EVOD knockoff, buyer beware

blujeenz

Loafing since 2013
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I thought I'd put this out there for the newb vapers who are still undecided as yet, my experience with Chinese knockoffs.

I wanted a cheap ecig for some experimental extracting stuff so off I rushed to a nearby mall(Canal Walk) to source something. I had done some reading on the web but hadnt found this forum with the wealth of info yet, so I'd already decided an eGo ce6 or better would do the trick.
Eventually, finding no eGo clones, I settled on an EVOD clone(R250) and calling it a clone is being kind too.
Once home I fired things up, ran some 0% cappuccino through it and was reasonably content. However once I charged it up again I noticed it was fully charged in approx 30min, kind of odd, because the packaging said from 2~3 hrs for a full charge.
Long story short, my curiosity got the better of me and I opened it up. There was no indication of battery capacity on the packaging, the little tick boxes on the back for 650ma 1000ma etc were all blank.
Well what I discovered when I pulled off the bottom cap(came off easily) was the back end of what looked like a penlight AA battery.
Naturally I couldnt stop there and so the whole device got disassembled... revealing a 3ma battery.
Im like, what? ...are you kidding me dawg? ...couldnt you even have given me a 150ma batt? seriously 3ma!
Im guessing this feeble battery is going to ruin vaping for a lot of newcomers to the scene, so too is Chinese manufacturing going to get a bad name.
Face it, these 3ma batts havent come from any other surplus device, they have been made specifically for this device as a cost cutting measure, hence no mention of the battery capacity on the packaging, its sneaky without being outright fraudlent about it.

Im not too butthurt about the matter, I'd already ordered a Kangertech Protank 3 mini and some 0.8ohm coils, and come Monday the search resumes for a SS VV EVOD or similar.
It shouldnt be a huge problem to aquire a decent 650ma 14500 battery to upgrade my EVOD knockoff, thats if I feel like tossing more money on the knockoff. :)

The battery section weighed 23.05g, the controller pushed out 1.05A @ 3.72V for what its worth. The pastel colored packaging is the most obvious giveaway you're getting a knockoff, prising off the bottom cap and seeing that AA style bottom seals the deal.

As an afterthought I checked the battery with a strong neo magnet and found virtually no magnetism at all, ie the case is aluminium and the battery is largely aluminium as well, in contrast my laser's 18650 cell is strongly magnetic.
So a small magnet in your pocket when shopping for a vape pen is a handy tool, just dont put it in the same pocket as your bank cards, it will erase them instantly.

My recommendation would be to get a VV (variable voltage) in either the ego twist or EVOD VV styles, it leaves you with much more options down the vaping road, which is a road you will be travelling if you're a smoker.

Update... turns out a proper 14500 800ma li-ion battery (International Power Products for R72) didnt even fit, some measuring with a vernier showed the battery to be a 13450. Its most likely the battery from a disposable ecig, but I dont really feel like wasting more money to find out. :)

If you look carefully (not in my pics, I mean on an assembled one in packaging) you can see that the battery section is slightly narrower than the upper atomiser part, let this be your cue that you're looking at a knockoff-ripoff because the geniune EVOD is a proper 14mm dia housing a 14500 battery.



evod 2.jpg evod 11.jpg
 
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Wow! Only 3mAh! I've seen "1100mAh" batteries that contain 400mAh cells and a wad of cardboard but this is ridiculous :eek:

I agree with you completely that this kind of thing ruins vaping for most people who are trying it out for the first time. It's infuriating :mad:

Thanks for that detailed look into these dodgy devices, hopefully it will help someone make a more informed decision one day ;)
 
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Thanks for documenting your findings so well and for the photos @blujeenz

Certainly reinforces the view that knockoffs are rife in this industry and that buyers should rather get their vape gear from a reputable vendor that sells good quality equipment

By the way, there are several knockoffs of ejuices as well. This does not just apply to hardware.
 
There are indeed a lot of knock-off e-juices,pretty much everything china malls sell is cheap garbage.I have had a few bad experiences with cheap juice and if you look at the price,e-juice from a proper vape shop works out to around the same price,but for good quality stuff.Hopefully with time the market for these useless clones will die out as people become more educated and learn from our misfortune
 
as much as the fake products are hurting the industry and a lot of new users are turning back to cigarettes having received such a poor performing product, i think the few that do attempt to stick it through land up coming to vendors in search of something better.

i have seen a lot of new customers walk in with a mod from the flea market and looking for an upgrade while sitting at various vendors.
 
i have seen a lot of new customers walk in with a mod from the flea market and looking for an upgrade while sitting at various vendors.
What you don't see is all the disappointed first time users that gave up and went back to stinkies, I think they vastly outnumber the ones that make the effort to find something better.
 
What you don't see is all the disappointed first time users that gave up and went back to stinkies, I think they vastly outnumber the ones that make the effort to find something better.
Sad but true

Got my colleague to start vaping and quit the stinkies but he is a stubborn one and bought the cheapest he could find.. which naturally resulted in frequent dry hits and juice in the mouth he is back on the stinkies again. Even offered him my evod but no luck :-(
 
What you don't see is all the disappointed first time users that gave up and went back to stinkies, I think they vastly outnumber the ones that make the effort to find something better.
I agree , i almost did.

My playboy ecig broke in the 1st week and I landed up rushing to get a cheap China ce4!

