Wotofo Warrior RDA Review by KingPin!

[KingPin!]

Hi Folks,

JMT Elite are a group of coil builders located on Instagram, well not physically, rather the digital alternative name form (I believe the team includes “johhny_dripps”, “builder.gaurd” and “the fishman13”)...I don’t have to foggiest how that site works everyone seems to talk emoji and uses phrases such as #I just did sumfin gr8 lolz, after which members seem to proceed by #hashtagging #the #shit #out #of #everything!!!

In my perhaps premature grumpy old fart stubbornness; I managed to push through and thumbed through their coil porn pics on the host page….<sigh> it’s going to make anything I put in here crap by comparison… damn you and your coil art elite coil builders…you’re ruining my mojo! …..On a serious note though if you ever read this JMT Elite; being a hobby builder myself, I really appreciate the patience, effort and time that goes into it so great work.

Whilst I sit here in awe of their awesome artwork… I’ll get the usual part out of the way, Wotofo sent the Warrior RDA for the once over. As always I don’t like to make recommendations in my reviews, instead I provide you with all my findings should you be interested in the product in the hope it helps bolster your research.

(If you happen to be viewing this review from a phone, photos appear normal size when logged in)

RDA Specification Overview & What’s in the box

• Visible Height: 29mm
• Diameter: 25mm at the base
• Well Depth: 4mm
• Thread length 4.65mm (gold plated positive pin)
• Construction: 304 Stainless Steel, Delrin Drip Tip, Acrylic Drip Tip, Delrin Adaptor.
• Stock Drip tip 810: Visible Height 7.5mm x Width 18.1mm (Tapered Bore 8.7mm > 11.3mm)
• Spare Drip Tip: 810: Visible Height 6.1mm x Width 16.7mm (Tapered Bore 8.6mm > 10.8mm)
• Airflow: 2 side areas in chamber housing (each side contains 24 x 0.5mm holes)
• Deck Diameter: 21.3mm
• Chamber Height: 11.15mm
• Post distance for coil width: 15mm
• Post Hole Size: Height 1.7mm x Width 6mm
• Chamber Height: 11.15mm

Extras: 510 Adaptor, O-rings, screwdriver, 4 spare screws, dripper positive pin, single coil adaptor, allen key, cotton, 3 coils, spare acrylic drip tip

Product Information: https://www.wotofo.com/wotofo-warrior-rda.html

Available Colours: Black, Gunmetal, Stainless, Blue, Gold, Rainbow

Impressions, Build Quality & Assembly



Straight after the Recurve review; again it’s good to see Wotofo aren’t skimping on the spares for the Warrior RDA either, which is great to get people going. The coils in the box are monstrous and you’ll get 3 of these huge Juggernauts…fear not they fit with ease!. They are all nichrome which seems to have replaced Kanthal as the favourite metal from China these days. The pack simply states (26+36)x2+0.1x0.4 N80, 3mm ID, 0.28 ohms. I suspect most people looking to buy this RDA will be familiar with the alternative language spoken by coil builders, if your aren’t here’s what it means: Each coil consists of two 26 gauge cores, those cores are wrapped with a 36 gauge (this makes up the 2 claptons you see side by side in my pic below), then they are bound together with 0.1 x 0.4 ribbon wire, and it’s all using Nichrome (N80). After that they take the assembled stick and wrap it around something that’s 3mm in diameter giving it an inner diameter (ID) of 3mm. Each coil has a resistance of 0.28 Ohms, but since you are probably going to be using two of them, divide that by 2 giving you 0.14 ohms …..This is what resistance you’ll roughly see on the mod after mounting them. You can see why we all use the short form right…sod writing that out every time!



Anyway the sparsies are all good, nice job Wotofo keep doing this its great… oh I should also mention their cotton in the pack is good as well with the plastic shoe lace thingies on, I have used it and it’s very similar to Cotton Bacon, and uncannily similar to the Firebolt cotton i just tried from Vapefly, though I think the aftermarket plastic packs Wotofo sell (with just 10 short pieces in) is a little on the stingy side compared to others out there so bear that in mind.

Onto the RDA then…it’s a tried and tested classic design the likes I’ve seen across numerous RDA’s, except to say JMT have adapted bits to the way they like to build and vape. For a 25mm RDA you can get some crazy builds in this RDA, to me it behaves more like a 30mm RDA and I suspect is what they were going for…ill come onto this more onto builds in the build section.

