# If this is a clone



## Stranger

how good must the original be ?

At the weekend I picked up a Dvarw DL clone from @adriaanh. Big vouch for the dude, you can buy from him with confidence.

Now Mr Rob Fisher has literally a truck load of these things and even defined a manner of wicking them that makes him a legend. So the curiosity was tweaked and when it came up for sale I was in like Flynn.

I spent a bit of very enjoyable time on you tube looking at reviews, including those by @Rob Fisher, and one thing jumped out at me every time. Coil choice and how some were difficult to do due to the screws. I know the FL (face lift) models have addressed this, but I have a version 2 clone so I knew that it may be a struggle to put fancy coils.

This is what I did


I took some DIY 24 awg twisted, made the legs a little longer and eyeballed where the bends should go. I then pre bent the legs to hook around the posts. This help with the tension and positioning. 6.5 wraps, aimed for .5 got .46 Ohms
Wicking is easy enough and I went with the dam method.




Ready to go



So is it everything the hype said it would be.
No, it is not.
i was expecting something out of this world, maybe the expectations have been built too high or because it is a clone, or I have cocked it up, but I would put this from a flavour point of view on par with the Vapeflymesh RDTA.

Don't get me wrong it is good, the flavour is banging. I love the big tank. I am not even sure which insert is in but the airflow is just right for me. Is it a keeper, hell yeah it's great and I prefer it over an RDA.
Maybe just maybe I have gotten to a point where I am almost there with what my expectations are. Perhaps with my other gear I have gotten to that point where it is now just about fine tuning. I don't know. Maybe the the machine that drives the hype has just been very very good.
It is great looking, it does not leak. Flavour is really good and there is room for adjustments going forward. Easy enough to build on but restricted with coil choice. Add ons available.

So all in all a great tank, even though it is a clone. Would I pay a couple of grand for an original ?

Would you ?

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## ivc_mixer

Interesting read as I have contemplated getting a clone one as well to test drive before I shell out a few thousand for an original.

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## zadiac

I have learned the hard and expensive way to NOT pay attention to hype. No matter who starts or encourages it. I have saved thousands since then.

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## Stranger

It's all subjective I suppose and I am glad that I bought this tank. Bear in mind this was the first build on it and I am happy that I got the result. I read about people trying mesh and getting no flavour or joy. I tried mesh and it is just not for me.
I am hoping that people that do have these will jump in on the thread and express their opinions and tips and tricks.

Really would like a glass tank to go with this, would love to be able to use my ADV menthol mint, but very scared of the tank material.

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## NecroticAngel

Just my two cents here, what I have realized is that any atomizer or tank I try (ok so thats very few, but aforementioned vapefly is one of them) is that they are all of a muchness, and some have a little better flavour out of the box than others, but until I put in violence coils, flavor is just not up to standard. In anything at all. now Im a tank chaser, and my next and probably last big vape buy maybe next year is something with the biggest damn tank I can find haha  (preferably with stainless steel wire wicking)  So guess what Im saying is if it has adjustable airflow if I add the right coil its all great. I can see no huge difference between atomizers, just between coils!

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## Puff the Magic Dragon

I have used a clone DL Dvarw for a long time. If you have a decent clone (SXK, Coppervape, YFTK) then I strongly doubt that the vape experience on the original will be any different. I have tried both. 

If you are comparing the Dvarw to a mesh RDTA then I am not surprised that you were underwhelmed by the flavour. You are not comparing apples to apples. The Dvarw is single coiled RTA with a resistance of around 0.5 Ohm. Most mesh RDTAs run at lower Ohms and higher Watts. The surface area of the "coil" is massive. 

If you compare the Dvraw to other single coil RTAs then it is without doubt one of the best. 

Whether you would spend thousands on the original brings us to the clone/authentic debate which has proven to be divisive and unpleasant on the forum. It's just not worth going there. These discussions took place before you joined the forum. If you like you could always search for it but IMO it will provide you with no useful answers.

You may also find that different coils, placement and wicking will improve your experience on the Dvarw clone. 

