The Vivi Nova was an amazingly popular tank style in its heyday. It seems as though those days are behind us. I too was a fan, but like so many others, cast them off in favor of bottom coil tanks and rebuildables. Kumiho has come out with an interesting bottom coil Nova-style tank. Read the review to find out if it’s enough to bring me back to Nova tanks.
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disclosure: I received this item at no charge for review
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Product name | Kumiho Nova |
Available from | VaporAlley | |
Price | $11.79 | |
Capacity | 2.5ml (also available in 3.5ml) | |
Competing products | Mini ProTank, Aro Tank, MT3 | |
Who’s it for? | Vapers who like the Nova style tanks but want better performance | |
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Kumiho Nova Design
At first glance, Kumiho’s redesign pretty much looks like your garden-variety mini Vivi Nova. It features a polycarbonite tank that houses 2.5ml of e-liquid just like the Nova. Actually, the tank is interchangeable with the Vision models. You can even get them with one of several color choices.
The rest of the tank is, however, different. It has to be because the head has been moved from the top of the tank to the bottom, and redesigned. Instead, the top cap of the Kumiho tank has a stem fused to it like most bottom coil setups.
That leaves the base for housing the replaceable heads. Those are also different than your average bottom coiler. Most of those style tanks use replacement heads similar to the Kanger EVOD with a stem and small protruding wicks.
Kumiho’s Nova has a somewhat more unique head. It essentially looks like a small cylinder with a silicone gasket inside an opening at the top. The gasket meets up with the internal air tube which fits inside the opening of the coil head.
The coil itself is fairly traditional, just tucked away inside the head. A pair of small openings allow e-liquid in to keep the wicks properly hydrated.
It’s also worth noting that like the original Novas, this one comes with a head preloaded and two spares. In the package I received, two of the heads were 1.8 ohm while one was 2.1. It’s a nice touch that I miss in most bottom coil tanks.
Kumiho Nova Performance
We’re essentially talking about a bottom coil tank stuck inside a Vivi Nova tube. It therefore stands to reason that performance would be similar to the former. The only unknown is the head design.
Despite some reservations that placing the wick and coil inside an enclosure with only small holes for liquid flow, the design works. It actually works very well. Unlike some similar gear I’ve tried like the ProTank, there was no break-in period.
I was able to run the Kumiho at 10 watts pretty much right out of the box. I ran through a couple of tankfuls in a row (I vape a lot) and there was no problem at all with the coils keeping pace with me.
Vapor was very consistent the entire time. I suppose I wouldn’t call it a cloud machine, but the production was very satisfying. The vapor was also surprisingly warm for a bottom coil. I might write that off to the tank’s ability for me to run at relatively high voltages more than anything else.
This tank also does a standup job of flavor reproduction. I have been using the tank with some fairly mildly flavored e-liquid, but the flavor came through quite well.
Putting that e-liquid into the tank is a breeze as well. This tank has a thinner air tube than other bottom coil clearomizers because it fits inside the head instead of over it. As a result, there’s a great deal of distance between the tube and side wall of the tank. There’s plenty of room to get the liquid in there without risk of dribbling inside the tube for it to run out the drip tip.
I’ve tried a few bottom-coil tanks similar to this one, but in general they weren’t overly impressive. That makes the Kumiho a worthy competitor to not only Nova tanks, but other bottom coil tanks as well.
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Too Long; Didn’t Read
The Kumiho Nova is a bottom coil tank in the body of a Vivi Nova. It features a tube that’s interchangeable with the Vision mini Novas, but the rest of the parts are unique, including the enclosed replaceable head. The performance is standout, about the only thing keeping this from competing with the ProTank is the plastic tank.
Pros:
- Good to great performance
- Includes extra heads
- Replacement tanks easy to come by
- Easy to fill
Cons:
- Plastic tank will crack with certain e-liquids
- Somewhat dated visual design