Most reliable dual 18650

[Erty]

I am in the market for a new mod and all i want is something that will work now and still be working 12 months from now.

I have had several before and had seemingly strange experiences. All SMOK products i have owned have been incredibly reliable and everything else such as Geek Vape, well, hasn't been.

I had a SMOK GX350 which is the only peice of electronics i have ever dropped. I dropped it about 3/4 years ago onto concrete and it just carried on working fine.

I bought an SX Mini G Class which was electronically unreliable.
I replaced that with a Squid Industries Double Barrel V3 which lasted 6 months before the screen stopped working all together for no apparent reason.
I replaced that with a Geek Vape Aegis Legend and it started autofiring (well continued firing after letting go of the power button and could only be stopped by taking the batteries out) a week after i bought it.

Back on the GX350 for now.

Is there a dual 18650 currently in production that isn't prone to some serious malfunction that could actually last for a year or more?

I'm tired of the let downs and just want something that will work.

Please let me know your recommendations.

I will be using it at 70ish watts with a Nexmesh Pro and/ or Falcon King.

 

[Vape Fan]

Mods with DNA boards tend to have well built boxes around them. And Evolv is good with [after vendor/manuf] warranty.

I bought an SX Mini G Class which was electronically unreliable.
I replaced that with a Squid Industries Double Barrel V3 which lasted 6 months before the screen stopped working all together for no apparent reason.
I replaced that with a Geek Vape Aegis Legend and it started autofiring (well continued firing after letting go of the power button and could only be stopped by taking the batteries out) a week after i bought it.

Here, you say DB screen stopped, and other thread it squealed too.
Depending on time frame, odd you've had these troubles with different brands. Do you have any guesses?

 

[Erty]

I will have a look at the DNA mods.

The Double Barrel squeled when the screen was on for a few weeks then the screen went all together. It does occasionaly come back on for fleeting moments every now and then. On the plus side when the screen went completely the squeel stopped.
I loved the look and size of that as well. If there was a v4 with a new screen set up i would definately get that.

I have no idea why i am having problems now. All my old vape kit from years ago works fine but everytime i buy something these days i'm lucky if i get a few months out of it. That's what attracted me to the Double Barrel in the first place, i thought due to the simplicity of it there would be less to go wrong there.

 

[f1r3b1rd]

My most reliable mods have been either mechanical or hexohm. I’ve dropped my hexohm off a second floor balcony onto a concrete Parking lot and it fired right up. You just can’t kill them.

hexohm gives you a lifetime warranty on the life of the mod.

 

[Bigrick]

One of my most reliable dual battery mod is on your trouble list, Aegis Legend. Now a year old and works and looks new. Also my ipv8 is 3 years old, has taken a drop or 2 and still works good. My work horse daily driver is a 3 battery mod. It is 2 years old with the 25r's that were included. It has a good modshield and has been dropped several times. It also has over 201,000 puffs on it. Okay do not laugh it is a Wismec Rx Gen3-300. It is in daily rotation and has yet to glitch. I truly love that mod. Good luck on your search.
Rick

 

[Bigrick]

P.s. his big brother is coming to live with us a Wismec Rx300. I am so excited to add to the family. Also with us is a Rx200, Rx Mini, and the black sheep og Noisy Cri ket.

 

[SteveS45]

Only MOD's I ever had that Kissed the Ghost were because I dropped them multiple times. And when they Kissed The Ghost they were in multiple pieces~!

 

[Erty]

The Hexohm comes up on a google search with some autofire issues which has now put me off. I do like the sound of the warranty for minor issues but i would just never trust it again if it did that.

The Wismec i have heard mixed reviews on, much like the Aegis actually. I will look into it further though.

Thanks for the replies so far.

I have looked at a couple of others now too if anyone cares to comment on them.

The Vandy Vape Swell, cheap and chearful but i can't find any major issues in any reviews yet so seems to be a contender (this may just be because the people who buy it are not typically on vape forums or due to it not being a big seller though).

The Lost Vape Centaurus, DNA250c and looks great but very expensive to get a customisable chip i don't really need.

And finally the odd one out, the Dovpo Odin. I don't know what to make of it. Looks like it was designed in the dark but has 2 options, a cheap version that i could use with 21700's and hope and prey it proved to be reliable or a DNA250c version with 21700's which on paper sounds fantastic but if it autofired or similar at that price i would be devestated and to pay more for that with its enormous size and monstrous looks than the Lost Vape seems silly. That battery life would be a huge plus to me though.

