Tag: Issue 3

The Kanger Dripbox 160

By Mike Huml

Right on the heels of Kanger’s original Dripbox kit comes the new Dripbox 160. It’s a 160-watt variable device with a squonk design, previously known as a “bottom feeder” design. The premise here is that instead of an RDA being drip-fed from the top, a bottle housed within the mod is squeezed and liquid flows from the bottom through the hollow positive pin. It’s a historically niche design that Kanger has made available to a larger market. It’s a viable alternative to a significantly more expensive squonk mod, but don’t forget the old saying: “You get what you pay for.”

Like other Kanger products, Dripbox is the designation referring to the kit as a whole, which comprises the Dripmod 160 and the Subdrip 160 RDA. Aesthetically, these paired together resemble the Wismec Reuleaux, with Kanger obviously trying to play to that market. In place of a third battery, the Dripmod features a 70 mL soft plastic bottle. As a result, the Dripmod will have a similar ergonomic sensation to the Reuleaux, albeit with shorter battery life and a lower maximum power. In addition, those accustomed to the Reuleaux may need to adjust how they hold the Dripbox due to the fact that the 510 connection is on the opposite side of the fire button. It’s a small inconvenience, but the end result is that many users may not find the Dripbox quite as comfortable to hold as the Reuleaux.

The Subdrip 160 RDA is a fairly standard RDA with one unique feature: The entire deck can be unscrewed and replaced with another pre-made RDA deck. This is a great way to introduce dripping (arguably the most versatile and satisfying way to vape) to the greater market. The option remains to rebuild if so desired, but several different replacement decks are available. While not perfectly built compared to what even an intermediate builder could accomplish, they do the trick and offer an experience far superior to any sub-ohm tank on the market. That aside, the Subdrip 160 RDA has a medium-wide chuff cap that doubles as the airflow control adjustment, which lends itself well to both direct-lung and mouth-to-lung hitting. It’s a surprisingly good RDA with a smaller than usual Velocity-style deck, and while it serves its purpose well, it won’t impress those with an established RDA collection. At its maximum, the airflow is more open than any sub-ohm tank and will provide a satisfying experience for a wide range of vapers.

The menu and screen are bright and easy to read, but there’s nothing of particular note to write home about. It does its job and is easy to use. The Dripbox as a whole is standard Kanger fare when it comes to build quality—it’s good but not great. The buttons are made of plastic but have a nice click to them when pressed. Compared to the original Dripbox, the Dripbox 160 allows you to adjust your wattage easily with the obligatory plus and minus buttons. That alone should persuade any store owner to immediately replace the older Dripbox with the new iteration. It allows for infinitely more customization options and makes it easier to fine-tune the vape experience. In addition, the Dripmod 160 features temperature control for nickel, titanium, nichrome and stainless steel. Overall, these settings work fine but are not 100 percent accurate. All are capable of resisting burning and dry hits, but the temperature setting needs to be experimented with individually for each wire type. With the intended use being RDAs, temperature control generally isn’t as desirable as it would be with a tank, where wicking properties add another dimension that could contribute to dry hits.

So where does the Dripbox 160 fall a bit short? The leaking potential. With so much going on here, there are several points of potential failure, not to mention that many of these points can result in leaking into the mod itself. On paper, there’s no reason why the Dripmod shouldn’t work with other RDAs with a squonk pin, like the Velocity V2. In reality, the size of the hole in which the liquid is fed with these other RDAs can make all the difference. The Subdrip 160 seems to have a much wider hole than other RDAs, and therefore it works the best because there is little resistance when the bottle is squeezed. For RDAs with a tighter hole and more resistance, it can be difficult to feed liquid fast enough, if at all. In some cases, the pressure needed to feed the juice can cause leakage into the internals of the Dripmod, which can result in all sorts of chaos. It can cause the device to auto-fire, or not power on at all. It might simply be annoying to mop up juice on a regular basis, or it could cause complete device failure. This is the worst type of problem to have: an inconsistent one. If multiple units of the same device all have the same problem, it’s easy to identify and fix. With so many points of failure and unpredictable results, the Dripbox is a wild card.

