Every day more and more vapers are choosing RDAs. Vapers are seduced because the best RDA will offer better flavor and bigger cloud production.
An RDA is an atomizer that allows you to build coils with different resistances. You can customize your vape with different shapes, sizes, number of coils, and wire types. Utilizing resistive wire and cotton you can change the characteristics of your RDA vape in the following ways:
- Maximize Cloud Production
- Maximize Flavor Production
- Decrease Ramp-Up Time
- Fine Tune Power Draw
Game Changer
Choose to run one coil or lots of coils! RDAs, also called a “dripper”, allows you to drip directly on the atomizer coils. This means you get the freshest flavor directly from your bottle of E-Juice. But once you try and RDA you may never go back. The flavor is unmatched. They operate with a few drops of E-Liquid and give you that fresh clean flavor each time you drip.
Building RDA coils is not for everyone but it will save you money on pre-maid coils or sub-tank setups“.
These characteristics are what make RDAs desirable and make them the preferred atomizer for those trying to achieve the best flavor and clouds.
RDAs tend to be for the more experienced vapers. Not everyone prefers to build their own coils and even why it’s worth the effort. Once you own an RDA and start building you will understand the benefit and building a coil will be well worth the reward.
Choosing the best RDA or dripper is all about looking for the ultimate RDA flavor and for some, large vapor production. In the never-ending stream of hardware releases, here’s our current list of top RDAs.
Best RDA Vape
1. Hellvape Dead Rabbit Max
- Category: Best for Clouds RDA
- Build Support: Dual Coil, Single Coil (not recommended)
- Diameter: 28mm
Raise the bar and let the clouds fly with the 28mm Dead Rabbit MAX RDA! HELLVAPE has elevated the Dead Rabbit family of dripping atomizers to a completely new level. The Dead Rabbit MAX is very simple to build on and has a huge 28mm build deck with the traditional Rabbit Ear terminal posts.
On the top cap of the RDA, an adjustable X-shaped airflow serves as rabbit eyes. With a smooth draw that excels in terms of flavor and cloud creation, this airflow’s shape allows air to be channeled towards the coils. The Dead Rabbit Max comes with a 510 pin and a BF Squonk Pin for your convenience and is compatible with both conventional and squonk mods.
2. Digiflavor Drop Solo V1.5 RDA (Best Flavor)
- Category: Best Flavor RDA
- Build Support: Single Coil
- Diameter: 22mm
The Drop Solo 1.5 RDA is a small, stunning, and unrivaled flavor monster. It is a 22mm atomizer with an small chamber but spacious build deck, ideal for a wide array of single coil configurations. Built with superior stainless steel and virtually seamless in design, this Atty is portable, user-friendly, easy to build on, and enjoyable to use. It features an adjustable airflow that directs air straight to your coil via either post.
This Drop Solo v1.5 RDA has a ULTEM drip friendly top cap that gives a heat-free vaping experience and performs exceptionally well when combined with a tiny 510-drip tip for vapers who wish to be in charge of their air intake. It is a perfect choice for both newbies and veteran vapers.
3. Damnvape NItrous RDA
- Category: Best RDA for Flavor or clouds
- Build Post: Single Coil, Dual coil
- Diameter: 22mm
Presenting the Nitrous by Damnvape. This versatile little atty gives you the ability to decide whether your in the mood to build for flavor or clouds. Check out the 1.5mL deep juice wells, raised postless build deck, and single or dual coil layout of the Damn Vape NItrous RDA. This rebuildable dripping atomizer is among the smallest on the market and is made of sturdy stainless steel. It has deep juice wells and measures 22mm in diameter.
The Nitrous RDA may install a single or twin coil configuration using a raised build deck with four deck-based connections. Two top caps are available to fit each coil configuration, and each cap has a different airflow to suit the installed coil layout. These beauty rings are not just for aesthetics, fully adjustable to allow tuning of airflow.
4. Wotofo Recurve V2 (Best Dual Coil RDA)
- Category: Best RDA for Clouds
- Build Support: Dual coil, Single Coil Ability
- Diameter: 24.6mm
A high-quality RDA. This is the improved Wotofo Recurve Dual RDA. Now supporting two coils. The Wotofo Recurve v2 RDA has tons of airflow that produce some very large clouds. Nice protruding gold plated 510 pin. The Wotofo Recurve v2 swaps out the old-style airflow for an improved 30 hole adjustable slot design. Featuring single slot airflow for running single-coil and top cap adjustment to open up both sides to run dual coils.
