Hardware Review: SMOK Pipe Mod

I sat on the fence about getting one of these for a long time. I like the idea of an ePipe, I just want a larger battery.

When these were released, the general consensus was that you had to use only flattop 18350 batteries in them, and that was kind of a hangup for me. Apparently that isn’t exactly true.

After spending a couple of hours drooling over ePipes, I decided that for ~$35 I couldn’t go wrong with this guy (I got mine here).

Specs

Length: 54mm (2.125″)
Diameter: 23mm (0.905″)
Battery type: 18350 only
Battery Connection: 510 (some units are apparently 510/eGo, mine is not)
MSRP: $49.99USD
What’s in the box:

SMOK Pipe Mod box contents – click to enlarge

• (1) Pipe Mod body with tail cap

The body is chrome plated brass, so it’s nice and hefty.

Pros

• Price.
• ePipe.
• Small overall size.

Cons

• Only takes 18350 batteries.
• No fuse.
• No room for a fuse.
• Small (I want an 18650 version!).

I actually really like this ePipe, which is a bad thing, because now I know I want a high end ePipe. My wallet hates this pipe. I still want an ePipe with a bigger battery. The shape of this pipe is surprisingly good.

Errata

Configuration

With an iClear 16 attached, the pipe will stand on its own, but with a Protank, it’s just gonna fall over without a stand. With something like a mini Vivi Nova or an iClear 16 the pipe is really pretty small, and not bad for low key vaping. That’s not what I had in mind though.

Pipe Mod with Protank – Click to enlarge

This is an original Protank on the Pipe Mod. If you click that picture, you can see that the Protank base is slightly larger than the battery connection on the pipe. I have no idea why SMOK didn’t make that larger, or just make it a standard 510/eGo connector so that I could have put a beauty ring on it. It doesn’t really bother me, it’s just one of those things that I notice and it screws with my OCD (I’m not really OCD, but if I were I wouldn’t be able to do this combo because of that connection). I’ve thought about filing down a Protank base so that it looks right, and I may yet do that.

This is my current configuration for the Pipe Mod:

Click to enlarge

That’s a Kanger Protank 2 with a Captivape DS60 drip tip. I had to modify the DS60 to get it working with the Protank 2.

Eventually I was able to obtain the Captivape BDS90 that I had initially wanted:

Final configuration – click to enlarge

I only run AW IMR batteries in my APVs (this one is no exception), so I have no trouble running the Protank with a 1.8ohm head.

It vapes really good in this configuration. I haven’t tried it, but I’ve seen people run these with everything from an RSST (I’m not sure how that would even work), to carto tanks, to 306 dripping atomizers, so your wallet is your limit.

 

Button top 18350s take one

In almost every single review I’ve seen, the reviewer claims this takes flat top 18350 batteries only. Not in my experience. The first thing I found was a forum post saying that you could use 18350 button top batteries if you reversed the battery in the pipe. Ostensibly the positive battery connection goes up towards the button, and the negative goes down towards the battery cap, as shown in this image:

Click to enlarge

Flipping the battery works, but in theory it is a bad idea because the body of the battery is a negative connection, and if the battery is reversed in the tube, and if the protective wrapper on the battery is damaged, you could in theory have a dead short and a small fire/explosion in your pocket/hand/face. In practice, this isn’t an issue with this device, as the battery sits inside a plastic tube, not directly against the metal body of the pipe.

Interior view – Click to enlarge

Button top 18350s take two

If you’re just not comfortable with flipping the battery upside down (I get it, we’re not exactly using batteries designed for this to begin with), there is another option (well a couple actually, but I’m only going to discuss the ones that do not involve permanent modifications to the unit). On some of these units button top 18350s may just work, right out of the box.

The fire button is threaded and will move up and down when rotated. Mine was rotated all the way up right out of the box, but some units come with the button sitting flush with the retaining ring. On those units, if you insert a button top 18350, the pipe will just fire continuously until the battery fails.

If you have one that fires as soon as the battery cap is screwed down, remove the ring holding the fire button on the pipe, and adjust the button as shown here:

Click to enlarge

That should do it, your button top 18350 batteries should work fine now.

I was actually surprised at how much I liked this APV. I haven’t smoked a real pipe since 1996 or so (I started hacking up black crap and figured I should probably lay off the pipes), and I didn’t realize how much I like the form factor. If you are on the fence, pick one up. They are surprisingly good.

Getting Started: Mechanical APVs – Overview

Technically a true “mech” will have no controllers or wires. Just a battery tube, cap with connector (510 is most common), and a switch to complete the circuit.

In practice, many have a wire in the switch, but there there are plenty that are true mechs.

Some people refer to mechs as Personal Vaporizers, I prefer Advanced Personal Vaporizer, because mechs require advanced knowledge on the part of the user to be used safely and to get the most out of the vaping experience.

Mechs essentially connect the topper (be it a carto or an RDA) directly to the battery (the whole idea is to reduce voltage loss as much as possible by having as little as possible between the battery and the atomizer). Because they have a fixed voltage (whatever the battery used can supply), the vaping experience is controlled only by changing the resistance of the atomizer. Since there are no safety circuits in a mech, it is possible to use sub ohm coils in them which create incredibly high current draws on the battery, and can be quite dangerous.

