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Anthony Vapes: Wismec Luxotic Surface Kit Tech Review

SirRichardRear

AKA Anthony Vapes on Youtube
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 3 Years
Reviewer
Hi All, Anthony Vapes back here with my review of the Wismec Luxotic Surface Kit. Please see bottom for disclaimers and links. Note: This is marked as a sample.

Introduction:
The Wismec Luxotic Surface Kit is the latest kit from long time vape manufacturer Wismec. For anyone who isn’t aware, they are a sub brand of Joyetech (along with eleaf as well) so have been around many years most famous for their jaybo RX line of products. I’ve reviewed a ton of their stuff over the past 2 years and sadly can’t really say much good about them these days as they have fallen way behind the curve compared to other companies and maybe like 1 out of every 10 mods is decent but haven’t really made anything work running out to get in a long time so we’ll see if the luxotic surface can change that. The surface is a single 18650 battery squonk mod rated at 80 watts and comes with the Kestrel Tank. It’s available in 4 colors Unistar, Honeycomb, Linear, and Basketball and the included Kestrel is always black in all 4 kits. Looking around online I see the mod for around 35-45 USD and the kit for around 50-65 USD for pre-order only and only out of china.

Manufacturer's Specs: Mod
  • Size: 78 x 43.5 x 25.5mm
  • weight 131.8g
  • E-liquid bottle capacity: 6.5ml
  • Cell type: high-rate 18650 cell (discharging current should be above 25A) (not included)
  • Output mode: VW/Bypass/TC-Ni/TC-Ti/TC-SS/TCR mode
  • Output wattage: 1-80W
  • Resistance range: 0.05-3.5ohm
  • Output voltage range: 0.5-9V
  • Thread: 510 spring loaded connector
Manufacturer's Specs: Tank
  • Height: 36.7mm
  • Weight 34.6g
  • Diameter: 24mm
  • E-juice capacity: 2ml
  • Coil Type: Innovative mesh heater 0.25ohm
  • Thread: 510
Included in box:
  • 1pc Wismec Luxotic Surface Mod
  • 1pc Kestrel Tank
  • 1pc E-liquid Bottle
  • 1pc Mesh Heater
  • 1pc Cotton
  • 1pc Warning Card
  • 1pc Glass Tube
  • 2pc User Manual
  • Spare Parts
Picture Album
album



Initial Impressions and features
When I first got this kit, 1st off i’ll flat out say the tank looked like a disaster but we’ll go over more of that later. The mod however I thought look pretty cool. They are all mostly black mods with a plastic colored/designed battery door and a matching squonk bottle. The pics make it look like the tanks resin tips will match but mine didn’t I got a blue tip with the purple mod. Anyway the mod itself is just like the luxotic BF designwise and really small except this one comes with a fully adjustable chip and a silicon bottle instead of the plastic bottle on the original. I did like the small size but part of that is because it’s 18650 only and i’m sure many would have prefered a bigger battery options but nonetheless overall i liked the design of the mod and just kind of laughed at the tank.

Watt Mode Performance (chart and spreadsheet in picture album)
Now let’s get into some data. I ran my normal testing. I used Sony VTC5A batteries for the testing. Testing resistances were done at .13, .15, .2, and .62 ohms. wattage points were max (80), 60, 40, and 20. At .13 ohms it maxed out at 67 watts and 23 amps. For the rest of the testing it struggled quite a bit which is actually uncommon for single battery mods. It was 3-11 watts low. At .15 it maxed out at 76 watts. The rest of the testing here was good, running only 1-2 watts low. For the .2 test it maxed out at 72 watts. For the rest of the tests though 7 watts low at 60, but below 60 only 2-3 watts low. For the .62 testing it maxed out at 85 watts and 7.258 volts. For the rest of the testing it was a little high 1-4 watts. The volts shows there is a boost circuit in this mod like all single battery mods should have

Overall I felt the performance of this mod was just ok. It struggled with builds at .13 ohms and .2 ohms but was pretty good at .15 and .62 ohms. I was able to get 85 watts max, so it is rated well at 80 watts but note you need to be above .2 ohms to get that. The 7.258+ volt limit shows there is a boost circuit as there should be. Their manual list a voltage limit of 9V which is plausible since I was capped off by the watt limit in my testing, Volts shouldn’t be any issue for anyone here. They don’t list an amp limit and I wish they would list all 3 personally. On this mod and the most amps i got was 23 with a .13 ohm coil which is below average for a single 18650 mod (most are 25-30). So overall just ok performer and good enough ratings.

Simplified TLDR Power Performance summary
Mod performance is just ok overall. Good rated for watts (85), Yes boost circuit, low amp limit of 23. Hits a little weak and performance at .2 ohms or less is mostly a struggle

Temperature Control Performance
Using SS316 wire and SS mode, i’ll keep this pretty short and sweet. I think at this point we all know the answer and that they are going to ignore this anyway so it’s whatever but not good for TC. If you wanted the details i used 4 builds 2 simple round single coil and 2 fancy single coil. Mod runs a little weak needing about 470-510F for a warm vape so about 20-60F weak. That’s not the big deal, the big deal is that it’s badly inconsistent and i have to keep fiddling with the temp to get the same vape i had. Dry burn protection is iffy at best and the throttle back is very pulsey and pulls back way to hard. Just not a good vape at all, but i guess on the plus side i never got kicked from TC? IDK i’d rather be kicked then to deal with this. I think it’s time for wismec to just remove TC from their chips since they can’t do it right and seem to have 0 interest in fixing it. I must have said this in at least 20 reviews over the past 2 years and they ignore it so whatever. Long story short, typical wismec, TC is no good.
 

