Hi all,
I decided to grab the HCigar Mini 30w to see how it stacked up against the Vaporshark rDNA. My disclaimer is that I am not particularly advanced so I don't have technical details, but I did want to show the basic variances.
Packaging: Of course the Vaporshark comes in its lovely hard plastic case while the HCigar Mini DNA30 comes in a zipper case.
Size: The Mini30 (as I dub it) is taller than the Vaporshark, but more narrow
As you can see from the 2nd pic above, the juice wells are much smaller while the 510 connection is larger and is not spring loaded. That will probably be an issue for some atomizers. Because of this, some tanks won't sit flush, unlike the Vaporshark:
Front view: Buttons are obviously different. The buttons on the Mini30 aren't centered correctly, mainly because it looks like they did measurements without the back cover. If they had taken that into account they would be more ideally located. I believe the Mini30 is basing the fire button off of the design of the original Vaporshark DNA20.
Inside: To my surprise when I opened the Mini30 I found a Sony VTC4 inside. This means that you can change the battery if you need it! You can see how clean the Vaporshark is. I found that there is a special board that the DNA plugs into, so that the fire button isn't actually a whole button, but a cover of some sort that will press an on board button (with that second board, I actually see two fire buttons available). The up and down buttons are also covers to press the onboard buttons.
The Mini30 is a complete mess in there, but you can see that all of the components are separate. I wonder if you'll be able to pull the stuff out to troubleshoot or replace items. The up and down buttons are our favorite tactile with round actuator buttons. They really need to come up with a neater procedure...
Initial performance: I am not a sub-ohmer so I just tested based on my kayfun. The coil I used in it was 2.3 ohms on the Provari and Zmax, but 2.4 on the ohm meter. I'm not sure which could be considered the most accurate. The first pic is the Vaporshark:
The last thing to mention would be the USB charging. The Vaporshark has that lovely button light up when charging. I don't know if the color changes when fully charged because I was too impatient:
The Mini30 has the charging port on the back. There is a small hole drilled above it that seems to indicate that an LED should light up when charging but that's not the case. It doesn't light up at all. When I looked inside it I don't see an additional LED. There is one on the USB board, but it is to the right of the port, so is not visible when plugged in. Unfortunately, the only way to know it's fully charged is to keep checking the display.
Price: The rDNA is $189 or so, while I paid $85 for this plus shipping from Ebay. I didn't see that link until I'd already placed a bid, so it ended up being a little more expensive than it might have been.
I'm going to try using both this week at work to see how they perform. I think the Mini30 may be an option for those with smaller budgets and those who don't vape at high watts since I had heard the clone DNA chips don't actually make it to 30 watts.
Edit: one thing I forgot to mention is that I had read in another post somewhere that you can't change the display orientation. You actually can. It does have the option for both left and right facing which is great since I vape with my left hand. I haven't tried much else other than orientation, locking, and locking the power input.
I decided to grab the HCigar Mini 30w to see how it stacked up against the Vaporshark rDNA. My disclaimer is that I am not particularly advanced so I don't have technical details, but I did want to show the basic variances.
Packaging: Of course the Vaporshark comes in its lovely hard plastic case while the HCigar Mini DNA30 comes in a zipper case.
Size: The Mini30 (as I dub it) is taller than the Vaporshark, but more narrow
As you can see from the 2nd pic above, the juice wells are much smaller while the 510 connection is larger and is not spring loaded. That will probably be an issue for some atomizers. Because of this, some tanks won't sit flush, unlike the Vaporshark:
Front view: Buttons are obviously different. The buttons on the Mini30 aren't centered correctly, mainly because it looks like they did measurements without the back cover. If they had taken that into account they would be more ideally located. I believe the Mini30 is basing the fire button off of the design of the original Vaporshark DNA20.
Inside: To my surprise when I opened the Mini30 I found a Sony VTC4 inside. This means that you can change the battery if you need it! You can see how clean the Vaporshark is. I found that there is a special board that the DNA plugs into, so that the fire button isn't actually a whole button, but a cover of some sort that will press an on board button (with that second board, I actually see two fire buttons available). The up and down buttons are also covers to press the onboard buttons.
The Mini30 is a complete mess in there, but you can see that all of the components are separate. I wonder if you'll be able to pull the stuff out to troubleshoot or replace items. The up and down buttons are our favorite tactile with round actuator buttons. They really need to come up with a neater procedure...
Initial performance: I am not a sub-ohmer so I just tested based on my kayfun. The coil I used in it was 2.3 ohms on the Provari and Zmax, but 2.4 on the ohm meter. I'm not sure which could be considered the most accurate. The first pic is the Vaporshark:
The last thing to mention would be the USB charging. The Vaporshark has that lovely button light up when charging. I don't know if the color changes when fully charged because I was too impatient:
The Mini30 has the charging port on the back. There is a small hole drilled above it that seems to indicate that an LED should light up when charging but that's not the case. It doesn't light up at all. When I looked inside it I don't see an additional LED. There is one on the USB board, but it is to the right of the port, so is not visible when plugged in. Unfortunately, the only way to know it's fully charged is to keep checking the display.
Price: The rDNA is $189 or so, while I paid $85 for this plus shipping from Ebay. I didn't see that link until I'd already placed a bid, so it ended up being a little more expensive than it might have been.
I'm going to try using both this week at work to see how they perform. I think the Mini30 may be an option for those with smaller budgets and those who don't vape at high watts since I had heard the clone DNA chips don't actually make it to 30 watts.
Edit: one thing I forgot to mention is that I had read in another post somewhere that you can't change the display orientation. You actually can. It does have the option for both left and right facing which is great since I vape with my left hand. I haven't tried much else other than orientation, locking, and locking the power input.
