TFV8 vs RDA flavour

I’ve recently been looking into getting my first RDA. I’m currently using a TFV8. My question is: how much better is the taste off a RDA vs a tank such as the TFV8?

For me, it’s was definitely noticeable. I used TFV8 and TFV12, and then got into RDAs. I haven’t used a tank since then. Better flavor and it’s cheaper. I like building my own coils and learning new builds. It’s almost theriputic for me, to sit at my desk and build a ton of coils.

@Walt3 suggested the Tsunami 24 to me a while ago and I just got it 2 days ago and love it. It was pretty inexpensive and easy to build on.

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Cheers for the response, funnily enough that was the exact RDA I was looking at. I’ll purchase one Monday.

Like @JamsGrumpyGills says, it should be quite noticeable coming from a TFV8. There are tanks out there now that produce flavor like a dripper, two of which being the Ammit 25 single coil and the Reload or NightBright reload clone. But drippers are still the flavor standard. They set the bar.

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Is there certain coil types that produce the best flavour?

On a scale of 1 to 10? With 10 being the best I’ve had, not an objective measure.

TFV12 - 4 flavor, 7 vapor
TFV12 RBA - 6 flavour, 8 vapour
TFV8 Big Baby - 6 flavour, 6 vapour
TFV8 RBA - unusable $&*@#! I literally shot mine, with a gun. %#$# that thing.

Velocity RDA - what coil you use and how well you do the wicking matters a lot for all RDAs, so the first build probably won’t be that much better than the Smok prebuilt coils. But, once you get some practice it’s easily 9 flavour and 10 vape.
Tsunami RDA is 10/10.
Wismec Inde Duo RDA - 8 Flavour and 7 vape.
I have another tank, the Azeroth RTA - just remembered I haven’t rebuilt it since I had a lot more practice and I take back my statement about not caring for it. Rebuilt it just now and I do in fact like it – need some time with it now tho >.>

Oh, and for coils - So far I recommend SS 316L Alien wire (try crazywire) or Kanthal Hive wire. I’ve only tried about dozen types of coils tho.

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Different folks have different favorites when it comes to coil builds. I have two builds that work very well for me. For dual coil addies I like 2x28+36 SS Parallel spaced Clapton. For single coil atties 2x26+36 SS Parallel spaced Clapton. I vape mostly using temp control therefor the SS. If you build for fun, part of the fun is trying different configurations and different wires. In a dripper even simple coiled wire will give you great flavor.

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Exactly – coils matter as compared to one another – but home built beats the hell out of prebuilt in general. I’ve done some basic wire coils in SS and Kanthal mostly just for practice – they’re not that much less good than the claptons. they are less good, but the biggest difference in quality is just going rebuildable and getting your wicking right.

I picked up an Avid Artisan Daudalus coil spinner whosit watisit. It spins up some really nice simple Claptons. Maybe it’s all in my head but I like them better than what I can buy pre spun on a spool. There is something just groove about being able to say I spun it up myself too. Again all in the head.

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Sounds dumb, but most of time time I just use a 22g or 24g kanthol. I’ve made claptons using 26g with 32g. It was pretty fun to make them.

I’ve never used prebuilt coils. I’d recommend starting with a 24g kanthol or SS round 7 wrap. Easy and then experiment with claptons.

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It might be – tho pride making things better is an entirely justified thing. I might be getting a spinner or something eventually, got lots of pre-spun to go thru right now. I tried to make my own first and. . .my fingers can’t do that by hand, stupid stubby things. I do all right wrapping by hand if I want to, but man it’s better to use tools.

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I’ve checked the spinners out! I burnt my thumb while spinning my own using a drill. Lol

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Ya, that thing is da-bomb! Takes a little puttizen around to get the tension just right for each gauge of wire used for wrapping but once that’s in place it does a real fine job. Copy @Ailith

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Thanks for your help with this, extremely excited about buying this now - not so excited about countless hours of frustration with getting the coils right so I think I’ll start with premade coils

The frustration in getting things right is putting them on the mod – prebuilts require just as much time and effort as the ones you wrap yourself to get our hotspots, get inner to outer heating and get all coils firing at the same damn speed (I did a quad build once…that was dumb for a newbie :P) . If not moreso after a couple hours of practice.