SirRichardRear

AKA Anthony Vapes on Youtube
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 3 Years
Reviewer
Other Usage Notes
The mod uses a standard 5 click to turn on and off. The menu system is pretty much the same as all their past mods really and needs a huge update. They did make 1 minor improvement though where 3 clicks does bring you to an actual menu to select your mode, which gives you Ni, Ti, SS, M1, M2, M3, Bypass, and VW. So your pretty basic modes on most mods. With the mod off, Holding down and up flips the screen for some reason. With the mod on Holding down and up locks the adjustment buttons but you can still fire. up and fire takes you to the sub menu for preheat options, TCR settings and such. When in TC mode 4 clicks of fire lets you change power. It’s really odd how even their shortcuts and menus aren’t consistent at all from mod to mod, Come on wismec and fix your menu to make your mods more usable.

The Wismec Luxotic Surface adjusts by .1 watt increments under 20 watts and full watt increments 20 or more. Holding it makes it adjust very fast as well, so well done there. There is no round robin though. The mod itself is built mostly solid but does have button rattle with the up and down buttons. None on the fire button though. The Battery door is a standard bottom latch style. It works really well and fits nice with no play. The paint on the mod is pretty nice. All the color options are black mostly with just the battery door being a design and made of plastic. The rest of the mod is metal. The battery door is a standard magnetic sideplate and it’s kind of annoying to get into place but when in place doesn't have much play. It does kind of pop out sometimes when squonking too. I would have liked a better fit there but it’s not that bad, just worth a mention. It’s single 18650 only and batteries are easy to get in and out.

The fire button is standard size simple rectangle button. It works well and It never gets stuck or anything though which is as it should be, no complaints there. The 510 pin is great and gave me no issues with any atomizer. The mod handles a 25mm atomizer flush and the 510 is front facing. The screen is super small. I understand it due to chip size limits and such from the design but it’s easily the smallest screen i’ve seen on a mod in quite some time. It’s average brightness. Not very bright but not dim. Also for branding the mod itself there is wismec engraved on one side and that is all. Nicely branded overall. On their official US store site I seen they list a charging rate of 2A but that is not correct. This mod does not have a USB port and is external charging only. They shouldn’t have listed that.

Squonk System
The Wismec Luxotic Surface Squonker comes with a 6.5 ml capacity bottle which is a nice size. It also comes with a matching color bottle as well and the bottles themselves are silicon and a nice firmness. The system however is the same as the original Wismec luxotic so it is proprietary and worse off there, does not work great with the soft silicon bottles compared to the plastic ones. You can’t really push in the bottle well because the metal tube gets in the way so it squonks really slow. Also when you do push it in, the bottle deforms like most which normally isn’t a big deal, but in this case it pushes out the bottom magnetic plate you use to take the bottle in and out which is annoying. Overall the squonk system doesn't work well.

They do include a spare bottle but no cap so you can’t use it to carry extra juice in and switch on the fly.

Included Kestrel Atomizer
I’m calling it an atomizer cause not really sure what they should call it. Technically they consider it a RDTA but it’s not really since you can’t rebuild it. You can only rewick it and you can only use their 1 coil type for it which is the NC film coil and i can’t even see it on their site but did find it for sale on the joyetech site. It’s not a tank because you do need tools to change out coils. So it’s like a cross between the aspire boost revvo tank, and the joyetech cubis max tank. It uses the same coils as the ultex and i just couldn’t bring myself to even use it. No idea what they are thinking with this nonsense but just throw in a decent single coil RDA and call it a day. Really confused as to why this thing exists especially since the maze, cubix max, and revvo all pretty much failed and all seem better than this anyway.

Pros:
  • Power performance is decent enough for the way it would be used by most
  • batteries are easy to get in and out without damaging wraps
  • color options (4)
  • good 510 pin
  • handles 25mm attys flush
  • power adjustments are fast and easy
  • accurate rating for watts
  • Volt limit is more than good enough
Cons:
  • TC performance is bad
  • really small black and white screen
  • menu system needs an overhaul for easier use
  • included RTDA/tank makes no sense
  • Squonk system doesn't work well
  • battery door is though to get into place
  • bottle door pops off when squonking
  • no USB despite them listing on their site it has 2A charging
Conclusion
So with all that said, do I recommend this kit or not? I don’t like to do a hard yes or no but this one has to lean towards the no. The included atty is a monstrosity. The mod itself would have been nice and i could have overlooked the issues and considered it good enough for a little power mode mod, if the squonking worked better. But when it can't squonk well and it’s a squonk mod, kind of defeats the whole purpose of the mod. I won’t be adding this to my sheet of recommendations You can see linked down below.

This is Anthony Vapes just keeping it honest, hopefully you all can say the same and i’ll catch you on my next review.

Product Disclaimer
This product was sent to me from Wismec

Review Disclaimer
Due to possible QC difference your experience may vary.

Reviewer Disclaimer
I’ve been doing vape reviews since late 2016 and have done over 300 reviews to date. I enjoy helping vapers on forums as well and helping contribute to the great vape community. I’m not an “out of the box” reviewer. I do my best to be thorough at all times and have enough experience with many products to tell what’s good and what’s not. All mods get tested with an oscilloscope and stress tested and results are posted in my reviews.

Recommendations and Past Review Links
written reviews list here

Youtube Channel here

Spreadsheet of Recommendations here

Best of 2018 list here

Best of 2017 list here
 

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