Vandy Vape Kylin V3 RTA Review by Owen

Introduction

The fact that the Kylin V3 exists makes me smile, it’s nice to see a Vandy Vape not totally abandoning RTAs/RDAs in favor of pods/disposables, and the Kylin Mini V2 was (and still is) an excellent RTA, so an improvement over the V2 mini, in dual-coil form should be excellent.

Product overview

The Kylin V2 is a 25mm dual-coil RTA, with top-to-side/bottom airflow, a postless deck and 4/6ml juice capacity.

First impressions

Apart from it being rainbow, a color scheme that I wouldn’t have chosen myself, it’s an attractive RTA – the bubble glass does protrude a bit, but it’s still reasonable well proportioned due to the fact that it’s not overly tall.

The deck looks like a larger version of the Mini V2 deck with the addition of the center domed airflow from the Pyro V4 RDTA.

Unlike most recent RTAs, the top-cap is fully threaded, rather than having a quarter-turn release; I’d rather have quarter-turn, but this isn’t a deal breaker.

However, what I don’t like is that the base is quick release and the deck rotates within the base – this gives me two potential problems, firstly when unscrewing the RTA from your mod, you have to really make sure you’re not unscrewing the tank from the base (and dumping 6ml of juice on your mod) and the rotating deck makes it impossible to grab the deck to remove the base from your mod if it gets stuck (as it did for me with the Mini V2).

What does make this less of an issue is that the base and top-cap both have knurling in addition to the ridges that were present on the Mini V2; this knurling makes it much easier to grip and remove the RTA without unscrewing everything and the deck when putting a new build in.

Build

The build is just the same as with any other postless deck, measure the coils with the supplied measuring tool (it’s marked at 7mm which worked for me), drop them in, tighten everything up and align them. As long as you get the height correct, the coils should sit just under the side airflow walls.

While the wicking on the Mini V2 was slightly tricky, with long wicks that you had to fluff, trim and hope they stayed in place due to the lack of wicking ports, the wicking on the V3 is very simple. The wicking ports are large so with a pair of 3.0mm coils, I didn’t feel the need to thin the cotton, I just cut it about level with the outside of the base, fluffed a little and placed them in the ports.

Of course if you go for a single-coil build or a 3.5mm+ dual-coil build, you will have to make sure you have the right amount of cotton.

How does it perform?

• 2×3.0mm 28ga*3+38ga fused claptons – these were the coils supplied with the RTA and came to 0.2ohm for the pair. Unlike a lot of recent dual-coil RTAs that have impressed with low wattage flavor chasing, the Kylin V3 doesn’t do that well. Try using it at 50w and you’re going to be disappointed. However, with the coils running at 70-85w the flavor was strong and accurate, with good vapor production.

You could put a 5mm single-coil in it if you were that way inclined, but I’m not.

What is more interesting is the space on the deck, my 3.0mm coils fitted in with plenty of space to spare, there’s no reason why a pair of 3.5mm coils wouldn’t fit in there. There’s no overheating at 85w, so I’m confident the RTA could handle it.

Airflow

With honeycomb side and bottom airflow, of course it’s really smooth. It’s also quite an open RTA, with my build I closed down the airflow about 25% and it was still nice and airy, for larger builds there should be more than enough airflow.

Conclusion

The Kylin V3 is very much like the Dead Rabbit V3 RTA and Arbiter 2, but pushed a little harder.

For lower power settings it’s probably not what you’re looking for, but if you want an RTA you can use at high wattage with the potential for bigger coils, then it does that very well.

As for Vandy Vape improving over the Mini V2 – I’d say yes and no; the wicking is much easier, but the rotating deck concept still annoys me.

Disclaimer

The Vandy Vape Kylin 3 RTA was sent for the purposes of this review by Healthcabin.

This review was written by Owen from Vaping Underground, click to view original review there with more details.