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Ceramic Coils from Atom Vapes – A Review
The gCeramic Coil Series – 24ct Gold – No Cotton Wick – Long Life
Joining the sudden, and explosive growth of ceramic coils for the vaping community, Atom Vapes has released a series of new, medical-grade ceramic coils, aptly called gCeramic Coils. The “g” stands for Gold, 24ct gold actually, and each coil head is plated with it. These coils have proven to be a genuine boon to the quality of vaping our staff has experienced these past few weeks.
Atom Vapes has created this series of 24ct gold-plate ceramic coils for Kanger Subtanks, Herakles tanks, and Aspire Triton and Triton 2 tanks. A 4-pack of gCeramic Coils will price out at $19.99, a fair price considering the quality of the vaping, the longevity of the coil heads, and the purity of the materials.
We were asked “why gold?” about the 24ct gold plating when Atom Vapes released their gClapton coil heads for a variety of tanks, and like before, the answer is that 24ct gold produces a better conductivity and the coil head exterior will last forever. Oh, and they look gorgeous too.
This review will include the vape experiences of the entire staff while using all the tanks that these gCeramic coils are made for. But first, we need to discuss the ceramic coils themselves, and what makes them so reliable and so effective for flavor and vapor production.
The Atom Vapes gCeramic Coils do not use any type of cotton in the coil heads. In fact, there is no traditional wicking material used at all. These coils make great use out of the ceramic material itself, as it is enclosed around a traditional coil wire.
There are several types of ceramic coils on the market, some using cotton, some not, so it’s important to remember that Atom Vapes gCeramic coils do not use any wicking material other than the medical grade ceramic wrap, when deciding on which brand you’ll try first.
It’s been nearly a month since receiving these gCeramic coils and no one here has had the need to replace a single one since screwing them into their tank bases, though they did when switching up eliquid flavors. These coils are surely capable of lasting a couple of months of continuous use, at least.
More On No Cotton
Ceramic coils like the gCeramic rely on porous ceramic material to absorb eliquid and keep the coil wire saturated. In this respect, of the 3 other ceramic coil brands I’ve used, Atom Vapes gCeramic has done a better job. The medical grade ceramic is porous enough to handle several deep, several second lung inhales without drying the wire coils, which would cause a dry hit. Frankly, I was surprised by this, as ceramic is, after all, clay.
Without cotton as a wicking agent the possibility of clean, pure, authentic flavor from your eliquid is a certainty. That’s not to demean cotton at all, especially pure organic cotton, but speaking from experience I can tell you that cotton-based coil heads can and do age, and that aging affects the quality of the vape experience. Here’s an example…
The Subtank OCC Fail
When the Kanger Subtank Mini was put into the marketplace I liked the tank so much that I purchased several dozen tanks for “staff use” and a several dozen 5-packs of their original OCC’s. As time went on, we then stocked up on the new and improved OCC’s, the Ni200 OCC’s, and so on. In the end, we had on hand roughly 500 OCC’s of a variety of ohms/build/metals. About a quarter of the OCC’s still remains in the stockroom. Vaping technology being what it is, the staff moved on to other tanks, coil replacements, and so on.
Even so, the Subtank Mini remained a staple in my own vaping practices for a long time. I just could not use these all-stainless steel tanks as all-day tanks, especially with wide-bore drip tips. It was all just all too much. For me, the usability of the Subtank Mini outweighed the newer tank technologies.
Several weeks ago I had used up all the 5-pack OCC’s I had at home and the next day went into the stockroom and removed a few 5-packs of the 0.3-ohm OCC’s and attached one to my tank. Long story short, the cotton had aged and from that point on, all the OCC’s I’ve used prevent me from taking long lung hits because they will inadvertently cause a dry hit due to the nature of the cotton itself.
The organic cotton used in the OCC’s had basically dried up, became somewhat brittle, and no matter how long I allowed the eJuice to saturate the cotton I would still get dry hits with lung hits that were more than 3 seconds long because the cotton could not stay saturated very long.
Dry hits cannot happen with Atom Vapes gCeramic coils because medical grade ceramic coils remain porous much longer than cotton ever will.
User Experience and Atom Vapes gCeramic Coil Heads
I naturally gravitated toward the Atom Vape gCeramic coils for the Kanger Subtank line when our review period began.
This includes the Subtank Mini, Nano, Plus, and so on. Unlike the gClapton OCC’s the gCeramic coil heads from Atom Vapes are smaller and rounder, though still using the six-sided motif of the original Kanger OCC’s. The gCeramic coils fit much better than gClapton OCC’s.
All the Atom Vapes gCeramic coils are rated at 0.9-ohms. Each type also feature eliquid flow ports on the side of the coil heads so the eliquid is easily absorbed into the ceramic material.
