Prof Reviews the Aeronaut RDA from Aeronaut Vape

[profbeard]

Why did I buy this?

Someone posted a link to a video review on the UKV forum, and as it seemed to have some interesting new ideas and was reasonably priced for an authentic device, I thought I'd give it a try.

It came in less than 24 hours, so no complaints there!

What did I get?

I got a box:



Containing:



There was yet another Allen key:



A very comprehensive bag of spares (note - the two tubes are NOT spares - don't lose them!):



And the Aeronaut itself:





Around the Aeronaut

Here is the deck:



Note the very deep juice well... The coil wires are held in place by the "long" washers under the two screws each side...

The Aeronaut can provide under-coil airflow, top airflow, or both. This shot shows the bottom tube that passes through the deck under the coil(s) and the large slot that lets the airflow rise under the coil(s):



Bottom airflow can be adjusted by rotating the cap on the deck. Here is fully open:



And here is a tight setting:



(This would only result in a tight draw if the top airflow was shut off of course)

Bottom airflow can be disabled completely by replacing the the tube with the large slot with the shorter of the two tubes provided in the spares bag)

Top airflow is either "on" or "off". "On" uses the slotted tube in the cap:



To shut off top airflow, take the longer of the two tubes in the spares bag and use it to push out and replace the slotted tube:





(Don't forget to put the slotted tube in the spares bag!)

The Build

There are lots of pictures of builds on the Aeronaut that can be found via Google. I decided to go for a fairly modest single coil sub-ohm build using twisted Kanthal:



Looks a bit messy I know! After tidying it up, it fired up nicely:



I wicked it by cutting a full-length strip from the side of Japanese pad and feeding the free ends equally down each side of the well:



In Use

For my "first time out" I decided to go for the extreme ends of the available options. I fitted the Aeronaut to one of my Super T Workhorse Telescopics:



First I tried it with "everything wide open" - bottom airflow on full and top airflow using the slotted tube - this was brave of me as the only juice ready to hand was 24mg N-E-T tobacco... With the mech I was using I was vaping at just over 25 watts.

Well, by my (I'm no cloud chaser) standards I got lots and lots of vapour, very good flavour and a nicotine hit which required a sit down . So I suspect it will work work well for the megawatt vapers...

I then swapped out the top tube (so no top airflow) and set the bottom airflow to "tight". The result was a very pleasant (and warm) mouth to lung vape with very good flavour (and a hit that didn't require sitting down for).

The Aeronaut is marketed as having addressed leaking - not for "gung ho" me... I discovered that my normal dripping approach of starting by dripping on the coil and working out from there resulted in the bottom tube getting a fair bit of liquid in it via the big slot (which then dribbled out of the ends of the tube). The well is good and big and once the excess in the tube had been dispensed with there was no leakage - so it requires dripping carefully into the wick. I imagine that with bottom airflow shut off with the I slotted tube and just top airflow leakage would be avoided completely. I would also have liked the option to switch to a narrow drip tip when I fancied it.

This seems a very well made piece of kit at a modest price. The fact that I managed to get a usable build first try is a big plus. The Aeronaut has a huge range of potential set-up/configuration options and it would be wrong to say too much after just halt a day's use. I certainly don't regret buying it and will add further to this thread as I try the various options that occur to me.

[Deleted]

Another great review as usual profbeard ... Thank you.

[beedee]

Thanks for the review profbeard .

A really interesting design, tad expensive for me at 40 quid!

icon_shoppingm

[Deleted]

a really good review .. +1 from me also

[profbeard]

UPDATE:

The Aeronaut AFC Kit (with spares)

I decide to order one of these to play with (cost £11.99 plus postage)

The kit consists of a number of tubes, plus spare o-rings, screws and clamps:



Spares are always useful, but the important thing here is the collection of tubes. As shipped, the Aeronaut comes with a long and short blank tube (used to optionally shut off upper and lower airflow) and two slotted tubes. A short one with a large slot for bottom airflow, and a longer one with four slots for upper airflow:





I've been using my Aeronaut with the long slotted tube for bottom airflow (this can be adjusted by twisting the cap to open/close the airflow holes) and the upper airflow closed off using the blank short tube.

The spares kit provides new options for both upper and lower tubes (including extra blanks which could be drilled by those who like to do such things).

Here are the lower/short tubes:



Which also have small holes on the opposite side of the tube:



And here are the long/upper tubes (which don't have the small holes):



I've found that you can change even the bottom tube without having to rewick, so for my trials I rewicked and used the Aeronaut in the way I had I already set (original wide-slot bottom tube, blank top tube). I then tried out the two new bottom tubes. In both cases (probably unsurprisingly) I found that the little hole needed to be at the bottom with the bigger hole(s) facing upwards towards the coil. I found both the new choices provided a better MTL vape than the old big slot and that the "two hole" tube performed best. (I also noticed I got less "juice in the tube" when re-dripping).

I'm going to carry on with this set up for a bit, and then experiment with "top tube only" options with a blank bottom tube - will be reporting back...

[Get Off My Cloud]

Nice i was planning on ordering one of these this week, still trying to decide on the standard or polished version.

[profbeard]

Feb 23, 2016 16:33:47 GMT Get Off My Cloud said:

Nice i was planning on ordering one of these this week, still trying to decide on the standard or polished version.

Which did you decide on?

[Get Off My Cloud]

Feb 29, 2016 9:54:42 GMT profbeard said:

Feb 23, 2016 16:33:47 GMT Get Off My Cloud said:

Nice i was planning on ordering one of these this week, still trying to decide on the standard or polished version.

Which did you decide on?

Neither yet, i'm such a procrastinator.

[SteveF]

Mine arrived today, just the 'standard' SS version.

wow, actually WOW, I've just ordered another.



I was expecting a huge chuff capped cloud chasing monster and well its roughly the same size as a velocity.
And the drip tip although larger than I'm used to isn't anything like the airy things that come with most so called flavour and cloud RDAs, the airflow is pretty damned good without being excessive. In fact everything that the popular clones haven't given without leaking, spitting or just finally falling apart.

In use all I can do is echo Profs review.
First set up, 0.36ohm nichrome clapton-ish coil, easy to get the legs under those large clamps. I think possibly the coil needs to sit a little higher. It does need a long wick but at least you only have to make one.
 Top airflow blanked off, wide open lower tube.....warm, plenty of vapour, great flavour and a good nic hit.
With the standard top airflow tube, masses of vapour, I think I actually emptied the juice well in a couple of hits

[ㅤㅤㅤUg/Zuza]

looks a good one well next week am getting cricket finally think this would be rather nice together