I recently rebuilt an old mesh RDA that I had never been happy with. I used the same mesh as before but found that I had amazing flavour from it. I must have got the coil length and wicking just right. I loved it. After a week of use I decided to rewick it. Like a fool I replaced the mesh at the same time. Crap flavour and even dry hits. I tried rewicking several times but couldn't reproduce the experience.

Vaping is a very strange hobby.

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## Stranger

I could not get on with the mesh in the Vapefly. I got loads of flavour but two things put me off. One, very low Ohms on the supplied mesh. 0.14. I was not really happy seeing as I do use mechs. Two, flavour was great but the mouth feel was .... weird.
So as far as the comparison goes, I have been using the same wire in the Vapefly. Of course coil placement and resistance is a bit different but overall I am getting a very good vape on essentially a budget RDTA. Also built as a single coil.

I agree, don't want to get into a clone war.

Here is the thing and maybe I am not being adjective enough. I get a great vape from the Dvarw, but it is just as good from the Vapefly. Not underwhelming at all and maybe the post was about an expectation from a very hyped piece of kit. I am not knocking it, am happy to have it and will certainly use and enjoy it.
Secondly, and again I do not know how to put this, maybe I am reaching some sort of peak whereby I am not going to get much of a better experience off .... anything. I came to DTL after years of MTL and high nicotine dependency. I have found that I much prefer DTL and the nic dependency is much lower than it used to be. Of course you have to find that sweet spot. Maybe I have.

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## Stranger

Puff the Magic dragon and Stranger are very strange people

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## Timwis

Each to their own, i have both high end original and cloned products of high end products and to be honest i don't have sympathy for their products being cloned at £150 for an atty the high end manufacturers have one thing in mind, making money. Their small production runs to keep demand higher than supply keeps prices artificially high so they don't care about the vaper so i couldn't give a flying about them, so many atty's at $149.99 in any other industry they would be investigating for price fixing! The only thing i am strongly against is when a clone is sold as authentic whether that's by a vendor or individual, that is disgusting!

The Eamon Lee Arietta cost me yes you guessed it $149.99 and is the worst pile of crap i have ever used, i should of got the £10 clone to find out first instead of wasting so much money, mind in my experience the clone would probably have been better.

I'm not against high end at all and if to the individual they are worth it then that's great and like i said i do buy high end sometimes (and sometimes am very disappointed) but i am against those that criticise those that get clones, especially as these high end manufacturers are just taking advantage of what a lot of us have to varying degrees, vaping snobbery! so drastically charging more than the true product worth "GREED"

My best atty that is high end and i love is The Atmizoo Tripod, it's fantastic but is it really worth the $149.99 i paid for it, is it f**k!!!

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## Grand Guru

I bought the clone Dvarw DL to test it then shortly after I bought 2 authentic ones and I honestly won’t be able to say which is which, to the extent that I marked them with specific drip tips in order to distinguish them. I don’t have time nor patience to look at the fine details and take measurements but what I know is that they look and feel exactly the same. My experience with the DL model pushed me to buy the MTL clone and the build quality and satisfaction I got from it convinced me to spare money this time around and not buy an authentic.
P.S you can’t simply replace the tank with a glass section but you have to buy the whole tank section as the glass wouldn’t fit on the original metal frame.

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## Stranger

I don't know enough yet, as I am busy enjoying the tank  On the Dl version does the glass not come out ?

I see this available.

https://voodoovapour.co.za/drip-tips-caps/265-dvarw-dl-6ml-glass.html

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## Puff the Magic Dragon

Stranger said:


> I don't know enough yet, as I am busy enjoying the tank  On the Dl version does the glass not come out ?
> 
> I see this available.
> 
> https://voodoovapour.co.za/drip-tips-caps/265-dvarw-dl-6ml-glass.html



Or you could buy this From Satovape for a similar price to the glass

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## SmokeyJoe

It all comes down to finding your happy place. One RTA wont give a 2nd vaper the same experience.
I despise the Zeus range, Revolver i used 3 times, serpent a week, and are currently somewhere in the cupboard.
For me Gear RTA is perfect, but ive spoken to a lot of people that dont like it, and thats cool. It works for me and i love it
Whatever gives you a semi, go for it

