Steve K's Vaping World

Welcome to the Vapor Alley 510 bridgeless atomizer review.  For those of you familiar with this site, you probably are aware I’m not much of a dripper, I’m more of a cartomizer guy.  The truth is I’m not very good at direct dripping into my atomizer.  Which is actually what makes me a perfect candidate to review the 510 bridgeless atomizer.  Since I’m bad at dripping, that means I’m highly likely to abuse this poor atty.  So, let’s find out how well it stands up to my ineptitude.

510 bridgeless Atomizer Design

Vapor Alley’s 510 dripper is a standard sized 510 atomizer.  It is available in black with a metallic band at the bottom, or silver with a gold band.  The unique features of this atomizer are the lack of a bridge and a special splatter shield.

For those of you not familiar with atomizer anatomy, most atomizers have a metal bridge covered in stainless steel mesh used to transfer liquid to the heating coils from the cartridge (real old school).  This isn’t particularly necessary when you’re just going to drip, and can sort of diffuse the vapor.  For more on atties, check out the 101 article I did way back when on them.

Of course, the second feature sort of throws that theory of diffused vapor out with the bath water.  The splatter shield is a disc that sits on top of the heating coil area and has 3 holes to allow e-liquid in and vapor out.

One of my least favorite parts of dripping is when really hot juice spatters on the heating coil (usually as a result of my over-dripping).  This flings molten-hot droplets of e-liquid straight out of the drip tip and into your mouth.  Not a terribly pleasant experience, I assure you.

The  510 bridgeless atomizer is currently available at Vapor Alley in the 2.2 ohm version.

Using Abusing the Bridgeless 510 Atomizer

The atomizer is basically fairly fault tolerant.  While evaluating a 1.5 ohm version of the dripper, I pretty much ran it between 4.2-4.5v (hooray for the 3.5a switch in the ProVari).  While the atomizer itself got pretty darn hot, it kept up like a trooper.

The spatter shield did its job at those voltages.  Despite my best attempts at dripping in too much e-liquid at higher voltages, I never got treated to 2nd degree burns on the inside of my mouth.

Speaking over overzealous dripping, this atomizer does a pretty good job of keeping excess liquid inside.  I rarely saw e-liquid in my drip well despite my best efforts.  The only time I did was when I had a mishap attempting to use the DoD (Drip on Demand) with a bad bottle which dumped A LOT of e-liquid into the atomizer.

On the other end of the spectrum, the 510 dripping atomizer doesn’t handle running low on e-liquid very gracefully.  It’s basically a two-step process.

First, there is a very subtle change in flavor when you are in danger.  I will say that it gets easier to pick up on as you use it, but it’s easy to miss.

If you do miss that hint, your very next drag will take you down memory lane.  The dry burn you get at that point will give you the morning hack of a 2 pack a day Lucky Strikes smoker.  Part of that may be how hot I’m running the thing, but I think it explains my over liberal application of e-liquid.

The other bummer with this device is a pretty minor gripe.  I found the draw to be very tight on the atomizer.  This might have been a variance from the factory or something. Fortunately, this atomizer has an adjustment slot.  It’s hard to see, but there’s a slot that looks like a flat head screwdriver would fit.

The process is a little more difficult than that. It’s actually too wide and shallow for a screwdriver to directly fit in, but you can kind of push the edge of the slot to move it.  You only need to move it a tiny amount, too much and you’ll break something.

And this is a little counterintuitive, but you adjust it clockwise to loosen the draw.  Perhaps my poorly made video will explain it better:

Back to the positive side of the equation.  From a performance standpoint, this atomizer works as well as any decent atomizer.  Flavor production is terrific.  Vapor production and throat hit are definitely good.  The vapor is also very warm, which is to be expected running the atomizer as hot as I am.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

The Vapor Alley 510 bridgeless atomizer is a bridgeless design that features a spatter shield to keep the burning and crying out of your mouth.  The atomizer stands up surprisingly well to misuse.  You might have to adjust the draw depending on how it arrives, and whatever you do, try not to let it run dry.  Or else.

You can pick one up at Vapor Alley for $6.99

Who’s it for: The 510 dripper is a good choice for most folks looking for a mid-range atomizer for dripping.  The spatter shield and high tolerance for overfilling make this a good choice for novices or chronic over-drippers like myself.  The 510 dripping atomizer should also hold up well for people who like to crank up the heat.

Pros:

• Fault tolerant
• Spatter shield works
• Good price to performance ratio
• Adjustable draw

Cons:

• Rather harsh dry hits
• Draw was very tight and had to be adjusted

Details:

Product: Vapor Alley 510 Bridgeless Atomizer
Available at: Vapor Alley
Price: $6.99 (save 5% with coupon code SteveK)
Threading: 510
Resistance: 1.5 ohm as reviewed (currently available in 2.2 with other options soon to follow)

Disclosure: I feature affiliate links for Vapor Alley who sent this 510 atomizer to me for evaluation and review.