The moral of the story here is that while the Dripmod works fairly well with the included Subdrip 160 RDA, it’s not to be recommended for use with other RDAs. If the user decides to tempt fate, that’s his or her prerogative. For a business owner, it’s an unnecessary risk, and it should be acknowledged that this limits the versatility of the device. There are two possible scenarios that arise when this problem comes to light. First, there is still the option to use a regular RDA and drip from the top. However, there are far better options if a customer isn’t interested in the bottom-feed usability of the Dripmod. There are dual-battery mods that are smaller and more ergonomic, and there’s the Reuleaux, which offers a more comfortable feel and longer battery life for a similar investment. On the other hand, since the use of another squonk-capable RDA is a huge unknown, customers are virtually stuck with this one setup. The Subdrip can be used on another device, but the hollow positive pin means that liquid will constantly leak out of the 510 connection with nowhere for it to go except all over the mod or into the pin, which could cause a short circuit or device failure. All this leads to the fact that the potential buyer must be interested in the Dripbox setup, and that setup only.

One could do far worse than the Dripbox, but also far better. It’s a familiar tale from Kanger: a great idea in theory but only mediocre in practice. The one standout purpose of the Dripbox is to introduce dripping to those unfamiliar with it in an easy and simple way. Kanger is often forgiven for many missteps in their products, but those missteps can’t always be ignored. A device that could have been extremely versatile with a wide appeal instead falls into the niche market trap. While it may pique the curiosity of many a Kanger aficionado, the potential for a sharp decline in interest is present. With regulation on the horizon, versatility is a stronger selling point than ever, and the Dripbox hamstrings itself by inadvertently limiting its usage possibilities.

Asian smokers are more enthusiastic about e-cigarettes than their governments.

Contributed

Unlike other consumer product manufacturers, tobacco companies have few, if any, avenues to communicate with their customers, and their customers have little or no access to the manufacturers. Tobacco companies have limited access to policymakers or the media and are therefore hamstrung when it comes to defending the rights of their customers, and, consequently, up until now, consumers have had no one speaking on their behalf.

Regional consumer advocacy group Factasia.org, based in Hong Kong, was established in 2014 as a voice for reason and to support adult Asian consumers’ rights to choose and use reasonably regulated tobacco and nicotine products. Anti-smoking efforts, as mandated by the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, including smoking bans, high taxation, graphic health warnings and plain-packaging initiatives, have clearly failed to deliver the results intended. They have instead disadvantaged—even demonized—smokers and deprived them of their rights, while fueling a growing criminal illicit trade globally that currently supplies one in 10 cigarettes smoked on the planet.

The major focus on tobacco control initiatives throughout the Asia Pacific region is centered on e-cigarettes and other alternatives to conventional tobacco products, and it is in this critical segment that Factasia.org is currently concentrating much of its efforts.

To better understand just what adult Asian smokers think they know about e-cigarettes, Factasia.org commissioned Ipsos, one of the world’s most respected polling companies, to conduct a survey of consumers in six Asia Pacific countries. The results, which are being rolled out across the region in a series of media events, “clearly [show] that adult smokers see e-cigarettes as a positive alternative to smoking and want the choice to use them as a less harmful alternative to conventional cigarettes,” said Heneage Mitchell, co-founder of Factasia.org.

Factasia.org’s survey of Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan smokers found that 71 percent of adult smokers say e-cigarettes that contain nicotine—products that do not burn tobacco and therefore do not produce the potentially dangerous particulates found in cigarettes—are a “positive alternative” to conventional cigarettes.

Smokers hold similar views toward the concept of tobacco harm reduction, and 75 percent of respondents said that it would be wrong for a government “to prevent or delay legalizing less harmful alternatives to cigarettes for adult smokers.” An even higher percentage (82 percent), agreed that, “through tax and regulatory policies, the government should encourage adult smokers to switch to less harmful alternatives to cigarettes and ensure they are not used by youth.”

The Factasia.org study found that, while some 22 percent of smokers were still unaware of e-cigarettes, 46 percent across the region had tried them, and 8 percent now use them regularly. A clear majority (68 percent) said the main reason for using e-cigarettes was “as an alternative to conventional cigarettes.”