The deck has a 4 hole postless design running down the center which is very easy for securing coils with a philips screwdriver. While the deck can utilize a single coil it is recommended for dual coils as the airflow style is more open. Lots of airflow for lots of clouds. From the makers of the best RDA vape comes its dual coil sister.
5. Wotofo SRPNT RDA (Best at Clouds)
- Category: Best for Clouds and flavor
- Build Support: Single Coil or Dual Coil
- Diameter: 24mm
The Serpent family just got a little larger. Presenting the Wotofo SRPNT 24mm RDA, which has a dual post build deck, a single or twin coil layout, and a top cap with many holes for airflow to enhance taste, throat hit, and flavor. The SRPNT RDA comes with lots of construction area for a single or dual coil build, and is made of sturdy stainless steel.
Featuring honeycomb style airflow, which has a top cover with 4 holes on each side, enables careful manipulation of air, allowing the build deck’s airflow to be precisely adjusted. The adjustment is simple to hold and turn thanks to the top’s snake like scale knurling. A 510 connection at the bottom allows for Squonk device compatibility, doing away with the need to drip liquid onto the deck-mounted coils.
6. Hellvape Dead Rabbit V3
- Category: Best for clouds of vapor
- Build Posts: 2 x coil
- Diameter: 24mm
A solidly build RDA with bunny ear posts.
The Dead Rabbit V3 24mm BF RDA is one of the newest in Hellvape’s Dead Rabbit collection. Featuring a roomy 24mm base with dual post build deck and enough space to accommodate your preferred dual coil set-up. The Dead Rabbit 3 has a traditional Hellvape design with updated specifications that let you to create dense, flavorful clouds.
The Rabbit 3 RDA is made from the best stainless steel with gold plating on the posts. It’s designed with two posts whereby inserting the coil leads and tightening down with the knurled screw caps clamps them securely in place. Featuring adjustable airflow directly onto the coil. Comes 510 compatible with bf squonk pin. Delivers smooth draw and lot of clouds.
7. Profile PS by Wotofo (Best Mesh RDA)
- Category: Best for Flavor RDA
- Build Support: 2 x Wire Mesh, Single Coil, Dual Coil
- Diameter: 28.5mm
It’s time to upgrade! Presenting the Dual Mesh RDA. Meet a game-changer in the world of RDAs. The game has already changed and now Wotofo perfects it with the Profile PS RDA. This newly upgraded version utilizes 2 mesh coils in a new innovative spring-loaded wick system. Your wick lays on a ceramic base plate where the spring applies pressure on the wick to stay firmly pushed against the mesh coil at all times.
The building or replacing coils is a breeze. Simply place a rectangular piece of mesh coil in between the two side clamps and you’re ready to go. Features normal and squonk pins. Fully adjustable airflow in a smooth vape with lots of flavors. If you haven’t tried a mesh coil yet then consider the Profile. If you have tried mesh before and ran into wicking problems, the Profile with spring-loaded plate is the answer you have been looking for.
8. Vape Vandy Rath
- Category: Best RDA for clouds as well as flavor
- Build Posts: Single Coil & Dual Coil
- Diameter: 24mm
Now comes the Rath with not just an awesome name but also an improved airflow system. An adaptable and dynamic atomizer is the RATH RDA from Vandy Vape. The Rath features a diameter of 24mm base and is made of dependable stainless steel.
The deck of the RATH RDA uses easily distinguishable ceramic positive and negative electrodes and supports the construction of single or dual coils. To choose your desired draw, simply rotate the barrel on the top cap’s honeycomb air holes. The airflow is position above to help prevent and eliquid from spilling. Additionally, the deep ejuice reservoir supports bottom feeding with a squonk pin and has a huge e-liquid capacity. A simple squeeze will allow you to start enjoying best RDA clouds
9. Geekvape Z RDA
- Category: Great for Clouds
- Build Support: Single Coil, Dual coil
- Diameter: 25mm
Presenting the GeekVape Z 25mm BF RDA. The two-post, dual-coil, rebuildable drip atomizer with bottom feeding capability and top airflow is here. The Z RDA has a low profile 810 drip tip, a center pin that is gold-plated, and the Zeus logo is carved onto two of the top cap’s sides.
The Z RDA has a special construction deck with two bridge-shaped posts and two terminals per post that stands raised in the middle like a floating island. To make it simple to trim the surplus coil lead, the posts have a circular cutout below the terminals and side-mounted terminal screws. Because of the floating deck’s design, the cotton wick ends can be tucked away in a tidy path around the deck.
For better airflow through the RDA, the Z RDA employs a top airflow control mechanism that is state-of-the-art and eliminates leaking.
