Hey guys! For this months RDA review, we're going to take a look at the Aeolus V2 Pro.
After that, I've got a step by step guide on how to put together your own Tidal Wire!
Lets get started!
Aeolus V2 Pro
The Review:
Today we're taking a look at the "Aeolus V2 Pro" an all around powerhouse by Syntheticloud, out of San Diego, California.
MSRP: $75.00 usd (or ~100$ CAD)
Let's check out the specs:
- Black Titanium plated Stainless Steel Barrel, Top Cap, and AFC
- Two piece deck (Polished Stainless, and 18k Gold Plated Brass)
- 3 Square Post Design with neg posts attached directly to deck (18k Gold Plated Brass)
- Large Square Post holes
- Non spin center post
- 18k Gold Plated Brass 510 threading, and Pin
- PEEK Insulators
- Top down airflow, with multiple adjustment options
All and all a rather impressive package, even for it's price point.
If you're not a fan of in depth reviews, or if you're a TL;DR kind of person, feel free to skip ahead to the verdict.(ctrl+F, verdict)
Unboxing
The Aeolus V2 Pro comes in a small, blue cylindrical package, comprised mostly of cardboard.
Syntheticloud's logo and the Aeolus name are plastered on the front (along with color).
All of it's contents are kind of just shoved in there, with the Aeolus coming in a small plastic baggy.
On the underside of the RDA there's a mirrored finish with both the Sytheticloud SC logo, and serial number.
Along with the RDA you get:
- Full set of post screws
- 2 Deck Screws
- Full set of both blue and black replacement O-Rings
All of this is pretty standard as far as extras.
The RDA doesn't come with a drip tip. Something that's common of top of the line authentics, as most companies expect you'd have a favorite drip tip to accompany it.
Personally I feel a drip tip should always be included, although seeing as most vapers in this category usually have 1 or two lying around, I don't see it as a major con.
Another thing to note here, is although you can purchase a chuff cap, it doesn't come with one. Even a Delrin one. While being able to customize your Aeolus further, by a choice of color and materials when it comes to chuff caps, I do feel at this price point a plain delrin chuff should be included.
I did get a chuff from Syntheticloud, and I'll get into how I feel about it later.
The Aeolus is made up of 4 main components. The deck, Barrel, Top cap, and AFC (Airflow Controller).
The Deck
The deck on the Aeolus is fantastic. The ability to strip the deck down to a flat platform makes building a breeze. It has a standard 3 post set up, although the posts are anything but ordinary. All 3 posts are square, with large square post holes, easily fitting parallel 20 gauge. A nice touch is the bottom of the post holes are flat, with no hole or threading through the bottom. This stops your coils from bending out of place when you tighten the posts, and also prevents the large screws from pinching off higher gauge wire.
Both negative posts are machined from one piece, which includes a gold plated platform. The platform is then fastened to the actual deck with 4 small screws. It's an interesting design and could allow you to replace your negative posts easily if you ever damaged them, or stripped the threading.
The center post has a slightly raised post hole and is wrapped in a peek insulator, giving heat resistance up to 649.4 ºF.
The Barrel
The barrel is a simple solid piece of titanium coated stainless, that when fastened to your deck, essentially creates your juice well. With this design, the size of the well is essentially the distance from the deck to your coils leaving tons of space for your flavor of choice.
Around the base of your deck, you have an O-Ring, and some threading to attach your barrel. The barrel itself screws onto the deck with a reverse threading. This is both an upside and a downside. The upside is it has the neat effect of preventing you from over tightening the RDA to your mod. The downside is you can't over tighten your RDA to your mod. Let me explain.
As you tighten the barrel to the deck, once the barrel reaches the O-Ring, the deck usually begins to release from the mod. Vice-versa, fastening the RDA to a mod, beyond a certain point, usually causes the barrel to release from the deck.
Before I picked up an Aeolus, every review I read complained of this. Most people even claimed that due to this difficulty, the barrel never sat flush with the deck, leaving a small gap around the edge. It's something I decided I could live with.
Once I received my Aeolus, I realized this gripe was pretty exaggerated. By taking a few extra seconds, not only did it sit perfectly flush with the deck, it also didn't come lose when removing, or fastening the RDA to the Mod, something many reviewers claimed was basically impossible without removing the O-Ring from the deck.
Simply, you need to screw the deck onto the RDA, without the barrel, and tighten it. Then place the barrel onto the base, and fasten it slowly. By doing the motion smoothly, it slipped over the O-Ring easily and into place with no issues. Also, once it was fastened over the O-Ring, it could be removed from the RDA, and replaced without budging.
Top Cap and AFC
This top cap and AFC combination is essentially what makes this RDA. The top cap has top down airflow through 8 air holes. There are 3 large sized holes, and 1 small hole on each side. The AFC then sits into the top cap, and can be rotated to cover off holes, symmetrically. This allows for plenty of customization when it comes to airflow. With all 4 airholes open, the airflow is massive, and basically completely nonrestrictive, rivaling the airflow of a Kennedy. Once you start to close off the air holes, the flavor really shines. I keep mine at 1 small hole, and half a large hole. At this setting, the airflow isn't too tight, but allows for massive flavor.
The top down airflow is phenomenal. Every hit, wide open or closed off, has a smooth feel, with no splatter. Syntheticloud boasts that the top down airflow creates downward air pressure, which not only creates a smooth, non forced airflow, but allows for an extended push and pull without splash, if blowing clouds are your thing.
