Review on Vapefly Galaxies MTL RDTA

This is review is from jwiley92 from Reddit.com. sourcemore.com sent him the Galaxies MTL RDTA for review. Hope it can also help you have a better view on the RDTA.

Aesthetics & Build Quality
Hadaly, Drop, Galaxies RDTA, Berserker, Wasp Nano
Colors

This RDTA is available in Stainless, Black, Blue, and Rainbow. I received the rainbow. Normally not the biggest fan of rainbow colored things but I like how it is done here. I really like that each star in the constellation design is a distinct color from the background.

Top Cap

The Galaxies RDTA sports a pretty funky top cap. On the outside you can see the constellation design, airflow holes, and heat fins. There are six airflow holes on one side and three on the other side. This leads to three dual airflow configurations and three single airflow configurations. Due to the nature of the airflow on the deck, single or dual just affects the amount of airflow, not the positioning of it on the coil, which is nice as the positioning is always consistent.

The three holes for each setting are around 0.8mm, 1.4mm, and 2.0mm, leading to total airflow openings (going from the smallest single to the biggest dual) of 0.503mm2, 1.539mm2, 3.142mm2, 1.006mm2, 3.079mm2, and 6.283mm2.

Looking at the inside, you see a concave top that juts out in the middle. I'm not a huge fan of this design, but it seems to perform well and does reduce the amount of free space in the RDA. What it also does is hold enough juice condensate to always let a loose drop fall out whenever you pop the cap off, so be wary of that, haha.

There are grooves in the interior which catch on the deck and lock the airflow, instead of allowing it to spin freely. This allows you to adjust between fully closed and fully open airflow. It also makes it easier to take the top cap off, take the RDTA off your mod, and to disassemble the tank. Overall I've seen this feature becoming more common and I'm a really big fan of it.

Drip Tip

The Galaxies comes with two drip tips, a curved one that is a fairly normal bore 510, and one that looks like a top hat and is smaller bore. The smaller bore tip is also taller. You can fit any 510 drip tip on it.

I preferred the shape and restriction of the wider, curved tip. It was really comfortable and worked best with the larger MTL and RLH builds. I used the smaller bore tip with the smaller builds that I used, but as they weren't performing great it didn't end up getting much use.

Build Deck & Tank

The build deck is made of stainless steel and has two gold plated posts. These posts have slots to trap your wire in and utilize hex grub screws. They can tighten down enough to be able to twist your leads off. The sides also feature cutouts to align your coil with.

The posts house the adjustment for the two side airflow holes. This allows for further tightening or loosening of the airflow, allowing a full range between tight MTL and RLH. I haven't had any issues with the screws moving after being set.

The airflow comes through underneath the coil through three holes in a semi-circle. As I mentioned, the two side holes are controlled by the adjustments on the posts.

There are two fairly large wicking holes, a smaller hole to allow for pressure equalization in the tank, and a check valve for filling. To fill it, you push the tip of your bottle down on the valve and then start filling once it depresses. I haven't had any issues with this, but you may get some with those twist-nipple style bottles or glass droppers.

The tank is housed below and is glass. To access it for cleaning, the base unscrews from the 510 pin. The o-rings were stuck on the glass when I removed mine. I only reseated the top one and had some leaking out of the glass, so if you disassemble, make to remove and reseat both.

The 510 connection running through the center also houses the squonking apparatus. Juice flows out of two holes in it. Honestly, I thought squonking an RDTA would be redundant but it actually has been working really well, and it's nice to both not have to carry juice to refill it and go forever between squonk mod.

The deck can be removed by removing the 510 pin and the screw inside the tank portion. The deck removes negative first.

Machining and Build Quality

Everything about this piece seems to be very well built. There are a few places where tool jitter can be seen, but that's it. No hints of machine oil that I could see or smell.

All the pieces fit together well, the o-ring tolerances are neither too loose nor too snug, and the locking cap works great. The only cons that I can think of here is that the grub screws aren't the most durable and that it continually lets loose a single drop of liquid whenever I remove the cap.
Overall Thoughts on Design and Aesthetics
Obviously this can be subjective, but I love the way the Galaxies RDTA looks. It's really slick and the "branding" in the form of the engraved constellation looks cool. I wish that I had a rainbow "leather" door for my Therion BF to match with it, lol.

It's put together well and there are a lot of good things about the design. