Tornado Tank

Tornado Tank – 2 Week Review

My Totally Wicked Tornado Tank arrived on the 19th Jan 2011 so I’ve had them now for just over 2 weeks, so thought I’d post my current thoughts on them.

As I already have both a white and platinum standard Tornado, I didn’t purchase the full kit but instead simply bought the Tornado Tank atomisers and a pack of tank cartridges. I opted for 1 white, 1 platinum tank atomiser to match my current Tornado set-up and 1 black tank atomiser to see if it would work on a non tornado battery.

(Note: the Tornado Tank atomisers ship with a dummy cartridge to protect them during shipping, so you will need to buy the tank cartridges separately.)

If you are unsure what the difference is between the Tornado Tank and a standard Tornado, then I shall endeavour to give a brief explanation.

A standard Tornado uses an atomiser and cartridge system that requires the use of a polyester wool type material in the cartridge to hold the nicotine liquid. This system has always been a little problematic in that if you have too much polyester wool in the cartridge then the nicotine liquid cant flow quick enough to feed the atomiser, to little and you’ll get a leakage problem.

After a while the polyester wool can also become clogged and need replacing. Keeping the polyester wool in tip top condition can often be time consuming and messy so many people will opt to simply manually drip liquid directly onto the atomiser instead of mess around with cartridges. This also has disadvantages in that if you drip in to much liquid you will flood the atomiser and get some leakage, plus every ten drags or so you need to drip in more liquid which can be annoying at times.

The Tornado Tank does away with the need for the polyester wool, as the nicotine liquid is stored in a clear plastic tank. This plastic tank sits in a specially designed atomiser which has a hollow spike that enters the tank. As you draw on the mouthpiece of the tank, some liquid is vaporised in the atomiser and fresh liquid simply flows from the tank to the atomiser to replace it. With this system you can easily tell how much liquid is in the tank, something that is hard to do with traditional cartridges, and it is much simpler and cleaner to refill and maintain.

Tornado Tank atomiser & Cartridge compared to a Standard Tornado setup.

So far I’m pretty impressed with this new atomiser system, they are easy to fill and to date I haven’t had a single leak or flooded atomiser, although there does seem to be a some variation in performance between the atomisers, but then that is a problem I’ve found with practically any other atomiser system as well, in that some atomisers will perform better than others.

When it comes to the flavour produced by the Tornado Tank I’ve seen some people say that it produces more flavour than their usual atomiser and others say it looses flavour. Personally I just look at like a new type of atomiser, in that the flavour will be different and some flavours will taste better and others worse. For example I much prefer my Black Label Cuban Cigar flavour on the Tornado Tank than any other device, but Black Label Aromatic has a much better flavour on my Boge 3ohm cartomizers.

For me personally, moving from one atomiser system to another is like buying your first e-cigarette, in that you have to experiment to find out what flavours work best with the device, which always comes down to personal taste. The amount of heat, vapour and air generated by the atomiser will affect the overall flavour, and these combinations are always going to be different between different atomiser models.

Both the white and the black seem to work perfectly with with my 60% PG and 40% VG mixes but the platinum one struggles and quite often produces a dry atomiser taste even though there is plenty of liquid in the tank. Of the 3 the black atomiser seems to work the best, as it is quieter than the other 2 and produces loads of vapour. Not that the other 2 are slouches or perform badly, even the platinum one still produces plenty of vapour.

With the platinum atomiser, once the dry taste appears I find removing the tank and giving it a gentle tap with my finger dislodges an air bubble from the base of the tank. I then replace the tank and take a few primer puffs without pressing the button to try and draw some liquid into the atomiser, and then continue to use as normal. After a couple of normal drags the flavour starts to return to normal.

On the platinum Tornado Tank atomiser I initially thought the tank cartridge must be trapping the air around the atomiser spike, but I’ve tried swapping tanks with the white and black atomiser and still got the problem, so I knew that wasn’t the problem. I then thought that maybe the wick inside the spike may be too tightly bound and couldn’t wick fast enough, or may be holding onto the air entering the tank to replace the space vacated by the liquid. So I took a toothpick and scraped it across the surface of the wick in the spike, and this seems to have solved the problem.