Mind, I started with Demon Killer prebuilts myself. either way works in the end YMMV and WFYB and all that.

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How did you learn to build RBAs correctly? Would YouTube be a good place to start or is there some hidden ‘bible’ of knowledge I’m unaware of?

I fucked up a lot. Just put “Tsunami build” in YT and do that for every atty you get. That said, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87o_I_CB4iY&t=2s is the key to wicking for me.Massive improvement after I started doing this on all my builds. For my cotton pads I just cut them into 4ths and it’s perfect, plus you can use each 4th for two coils. Seriously, why the hell do people waste so much cotton by using a whole strip on every coil and throwing more than half away?

I am somewhat surprised by some of the responses in this thread, the flavor Im getting from my tfv8 with q4 coils is fantastic. And I have several Rdas Rtas and Rdtas. I havent tried the rba section on the tfv8 yet because my q4 coil that came with the tank has lasted forever, Of course I have cleaned it a few times but im going over 1 month of time on this q4 coil with great flavor? Maybe I got lucky?

@Myute you dont have to start off building complex coils. Start by building a plain single wire coil. Its so easy and even hard to mess this up. All you need is some kanthal and something small and round like a drill bit to wrap the wire around. Once you have that down on move onto a more complex build, 2 wire twisted, then move onto making single core claptons. Once you are making single core claptons sky is the limit and you can advance into more difficult coil builds. Dont become intimidated, building a basic coil is extremely easy, and yes you can get great flavor from basic single core coil build. You dont need a big fancy coil to get great flavor and vapor.

Ps buy a cheap ohm meter. ( they can be had for next to nothing)

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Dont forget, Airflow, and coil positioning as it pertains to the airflow is very important for your flavor production as well. I would highly suggest building your own coils, you will save lots of money and have the satisfaction of knowing what materials were used to make the coil. I have also found some tanks/rbas like some builds better than other. Dont think for a second you cant get amazing flavor from the most basic single coil build. Yes you can increase flavor with more advanced coils, but if you are positioning everything correctly the basic builds wont disappoint you. Im still a big fan of regular claptons. Bigger advanced coils also need more power to fire properly and ramp up time can be slower. I just want you to be fully aware of your options, every new person comes in thinking the need dual aliens that ohm out at .1 ohms because they see other people doing it. Start with the basics, and once you have a good understanding of the basics then move onto advanced coils builds etc… Just my 2 cents hope it helps you some.

One last thing, youtube is your friend! look up “basic coil build”. There are so many resources on youtube that explain everything very well. Start from the ground up and you will have a firm foundation to stand on in your vaping journy!

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I loved my TFV8 Big Baby Beast – right up until I tried to use the RBA. The prebuilts aren’t bad, but the price of prebuilds is way too high, and throwing that much stuff away way too wasteful for me. You’re basically throwing a deck away every couple weeks. All because it needs to be re-wicked. I haven’t had a single coil I built get used up yet, cause you can rewick, and also cause I now has a tiny box of used but totally fine coils as I keep swapping and testing new things. >.>

It’s less that the TFV8 is bad, and more that rebuildables are so much cheaper that even if a prebuilt delivered the same or nearly the same experience, it isn’t worth it. I can get a new RDA for the cost of a pack of coils if I don’t insist on something newly released.

Plus building yourself is fun.

And mostly – I think my entire view of RBAs rather than RTAs or RDAs is tainted by my experience with the TFV8 (so many issues it was unusable) or the TFV12 and TFV12-T (the former I still use, the latter deformed and striped when I was unscrewing it so I threw it away). Because even the TFV12 dual-coil setup, I had to replace the grubs with some from another deck because theirs were giving me shorts. Just, the hell man.

And after picking up a non-Smok mod now, I gotta say – I think Smok just isn’t a very good manufacturer. They’re stuff is fine if you buy their coils, but it’s just kinda “meh” overall.

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