Table of Contents

1 The Kanger Dripbox Review

The Kanger Dripbox Review

What’s a Dripbox? Well, let’s consider; You’ve been vaping for a while now, and you’ve been happy with your current device that might consist of a Joyetech eVic-VTC, or an iStick 100W TC, or something in between, and you’ve purchased a couple of sub-ohm tanks that you love to use. But… there is this tiny voice in your head telling you that in order to really experience vaping in its truest form you need to Drip.

So you contemplate buying an RDA and dive into building your own coils… but you never do. Maybe building your own coils just doesn’t sound wise, or safe, so you put it off. That voice never stops, so you’re always wondering… What can you do?

Kanger believes there are many vapers just like you. Vapers that want to Drip, but haven’t yet taken that step. Knowing this, Kanger goes into R&D mode to come up with a viable solution for you, and of course to open a new revenue stream for themselves. What they come up seems to be an ideal solution.

An RDA that takes the worry of building your own coils away, and places that RDA on a simple mod that is unregulated and regulated at the same time (more on that later), plus a huge e-liquid reservoir so there won’t need to constantly drip juice onto the coils. In addition, Kanger produces the device so that it could sell to the consumer for less than fifty bucks.

The idea behind the Kanger Dripbox and SubDrip RDA was a simple one; give the Vaper a true RDA vape experience in a device that uses a true RBA coil setup with a huge reservoir of e-liquid to draw from with ‘squonk box style’ of 7mL juice capacity. Using the Dripbox allows you to ‘Drip’ vape throughout the day, at the cost of a mere $45 (DirectVapor). It makes RDA vaping available to the masses, with or without coil building experience. Does it work? Let’s find out…

Dripbox as Bottom Feeder

We haven’t reviewed a bottom feeder in years, so it was surprising to see the newest from Kanger was exactly that, a bottom-feeder. As Morgan would say, “Everything gets a return”. But this is no ordinary bottom feeder.

The reinvented bottom-feeder works very well indeed. Instead of feeding e-juice up to a sub-ohm tank or a simple clearomizer, this bottom feeder sends e-juice up to a true RDA, saturating the cotton and coils in the RDA through the bottom instead of being dripped in from the top. Since an RDA can go through e-liquid lickity-split, this bottom feeder is large enough to hold a full 7mL of e-juice.

Let’s Get This Out of the Way

Let me eliminate some of the tension in the room by saying that the Dripbox from Kanger produces massive clouds of vapor, and excellent flavor, with prebuilt disposable RDA/RBA decks. My final grade on the Dripbox is going to be high. I like it for what it is. So, let’s talk more about what an RDA vape experience is, and why so many people hear that tiny voice urges them to Drip.

The RDA Experience

An RDA is a Rebuildable Dripping Atomizer. The user “drips” e-juice directly on the coils/cotton, applies power to vaporize said e-juice instantly, and inhales supposedly massive amounts of vapor produced by a good build and good cotton. It is a very basic, raw style of vaping that is usually left to experienced users with a good RDA and a mechanical mod. The mechanical mod fires all the voltage/power it can muster directly to the coils and the result is supposed to be the purist flavor you can get from your e-juice, and huge clouds of thick vapor. It is the purist way to get vapor into your lungs, so people that vape with an RDA and a mechanical mod are sometimes referred to as “purists”.

The Art of the Drip

However, a true RDA user can also be an artist. Coil building is more of an art these days than it is a skill. Unless your fingers are somehow disabled anyone, including you, can build a coil. Building a coil is just taking some wire and wrapping it around a post. The art of comes in with the infinite ways of building/wrapping said coils, be it a multifaceted Clapton, Twisted, Parallel Dual Coils, Sleeper, Stove Top, and many, many more. Just search Pinterest to see how gorgeous some of these fancy builds can look. Imagine the vape experience using one of these gorgeous coils…Sometimes I will browse Pinterest for inspiration when I get in the mood to try something new. If you have that voice in your head, I’m betting those photos would call to you in the same way.

Sub-Ohm Tanks and RDAs

The challenge for sub-ohm tank manufacturers has always been to emulate as close as possible the “RDA experience”. My personal feelings about this challenge is that some sub-ohm tanks have already surpassed the RDA experience, at least the basic RDA experience. These masterful sub-ohm tanks and regulated mods not only emulate the RDA quality, but they are safer, and simpler to use. Not to mention that they do away with having to frequently drip e-juice onto the coils and cotton. And don’t get me started on RTAs. The new RTAs coming out, like the Vaporesso Gemini that I’m working with now, oh man, you won’t believe it.

