Welcome! Today we're going to be taking a closer look at the Hellvape Dead Rabbit Pro rda. I've had the pleasure of playing with a few Dead Rabbit products, but they've all been RTAs. From doing a brief overlook of the previous releases of Dead Rabbit RDAs, the aesthetic has been changed quite a bit and a second inlet of airflow has been added. In addition, the traditional "rabbit ear" deck posts have been removed giving the Pro a postless deck which is what allows it to have a much lower overall profile. The big question is, does it affect the performance of the RDA that has been very well received in the past? We'll be covering that for sure as we plow through this review.
I want to begin by thanking Joyi at SourceMore for coordinating the shipment of this product and giving me ample time to conduct testing. Although this won't affect how I rate the products, it certainly should not go unmentioned. As always, this review will be conducted in a fair and honest manner. For those that have read previous reviews I've written, know this to be true.
I'll be giving a brief overview of what you'll find at SourceMore, followed by my own test results. All photos can be clicked on for easier viewing.
I want to begin by thanking Joyi at SourceMore for coordinating the shipment of this product and giving me ample time to conduct testing. Although this won't affect how I rate the products, it certainly should not go unmentioned. As always, this review will be conducted in a fair and honest manner. For those that have read previous reviews I've written, know this to be true.
I'll be giving a brief overview of what you'll find at SourceMore, followed by my own test results. All photos can be clicked on for easier viewing.
- BRIEF SITE OVERVIEW -
Color options:
Each kit includes a spare drip tip and airflow ring of a different color arrangement:
> Stainless Steel
> Blue
> Gold
> Matte Black
> Gunmetal
> Rainbow
> Red
The bottom row is what the RDA will look like when the spare drip tip and airflow ring are installed.
Key Features:
> 3 Airflow Options
> Postless Deck
> Interchangeable BF 510 Pin (for Squonking)
> Additional Drip Tip & Airflow Control Ring Kits for DIY Customizations
Specs & Packaging:
Product Specs:
Dimensions: 24 * 31.3mm
Net Weight: 32g
Drip Tip Style: 810
Package Contents:
> Dead Rabbit Pro RDA
> Extra 810 Drip Tip
> Extra AFC Ring
> 0.37Ω Ni80 Clapton Coils (x2)
> Shoelace Cotton (x2)
> Coil Cutting Tool
> Accessory Bag (Spare O-rings, grub screws, and build tools)
> User Manual
> BF Pin
- TESTING RESULTS & OBSERVATIONS -
The kit comes packaged well and includes a number of goodies to help make the installation process as easy as possible. Everything, including the build tools comes with this kit, so there shouldn't be any worries about whether or not you'll have the right size allen wrench or screwdriver. I suppose you will want wire cutters and tweezers for wicking, but there are several workarounds for this if you do not have specific vape tools.
I do want to make it clear that this kit includes an additional drip tip and side AFC ring of a different color. There are additional kits you can purchase that also come with bottom AFC rings that you can also change out, but that is not included in this kit. What you see in the pictures above and below is what you get, and it's quite generous.
I do want to make it clear that this kit includes an additional drip tip and side AFC ring of a different color. There are additional kits you can purchase that also come with bottom AFC rings that you can also change out, but that is not included in this kit. What you see in the pictures above and below is what you get, and it's quite generous.
The Top Cap & Airflow Control Rings:
This atomizer actually comes apart into 5 pieces, but for the purpose of what you'll need to know for this base kit, the bottom AFC ring doesn't need to be removed. If you look further up in the SourceMore Site Overview, you can see in the exploded picture how it completely disassembles if you do purchase one of the separate DIY kits.
The side AFC ring is slotted, but the actual inlets are a 5x2 honeycomb rectangle on each side that angle downward. Being that the deck is now postless, the coils sit much lower than they did with the previous rabbit ear deck posts, and the downward angle of the side airflows accommodate for that. The larger bottom airflow slots, when attached to the deck, actually swoop in and under the coils which you'll see below. This particular airflow arrangement makes it nearly impossible for the airflow to miss the coils (in a dual coil build), unless you install the coils all wonky. For a single coil build, I'd recommend cutting the legs of the coil a bit larger to give the airflow a chance to angle inward if you choose to use the bottom airflow inlets.
The bottom middle picture above is just a reminder that the atomizer has a large O-ring for the 810 drip tip. The 810s that come with the kit do not have O-rings, so keep this in mind if you plan on switching out drip tips with one of your own.
The last picture on the right shows that the top cap must be placed onto the deck with specific placement. The flat edges on the inside of the chamber must align with the flat edges on the deck - this ensures that the airflow will work flawlessly without there being a chance to screw it up.