 

[Carambrda]

One of my most reliable dual battery mod is on your trouble list, Aegis Legend. Now a year old and works and looks new. Also my ipv8 is 3 years old, has taken a drop or 2 and still works good. My work horse daily driver is a 3 battery mod. It is 2 years old with the 25r's that were included. It has a good modshield and has been dropped several times. It also has over 201,000 puffs on it. Okay do not laugh it is a Wismec Rx Gen3-300. It is in daily rotation and has yet to glitch. I truly love that mod. Good luck on your search.
Rick

What makes a Wismec mod reliable is that you don't need to be a fucking watchmaker or something like that to be able to put it back together again after you took it apart. The most complaints I've seen were from people who couldn't figure it out, like, how hard can it be to use a plastic spacer between the atomizer and the mod in order to prevent the spring loaded 510 pin from gettin permanently stuck if the 510 on the atomizer is too long in comparison. Or to use a soldering iron to re-solder the wiring and replace it with thicker wire when necessary. Or to use super glue and a rubber hammer to lock the 510 threading properly in place on an early batch Predator 228 in such a particular way that it still makes good contact with the body of the mod after letting the super glue dry for 24 hours. Or to download and install ArcticFox while also remembering to disable Smart Mode (on the advanced tab in NFE Tools). You know. Some people will call you a fanboy simply for the fact you know how to change a light bulb when others don't know how to do that.

I like the Odin DNA 250C mainly for the fact I can use it to dry fire my new coil builds before the first use, and can do so regardless of whether the coil build is below 0.1 ohm. It's an awesome mod to be using for vaping of course, but I moved to mech mods part because any electronic circuit can, and eventually always will, break. I just don't want to carry a spare mod around with me every place I go, and, the main reason I swear by mech mods is that, IME, there simply are no regulated mods that can match the flavor and the overall vape experience that can be had from learning the passionate hobby that is designing and building your own complex coil builds specifically on a mech, and then vaping on those. To finally get there, I went from the Wismec Reuleaux RX300 (regulated mod) to the Surric Vapes X-Vault (PWM mod capable up to 200 watts, handcrafted in the U.S.) to my first ever mech mod. I never sold anything nor ever had anything seriously broken that mattered in the end. I now own 37 mech mods by Purge Mods and about three times as many mech mods from various other brands, all authentic, almost all high end and expensive also including more than a few that can not be talked about in too much detail on here for fear of starting another small riot or making people start to cry multiple times harder than the crying that went on for many months about Wismec's shortcomings some three years ago or threabout. Vaping life is hard alright... makes you want to go right back to smoking normal cigarettes again. ?

 

[Bigrick]

I just would not be comfortable posting what I am thinking.

 

[nadalama]

My first question would be this: How often do you have juice to leak into your mods?

I can understand a Yihi mod being delicate, but the Legend? That's really unusual. The one I have is several years old and belonged to my son. He used it for the first year or so, and he is rough on gear. I got it from him and have used it for at least another year. Maybe yours was just a lemon from the start, because that's not typical.

You might look at the dual 18650 Vandy Vape Jackaroo. @MrMeowgi has one of the single battery ones, so maybe he can chime in.

 

[MyMagicMist]

Apologies for reading the thread, not offering an opinion on regulated devices. I use roughly four mechanical devices, one or two mosftet ones, two regulated. The two regulated I use are only single cell capacity devices. Reading the thread to possibly learn a bit and also merely observe.

 

[Carambrda]

I just would not be comfortable posting what I am thinking.

That's why I ultimately decided to do it for you. I would feel much more uncomfortable posting the opposite of what I am thinking.

On a side note, with the RX300 you always need to make sure that the latch on the battery door is locked properly in place after you close it, and also keep in mind that it's not always easy/intuitive to see if it did or didn't lock. Else, sometimes it can happen that it suddenly pops open for no apparent reason thereby dropping four brand new and spanking batteries onto the floor. That's it. Now I feel completely comfortable.

 

[Bigrick]

That's why I ultimately decided to do it for you. I would feel much more uncomfortable posting the opposite of what I am thinking.

On a side note, with the RX300 you always need to make sure that the latch on the battery door is locked properly in place after you close it, and also keep in mind that it's not always easy/intuitive to see if it did or didn't lock. Else, sometimes it can happen that it suddenly pops open for no apparent reason thereby dropping four brand new and spanking batteries onto the floor. That's it. Now I feel completely comfortable.

I like the Jojo maker of Modshield. The one fitted for the rx gen3 300 secures the bottom battery door. I checked the same for the rx300 and the modshield for it (conveniently?) allows access to the battery door without modshield removal.