The Airflow Control Ring, which is fashioned like a crown, lets the vaper fine-tune the amount of air. Airflow works by passing through the top of the cap and circles back around the coil location’s face. In addition, the 2 airflow holes are positioned high up on the barrel to give you the ability to squonk without worrying about leaks.
What Exactly is an RDA?
Short Answer: An atomizer with two distinct features.
Part 1: Rebuild
RDA is short for “rebuildable dripping atomizer”. The acronym refers exactly to how RDAs function. They are atomizers where you are able to rebuild the coil. Being able to rebuild and customize your own coil allows a vaper to experiment with different types of coils.
Part 2: Drip
The second part happens after you finish building an atomizer coil. During the actual vaping you will drip e-juice directly onto the coils and cotton wicks. Drip tips are usually larger in the center which makes it easier to drip through the center without having to remove the top cap each time you need to drip e-liquid.
E-Liquid Well
The coils are placed on a build deck at the bottom of the atomizer in a conventional RDA. RDAs contain an e-liquid reservoir underneath the build deck to retain e-juice, and the wick tails are inserted into the well. This gives you some time in between dripping to vape. RTAs and RDTAs are also rebuildables but feature tank sections with holes for wicking e-liquid. On these rebuildables the e-juice well is not as deep so the capacity to hold e-liquid is not as large as a rebuildable tank. The vaper must add e-juice more frequently to keep the wicks saturated and so the cotton does not dry out.
Types of RDAs
There are many different types of RDAs. They are available in a wide array of sizes, shapes, and designs. They can be as little as 22mm in diameter and grow as large as 38mm or greater. The most common size for MTL-style vapers is 22mm, as these chambers tend to limit airflow and produce better flavor on RDAs. Larger diameter coils allow more airflow which is crucial for blowing nice large clouds on the RDA.
The base deck of an RDA may accommodate one or up to eight coils, however, most are single or dual coil. Many RDAs may be used to produce horizontal or vertical coils. Mouth to lung and direct to lung vaping techniques may benefit from different types of airflow.
RDA Configurations
Rebuildable Build decks are also available in a wide range of layouts. Most RDAs used to have three posts, two on each side of the deck and one in the center. The first notable progression of the triple-post was two-post Velocity style RDAs, and many of the RDAs that came out in prior years used some variant of this deck. Since then, we’ve seen a slew of advancements in the build deck sector, with drop-down and post-less RDA decks becoming increasingly common, and new and unique designs popping up on a daily basis.
DTL & MTL RDAs
An RDA, unlike RTAs or sub-ohm tanks, generally lacks a chimney component. Instead, vapor rises directly up to the mouthpiece. The coils can be supplied air from many different angles such as the bottom, top, sides, or all of the above. The airflow is usually adjustable depending on how you prefer to vape. Most RDAs come in a choice of either MTL, DTL, or the option to choose between both vaping profiles.
Squonk RDAs
Squonking has become a popular feature added to many mods. Over time many RDA designs have adapted to carry an added optional hollow positive pin to be included in the RDA’s package. This allows them to be compatible with squonk mods. Squonk mods are also referred to as bottom-feeding mods. A squonk mod contains an e-liquid bottle that a vaper squeezes to direct e-juice to the bottom-fed atomizer. Despite the fact that they have always been used to alleviate the incessant leaking of e-juice, their popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. Various manufacturers have introduced a large number of squonking vape mods to the market.
RDA for Flavor
The best RDA for flavor is usually an RDA build with a single coil. This is because single coil RDAs perform better at low wattage. Faster ramp up with lower power consumption. Most flavors tend to be best, or more noticeable on cooler vapes. Hotter vapes tend to need more airflow and that’s another killer of flavor. When you are flavor chasing you can look for a good balance of PG. PG is what carries flavor.
Flavor Chasing Tips
What to look for:
- Single Coil RDAs – Not only do you not have to match coil resistances but they provide better flavor on the majority of e-liquid flavors. Small exception, some e-juices do provide better flavor on hotter vapes.
- Small Chambers – This means RDAs with diameters of around 22mm or less. You may even want to look into rebuildable pod vapes. Many pod mods these days have RBA decks available they just don’t come with the pod mod package and must be purchased separately. The RBA decks are incredibly tiny, with tiny chambers that sit closer to the mouth.
- MTL RDAs – Less airflow provides more flavor concentration in smaller amounts of vapor
- Less Airflow – I realize this doesn’t make sense at first until you think about it. The air mixes with vapor and reduces the flavor concentration inside that puff of vapor. The more air that gets mixed in the more it reduces the flavor. This goes hand in hand with MTL. Since MTL is a mouth draw, our air intake is limited.
