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Wotofo Serpent SMM...A New Breed

Which is better... Serpents or Goblins ;)

  • Serpents

    Votes: 4 66.7%
  • Goblins

    Votes: 1 16.7%
  • Neither

    Votes: 1 16.7%

  • Total voters
    6

SignMan

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years


I was just venturing into the world of rebuildable atomizers right before the first Serpent Mini hit the market. At the time, it was one of the most sought after RTA’s among flavor chasers (from what I read) so I bought one. While most companies were starting to make bigger, open airflow RTA’s that a lot of people were saying killed flavor, Wotofo saw a market for a small tank that enhanced flavor. Well…everyone noticed. The only tank in that class that got as much hype as the Serpent Mini (that I can think of was the Goblin Mini, but the deck was not as easy to build on as the Serpent Mini…At least in my eyes. Wotofo continues to raise it’s head up and strike out, grabbing our attention to let us know they’re still relevant.



Fast forward to now. Small tanks, big tanks and everything in between are on the market. A little tank can be super airy and a big tank can have a super tight draw. No boundaries. Matt from Suck My Mod was also a fan of the original Serpent and it’s Mini counterpart, and I’m guessing he sent them suggestions and ideas on what could have been better. I can’t say how much of his input was used, but either way… his name is on the box and it’s a damn good tank. The Wotofo Serpent SMM edition.



Unboxing:
It’s a classically standard Wotofo box with unique artwork for the product. At least they keep it uniform. I would have loved it if the background was snakeskin or something instead of neon striped balls. Oh well. Scratch and check security of course but no mention of it containing nicotine! Wow that makes me happy! I also admire them for adding info for CASAA and SFATA, urging people to sign up and support the fight to keep us vaping! Which you should if you haven’t…please. Another good thing Wotofo added to the box was a warning against using this tank on a hybrid mod, even though the posi-pin looks solid and somewhat protruding. I would take their advice…dont use this on a hybrid mod.



Once you slide the outside cover off the box, everything but the goodie bags and manual are right there for you to see. Two spare glass sections, the wide bore 510 drip tip and of course…the tank dead in the middle. Remove the foam that holds the tank to get the rest of the goods. Of the 3 bags that you get, one contains some okayish cotton, the second has o-rings & replacement phillips head screws, and the last bag held three quad core claptons… I was shocked to say the least. I figured triple core claptons would be the best any manufacturer could include with a mass produced rebuildable. I’m happy I figured wrong. A user manual is also included in many different languages but the information is short and sweet. Like most Wotofo products, all the parts were very clean. A quick wash and I was ready to rock. Having two extra glass tanks ensures that this will be a tank that sticks around a while.







Style:
On the outside it looks like a beefy Serpent mini with what looks like a sweet ultem 810 drip tip… but it’s actually a standard 510. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very comfortable to use and goes great with the overall look, it just seems like an 810 with a 510 adapter would have been better. Many of the pieces that make up the SMM highly resemble the Serpent Mini. There’s the top cap, the chamber/ fill port section, and the base. The most notable difference on the outside is the 24mm diameter. The SMM is slightly taller and the inside chamber area is visibly larger. As a matter of fact, everything is just beefy as I said before. That’s the best way to put it. Nothing’s blown out of proportion or dramatically changed…more like refined. It comes in a few popular colors like silver, black, gold and rainbow with more expected I believe. As far as looks go the SMM has you covered.





The Guts:
Here’s the part where things get new and better. A newly designed deck that lets you wrap coils any direction you want is a nice start. The deck is now elevated off of the base pushing it closer to the top. It also creates a pocket for juice to collect in the base so your wicks have a nice little pool to drink out of. The wick ports are generously sized so it doesn’t choke off the juice when using larger diameter coils. 3mm is the sweet spot. 3.5mm would be tight but you can always taper the wicks with some precise trimming. I think a 4mm would be too much cotton even though the coil would fit. The deck is made up of two wide, flat posts that have slots cut into the sides for your wire leads. Phillips head screws pinch down from the top to secure the wire. I haven’t tried a dual coil build in it yet but heard it’s possible…with small coils and patience. For single coils it’s perfect. Plenty of room and the airflow hits dead center of the coil where all the action happens.