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## Scouse45

On some occasions I hav found the clone to be very close. A clone hadaly is a power little rda. Not far off the OG. But the best example of a clone not living up to the OG was the dvarw for me. The clone was rubbish and leaked everywhere. Orings terrible flavour average. I then picked up the OG and it was phenomenal. I couldn’t believe the difference. So testing the clone to see if u will enjoy the OG doesn’t always work our coz they can be worlds apart and the clone can put u off the brilliance of the original. Jus my small input

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## Grand Guru

Stranger said:


> I don't know enough yet, as I am busy enjoying the tank  On the Dl version does the glass not come out ?
> 
> I see this available.
> 
> https://voodoovapour.co.za/drip-tips-caps/265-dvarw-dl-6ml-glass.html


It won’t fit. You have to buy the whole upper part which is worth R750 if I remember well.

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## Timwis

Scouse45 said:


> On some occasions I hav found the clone to be very close. A clone hadaly is a power little rda. Not far off the OG. But the best example of a clone not living up to the OG was the dvarw for me. The clone was rubbish and leaked everywhere. Orings terrible flavour average. I then picked up the OG and it was phenomenal. I couldn’t believe the difference. So testing the clone to see if u will enjoy the OG doesn’t always work our coz they can be worlds apart and the clone can put u off the brilliance of the original. Jus my small input


I have never even looked into getting a Dvarw clone but if it's like any other hyped high end atty it would be cloned by several cloners so even homework needs doing when buying a clone, i bet there will be at least one Dvarw Clone out there that if it got mixed up with the original and they were both given to you to use you would struggle to tell which was which. I did start a thread a while ago which was something like "Clones - The Good, Bad & Ugly" which purpose was to discuss which clones performed as well as the originals and which were garbage but what was supposed to be a thread to educate us all pooling everyone's experiences of different clones just ended up turning into a Clone war!

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## Timwis

SmokeyJoe said:


> It all comes down to finding your happy place. One RTA wont give a 2nd vaper the same experience.
> I despise the Zeus range, Revolver i used 3 times, serpent a week, and are currently somewhere in the cupboard.
> For me Gear RTA is perfect, but ive spoken to a lot of people that dont like it, and thats cool. It works for me and i love it
> Whatever gives you a semi, go for it


So what i have learned today is my vaping satisfaction outweighs that of @SmokeyJoe's, while his enjoyment of the Gear gives him a semi, i have many an atty which leaves me stiff as a rod!!!!

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## Timwis

Timwis said:


> So what i have learned today is my vaping satisfaction outweighs that of @SmokeyJoe's, while his enjoyment of the Gear gives him a semi, i have many an atty which leaves me stiff as a rod!!!!


Or is that the Blue pills my wife keeps ordering me!

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## Stranger

Thanks PTMG
That looks like an option

My concern is the tank material. I see a lot about tank cracker juices and am worried about my mixes which are predominantly fruits and ice.



Puff the Magic Dragon said:


> Or you could buy this From Satovape for a similar price to the glass
> 
> 
> View attachment 201196

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## Stranger

Timwis said:


> Or is that the Blue pills my wife keeps ordering me!



This explains a lot. Let me try and help.

YOU ARE STILL IN THE MATRIX

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## CJB85

Stranger said:


> This explains a lot. Let me try and help.
> 
> YOU ARE STILL IN THE MATRIX


If you are willing to wait for the lockdown to end, you can buy the new SXK Dvarw FL clone on Fasttech for the price of the glass section... and it comes with glass as standard... Just in terms of the tank on the clone, I vaped everything from Red Pill, Cube (a lemon sherbet), Iced mangos, tobaccos etc in my clone and the tank never even changed colour.

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## Stranger

Thank you very much for the heads up. Certainly looks like an option.

ivc_mixer also gave me some invaluable information re tank cracking juices and how to identify them. I may get away with my ADV after all, that will make me happy as I do like this tank.

