Kayfun 4 Review.

[chinoy]

Sorry about being out of the loop health issues. But its all back to good.


I will try and keep this short.
In keeping with BV style we include the all important how it works out of the box.

Introduction:
The Kayfun 4 is probably the most anticipated tank in the vaping world from the day it was announced.
I spent a few weeks hanging out with the original Kayfun owners on Face Book.
During my stay there what I did learn was that even the Orignal units did not work well out of the box.
Which was a bit of an eye opener for me. One would think that paying 180$ for a tank would mean everything would work fine.

Anyway the world and many Indian vapers I am sure could not wait to get their hands on a cheap china clone.
All the players where ready and came out with clones days after the original was sold.

You had your regular culprits i.e. Roboto, Ehprof, Tobeco, HCigar and many more.
I spent some time going over all the high resolution images and noticed where some makers had done a better job than others.
Most of the clones all had similar problems. So it really did not matter which one you got as you would need to fix them anyways.

I got the one with the glass tank. Because Im the kind of person who cant deal with plastic. Tanks which crank. And I cant deal with full metal covers because I must know how much juice is left in my tank.

Out of the box Experience:
The out of the box experience was bad.
Things just did not work. The adjustable air flow control did nothing.
There was dry hits no matter how I built it. Or how open I kept the juice flow control.
There where sharp edges which tore pretty much all the o-rings on first tear down. Lucky for us most guys give you spares these days.

So Overall Id have to give the tank the thumbs down.

Blue Printed & post mods Exp.
It works as good as the Kayfun 3.1 Es. And all the problems we had out of the box where resolved. It took 1 day to sort out all the problems. But now that we know what must be done I think we can do all the mods in under an hour.

Pros / Thumbs up / What I like

1. Because it looks new. I like the look. But I do not think it looks as good as the Kayfun 3.1 ES with a Bell Camp mod or a Quart Tank.
2. I like the fact that you can pick up the tank and put it in your pocket without the dear of it opening up. Which does happen on the older Kayfuns with a quartz tank.
3. The fact that you can top fill this tank without fear off a leak is a thumbs up. Thought I now top fill my 3.1 without any leaks for months. By using the right process. Rather I should say this tank is pretty much leak proof. Haven't been able to get it to leak even once.
4. The fact that you can control both air flow and juice flow is a plus. But malso a minus.
5. The fact that you can access your build deck without having to drain the tank is huge plus point. In fact this is the best feature off the tank.
6. The fact that you can use most of the Kayfun 3.1 Es options on this tank is a plus.
7. The fact that you can use a glass / quartz window without the tank opening up on you.
8. The fact that the build deck is better designed and you can build two coils with space to spare.
9. The fact that it looks nice.

Cons / Thumbs Down / What I dont Like.
1. Out of the box it works like crap.
2. Our of the box air flow control did not work.
3. Out of the box most of the o-rings where cut or got cut when opening up the tank.
4. Out of the box juice flow did not work. No matter what you set it at it behaved like it was closed.
5. Our of the box. Juice flow control was very stiff.
6. With both juice flow and air flow being adjustable. The chances of your average first time user being able to dial in a good smoke are slim to none. Lucky for most people who dont get into moding or machining their tanks. The Air Flow does not work. Even with it fully closed it behaves the same as being fully open. The juice flow out of the box is limited. This actually makes it simple for your average first time user to get it to work. Once you have the juice flow and air flow actually working the chances of getting a good vape for the first timer vanishes really really fast.
7. Its over complicated to the extreme.

Conclusion:
Is it better than the 3.1 Kayfun ?. Or the earlier Kayfuns?.
Yes it is but not by a whole lot. Its only marginally better and these benefits will only be seen after extensive mods and tons of trial and error. I see this going the same way as the Ithika tank. Too complex for the average user who will try it and give up. Sure there will be a small minority say under 10% who will tear it to bits and fix all the bugs.

I would not recommend this for a first time kayfun user. For a beter our of the box exp. The orchid is still miles ahead. As is the Kayfun 3.1 Es and Kayfun Lite.
If your the kind who loves to tinker then sure go for it. Its a lot of fun sorting out the bugs and trying to get it to work.
If the kind who wants good air flow, good flavor and something that just works. Then stick to the earlier Kayfuns or the Orchid which is still number 1 in my book.

Most of the Kayfun mods made for the Lite and 3.1 also work on this tank. Will start a new thread listing all the Kayfun and Orchid mods that we have for sale we have pretty much all of them. From Bell Tops to quartz kits to Nano Kits to drip tips and top fill caps.

We will test each of the mods we sell with the Kayfun 3.1, 4, orchid and Kayfun lite.

To give you some idea as to how complex this tank is. Some pictures have been included.
Ehpro made the best Kayfun Lite. So I was shocked when I saw the quality of their Kayfun 4. It was utter crap.
The Roboto clone was also a major disappointment. Niki from Vaping cheap gave it a pretty bad review.

Tobeco is supposed to be making the best clone as per the grape wine. I got mine unbranded i.e. I dont know who made it but we took the best mods from all the clones and machined them into this.
Best build to date. 32 Gauge wrapped on a 3mm drill bit with cotton 1.8 Ohms.
Second Best Build 28 gauge at .8 Ohms. with cotton. Wrapped on a 3mm drill bit.
Dual coils just didn't work out to my liking. I suspect you need to wind with 34 gauge to get dual coil to work. Or you need to go under .6 Ohms. Which I wont.

[kalc]

Thanks for the detailed review Ron.
I found the spring to be problematic - initially was working but soon started showing an open circuit. Tried a few different things - wasnt working properly .
Then switched it out with the spare one - again started working.
You didnt have any issue with the spring? I was wondering,

[chinoy]

Common problems and fixes;

1. Jammed or over tight juice flow control. As seen on the Roboto and FT clones.
A1. Requires shiming sanding and setup off parts 1-9

2. Jamed or no change on air flow control. i.e. even with fully closed you still get air. i.e. open or close no change.
A2. Requires machine work on part #14

3. Dry Hits / High VG forget about it:
A3: This one is a huge huge challenge Id like to see how many people can get pure VG juices to work on this tank. With good clouds and no dry hits with chain vaping.
The easy fix is to use the plastic tank. There is a hint to the solution in this fact. If you use the glass or full metal body fixing the dry hit problem is a bigger issue than you think.
If you got a clone without this problem consider your self very very lucky. Or maybe your not just chucking a decent cloud. Try 6 volts or 15 watts and a .5-1.2 ohm coil with silica and cotton. If your into serious sub-ohming then forget about getting high VG to work.

This was the hardest one to crack. No drilling is going to fix this. Yes we did have to drill out and chamfer all the holes. To get it to finally work.
Buy we also had to use a mini lathe to mod the following parts. #26, & #28

I finally have it working at somewhere near as good as my 3.1 ES. But I feel it still does not flow as good as my 3.1

Here is a little test for you.
Forget high VG. Fill your tank with simple water.
Now split the tank into two i.e. to see your build deck. This should give you two pieces. Take the piece with the full tank, chimney, drip tip and flip it upside down ?.
If your tank has been built right by the clone maker juice should flow out. If your tank has a bug zero juice will flow out.
99% of the clones I have seen there will be zero juice flow.

Ive dumped all our kayfun 4 stocks and just kept the best unit for myself. No plan to sell this as of right now. Cant afford to spend 2 days modding each tank. Just too much work.
Im sure if you use china juice it will work fine. But high thick VG I dont see it working. At least with the 3.1 and Lite we could easily mod the tanks and get the juice flow up.