Dead Rabbit V1 Clone

When ordered, this was one of the few remaining rebuildable DTL rebuildable tanks still available on Wish, and therefore easily available to USA customers. However, a loophole has since been discovered, enabling USA cutomers to order almost any clone tank via Aliexpress.  If you're unaware then ask on the Discord, but imo it appears to have nullified the last credible reason for buying one

Having read several reviews I wasn't expecting much. Poor air channeling, proneness to dry hits, intolerant wicking, and error-prone assembly seem to be unanimous criticisms from the big vape channels.  My question - could it make a credible Dimitri vaping tank if nothing else is available? And if so, can we document its gotchas so budding owners can avoid pitfalls.

Headlines

• The chief drawback of this tank is the potential difficulty of correctly screwing the base to body, (reportedly affecting genuine models as well as clones).  The base/body can easily screw together incorrectly, and if not realised this can easily lead to leaking and deterioration of an already suspect airflow.  I suggest anyone using this tank be totally familiar with the idiosyncrasies & exercise utmost care in assembly, explained later.

• The assembly problem relate to the use of a Kylin-style rotating build deck mechanism which is necessary for designs that don't include an inner airflow chamber (the DR V1 and Kylin V3/Mini V2 don't have them).  However on the DR V1, the rotation mechanism is poorly implemented, relying on friction of the rotating deck to trigger the engagement tiny lugs in the base (see pics) into cutouts on the main body.  This can make assembly very tricky/error prone, especially when the build deck rotating mechanism loosens from continued use. Unfortunately, there are no obvious signs when the correct engagement fails to occur. 

• The airflow is unusual and imo exceptionally poorly designed. Lacking an inner airflow chamber and with no alternative method of redirecting air to the coil sides.  Such chambers are uncommon on bottom airflow tanks, where the airflow is naturally directed at the coil from below, but it's unusual for top airflow tanks unless an alternative is employed.  The DR V1 is heavily reliant on toke force to ensure sufficient mixing with the coil vapour.   For Dimitri vaping, it seems reasonably OK at regular Direct To Lung airflow rates but I would certainly not trust it at slower "thundertek" airflows where I suspect a high proprtion of inlet air would simply be sucked directly out of the mouthpiece, bypassing the coil. 

• Like the Kylin Mini V2 and Destiny it has a refreshingly small capacity and does not use much of the base the base as a lower juice pool

Airflow (Further Detail)

As mentioned, a common design feature of top airflow RTAs is an inner airflow chamber, whose purpose is to redirect air from above the coil to its sides (in some examples also below the coil) and achieve a more reliable airflow over a wider range of flow rates. The Zeus X, Dead Rabbit V3 and Arbiter 2 are all examples of tanks that use these.

However, the Dead Rabbit V1 doesn't have one. In itself, this isn't a problem as long as other means is used - in fact neither the Kylin Mini V2 nor Kylin V3 incorporate these chambers, but instead have a build deck containing a honeycomb airflow arrangement which locks into the main tank body. This cunning design is IME extremely effective at an impressive range of toke rates.

However the DR V1 simply relies on toke brute strength to create suffiicent turbulence to mix inlet air with vapour from the coil. During testing, I didn't experience noticeable problems with "normal" DTL toke rates, but I strongly suspect that more restricted airflows (as used in "Thundertek") would yield poor/unpredictable results. I've found this exact problem on the Zeus X which appears to have a much better airflow arrangement.

If you have a DR V1, I suggest mounting the coil as high as possible without risking contact with the inner sides (even though a longer wick will be needed), plus keeping the toke rate at proper DTL rates, which of course will require commensurate Wattage setting.

The Assembly Flaw (Further Detail)

Just like the Kylin Mini V2 and V3, the DR V1 has a rotating build deck which remains latched to the body to hold it whilst the base is being screwed on/off (necessary to keep the air inlet holes correctly aligned to the coil).  To achieve this, the Kylins use ingeniously shaped honeycome air grills, the sides of which lock nicely into cutouts (also serves to accommodate the side-wick) in the main body (left pic below).  There's no way the Kylin Mini V2 could be assembled without being perfectly aligned.

On the other hand, the DR V1 arrangement relies upon the engagement of cutout slots in the body with tiny matching lugs which are almost invisible, deep in the base. What makes this even trickier is that the slots don't reach the pegs until the screw thread has already substantially engaged, so the user needs to start screwing on the base and hope that the base lugs pop into the body cutouts as it tightens.  Indeed when mine was new, sufficient friction of the deck rotating mechanism seemed to enable almost every time.  But with use,  it became less reliable to the point where it now hardly ever succeeds, resulting in ~1mm vertical play in glass movement, a constantly wet base from seepage, and misaligned air passages to the coil. 

Conclusions

When new and if using DTL airflow rates then this tank might at first seem absolutely fine.  However, I personally cannot see any good reasons for buying one and strongly suggest looking further afield. There are far better tanks around than this, and if you get stuck then ask on the Discord and we'll do our best to help.

Pros

• Pretty much ideal juice capacity for my tastes

• A little cheaper than many clones (but not worth the saving imo)

Cons

• Dreadful design of base/body latching mechanism

• Very dubious airflow arrangement, I strongly suspect sub-par performance at lower toke rates

• High build deck and therefore coil position - likely in a desperate attemp to improve coil air contact.  Suggest additional care with wicking

• Low quality knockoff, swarf & particles everywhere

• Spare O-ring kits seem unavailable

• Stock driptip very loose on mine