E-Cig Review: The Terminator
The Terminator Tank RBA. Not this guy:, but this guy:
I have some buddies that work over at Liberty Vapor who occasionally throw me a piece of gear to check out, and one of their throwbacks is the Terminator Tank RBA. First off, what is an RBA? Well, it’s a (R)e(b)uildable (A)tomizer, or one that is designed so that you can change out your own wick and wire internals for prolonged continued use.
I have discovered a while ago that *I* am not very good at the whole RBA thing because my eyes and fingers have a hard time keeping up with the teeny tiny pieces, but this one just may be worth the effort for me. You see, one of my favorite ways to vape is with a carto-tank, which is just a big old tank of e-juice that feeds a cartomizer inside it through a hole to keep you vaping all day long. They generally have good taste and vape and, when done well, little maintenance for a long while. This particular RBA actually takes the place of the internal cartomizer and, from my testing, works pretty darn well!
This is really a 5 piece setup, but you may only get 2 of those pieces depending on where you buy it. The main two pieces are body pieces and they are the pipe or air stack, which screws down to the atomizer base to form a somewhat bulbus looking cartomizer. The extra pieces you are going to need to give this a run for your money are going to be a 510 to 510 (shorty) extension a tank of some sort and, of course, your favorite drip tip.
In order to get this thing into a tank and actually have it be able to screw into a battery you will need to put a shorty extension on the bottom. I know there are some tanks out there with sealed bases and pre tapped 510 bases that eliminate that need for a 510 extension, but all I have was a regular old tank with a hole in the bottom. That being said, try hard and look for one that at least has a fill hole. It sure makes things easier.
First things first though, in order for this contraption to work, you are going to need to build an acceptable coil. I am not going to go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that inside this RBA is a ceramic cup where you can build your wick and coil. Once assembled, you can adjust the flow of the e-juice to this RBA by means of loosening the pipe from the base while it is submerged in your tank full of e-juice.
I put it all together in a regular cheapie tank by first inserting the RBA with 510 extender in the base of the tank, then filling the tank 3/4 of the way full to allow some breathing room and then carefully pressing down the top cap of the tank in place. This is why I suggested a tank with a fill hole. Less messy. What I noticed though is by doing this process, I believe while I am pressing on the top of the tank, it is slightly priming the wick inside as that liquid really has nowhere else to go other than through the RDA at that point. You will notice that the top of the RDA does sick up above the top of the tank significantly, and that is so that you have a grasp point to be able to slightly unscrew the top from the base to allow for improved e-juice flow. I am running a 50/50 juice in mine and have it unscrewed maybe a millimeter and it’s been vaping like a champ for well over a week.
I have had zero issues with this, but I have heard complaints about flooding. There are a lot of places this can go wrong. It seems that of you aren’t careful, while adjusting your flow control you can actually unscrew the RDA from the 510 shorty extension, which would, of course cause a catastrophic leak. Also, you could simply unscrew your flow control too much causing the same issue. In order to avoid these pitfalls, I make sure the 510 shorty is screwed onto the base nice and tight and while adjusting the flow, I hold onto the *tank*, which puts pressure into the bottom of the RDA, keeping it securely in place. YMMV, but it has been working well for me so far and I haven’t leaked a drop.
With a little care you should be able to get this going and keep it that way and for less than $15 for an entire setup, including the tank, the price is difficult to beat. I give it a definitive thumbs up however, beware of it’s twiddly nature. You can find these at a lot of vendors like Madvapes, NHaler, GotVapes and many otheers.