I’m not exactly sure why this worked however. It could be that I managed to loosen some of the threads on the wick allowing liquid and air to flow through it easier. I have also seen it mentioned that pushing the wick down slightly helps to fix wicking problems, so I may have pushed the wick down slightly, although that wasn’t what I was trying to do. It could also simply be coincidence and the atomiser may have just needed time to wear in and would have started working on its own had I done nothing.

One thing I would say though though is that pushing on the wick should only be done as a last resort and will invalidate your warranty, and you could end up pushing the wick out of the spike totally making your atomiser unusable. If you buy a Totally Wicked Tank starter kit or atomiser and its not working properly, always contact the Totally Wicked customer support team first. They are there to help and will do their best to sort out any problems you are having.

As I’ve only had them just over two weeks I couldn’t comment on the life span of the atomisers, which is something I have problems doing anyway, due to the fact that I tend to use more than one device. If I’m out and about or working then I tend to use something more cigarette shaped, and use it like a cigarette. If I’m relaxing in the evening or on the computer then I’ll use the tornado or similar sort of device.

Tornado Tank Size Comparison

At the moment all I can say is that I’m impressed with the system, easy to use and refill with little mess. I can certainly see this design becoming the norm in the not to distant future. I’m sure the Tornado Tank is only the first design, and more tank systems for different sized e-cigs will appear on the market. Already I hear that a Low Resistance Tornado Tank atomiser is on the way.

If you are new to vaping or already own a Tornado I would definitely recommend taking a look at the Tornado Tank System. I’m fairly sure it won’t take to long for a Titan 510 tank atomiser to appear, which would be ideal for those people who want to take the leap into electronic cigarettes but find the Tornado a little to big to start out with.

Product results as of Thursday 23rd of February 2012

	Tornado Tank Starter Kit - Black The Tornado Tank is the latest generation of electronic cigarette which has a revolutionary new fluid feeder system. Most electronic cigarett...	£59.99
	Tornado Tank Starter Kit - Platinum The Tornado Tank is the latest generation of electronic cigarette which has a revolutionary new fluid feeder system. Most electronic cigarett...	£59.99
	Tornado Tank Starter Kit - White The Tornado Tank is the latest generation of electronic cigarette which has a revolutionary new fluid feeder system. Most electronic cigarett...	£59.99
	Tornado Tank Starter Kit - Pink The Tornado Tank is the latest generation of electronic cigarette which has a revolutionary new fluid feeder system. Most electronic cigarett...	£59.99
	Tornado Tank Starter Kit - Red The Tornado Tank is the latest generation of electronic cigarette which has a revolutionary new fluid feeder system. Most electronic cigarett...	£59.99
	Tornado Tank Pre-filled Cartridges - 1.2ml Capacity - 10 Cartridges These Tornado Tank cartridges come pre-filled with either Tobacco or Menthol flavoured e-liquid in a choice of 3 strengths: 18mg, 11mg or 8mg. The To...	£14.99
	Tornado Tank - Cone Shaped Atomiser The Tornado Tanks Cone Shaped Special atomizers have been especially designed to hold the Tornado Tank Cartridges. They will not work with an...	£9.99
	Tornado Tank - Cone Shaped Lr Atomiser The Tornado Tanks Cone Shaped Special atomizers have been especially designed to hold the Tornado Tank Cartridges. They will not work with an...	£7.99
	Tornado Tank Empty Black Tip Cartridges - 1.2ml Capacity - 5 Cartridges The Tornado Tank empty cartridges hold 1.2ml of liquid are especially designed to be used with the Tornado Tank cone shaped atomisers. They w...	£4.99
	Tornado Tank Clear Empty Cartridges - 1.2ml Capacity - 5 Cartridges The Clear Tornado Tank empty cartridges hold 1.2ml of liquid are especially designed to be used with the Tornado Tank cone shaped atomisers. ...	£4.99