I personally won’t use anything but IMR batteries in any APV, but this is doubly true with mechs. IMR batteries are designed for high current draw, and are less likely to fail in a… spectacular way if they do fail.

Several vendors sell safety fuses that are designed to prevent most catastrophic battery failures.

Now that we know what Mechanical APVs are all about, let’s take a brief look at what is out there.

Customs

Custom mechs are where it all started. The first electronic cigarette was a cigalike produced in China in 2004, but what we think of as vaping didn’t really come about until the first mechanical mods were made.

The next step was enterprising users converting cheap flashlight bodies to accept a connector threaded for the cigalike cartridges, which was often under powered, and could be quite dangerous.

Eventually small shops or individual makers in Greece and the Philipines (and now the US and Russia among others) began making APV devices specifically designed to use a standard rechargeable battery that could be swapped out when the need arose. Due to the current requirements, the 18xxx series of batteries seems to have become the standard for which these PVs are produced.

Initially these devices used the cartridges from cigalikes, but soon enough someone figured out that there were easier ways to vape, and the first rebuildable atomizers began to appear.

Due to the way these devices came about, there are literally hundreds of different mechs in the market. Prices range from about $100 to upwards of $300 depending on maker and options.

Here are some of the more common mechs that you may encounter that are considered “customs”:

Atmomixani

Nemesis – click to enlarge

Caravela Mods

Caravela – click to enlarge

Empire Mods

Empire Mods PV – click to enlarge

Golden Greek

GG mods – click to enlarge

Grand Vapors

Colored Sentinel – click to enlarge

Sentinel M16 – Click to enlarge

Private v2 – click to enlarge

Metal Madness Vapors

Poldiac – click to enlarge

Madz Modz

Nzonic v3 – click to enlarge

Team Rampage

Bagua – click to enlarge

The Clone Wars

With the success of mechs comes the flood of clones from China. Some are good, some are meh. All are cheaper than the original they are cloning. Many of these are not true mechs, in that there may be a wire in the switch or a ground wire more often than not. I’ve seen these colnes range from $150 to as little as $18.

I’m not telling you that you should not buy these, but you should be aware that the more obvious clones are stealing from the people who made the original. They are cashing in on the original design without paying any licensing or royalties to the designer. For instance, while the Kamry K100 is flat out copying the Empire Mods PV, the K101 is different enough (I think) that it is not a blatant rip off of the design, had they not included the drip shield.

Kamry K100/K101

This is one of the better made clones (the K100 is a direct copy of the Empire Mods PV), and is what I see most frequently recommended as a good first mech for people wanting to try mechanical APVs.

Kamry K100 – click to enlarge

Kamry K101 – click to enlarge

Sigelei… well just pick one.

Sigelei Mechs – click to enlarge

SMOKTech Telescopic

This is widely considered one of the better clones made, and some consider it one of the best mechs made period.

SMOK Telescope – click to enlarge

SMOKTech Natural

This one comes in both a telescoping and a non telescoping version:

SMOK Natural Telescope – click to enlarge

SMOK Natural – click to enlarge

SMOKTech Magneto

This looks like a semi original mech, but it is too close to the Nzonic for me to dismiss it as a clone. Edward at Sun Vapers reviewed this recently and says that it is very well made, and the bottom firing switch is a true magnetic switch (rare in clones).

SMOK Magneto – click to enlarge

M28

Though selling for $150, this is a blatant clone of the Sentinel M16.

JCreations M28 – click to enlarge

ePipes

Relatively new, and not yet widely used or available are ePipes, (mostly) mechanical APVs that use the form factor of a traditional tobacco pipe. These are not true mechs in the sense that most of these will have some wiring and a few of the better ones incorporate a fuse (such as the vapesafe), and even fewer have VV/VW capabilities.

Almost exclusively these use 18350 size batteries, though a few 18500 and 18650 versions are starting to appear.

One of the first Chinese made mechs I’ve seen that isn’t really a copy of something else is the SMOKTech E-pipe.

As of this post that is the only mass production ePipe worth discussing, everything else requires proprietary cartridges or is not really mass produced. The SMOKTech E-Pipe retails right around $50, though you can find them for about $35 with a little shopping.

One of the hazards of maintaining this blog is that it can be quite detrimental to my wallet. In the course of doing research for this review, I somehow managed to order one of these SMOKTech ePipes (sorry hunny!). I’ll be doing a thorough review once I receive it, as there are several bits of information about this unit that were not readily available on the vendors’ sites.

Custom ePipes though, are another matter entirely. First you have to find someone selling them, maybe they have stock, or you may have to go on a waiting list. Or you can have one custom made. Did I mention that these things are kinda pricey? I have not found any for less than $100, ranging north of $300 depending again on maker and options.

Here are a couple of examples of custom ePipes:

ePipes are available in pretty much every style that you can get a traditional tobacco pipe in (and many are made from traditional pipes), and some come in quite original and unique designs.

I really like the concept of the ePipe, I just wish I could find one (the ones I find that I really like seem to be sold out or are custom jobs). Ah well, one day.

If this really sparks your interest, check out ePipeMods or Smackley Craft. Good luck!