For now, let’s put aside my personal feelings about the better sub-ohm tanks and RTA’s and regulated high wattage mods. The Kanger Dripbox attempts to truly emulated the RDA experience by providing a real RDA with the added benefit of attaching a kinda-regulated mod with a large “tank” reserve to negate the need for continuously dripping e-liquid onto the coils, Kanger believes the Dripbox could be the best of both worlds. For some vapers it will be.

Specs for the Kanger Dripbox

The Kanger Dripbox is a simple, basic, device. It is not an advanced device, quite the opposite really. That’s what’s so appealing about it.

The RDA and Mod are detachable, so if you want to use another tank on the mod you can, but because the mod lacks a display or adjustment buttons you’re using a basic 60W regulated/unregulated mod, much like the eGo One series battery or Innokin Endura battery series. It outputs one voltage/wattage setting, and voltage decreases as the battery charge decreases. When it gets to 3.3v it’s time to change the battery.

The regulated/unregulated mod part of the Dripbox has plenty of safety features, unlike the unregulated mechanical mod, so using it is not nearly the same as using a true mechanical mod.

The Kanger Dripbox uses a single hi-amp (25a+) as the power source. The prebuilt RDA decks are rated at 0.2-ohm, and the Kanthal A1 wire and cotton builds are tuned to work best with the Dripbox’s single wattage output.

The wide-bore drip tip is a permanent part of the top cap of the RDA. There is no rifling in the drip, which really doesn’t take away from the vape, and dripping a few drops on the coil/cotton is done by lifting off the drip tip top cap. Despite being able to squonk some juice from the bottom with a new deck I recommend dripping a few drops to prevent an early hit scorching the cotton.

There is a nice airflow system on the Dripbox, with a pair of 13mm slots near the top of the RDA. Twisting the top cap drip tip opens and close the airflow. You can get a helluva lung hit with the slots wide open, or you can close it down to a mouth to lung draw. Because it’s a simple RDA you won’t get any fancy airflow from the bottom of the tank.

The Prebuilt Decks

These are dual coil prebuilt decks that have terrific ramp up speed. The instant you fire the mod the vapor begins to happen. Although you can buy brand new prebuilt decks for the price of prebuilt coil heads, you can rebuild these, or at the very least, re-wick them when the cotton wears out. If you’d rather not, just toss out the deck and break out a new one. You can purchase individual prebuilt decks for $2.99 each.

Features and Spec for the Prebuilt Decks:

Rebuildable

0.2ohm Resistance

Prebuilt Kanthal Wire with Organic Cotton

They can be very inexpensive on the low end and extremely expensive on the high end. The difference, for the most part, is the building materials and/or the complexity of its design. There is nothing magical about an RDA, and it shouldn’t be scary to use.

Summing Up the Dripbox

This squonk/RDA device is as simple and as inexpensive as Kanger could produce. It’s lightweight, made from an aluminum alloy, with a plastic bottom battery cap. The only button is the fire button, placed near the top on the front of the device. The squonk box itself, accessible at the bottom of the Dripbox is somewhat pliant plastic. There is a plastic magnetic cover over the bottom of the squonk bottle making removal and refilling a simple matter.

While I’m not replacing my gear with the Kanger Dripbox, I like it enough to keep it around. The flavor is excellent and the vapor is nearly as good as my high end sub-ohm tanks. Had Kanger decided to up the wattage to 80-watts or so it might have beaten some of the high end tanks. 60 watts seems to be holding back, and maybe that’s the point as an entry level Drip box.

Now that the Kanger Dripbox is out there in the wild if and when I am approached by newer vapers asking me to suggest an RDA I will happily recommend the Kanger Dripbox. The user will get an RDA experience without having to invest in more expensive gear and wire, cotton, etc., they can move at their own speed, as it is meant to be.

I absolutely love the idea of a company selling prebuilt decks, and you just know that Kanger, and some coil replacement companies, will soon begin to ship better and better decks with fancier coil wraps. This prebuilt deck thing will become a cottage industry, as it should. Thank Kanger for making that happen with the release of the Kanger Dripbox.

Pick up a Kanger Dripbox at DirectVapor – In stock now

Grade: A

Tom McBride