I featured Heatvape a while back for its interesting little Defender 25 watt APV. That’s a great device, and you should read the review. Heatvape is cranking out more new products, like the Ecotank, a new large capacity subohm tank aimed at the current big tanks on the block. Check out the rest of the review for more details!
Disclosure: I received this product from HeatVape for review purposes.
Retail information was not available at the time of this writing. Keep an eye on Heatvape’s site for information.
Ecotank Review
Heatvape’s Ecotank looks much like a garden-variety RBA. Most of the top portion of the tank is clad in stainless steel. It’s topped off with a short, but wide-bore drip tip clearly designed for delivering big, puffy clouds directly to your lungs.
The Ecotank, however, isn’t an RBA. Rather it’s a high-performance low resistance tank similar to the Atlantis tank.
Actually, it’s very similar to the Atlantis, particularly when you look at the 0.5 ohm head. It features a large vertical coil surrounded by cotton and topped with mesh.
There are even large holes along the sides of the head for maximizing the liquid absorbed by the cotton. One interesting difference, however, is that there’s a small ring right below the holes that can be turned to reduce their size and limit the amount of e-liquid flowing in.
I’m not exactly sure why you would want to reduce the liquid coming into the coils of a subohm tank, but the option exists if you want it.
The Ecotank comes with two heads, but, there’s something interesting going on here. While the head pre-installed on the tank is your typical .5 ohm resistance head, the second head is a different beast.
It’s a no-resistance head. These are a new concept, built for APVs that can control temperature rather than wattage. Unfortunately, they’re not that common, so for many this second head might be wasted on them. I can’t really comment much about that head myself as I am one of the folks who don’t have a variable temperature APV at my disposal.
You’ll find the customary Pyrex tank surrounding the head and the rest of the assembly. Essentially, there is a bell-shaped top that screws into the head and serves as a chimney of sorts to route vapor up through the wide drip tip.
As you might expect from this class of tank, there is adjustable airflow located on the bottom portion of the tank. There are two sets of two holes placed next to each other. Each set is located half way around the circumference of the tank. Behind this ring are corresponding airholes that can be exposed or covered by the ring adjusting the flow. The holes are offset allowing from 1 to four open holes (and everything in between.)
While I like the fine tuning, the implementation could be better here. There’s no click-stop action, and the ring is decidedly loose. Essentially, if you look at the ring the wrong way, it will turn, covering the air holes when you had no intention of doing so.
The slippery ring situation also tends to impact the ability to pull the tank apart to fill it. I often find myself having to grip the tiny strip of glass between the steel topper and the air ring to unscrew the tank.
This had the tendency to pull the Pyrex glass tank off with the bottom of the tank. This isn’t actually a big deal. The important part to take away here is to put the glass back into the top section before filling. Unless you like having e-liquid oozing out of the tank when you put it back together.
None of the issues with this tank are that big a deal on their own. But, it does make the tank feel a little less refined than competing tanks on the market.
I haven’t been able to find these tanks in retail stores yet, but I suspect they will be less expensive than comparable tanks. That should make some of the little annoyances easier to live with.
Heatvape Ecotank performance
Naturally, you can’t have a review of these tanks without talking about how well they put out vapor. The ideal supertank puts out clouds close to an RBA without all the work. Of course for some that work is the fun part of an RBA.
These types of tanks also tend to work better on variable wattage APVs over mechanical mods. Since Heatvape puts makes the Defender, a neat little 25 watt APV, I figured I’d try their tank on this device.
Naturally, it looks great on the Defender, and performs well, even at wattages below the maximum 25 watt limit of that APV. At 25 watts, it put out good sized, if slightly cool clouds of vapor.
Being the curious sort, I decided to see what happens with more power. I strapped the Ecotank on to a 50 watt box mod to push it past 30 watts. It handled the extra power with aplomb.
I had little trouble going up to 40 watts, though I settled at around 37 watts for regular use. I found at this point the clouds were thicker and gave a great deal more warmth.
This is also a little higher than I can take the Atlantis, so from a performance standpoint Heatvape isn’t doing too bad.
Like the Atlantis, heads also seem to last for ages on the Ecotank. This certainly is a plus since for most users it comes with no replacement heads.
Heatvape is an up and comer with its new devices like the Defender and Ecotank. There’s maybe a few quirks with each device. So far, however, they’ve been very competitive from a pricing standpoint. They also seem to be willing to quickly turn feedback directly into product improvements.
I’m not sure when this device will hit retail channels. I also don’t know if they might fix some of the things I’ve been complaining about. If they do, and the price comes out like I think it will, the big boys should watch out for this upstart company.
Keep an eye on Heatvape’s website for more information on this tank as it becomes available.