The Dead Rabbit Pro is machined very well with tight tolerances, but not so tight that the airflow rings or drip tip are hard to move or remove - they slide around quite easily, in fact. Being that each of the rings sort of taper down as you get closer to the drip tip, you won't have to worry too much about them moving around on their own when screwing in or unscrewing the RDA.
The side airflow when solely active is a standard RDL (restricted direct-lung) that hits the coils very well and is very quiet. When the bottom airflow is solely active, it's a fairly loose RDL, but the airflow is a bit more turbulent and noisy. With both airflows fully active, there's hardly any restriction whatsoever and the noise doesn't increase all that much from just having the bottom airflow wide open. All 3 airflows have almost indistinguishable flavor output which is very, very impressive. This more or less will allow you to tailor the airflow to however you like it, without sacrificing any flavor which is something I have yet to see from any previous RDA or RTA with more than one airflow control ring. This however, is only with a dual coil build. Because of the chamber size not being interchangeable, like it is with the Damn Vape Nitrous RDA, you're going to lose a bit of flavor going with a single coil instead of a dual coil build. There's a build tutorial I'll add to the end of this review to give you an idea of what I did to achieve such great results with a dual coil build.
For the side AFC ring, there's a nipple that sticks out from the top cap. The inside of the AFC ring has a groove with a larger opening on one side that fits down onto the nipple which becomes a sliding track. This provides the AFC with a stopper while also allowing the AFC ring to glide smoothly back and forth without coming off, unless you fully close the AFC ring which positions the nipple back at the groove opening. My belief is that the smaller opening to the groove on the opposite side is to allow air into the track keeping the AFC ring from becoming suctioned and impossible to slide, which is more common than you'd think. If this is the case, they thought through this atomizer very thoroughly (say that 5 times, fast
).The Deck:
(Ignore my dry fingers please, lol)
The Dead Rabbit Pro deck is very simple, yet very effective. I know for a fact that I've seen quite a few decks configured in a very similar fashion, but for whatever reason the Dead Rabbit Pro is a flavor chaser's dream.
The postless deck design is what allows this RDA to be quite a bit shorter in comparison to the previous Dead Rabbit RDAs that utilized rabbit ear deck posts. This design change is what allows much of what I'll be talking about below.
As I'd mentioned above, the large openings you see on each side of the deck that make a right angle up into the vents match up with the bottom airflow inlets in the top cap. These channels for airflow need to be cordoned off from the rest of the deck, and that would have been much less efficient and compact with rabbit ear deck posts. For dual coil builds, I think you're going to find the easiest and best flavor with this airflow because you can't really mess up the lateral positioning of the coils - just position then directly over the vents. You can very easily mess up the height in which you build the coils, which will affect how the side airflow hits the coils and thus the flavor. You're pretty much forced to do this if you choose to build with a single coil, since you won't be able to position a single coil directly over the top of either vent. I mean, you can, but one entire vent is going to be hitting nothing which will more or less cut any flavor potential you have, in half.
I chose to use this atomizer as a dripper instead of in squonk mode using the provided BF pin like I usually do. This atomizer would work great on a squonk mod because the juice well is 9-10mm deeeeeeep. It holds a lot of juice. The only way to really flood this RDA is if you completely fill the juice well up past the vents, allowing juice to seep into the vents and out the bottom airflow inlets. If you have a good squonk mod, the bottle should suck excess juice out of the well never allowing it to get up past maybe a 1/4 of the full juice well capacity. If you choose to drip, take a peek down through the drip tip at the top of the gold-plated 510 pin. If you see juice here, you're good for a bit.
Quick Build Tutorial:
The Coil Cutting tool has an arrow suggesting 5mm coil legs (leads) which works out perfectly for this deck. Once you've cut the coil legs, fasten them down into the grub screw slots using the provided flathead screwdriver.
Being that each of these coils are 0.37Ω, trimming the legs (loses a little bit of resistance) and pairing them in parallel (halves the total remaining resistance) should put the ending resistance at around 0.15Ω. Place the built deck onto an atomizer to verify you've built the deck properly and don't have any loose grubs or anything; the resistance should read around 0.15-0.16Ω. Set the mod to 25-30 watts and slowly pulse the coils making sure to strum out any hot spots (they look like bright lightning bolts that run perpendicular to the coil loops). If the coils are slightly spaced like you see above, then you shouldn't have to worry about hot spots. Once the coils have been heated up to an amber orange color (not bright orange!), you can consider them dry-burned and clean. The coils should now appear a darker color - this is completely normal.