I personally don’t like either of the two drip tips that come with it, beyond cloud producing I just don’t think they complement the RDA all that well; the short one is too close to the RDA’s top cap and you’ll get burny lips since the Warrior RDA gets hot with certain builds. The stock knurled one is fine in height, I just prefer a smaller bore size and avoid tips that get crusted up really quickly, especially ones that are harder to clean up.



It does come with a 510 drip tip adaptor should you want to use it for the single coil experience, but building big buggers in here really requires an 810 in my opinion. (The adaptor does sits flush when you push it in)



Despite its simplistic form the RDA breaks down into 21 pieces (if you include the 4 O-rings and peek insulator inside the threading area), one of the great things about this sort of RDA is that you can get in and clean every single aspect properly.



If you ever do break it down be careful on several things as they are easy to miss or lose …both the positive (gold plated) and negative screw has a little O-ring on them make sure these are in place before re-assembling or you’ll get leaking.



The post clamp can be fed into the post from the side like so…



Make sure you put in the plastic insulator between both posts when re-assembling…



These photos above were taken after several strip down and builds, I’m really liking the machining over this RDA, it’s very good, in fact probably some of the best I’ve seen from the Wotofo camp, I can’t pick up on anything troublesome on mine.

 

[KingPin!]

Impressions, Build Quality & Assembly Continued

The post screws are big and chunky, though I think the screwdriver included is too small for them, so it might be best to use your own if you don’t want to sheer the heads from them early. The only thing I would say is perhaps the metal is a little soft on the clamps themselves, ok I’ve put in some coils that will hammer a lot of clamps and you can flip them over …but despite what I was saying about the spares being great, I’d love to have seen a couple of these pieces included as well.



The main part of the RDA breaks into 4 pieces: drip tip (which I’ve covered already), the top cap, the chamber housing and the base.

The top cap is domed and is made from a thick chunk of metal…so its heavy, actually the whole RDA assembled is heavy for its size which is nice. Due to the tall height of the central post; the caps dome sits pretty high compared with a lot of other RDA’s out there, which I believe translates to more clouds.



I do find the top cap gets hot when vaping on this RDA, but then I’m running it as a dripper on a series mechanical mod. Even squonking and chain vaping you will notice the heat though; leading me back to my drip tip notes and not using a shorty.




The chamber housing has two lots of twenty four 0.5mm diameter holes, each airflow area measures 4mm in height, so you could go for a 4mm ID coil in here because the base will accept them fine. I’d say they set these holes too low at the midway point, perhaps they were trying to reduce the heat generated against the top cap, but it means you need to seat the coils a little further down in the chamber which can make wicking a little tight if you go for coils with a really large diameter….so 3- 4mm ID coils seem a good bet to me



The chamber housing has a stop either side so the airflow holes line up centrally across the deck at all times. This is great for those who want high wattages and a really lose draw, not so great for those who want a tighter draw less than the half way mark, again I come back to the fact this is designed for big cloud builds not the little builds out there.



Ill cover the deck more in the next section, however in line with my housing comments above; if the holes were located higher it would have allowed for a deeper juice well, it’s just 4mm deep. Regardless the RDA is big enough for a good 6 or so draws so for me that makes it passable a good dripper which is great because I get to crack out the series mod with it. Just be mindful the RDA comes shipped with the squonk pin inserted so remember to switch it out.




There’s just several more things to quickly mention; the positive pin sits out far enough for hybrid use, and I’ve been using it on a spring loaded mechanical mod fine. In addition I found the O-Rings offered decent resistance throughout once lubed up, and finally because the top cap rests on a lip around the deck you don’t have to worry about leaking under the base.

 

[KingPin!]

Coil Building & Wicking

The deck features clamps where there’s a centre channel cut from them for added grip, I’ve never experienced lead slipping on this deck even using just round wire which is good. Each slot is 6mm wide and opens up to 1.7mm in height, so you aren’t going to have issues mounting large mass porn shot builds.

Each clamp is rounded across its front area, so as you push the lead through it opens up. It makes for a fairly easy mounting experience (as far as clamps go).

Going back to what I mentioned earlier regarding the fixed airflow on this RDA, I just can’t vape the Warrior wide open, it’s way too airy for my liking, so I find it best to offset the coils to match where I personally set the airflow at the halfway mark, this also helps with keeping the leads flat side by side for even glowing.