Ceramic coils can handle any PG/VG ratio you want to vape with, so I chose the eliquids I usually use, a High VG 80% VG, 20% PG eliquid, placed several drops into the top of coil head, filled the tank, put the tank back together and waited a few minutes. Although the gCeramic coil heads use porous ceramic material, it will require a bit longer waiting period than cotton-wick coil heads. The estimate is between 2-5 minutes, so I waited the full 5 minutes, and still do.
Like traditional coils the user is supposed to fire off the device for a couple of seconds, two or three times, to burn away any detritus that may be on the wicking material, and to properly prime the coil. After priming the coil, it was ready to go.
Flavor with gCeramic Coils
I believe the real reason to seriously consider ceramic coils over the traditional cotton wick coil heads is a more natural flavor that comes from a medical grade ceramic. There are zero impurities in medical grade ceramics, so all you will taste is the eliquid, nothing else. This can really reveal the honest flavor profile of any eliquid, giving you the opportunity to determine the quality of your juice you like never before. For me, the first lung hit from an Atom Vape gCeramic was unforgettable.
I don’t know how best to describe it; I truly believe my brain, your brain, can sense the difference between an eliquid vaporizing inside cotton and eliquid vaporizing inside porous ceramic material. The unadulterated flavor of the eliquid is faithfully revealed with absolutely no other ‘flavor components’ interfering with it. ‘Sensational’ is a good word to use when describing what its like to taste eliquid in such a clean, pure way.
Julia and Tom first tried their hands with the gCeramic coil heads in a Herakles tank and a Triton 2 tank, respectfully, and they report the same thing; an honest, pure, clean flavor from their eliquids as well.
Kiera and Jason hooked up with a Kanger Nano and a Herakles and their flavor experience was described as being ‘fuller, heavier, honest’.
Every one was more than pleased with the magnificent flavors these ceramic coils were capable of. But it goes deeper than that. A ceramic coil with an ohms rating of 0.9 requires wattage, but to what extent?
Here, the experiences were a bit different. Despite an ohms’ level of just under 1.00-ohms I found the sweet spot at 36-watts, the other members of this review found their wattage levels to be higher than normal as well, but Tom and Jason discovered that the 0.9-ohms had a lot of range when it came to wattage. They explained it like this:
“When vaping with an ultra-low ohms coil the wattage has to be at a certain point before the coils even begin to produce vapor. And once you find that wattage level, fine-tuning it to the point where maximum flavor and vapor production, as well as the warmth of the vapor, exists, it can be a narrow range.
The flavor might pop at one setting, the vapor may pop at another, and the warmth still another. But, the Atom Vapes gCeramic began putting out excellent flavor at a lower wattage level, while the vapor and warmth were found much higher up. The whole experience seemed to be easier to find and maintain. The range of excellent flavor/vapor/warmth is somewhat higher than traditional coils, but you can go higher than you might think while still maintaining flavor and vapor, thereby only raising the temperature of the vapor. It’s similar to vaping Ni200 in TC mode.”
“I want to get you higher”
We’re not going to try and sell you on the benefits of ceramic coils and using less eliquid, or saving battery life while using these coils. If that’s what you are after than stay with TC coils. Right now, the Atom Vapes gCeramic coils are made with NiChrome wire, and so they are not very good in temperature control mode. Plus, because you can push the wattage higher with stupendous results, you can vape through eliquid and battery life quickly. The tradeoff is worth it.
As the review period went on all of us vaped the gCeramic coils in Subtanks, Herakles and Triton tanks. The same “truths” we discovered initially carried over with all of them.
When all was said and done we agreed to one truth that befits the gCeramic coils from Atom Vapes, and it is this:
“The advantage of using ceramic coils, and specifically, Atom Vapes gCeramic coils is found in the wide range of wattage settings that can be used to produce excellent flavor, vapor, and warmth. Raising the wattage level did not degrade the flavor at all, while at the same time the vapor production improved some, but the warmth of the vapor of the best indicator of just how stable and reliable ceramic coils can be. Pure, medical grade ceramic material found in Atom Vapes gCeramic coils produce the best flavor we’ve experienced.”
There are other benefits to using ceramic coils. Ceramic coils definitely last longer, if they are made with quality ceramic material, they produce a cleaner vape, and the vapor production is on par with the finest, purest cotton wick coil heads you can find.
Although somewhat suspicious of ceramic coils based on the Atlantis scare of 2014, and the recent alarms about particulates found in the vapor (which turned out to be baseless allegations against ceramic coils in general), we are totally and completely happy with these marvelous coil heads.
With any luck we’ll see Atom Vapes expand the line of gCeramic coils to other popular tanks, and perhaps even produce different coil builds and various metal wire, all based on the same cotton-less ceramic coil design of these current coil heads.
If you care to win some of these magnificent coil heads leave a comment below. Atom Vapes will pick 10 Winners from the comments and they’ll send you your choice of of these gCeramic Coils. Winners will be chosen on March 4th, 2016, so get your best comments ready and post away!
John Manzione