The Chuff
Syntheticloud also sells several accessories for the Aeolus V2, including a chuff cap.
This chuff cap comes in White, Black, Blue, and Red Delrin, as well as Stainless Steel, and Gold. (I'm unsure as to whether or not the gold is gold plated, or simply gold in color)
This chuff cap replaces the AFC allowing you to simply twist the chuff to control your airflow. I feel the chuff is a nice addition, and practically essential if you want to use the Aeolus V2 for Competition worthy clouds. It smooths out the airflow even more, even with the Aeolus' already phenomenal airflow. As I mentioned previously, having an option of a large amount of colors is nice, although I do feel at this price point, a simple Delrin chuff should be included.
Building
As I mentioned previously about the deck, building on the Aeolus is a joy. With massive post holes, the coil options are endless, and with a completely open build platform, positioning them is a breeze.
That being said there are a couple tricks when placing your coils. You need to keep your coils as far to the outside as possible. This allows you to get full benefit of the top airflow. To do this, it's essential to center your coils, or else only one side of the coil will be able to get close to the barrel without risk of shorts.
You also need to raise your coils up off the deck as to reach the airflow and give plenty of well space for your juice. I find aligning the top of the coil with the top of the center post (not the screw) works perfectly.
Verdict
Simply, this RDA is fantastic. The airflow is smooth, the flavor is spot on, and if you're into clouds, she definitely chucks. On top of having a nice fit and finish, it's also a pleasure to build on.
As it stands right now, this RDA has a permanent place atop my Fujin Mech Mod, being my all day carry, and until something else takes the crown, is my favorite RDA.
If you've got the money to throw down, and you're looking for a great flavor chaser with added all around capability, this is it.
Bonus Trivia:
Aeolus is the ruler of winds in Greek mythology.
While
Aeolus is portrayed as 3 separate individuals within Greek mythology,
the most commonly discussed is Aeolus, Son of Hippotes. In Homer's Epic,
Odyssey, Aeolus, after providing Odysseus and his crew lodgings for a
full month, provided them a westerly wind to carry them home. Aeolus
also gifted Odysseus a bag, containing the strength of all winds but the
west. Odysseus' crew unwittingly opened the bag, believing it was
treasure, displaying the true power of Aeolus by releasing a hurricane
strong enough to return them to their original starting point.
More than likely, the name is a reference to this story, and the power of the winds contained inside Aeolus' gift.
The Build
Disclaimer:
Building your own coils is for advanced users only. Please before
attempting any build have a firm understanding of Ohm's Law, and how it
effects your circuit/battery. Failing to do so could cause bodily harm
to you, or those around you.
With that out of the way...
This month we're going to go over how to make Tidal Wire.
Build: Tidal Wire
RDA: Aeolus V2 Pro
Difficulty: Intermediate
Time: 20-30 mins
What you'll need:
- 26 or 28 gauge Nichrome or Kanthal (you can use lower gauges if you want)
- 0.4 mm or 0.5 mm Kanthal ribbon
- Wire Snips
- Tweezers (Ceramic Preferred)
- Pliers
- A Drill
- 5/64" Drill Bit (or your preferred size)
- Ohm Reader (I use a Sigelei 75w)
- Scissors
- Your favorite cotton
Step One:
Take a length of wire, you can use anything under 30g, in either Nichrome or Kanthal. For this I'm using 26 gauge Nichrome.
Double the strand over itself, and place the 2 ends into the drill.
Place a drill bit through the loop, and pull taut.
Spin up the drill to twist your wire.
Since we're going to be untwisting this wire in the next step, don't twist it too tight. I usually twist it as shown below.
Step Two:
Remove the wire from the drill, and cut a length of ribbon wire.
To make it easier, you can wrap the ribbon around the twisted wire at both ends.
Slip one end back into the drill and fasten it up.
Hold the other end with your pliers, being sure to keep both the ribbon and twisted wire taut.
Step Three:
This is the important part. Swap the rotation direction of the drill, so it spins the opposite direction of when you twisted your wire.
Spin the drill slowly, keeping the wire taut.
The ribbon will begin to wrap around the wire, as the twisted wire begins to unravel.
Once it begins to open up, so there's a noticeable gap between the strands of wire, stop.
Hopefully you should end up with something like this:
Or, if you didn't keep the wire taut enough, something like this: (I've made Tidal Wire before, I swear.)
Once you've got your wire made, just wrap it around your preferred diameter bit. I usually go for 5 wraps around a 5/64" bit. With that wrap, a dual coil comes in at about .12ohms.
Get your coils fastened into your post and centered.
Once they're in, pulse your coils lightly.
Since we want to keep the space between the wire, only pinch the coils lightly with your tweezers, until you have a nice glow from the center out.
As for Tidal Wire, that's all there is!
So how's it vape?
Tidal Wire is a great flavor wire. It's relatively easy to make if you take it slow, and offers plenty of surface area for your juice. As for myself, I'm a big fan, and get a full, warm vape with flavor comparable to my usual Parallel 4 Wrap 32g over 26g Clapton. The only downside to Tidal Wire is when using thick juices, it can gunk up quick because of the large space between the wires.
Thanks for reading!
If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed my review, and build.
If you give the wire a try, be sure to let me know what you think!
That clues everything up for this month.
Big news though, starting next month, I'll be launching my own FULL SITE, with juice and hardware reviews every week!
Be sure to check it out, and add me on Instagram @flavorchasersanon, and Google+ as Aaron Rhinelander.
As always, Vape On!
