilled water, allowed it to dry completely, and refilled with a new e-liquid. The nasty taste persisted, and it was then that I decided to disassemble the RBA and saw that the clear insulator had melted in half and was coming apart, while the other half was fused to the metal base and into the airflow portion of the RBA.
I immediately cleaned the tank again with distilled water, let dry completely, switched to the OCC .5 ohm head and put new e-liquid in, but I could still strongly taste and smell the remnants of the burned insulator within the tank itself, as could my girlfriend and everyone who tried the tank afterwards. I thought maybe it was just my taste buds since I has cleaned out the tank and put in a new coil, so I brought the tank to my local shop and had a few friends try it out. These people were not present when the insulator melted and had no idea of the original issue until after they tasted it, but were still commenting that my vapor tasted and smelled of burnt chemicals despite the wick being fully saturated and primed correctly as I have always done.
No matter what I do, the tank now tastes terrible with whatever e-liquid or coil I put in it!
This is upsetting, because before this happened, the tank was performing perfectly and tasted amazing. I was completely satisfied with my purchase.
Ive contacted Kanger and myvaporstore but have yet to hear back from any of them. I'm hoping they make things right because I love Kanger's products and reccomend them to all my friends.
I'm having to resort to using my Aspire Atlantis (which I haven't used since I got my subtank mini and my girlfriend's subtank nano) while I wait for this issue to be resolved. Thankfully I rewicked the stock Atlantis coil with some japanese cotton so it doesnt mute the flavor as much as the silica wick did, but its still not as vibrant as the subtank's flavor was.
On a side note, my girlfriend's subtank nano has been performing perfectly and tastes great. I also wanted to say, other than the insulator being bad and messing up my tank, the tank performed great before this issue arose. Its by far my favorite out of the atlantis and the delta ii. I had no wicking issues whatsoever with the RBA and I was using 80/20 VG juice and chain vaping
I honestly dont know what caused it to melt, all I know is it wasnt from any fault of my own, or from any eliquid I was using (I dont use tank crackers and never will). I did not build the RBA myself, it came with a factory coil already installed inside the RBA deck which was the one I used. I didnt have any time to try any of my own builds because the insulator melted after the first tank of e-liquid. It wasn't from a short because I use an Istick30 watt which wont fire on one. I did wick the coil but the cotton did not tug or move the coil in any way and went through it easily.