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## ivc_mixer

CJB85 said:


> SXK Dvarw FL clone on Fasttech


How are placed like Fasttech and 3FVape? I saw a mod on there I really want, not to use as such but more for my collection, but do not want to spend money now and have it be like Wish where I might not see the item. Would also consider adding this tank for interest sake.

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## CJB85

ivc_mixer said:


> How are placed like Fasttech and 3FVape? I saw a mod on there I really want, not to use as such but more for my collection, but do not want to spend money now and have it be like Wish where I might not see the item. Would also consider adding this tank for interest sake.


Unless you want to add $50 for shipping VIA DHL, don’t go anywhere near Fasttech until the lockdown and tobacco ban are lifted. The think there are quite a few people who are keen, so maybe we can do a group buy when things run more smoothly. That way we can do a fast DHL and all split the shipping. I might just fall for an Odin 200, the Odin 100 that was announced today and an Aromamizer Plus V2 (and a wheelbarrow full of coilology coils).

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## ivc_mixer

CJB85 said:


> $50 for shipping VIA DHL






CJB85 said:


> maybe we can do a group buy


This I would consider. Why "when things run more smoothly"? Never bought from these places before, so excuse the 100 questions. If we do group buy and via DHL it should not be an issue, right?

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## CJB85

ivc_mixer said:


> This I would consider. Why "when things run more smoothly"? Never bought from these places before, so excuse the 100 questions. If we do group buy and via DHL it should not be an issue, right?


It should be okay, but there is a chance that Mods and Tanks can be spotted and turned around at customs.

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## CJB85

ivc_mixer said:


> This I would consider. Why "when things run more smoothly"? Never bought from these places before, so excuse the 100 questions. If we do group buy and via DHL it should not be an issue, right?


Oh and on top of the shipping, you need to pay VAT, a DHL “admin fee” and possible additional taxes too. So when the time comes, make sure to do your calculations carefully. If the price is only a few rands less than buying locally, rather support one of the local shops who have been earning little to zero since all this started.

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## ivc_mixer

I always support local, hence my ignorance re Fasttech, but alas that which I am looking for is not available locally anymore.

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## Stranger

I am in for the group buy when it is available. Happy to wait a little while, this lockdown can't last forever.

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## Jean claude Vaaldamme

So who copied who?


Nike water bottle

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## Stranger

Please no clone war comments.

Just some observations on the DL FL clone that I received.

The changes are small, the improvement is massive. The post screws have now been offset and make a huge difference to how you install the coil. The post screw receiver has a raised edge that prevents the coil from slipping out. If this was the only difference between the original design and now it would have been a stand out improvement. They went further and shortened the threads for the tank to screw onto the base and have a peek chamber instead of the stainless steel and a glass tank along with dual hole airflow control inserts instead of just the one hole.

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## Timwis

Jean claude Vaaldamme said:


> So who copied who?
> View attachment 202648
> 
> Nike water bottle
> View attachment 202649


Neither lol, because they look absolutely nothing alike in anyway whatsoever!!!

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## CJB85

Stranger said:


> Please no clone war comments.
> 
> Just some observations on the DL FL clone that I received.
> 
> The changes are small, the improvement is massive. The post screws have now been offset and make a huge difference to how you install the coil. The post screw receiver has a raised edge that prevents the coil from slipping out. If this was the only difference between the original design and now it would have been a stand out improvement. They went further and shortened the threads for the tank to screw onto the base and have a peek chamber instead of the stainless steel and a glass tank along with dual hole airflow control inserts instead of just the one hole.


What is the vape like on the new one, compared to the old one?

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## ivc_mixer

Stranger said:


> DL FL clone


Uhm, for us mere mortals who are not sure what you are talking about, this would be a....... ??

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## Stranger

@ivc_mixer This would be a Dvarw SXK clone. Direct lung facelift.