From there it was a twisp and then a semi decent spinner type battery with an aspire bdc tank and then when I broke that I found the forum :)

I still break things all the time ask @Rowan Francis

What I feel is in the coming future we need to engage more with the public and do a bit of knowledge transfer that there are better quality units out there and it's much greener on this side :)
 
The worst knock off in juice is that Italian brand "liqua" if I'm not mistaken.
Back when I had my twisp 2 years back, I thought I would be cleaver and found at a China mall a whole box of different liqua flavours about 10 X 15ml bottles for R100. Daft me...
That's when I hit the stinkies again after being off for 3 months.
2 problems with knock offs...
1- people resort back to stinkies
2- it gives a company's name a bad name.

I've learnt my lesson and this forum has guided me in so many ways.
Thanks to all you awesome people on the forum (To many names to mention) and everyone is awesome. ☺☺☺
Say no to Fong Kong...
 
The worst knock off in juice is that Italian brand "liqua" if I'm not mistaken.
Back when I had my twisp 2 years back, I thought I would be cleaver and found at a China mall a whole box of different liqua flavours about 10 X 15ml bottles for R100. Daft me...
That's when I hit the stinkies again after being off for 3 months.
2 problems with knock offs...
1- people resort back to stinkies
2- it gives a company's name a bad name.

I've learnt my lesson and this forum has guided me in so many ways.
Thanks to all you awesome people on the forum (To many names to mention) and everyone is awesome. ☺☺☺
Say no to Fong Kong...

100% agree
 
The worst knock off in juice is that Italian brand "liqua" if I'm not mistaken.
Back when I had my twisp 2 years back, I thought I would be cleaver and found at a China mall a whole box of different liqua flavours about 10 X 15ml bottles for R100. Daft me...
That's when I hit the stinkies again after being off for 3 months.
2 problems with knock offs...
1- people resort back to stinkies
2- it gives a company's name a bad name.

I've learnt my lesson and this forum has guided me in so many ways.
Thanks to all you awesome people on the forum (To many names to mention) and everyone is awesome. ☺☺☺
Say no to Fong Kong...

Not sure I understood.

So is Liqua a bad brand or are you saying that there are a lot of fake Liqua's floating around but the authentic one is good?
 
Not sure I understood.

So is Liqua a bad brand or are you saying that there are a lot of fake Liqua's floating around but the authentic one is good?

There are a lot of fake Liqua liquids.
I cannot comment on the original as I have never tried it and probably never will as I've been put off from the knock off.
 
Not sure I understood.

So is Liqua a bad brand or are you saying that there are a lot of fake Liqua's floating around but the authentic one is good?
Also had a few fake ones which were horrible..
But for me personally even the authentic ones lack a bit of imagination, as if mass produced or made by machines with no love lol if you get what I am trying to say...
 
The Liqua name coming up quite often in recent threads. If you are paying R30 for 30ml you can be quite sure it is not the original, of which I can not state an opinion on as I have only ever had the bad experience of the dodgy knock offs. Saw a post earlier today from @shaunnadan relating to the same subject, listen to him he knows his stuff.
 
Not sure I understood.

So is Liqua a bad brand or are you saying that there are a lot of fake Liqua's floating around but the authentic one is good?
There's nothing wrong with authentic Liqua, it's one of the better "mass produced" liquids but it is a high PG blend which makes it more suited to basic entry level low-power hardware like CE4s and Evods. It's really thin which makes it kinda difficult to keep contained in a Sub Ohm tank as they are designed more towards high VG liquids which are much thicker. Also the high PG content gives it a pretty sharp throat hit which again is better for low voltage clearomisers than a sub ohm dripper ;)
 
This thread reads like my life LOL
Tried quitting so many times last year.

1st attempt bought a knockoff (didn't know it was fake at the time) eGo CE4 and some Liqua juices from China Mall in Durbs. Needless to say I had endless dry hits and spit back.
Did some googling and found out my Ego was fake as well as the Liqua juice too :mad: and it was back to stinkies. Total time off stinkies +- 2 weeks

2nd attempt I bought a Twisp and some Twisp juice to go with it. Things started off well with the Twisp initially, I thought my bad experience was due to the knock off ecig and juices. Then the dry hits started after 3 days. Back to the Twisp counter at Gateway, new atomizer and all was good again, for a few days. Back again for a new atomizer and this process I repeated for 3 weeks. By now I'd had enough and I was back on stinkies. Total time off stinkies +- 5 weeks

3rd attempt was because a friend was raving about the Twisp Aero and because I really wanted to quit I bought one at the Galleria counter. 1st week was great, I really thought I was onto a winner here. Then the dry hits and crazy throat burn started. Back to Twisp counter new coils and good again. Soon I was replacing once or twice a week. Just like before I grew tired off seeing the faces at the Twisp counter and was back on stinkies. Total time off stinkies +- 5 weeks

4th and hopefully final attempt was borne out of boredom. I was working night shift and I thought I'd look at whats changed in the vaping land. I found vapeshop.co.za and for the first time I saw the iStick and eVic. Immediatley intrigues found out as much as I could about these TC devices. I bought the eVic Mini full kit some ejuice and have never looked back. Amazing device, pretty good cloud production and flavour like I'd never tasted before, not muted or flat like the Twisp at all.

TL;DR Knock off leave a poor impression and will never help one get off the stinkies. After trying various devices (fake and real) for so long all it took was a proper device and some good local juice (Weiner Belly Rub) and I haven't looked back. Fakes should be banned, maybe even Twisp too :p
 
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