Speaking of which, the airflow is beautiful in it’s design, and set up perfectly for single coils. Air comes in through the bottom, hits a wall, turns upward and finally shoots out of two holes milled into the post. Each post has two airflow holes that each look like equal symbols (=) giving you complete airflow around the coil. You need to position the coil so the lower air holes hit the bottom of it, while the upper air holes hit the coil directly in the center. If you push the coil down towards the base the air isn’t going to do it’s job properly. Pushing the coil down worked on the Serpent Mini because it had bottom airflow. Obviously not the case here. You pretty much want to line the top of the coil up with the top of the posts…That seems to be the best placement for me anyways. The airflow adjustment is sooo easy to turn but stays in place well somehow. It can also be removed for cleaning which I’ve come to appreciate that feature. The only hard part to clean is the space below the deck.






Keep reading below!
 

SignMan

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
The Workz:
Alright, here’s what it comes down to…how good does the SMM vape? Is it worth the hard earned money? If you like high wattage, massive airflow vapes exclusively then no… This will not appeal to you. I enjoy all kinds of vapes whether it’s MTL or DTL and rotate through them daily…well, more like hourly. The Serpent SMM reminded me why I loved the original Serpent Mini in so many ways. Even though the airflow is made totally different this time around the draw feels a lot like it’s older counterpart (I was switching back and forth between the two). It’s a little turbulent and mildly restricted with a 3mm coil installed but does a fine job producing flavor. The airflow slots on the outside look big and open, but the holes milled into the posts are rather small. You can only fit so much air through those slots. I can have the AFC set to full open or halfway closed and the draw almost feels the same. Only when I adjust it down to something like a quarter of the way open do I notice a difference in draw. I also tried taking a drag off of it while adjusting the airflow open to closed and back to open. Besides a slight change in sound, the air intake doesn’t change very much until its almost closed off. You really notice it then. The draw gets tight and the flavor gets a boost. If you enjoy a tight draw you’re really going to like this thing when the AFC is barely open. Installing a coil takes no time at all and wicking follows suit. I trim the wicks so they’re long enough to go through the juice holes and dip in to the reservoir. If the wicks are too long they’ll get choked off so only use what you need. Also remember that the wicks should cover the juice ports but still be a little loose. The phillips head screws are nice and flat on the bottom to help capture those big, wide leads… or easily snug down on some thinner guage, single wire leads. No troubles there. I had a crazy experience with the quad core claptons that came in the box though. They hardly ever say what type of wire is used in these factory pre-built coils so I always heat treat them to see if I can determine what kind of wire it is. Starting at 20w and pulsing the coils they started to turn a golden orange, and with more heat I got some beautiful blues and purples. Unfortunately I couldnt capture it on camera like I wanted so the true color is hard to see. It took a good amount of heat (almost glowing) to get those colors to show so I want to say it’s Ni80 but could possibly be Stainless. They’re pretty damn big coils made up of what looks like 4x28g cores and 38 or 40g clapton. It ohmed out around .25 and settled at a .27. They easily fit the deck with room to spare. The crazy part about them is the color scratched off when I strummed across to work out the hot spots. I’ve never had that happen before and it kinda worried me. I cleaned them again with soap and most of the color came off… only to reappear when heated up again. It was just wierd… but I vaped them anyways. There was a bit of break in period where the taste was kinda metallic, but the more I vaped it the less I noticed.



The threads that bind everything together aren’t the smoothest in the world but the pieces fit together snug and it screws down flush on everything. I’ve had a lot of trouble starting the threads on the top cap and deck section. It can get really annoying. The only thing that holds the entire base/ deck section to the tank are the threads that screw into the chimney. It works fine but seems like it could have used a little more. Even though it only holds 4 mils, juice lasts a good long time depending on the coil of course. I was using the stock coil and juice lasted for most of my work day. Same with the alien I installed. It hasn’t leaked on me at all but I did get some dry hits because my wick was too long and getting choked off. Thankfully you can access the deck without dumping the tank so I was able to quickly trim the wicks and get back to vaping in no time. The flavor is good for sure, but it’s not the best I’ve had from a tank. It does the job though and does it well. It’s ease of use gives it high marks, and the few cons I mentioned were nit picky but these are my cons after all. Everything works like its supposed to and it’s compact size makes for a nice paring with a small single 18650 device. With a good ol’ brown LG HG2 (3000 mAh - 20 A) I get a full day of vaping no problem. I absolutely love carrying this thing around on the go, which is 75% of the time… The Serpent SMM handles everyday life like a boss. If you liked the original go ahead and put this in your cart.