It took me a while to find a build I liked on the Warrior, in the end I went classic old school, 16 wraps of 24 gauge Kanthal wire, with a 3.5mm inner diameter! … I know right…now that’s coil art people...eat your heart out at them lot JMT Elite …Check out my mad skillz bruh…. #make #way# elite #builder # coming #through…..look at me go all instagrammy!



Where I position them top and side on….



Even with that many wraps, which is insane on most decks, it’s covering just over half the deck area and I can offset them fine. It a cloudy bastard with the airflow set at the half way, on top of that as its dual coil; this build comes out at 0.65 ohms which means I don’t have to suck up the pain vaping on my series Mech …win win. I’ve said it before this doesn’t feel like a 25mm RDA, its deceivingly big (that’s what she said)

I did try the single coil configuration with the adaptor that comes with it, but I just don’t like it, this RDA wasn’t made for doing things half assed, as I was vaping on this, it was sort of saying “what are you doing you muppet?” Not quite sure how an RDA talks, but if it could it was saying that!…regardless this configuration does suit squonking better since it doesn’t chew through my bottle of juice so quickly…I definitely think this RDA is suited to dripping over Squonking for this reason.




The included Juggernaught coils were ok, a little spitty though and definitely not suitable for a series Mech mod!, Wotofo you make great quad coils so stick with them or better yet for this one go staple!

A pair of meaty staples in here go great…speaking of which I did make one set of coils for this to at least retain some of my credibility with our own build family on VU.



So last but not least in this section wicking ….you’ll notice in my picture further up I sat the coil almost above the first airflow line, this helps to leave enough of a gap to fold the wicks under the coils and leave a space underneath the centre area …again higher positioning of the airflow holes could have made this aspect a little easier for users, but it wasn’t too bad, overall with the huge deck wicking is really easy.



Hows it Vape?

The Warrior RDA has very smooth airflow, like all of the products out there featuring the smaller holes there’s a low audible noise on the draw, though I find with products like this they tend to lose some of the moistness from the vape which rings true with this RDA. Get the wicking right and don’t over drip/squonk and you’ll never get spitting from it due to the higher ceiling.

This is a clouds first RDA, the foggiest tank I’ve used is the single coil monster from Deathwish modz the “Deathtrap 30mm RDA”, this isn’t far behind that in terms of output, but I feel it’s bit more on the tame cloud side with the ability to sustain much longer draws, which makes it easier to use during evening dripping action. There is flavour to be had with the Warrior just don’t be expecting this to be a flavour chaser because it’s not trying to be that, so if you look to pick this up go in with your eyes open this is what you’re getting into.

How hot the RDA gets is up to you, those series builds I put above keep the RDA pretty cool even on a series mechanical mod though some might not like the slower ramp up on them (just lose a few wraps on both to bring down the resistance slightly to around 0.5ohms). If you use a pair of lower resistance staples on a regulated mod you’ll feel the heat though, either way allow yourself some time to try different things as it takes time to dial this in to your preferences especially having to offset coils as well.

Pros

• Solid Cloud Chaser (this is not a flavour chaser)
• Suits those looking for lose airflow
• Very smooth draw
• Great machining for its price point
• Nice building experience
• Can host huge coils for its size
• Decent screws (use your own screwdriver)
• Good as a dripper (not really practical for dual coil squonking if that’s your thing)
• Comes with single coil adaptor
• Nice number of spares (would like to have seen spare pair of clamp plates though)
• Great to strip down and clean everywhere
• O-rings offered decent resistance throughout (once lubed with e-juice)
• Top cap sits on a lip so no leaky base
• Positive pin extends out far enough for hybrid use

Cons

• [Personal] Not a fan of the drip tips
• I think the airflow holes could have been located slightly higher on the housing
• Could benefit from a slightly deeper juice well
• The screwdriver provided needs a bigger head
• Top will get really hot if you tighten up the airflow and slap a big build in it
• Will get hot if you try to restrict it too much (have to place coils to find the airflow)

Final Conclusion

This type of RDA and the ones out there in a similar form are really geared towards vapers who are searching for airy, cloudy vaping experience. I think in this regard JMT Elite and Wotofo have done well.

There is a bit of dialling in required to tweak performance in terms of heat, airflow, wicking speed for dripping, so I think it’s best to leave this here and say pick out the aspects throughout my review that will be important to you and go from there.

Thanks for taking the time to read my review, I hope the information serves you well…. until next time KingPin!

 

[WotofoOfficial]

Great review again, thank you very much Kingkin!

 

[inspects]

Good review...KP.....

 

[KingPin!]

Thank you kindly Wotofo and Mr Inspects