Ok ok, that last part of my title is cheesy but that is what is written on one of the top caps…
If you have a phobia to noisy airflow you may want to read on…toot toot.
Specs:
- 24mm diameter 31mm tall to top of chuff cap excluding 510 pin
- Gold plated 510
- Squonk pin included
- Gold plated phillips installed and allen grub screws included as spares
- Postless design
- Dual airflow, hits from the bottom and slanted sides
- Includes 2 sleeves, 1 for 810 drip tips and the other for included chuff cap
- 510 drip tip adapter
More info can be found on Vandy Vapes site: Phobia RDA | VANDY VAPE
Included in the package (Please note I received a trial production sample, retail versions may vary)
Face your Phobia’s…RDA
A collaboration with Alex from VapersMD, a popular youtube channel but note, not in english but he does supply subtitles in a lot of his videos.
Right off the bat I really liked the design and the deck looked intriguing to say the least, too bad I already had a chip in the paint near one of the posts. The diverter over the spot where the squonk pin would come into the deck is a nice touch. When you have the squonk pin installed it will block from any potential spit back.
Preinstalled are the phillips gold plated grub screws, normally phillips grub screws suck but in typical Vandy Vape fashion these are excellent. I never felt the need to dig out the allen grub screws they also include as spares and did somewhere between 6 to 8 builds.
The airflow is definitely something different, at first glance I am thinking FLAVOR. One thing I did find odd is that the airflow slots are situated away from the inside airflow making for longer travel. The only thing I can think of is that it helps prevent leaking if you over drip or squonk. I did try to get it to leak and got it were juice was blocking the airflow and gurgling but never had much of a leaking problem, just some drops here and there.
The juice well is a decent 5mm deep but the posts and airflow do diminish the capacity to hold juice, still not bad though.
They include 2 tops, 1 is for 810 drip tips, the other for chuff caps which they also include. Not crazy about the logo, don’t even know what it is but would have liked it more if it wasn’t on there.
Both are domed for improved flavor, nice touch.
Both top caps have a little flex to them, the chuff cap version being the worst. Everytime I took them off I could feel some flex, pretty sure if I pressed hard enough I could bend them, not sure they would survive a fall very well.
Oring’s are top notch, so much so I almost forgot to mention them as I never had to think about it. Perfect amount of resistance so you can pick up the RDA from it’s top cap while mounted on a mod without fear of it slipping off. Still simple enough to remove the top cap and adjusting airflow is just right, no complaints at all. Even the o’ring that keeps the friction fit 810 drip tips on is perfect and takes TFV8/12 o’ringed 810 drip tips with ease.
Overall I was impressed with the design and included accessories, Would have liked to see a little thicker metal on the top caps but you get a lot for the money.
Build and performance
If your use to postless decks then this is no different, just have to cut your leads in advanced. I found cutting my leads to about 6 to 7mm sufficed, longer if you want to try a single coil and center it high.
You can get some pretty beefy builds in here which is always nice.
Wicking is about as easy as it gets, just measure so your wicks lay nicely on the bottom of the deck.
Flavor wise this RDA is a winner, build after build it supplied excellent flavor. The only builds it struggled with is with single coil, you can get great flavor but it is not easy. I tried 3 different single coil build, 2 of them just sucked. The best performance I got with a single coil was to use a 4mm post and leave the tails long so I could center the coil high above both airflow, there is no option for closing off one side of the airflow.
Wish I had better pics, my 2 previous attempts were failures and wasn’t sure this would work but it did.
Clouds are real nice and dense but it is not a cloud chaser tank due to the airflow not being as wide open as other RDA’s.
Now with the airflow it is noisy and can whistle with certain builds when wide open. I found closing the airflow 3/4 or more helped but it is still one of the loudest RDA’s I have. Really the noisy airflow is the biggest con I have for this, it is annoying unless you really close off the flow. With the single coil build I had to close off the airflow to more than half so it was tolerable. It is noisy enough that it may be retired right after my review, I enjoy the flavor a lot but the noise bugs me. I am thinking a V2 with the same honeycomb design Vandy Vape uses on the Kensai and Kylin Mini shown below.
I love the design and they definitely have something here that produces great flavor. If they could smooth out and quiet the airflow then sign me up for a V2.
Squonk or not to squonk, that is the question.
Yep, just squonk this bad boy, works great and how I used it 75% of the time. They even include a diverter over the squonk pin so you don’t shoot yourself in the eye when your squonk bottle gets low and decides to get revenge. It also works great when you just drip but I loved using this on a squonk mod, so convenient and it works great.
Here is some of my squonk mods I used with the Phobia RDA.
Lost Vape Therion BF
Lost Vape Drone BF
Ehpro Iguana
Looks slick on my non squonk Squid Double Barrel V2.1
Pros:
- Excellent flavor
- 2 top caps included, 1 for 810 which includes a 510 adapter and the other for included chuff cap
- Excellent grub screws, really held up to a lot of builds
- Innovative airflow design
- You have to try hard to make it leak
- Can take some beefy builds
- Easy to build on for dual coils if your use to postless decks
- Great o’rings
Cons:
- Noisy airflow and whistles a tune at certain ariflow openings
- Top caps could be thicker, feels easy to bend
- Airflow not as smooth as I would like
- Difficult to do a good single coil build
- Could do without the fire headed cartoon like logo
- A little more airflow would be nice
Final thoughts
For me the first week was bliss with the Phobia RDA but after awhile the noisy airflow continued to get on my nerves. I think Vandy Vape has an excellent design that just needs some tweaking, a little more airflow that is quiet and smooth with the same flavor…Yes please, that would get my money for sure.
If you can deal with the noisy airflow then the Phobia RDA is an excellent flavor atty. The 2 included top caps is a nice bonus and they both deliver flavor wise. If your looking to fog up the place then look elsewhere, this is more of a flavor than cloud machine.
Thanks to Vandy Vape for sending the Phobia RDA to me free of charge for this review. Even though it has it’s faults the flavor it provides is fantastic, if they included ear plugs it would make it even better…Haha.
I am seeing the Phobia RDA for as low as $21, that is a good deal. You can search for deals here: http://www.vapecrawler.com/results/phobia%20rda
Check out how this stacks up to other tasty gear and meet the Steampugs team of reviewers. Your bound to have a good time and read up on some great products, not so great ones too http://www.steampugs.co.uk/
Thank you for reading thus far, I hope my review helps you to make an informed decision.
apologies 
I will check it out after I am done though.