This is a 24x macro shot of the stock coils





Heaven Gifts has this available for pre-order in silver, black, gold and rainbow.

https://www.heavengifts.com/product/WOTOFO-Serpent-SMM-RTA.html

I also want to thank Heaven Gifts for sponsoring this review and their continued support to all of us. Be sure to check out the contest thread and see what hot, new item HG is giving away this time! They are ALWAYS giving away something cool over there. Finally thank you for taking the time to read. Any questions or comments are more than welcome. I usually forget something. :eek:
:wave:

 

iNcEnDiArY

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Nice review!!!
I won this mod in a recent Heaven Gifts contest . Its already in the post office more than a week ago but cant pick it up til I get the "ready to pick up" notice.

Sent from my S710 using Tapatalk
 

SignMan

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
That sucks! Makes you wanna tear the door down and go postal huh? lol Did you win the primo mini?
 

iNcEnDiArY

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
No, just the SMM. Just wish all the goodies are included too.
Yeah, the postal here sucks! Took only one day to get here from Singapore. Then about a week to customs and back to the main office, 2 more days to get to the local office. And now its been sitting there for 9 days now

Sent from my S710 using Tapatalk
 

SignMan

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Jeez that would drive me insane! I hope you get that notification soon!
 

iNcEnDiArY

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Jeez that would drive me insane! I hope you get that notification soon!
Well I gave em a visit a while ago, just to check if its really there and maybe ask around why its taking too long.
I just gave the tracking number and 2 valid IDs, made me pay for the "storage fee", then handed it over without even looking for the notice slip lol
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Sent from my S710 using Tapatalk
 

SignMan

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Alright! Let me know what you think about it. And if you try those coils that come with it peel back a few clapton wraps and see it yours has quad cores as well. I'm curious to see if that's the norm ;)
 

iNcEnDiArY

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Alright! Let me know what you think about it. And if you try those coils that come with it peel back a few clapton wraps and see it yours has quad cores as well. I'm curious to see if that's the norm ;)
Yes they have 4 cores. But I cant get a good shot of it on my phone cam.
Oh, so that's why they are called claptons? Because of the wrap? Guess I was just lazy to google why they're called thus lol.
4ad1db0fe8117863980575aba05bf2e6.jpg


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iNcEnDiArY

Silver Contributor
Member For 2 Years
Good flavor and vapor! Like the pilgrim on dual coils but a less hot vape and more forgiving on my battery's life. More restricted draw too.
And remember when I had to adjust the pin on my pilgrim? So the primo can read the resistance. I did that to the smm too. Guess the 510 of my primo is not going back up far enough

Sent from my S710 using Tapatalk
 

GKG2017

Bronze Contributor
Member For 3 Years
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
Nice Review !

I didn't use the provided coil's that came with the unit. It does not list what material's they are made of.
 

skt239

VU Donator
Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Great review.

I love the Serpent mini and have had my eye on this one. After reading this I'll be getting one.

Thanks
 

Letitia9

Citrus Junkie
VU Donator
Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
VU Challenge Team
Had mine couple weeks now and enjoy it quite a bit. Pretty noisy if coil placement isn't good. Once I figured that out I started to like it much better. Zero leaking, did get spray from af when coil was a little too high. Would recommend.
 

SignMan

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Good flavor and vapor! Like the pilgrim on dual coils but a less hot vape and more forgiving on my battery's life. More restricted draw too.
And remember when I had to adjust the pin on my pilgrim? So the primo can read the resistance. I did that to the smm too. Guess the 510 of my primo is not going back up far enough

Sent from my S710 using Tapatalk
Ive had the same problem with the primo mini 510 not reading some attys. If the positive pin doesnt protrude past the threads it wont read it. Idk what the deal is. Oh and clapton wire got its name from of course...Eric Clapton lol. Clapton wire is made the same way as guitar strings, at least the first, second, and third string. Its pretty cool how someone thought to use that idea! I hardly ever vape regular round wire anymore. Any wire strand that has multiple layers will have special wicking properties that help absorb and store extra juice... that would normally drip right off of round wire. Its really neat I think :rolleyes:
 

SignMan

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Great review.

I love the Serpent mini and have had my eye on this one. After reading this I'll be getting one.

Thanks
You won't be disappointed! Its got it's quirks...like the threads being a pain in the ass to get started but overall its a damn good tank. Ive been hittin it pretty good lately and it's very consistent. I hope it works out for you!
 

GKG2017

Bronze Contributor
Member For 3 Years
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
You won't be disappointed! Its got it's quirks...like the threads being a pain in the ass to get started but overall its a damn good tank. Ive been hittin it pretty good lately and it's very consistent. I hope it works out for you!

Same Here. Threading on the top cap can be a little finicky at times. I was thinking maybe it was made that way so you can't over tighten.

Been using it for two days now. Can't seem to put it down. Overall I'm impressed with it so far. Just as advertised.
 

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