- Mesh coil – These coils can provide great flavor but are best if you can find them in 0.6-ohm ratings and above. Higher ohm coils will require less power. If you go any lower your RDA will require more power in order to even vape properly. More power requires additional airflow to siphon off heat and vapor. Mesh coils provide a larger surface area to vaporize more e-liquid.
- PG Content – It is not recommended to go 100% VG in your e-liquid flavor of choice. PG is the flavor carrier. We recommend that you at least go with 30% PG. The optimal mix is a 50/50 PG/VG blend. That is a good starting point and from there you can experiment with lessening the PG content if you enjoy seeing larger clouds of vapor.
- Coil Positioning – The best spot for your atomizer coil is right on top of the airflow hole inside the RDA. Try to avoid the twists and turns of the vapor. Otherwise, the journey the vapor will take will lose flavor. In addition, if you can find an RDA where the chamber is short that will be best for flavor. The distance from your mouth to the coil is important, but you also don’t want to seat the coil too far away from the air hole underneath.
- Skinny Drip Tips – 810 and other wide bore drip tips are a no-no. The effect of these may not be large but they do lessen flavor from the RDA. Try using smaller/skinnier drip tips.
- Cleaning – This does not pertain to flavor chasing specifically. Making sure you have a clean coil and cotton is super important. A dirty piece of cotton and coil with gunk built up on it can kill the flavor. The flavor would be mixed with a taste of old and somewhat burnt e-liquid.
- Type of Wire – Stainless steel wire tends to have a cleaner, more crisp, and fresh taste compared to Kanthal wire. Experiment with different types of wire and stainless steel is a great place to start to experience the best flavor from your RDA.
If you are experiencing loss of flavor and non of the above has been making a difference in flavor, then this could be due to something we vapers call “Vaper’s Tongue”. Rest assured that this is a curable disruption in the natural course of pleasurable vaping. If you have tried everything and the flavor is still dull then you should investigate the loss of flavor.
RDA for Clouds
For the biggest clouds, we tend to not care as much about flavor. The key is to have a lot of coil surface area. If you can get more coils into your deck’s build then this equals more coil material that can vaporize E-Liquid. But cloud chasing also comes with drawbacks.
More coils, bigger coils, and lower Ohms take longer to heat up and require more power to perform well. This will drain your battery much faster than a single-coil setup for flavor.
Additional Tips for Bigger Clouds
For more cloud production you want to use 90 to 100% VG. VG does not carry flavor as well as PG. But VG is what produces the large cloud effects.
What to look for:
- Lots of Surface Area – Lots of coils or coil surface area is crucial for chasing large clouds of vapor. The exposure of a higher surface allows more e-liquid to vaporize in the short 1-second hit that is taken.
- Cloud Coils – These coils are anything that will produce big clouds. The best coils for the job are Clapton, Flatwire, and Mesh coils. These coils expose large amounts of wire to e-juice. The great the amount of contact, the greater the availability of e-juice that can be vaporized.
- Big Airflow – You want to pick out an RDA that has either large airflow holes are a large number of airflow holes. You will need to siphon off the large clouds as quickly as possible in order to pack vapor in the lung.
- Low Ohms – Often referred to as sub-ohm vaping. The coils need for vaping need to be 0.3 and below, but not too low.
- High Wattage Mods – To power sub-ohm coils you will need more power. A mod with a removable battery or a box mod will perform best. Atomizer coils with less resistance allow more power to flow through the RDA coil. This also means that in order to heat up the coil you will need a high wattage mod. We recommend a mod with at least 100 watts, but this won’t get you into any cloud chasing competitions. A more experienced cloud chaser will want something more powerful or even a Mech Mod which supplies unregulated power.
- DTL RDAs – Direct to lung RDAs allow more airflow throughout the chamber. These atomizers are specifically designed with this type of draw in mind. If you pick a DTL RDA there will be no guessing as to whether you will have a big enough airflow to support large clouds of vapor.
Finding a Balance Between Flavor and Clouds
If you want to achieve a good balance of flavor and clouds you should experiment with different ratios of PG and VG. 90% VG is a little high if you want the flavor as well as clouds. An E-Liquid with 70%-80% VG is a good starting point to get both great flavor and clouds.
In addition to e-liquid selection, you will also want to experiment and test many coil builds. It is important to keep a notepad of your builds. It can be very depressing when you find that perfect RDA build and you forget how you built the atomizer coil.
The Best Dripper
Even though we believe our picks are the best RDAs on the market, it is totally arbitrary and based on our own experiences. Many times you will get the best flavor and clouds simply with a great build and the proper E-Juice. While a great RDA may assist you but not be the main factor in accomplishing your goal.
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