@CJB85 flavour is as good as the version 2 that I have. I think that my ADV is at it's peak because no matter what I put it in, it's good. These tanks just seem to suit the ADV better than my others. That includes a Blotto, a Bltzen, a Hector, Nano wasp, Mello 3, Twisp vega and I can't use my ADV in RDA's on my mechs.

Flavour really good, Ohms around 4 suit me at around 20W which means I can use on a single 18650. Tanks size is great and it does not chew juice. I ordered the top fill tank for the V2 and if anything the slightly shorter tank concentrates the flavour a tad more but there is not a big difference.

I am really enjoying them. If I rate them from top to bottom, the dvarws work best for me followed by the Blitzen and Blotto on equal par. The little Hector is just fun and the Wasp and RDa's are the session juice tanks. They can really push flavour but not for ADV.

What I do like and value is that I am getting out of a single coil tank what I strove to get out of a dual.

OOPs forgot my Vapefly mesh. Also really good flavour out of a single coil, but the clones are easier to fill and much bigger tanks.

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## Timwis

Stranger said:


> @ivc_mixer This would be a Dvarw SXK clone.
> 
> @CJB85 flavour is as good as the version 2 that I have. I think that my ADV is at it's peak because no matter what I put it in, it's good. These tanks just seem to suit the ADV better than my others. That includes a Blotto, a Bltzen, a Hector, Nano wasp, Mello 3, Twisp vega and I can't use my ADV in RDA's on my mechs.
> 
> Flavour really good, Ohms around 4 suit me at around 20W which means I can use on a single 18650. Tanks size is great and it does not chew juice. I ordered the top fill tank for the V2 and if anything the slightly shorter tank concentrates the flavour a tad more but there is not a big difference.
> 
> I am really enjoying them. If I rate them from top to bottom, the dvarws work best for me followed by the Blitzen and Blotto on equal par. The little Hector is just fun and the Wasp and RDa's are the session juice tanks. They can really push flavour but not for ADV.
> 
> What I do like and value is that I am getting out of a single coil tank what I strove to get out of a dual.


I find SXK the best cloners, not had a single dud from them and very good build quality. I did start a thread about the best clones but the inevitable happened and toys started getting thrown out of prams!

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## CJB85

Timwis said:


> I find SXK the best cloners, not had a single dud from them and very good build quality. I did start a thread about the best clones but the inevitable happened and toys started getting thrown out of prams!


Clones are merely the flea market Chanel bags of the vaping industry. I don’t think they hurt anyone, because no person who can afford the real thing will buy the clone and clone shoppers can rarely afford the authentics. I have a bigger issue with the companies cloning the mainstream atties like the Geekvape and Augvape stuff.

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## Timwis

CJB85 said:


> Clones are merely the flea market Chanel bags of the vaping industry. I don’t think they hurt anyone, because no person who can afford the real thing will buy the clone and clone shoppers can rarely afford the authentics. I have a bigger issue with the companies cloning the mainstream atties like the Geekvape and Augvape stuff.


Yeah, my issue is when a clone is sold as an authentic!

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## Stranger

Here are two side by side. The top fill cap has the single airflow insert and the glass one has the new double hole. This one is noisier than the single. Flavour and draw is about the same.

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## Stranger

Timwis said:


> Yeah, my issue is when a clone is sold as an authentic!



100%, I am with you on this one, and CJB has a valid comment, I cannot see me paying 2K for a tank I may not like after I have bought it. In saying that, these tanks look like to be my happy place for ADV.

I am going to add to this, the facelift has improved so much over the V2 that it probably does now warrant the KHW mods price tag for an original. The set up has gone from old school to up to date and everything works so much better that the previous version is now "old not obsolete" I should imagine that those that have an original and know their coils (fancy ones) will have major success with this new version.

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## Timwis

Stranger said:


> 100%, I am with you on this one, and CJB has a valid comment, I cannot see me paying 2K for a tank I may not like after I have bought it. In saying that, these tanks look like to be my happy place for ADV.


I payed $149 for the Eamonn Lee, wish i had bought the £10 clone first because after trying to get a decent vape for 2 months eventually that $149 RTA went in the bin.

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