Once the coils have had a chance to cool off (give it 2-3 minutes after you've dry-burned them), take a shoelace cotton and pull it through the coil. Not half way like you see all the people in the tutorial videos doing, unless you like to waste your cotton. You only need to pull it through enough so that you have about an inch between the coil and the plastic end on the shoelace. Cut the opposite end about an inch out from the coil, so you have about an inch on both sides of the coil. You can reuse the other half of the same shoelace for the second coil. Once you've wicked both coils, center the cotton wicks on the coils. Clip off the plastic end of the shoelace right where the plastic ends. You should now have about at least an inch of cotton on both sides of your coils.
Fluff out the cotton ends using a tweezers of some sort. I find Swiss tweezers work best, but ceramic tweezers work almost just as well. Fluff extensively. I usually end up pulling out about 1/3 of the density in each wick end. It should look like the picture above, and the cotton that extends out from the coil should be nicely combed and nearly be transparent for about 3/4 of an inch. Being that this RDA has a very deep juice well, make sure to pull the wick ends down along the outside of the juice well to make sure when you cut the wick ends, that they'll reach the bottom of the juice well. Do this for all 4 wick ends.
Neatly tuck the wick ends into the juice well making sure you're not "stuffing" them down. If you find that you're having difficulty getting the wick ends to neatly tuck into the well, consider thinning the wick ends more and/or cutting them down in length a tiny bit.
Once the wick ends are neatly tucked down into the well, thoroughly saturate the wicks with your chosen vape juice. Focus on the coils first - you'll know they're saturated when they no longer absorb e-juice. Make sure to get the wick ends, too.
And that's it, voila! Stick the top cap on, add a few more drops of juice if you're dripping, or squonk a few times to makes sure everything is saturated. Vape away.
One note - if you're using Rayon wicks at any point (this applies to all rebuildables), make sure when pulling the wicks through the coils that it's very, very tight . It should feel like you're almost going to bend the coils out of shape (and sometimes this does happen with higher gauge wires). Rayon shrinks when it's wet, and will cause premature burning in the coils if it's not tight enough.
- CONCLUSION -
I am thoroughly impressed with the Dead Rabbit Pro RDA. I would very easily put this on par with the Damn Vape Nitrous RDA and the Vaporz Cloud Asgard Mini RDA for dual coil DL RDAs that really make me say "Wow!". The caveat being, this only applies to dual coil builds. Chamber size in relation to the coil(s) size and vape production makes a huge difference, and that's where a tighter or smaller chamber for a single coil build is going to win. The Nitrous takes the cake for having access to both single or dual coil builds in a single kit. However, unless you get a great deal on the Nitrous, you're looking to spend probably double the price than you would on the Dead Rabbit Pro RDA. Pick your poison.
There are lots of great features in the Hellvape DR Pro. It's 24mm in diameter which allows it to fit on dang near everything. It has a very low profile and sleek look unlike the larger barrel-looking Dead Rabbit RDAs before it. It has airflow options galore with very little hinderance to flavor output. The machining is very well done and it doesn't feel sloppy, one bit. The included BF 510 pin uses an allen wrench instead of an open-faced flat head which is a HUGE plus in terms of messiness and potentially causing juice to end up down inside your squonk mod. I don't really have any negatives to add here.
++ Pros ++
> Newer, sleeker, low-pro look
> Machined very well
> Solid construction
> O-rings seal nicely
> 3 airflow options with very little sacrifice in flavor
> Very easy deck to build on (postless)
> Kit includes pretty much everything you need to build
> Kit includes additional 810 drip tip & side airflow ring (of different color)
> Very deep juice well (9-10mm)
> 24mm diameter (pretty much fits on everything)
> Performs well on a single battery mod (for a dual coil build)
> Squonk pin has a closed allen wrench opening
- - Cons - -
> None
+- Considerations -+
> Minor seepage if you play with the airflow rings a lot - common for all RDAs
> Not the best option for a single coil build
Rating:
Solid 9.5
I didn't give this a 10, because nothing's perfect. But this certainly hits the ball out of the park for a dual coil flavor monster.
I'll end this review by saying thank you again to Joyi over at SourceMore for providing me the opportunity to test this wonderful RDA. If you're looking for a solid and very affordable dual coil RDA, look no further. The Hellvape Dead Rabbit Pro RDA is an undeniable winner in almost every aspect. If you catch their current sale for SourceMore's 9th Anniversary Mid-Autumn celebration, the price is currently $21.59. For Bronze members, $20.45. If you're interested in additional matchy-matchy DIY color options for the DR Pro, you can find 810 drip tips here, or their full DIY combos here, that include side and bottom airflow rings. Also remember to enter their holiday giveaways and attempt to get lucky in their Flash Sales (I've tried many times - good luck, lol). For any other questions, please don't be afraid to respond to this post, or PM me if this thread closes off responses. Thank you for taking the time to read this review and...
Happy vape hoarding!
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