 

[Vape Fan]

VapeCige made 3 mods with the same body. I’ve owned the 75C for about 2 years and still works perfect. The box is extremely well built,,, a tough finish, and the battery doors fit perfect with no movement at all.

-DNA75C
-IM 200W
-IM 250

The 75C you probably won’t find and you said you didn’t need/want the customizations. DNA isn’t all about customization ya know…But since you’re at “70ish” watts, you’ll want more than 75.

IM200, same box, non DNA, regulated. Can’t vouch for the this site.
https://www.homudy.com/product/vapecige-creator-im200-tc-mod-for-e-cigarette/

IM250, This one has a diff shaped screen and a potentiometer but the same very well built box. From things you've said, I'd grab this one for only 25 bucks and very worth it[actually I am,, so Im glad I was looking around for you]. Semi-mech, small chip for essentials for safety precautions that keep it from being fully mechanical. No fuss, just adjust the power and vape. Less to go wrong. It seems to fit the bill, and for the price can't go wrong, and it's good the have more than a couple/few mods anyways - pretty much essential to stock up on all vape gear.
FastTech-might be slow, usually a couple weeks to deliver, but trustworthy.

https://www.fasttech.com/products/3032/10015744/9684304

 

[hellcatrydr]

GEEK VAPE mods. Aegis Legend. Bulletproof.

 

[Vape Fan]

Vandy Vape also, makes Jackaroo Dual, if your around water or or have the dropsies.
I actually dropped my Creator once from 2.5-3ft on hard tile floor and I can't find where it hit at.

 

[Carambrda]

I like the Jojo maker of Modshield. The one fitted for the rx gen3 300 secures the bottom battery door. I checked the same for the rx300 and the modshield for it (conveniently?) allows access to the battery door without modshield removal.

I have the Modshield protective sleeves for my RX2/3. Without removal they don't allow access to the battery door on that one, but IME with the RX300 you'd have to be extra careful not to let the mod run too hot if you heavily chain vape on it at 140 watts, or stuff like that. It's still fairly okay to use the sleeves for when the weather gets cold outside, if your plan is to keep vaping on it with that particular type of vaping style. Either way, you can still doublecheck with your fingernail each time that the latch on the RX300 is properly secured upon closing it, no matter if you put on the sleeve or not. IMO show off that Carbon finish on the RX300 Carbon just a little bit when the sun comes out. You know. Vape like a Sir...

 

[Synphul]

Never thought I'd say this since I wasn't all that thrilled with geekvape in general and vandy being a spinoff. Nor impressed with a lot of vandy atomizers. The swell's been a great mod. I've used it a solid year, no issues. Not gonna say it's the bestest mod ever, the chip could use a little improvement in the tc department. But it's not completely ass like voopoo's gene chip when it comes to tc, it is possible to get it working fairly decent for a non dna mod.

What dna doesn't have is a sealed chip. The whole mod doesn't need to be water resistant/sealed with 101 gaskets and stuff the way geekvape went about it. The swell managed to do it competing for one of the lighter dual 18650 mods around 106-107g. The 'plastic' bit had me skeptical but it's better than chintzy plastic. It's a durable nylon and while it may not be rated 'impact resistant' it's a hefty polymer that feels sturdy and substantial, isn't going to just split or crack without giving it a reason. The 510 is secured really well inside so it can't spin and pull out. The chip offers plenty of modes, wattage, voltage, tc, curves, bypass, like 5 different preheat/power options. The ability to turn off unused modes. I find it comfy as hell.

While I don't throw it around I don't baby it either. When working on my truck, brake fluid, differential fluid, oil, coolant etc, I've had it out with me vaping on it. Obviously doing my best not to slop it with chemicals and fluids but not scrubbing my hands clean either. Sitting at just over 94,200 puffs. While I don't think they nailed a 10/10 on everything, it's been a really enjoyable reliable mod. Far as 'issues', paint. I've had paint issues on every mod I've owned. Everything is nylon or g10 except the top plate that screws down and the paint left it.

They did have some issues with the fire button on the pulse v2 but they addressed it far as I know and not everyone had issues. Basically they've extended the swell platform to a number of mods. The swell is dual 18650, the pulse v2 is like a single battery swell squonk. For impact resistance in addition to the water resistance they have the jackaroo single battery or jackaroo dual now. And with Matt's (Suck My Mod) latest addition on preorder or soon to be preorder, the Gaur 21. Same water resistant vandy chip from the swell or jackaroo in a dual 21700 c-frame mod with accents that make it look similar to the argus or lost vape centaurus. Basically a dual 21700 swell (up to 28mm atty).