“There is obviously consumer demand throughout Asia for the right to choose,” Mitchell pointed out. “There is also a massive body of international scientific research that shows that using e-cigarettes can be consistent with wider public health objectives that benefit all of society. Rather than banning them, governments have a great opportunity to become a clear leader in progressive public health policy and in harm reduction in this vital sector.”

Today, e-cigarettes are regulated differently around the world. In Southeast Asia, the tendency has been to impose blanket bans rather than regulating them—an easier approach for governments to adopt but a crippling blow for regional harm-reduction initiatives and a resounding slap in the faces of consumers. For example, Hong Kong, which has already imposed partial bans, is now debating a total ban, as now exists in Indonesia. Singapore is the only country that has pre-emptively banned all emerging tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and other smokeless tobacco products. Malaysia, which has a thriving vape community and a growing manufacturing sector, is at a pivotal moment, with the government still sending out mixed messages as to whether to ban or regulate e-cigarettes. Macau has announced it will shortly make a decision on its stated intention to ban all vape products. Australian federal and state governments remain obdurate in their anti-vaping stance and rhetoric, disadvantaging citizens and denying them the right to choose e-cigarettes over heavily taxed but nonetheless legal conventional cigarettes.

All this despite a growing and compelling body of scientific evidence that clearly indicates vaping is a gateway away from smoking, a reality one would have thought was in line with government and health community efforts to curb smoking incidence. But clearly this message has not yet penetrated many government and health agencies, many of whom continue to deliver misleading, untruthful, discredited and inaccurate information to consumers to justify their continuing reluctance to embrace this new technology and regulate vaping sensibly and effectively.

“Currently, I can quite legally buy an e-cigarette and vape it in the airport in, say, the U.K., fly to Hong Kong, Singapore or Indonesia with the device, and risk arrest and imprisonment there for possession of a banned product,” said Mitchell. “Clearly this is a ridiculous situation. In an age where harmonized global trade and manufacturing standards are the norm, this is an anomaly that needs to be addressed. Added to which, millions of consumers have already chosen to use these products worldwide, and they deserve and are entitled to the same protection in terms of manufacturing processes and product safety that they enjoy with everything else they buy. Currently, there are essentially no standards in place for e-cigarette and e-liquid manufacturers to follow, governments to enforce, or consumers to understand.”

Since its formal launch in March 2015, Factasia.org has held numerous face-to-face meetings with policymakers and legislators. It has created quite a stir in the media throughout Southeast Asia, presenting the results of the survey, updating key decision-makers on the current research and science supporting the use of e-cigarettes, and reminding politicians that smokers and vapers are also citizens and voters who deserve a voice in the debate, leading to fair and effective regulatory frameworks as opposed to discriminatory and unjustifiable impositions on their rights.

“We will continue to battle on behalf of adult Asian consumers, to protect their right to choose, to encourage rational debate focusing on facts rather than hysteria, rhetoric and uninformed opinion, and we will continue to press for the introduction of sensible regulations that protect consumers and which are in harmony with regulations that are already in place or being developed in the U.S. and the EU,” said Mitchell.

Over the next few months, Factasia.org will organize, in cooperation with various domestic and regional vape groups and consumer organizations, seminars bringing together harm reduction and manufacturing experts with policymakers, health experts and legislators in Malaysia and Hong Kong in continuing efforts to help lawmakers and related agencies understand the facts and to help neutralize the effect of the many false and alarming statements that continue to be disseminated by anti-smoking and anti-vaping communities.

“This effort is important because only by recognizing facts and applying reason and debating the issues rationally can consumers—and manufacturers—hope to end up with sensible, effective regulatory frameworks that serve the best interests of all stakeholders and citizens,” Mitchell said.

Box

Methodology:

The survey polled legal-age smokers in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan in May–June 2015 and was conducted by Ipsos. It was conducted across statistically relevant gender and age groups using online interviews. An additional telephone poll has just been completed in Macau, where the key figures correspond with those of the other six areas polled.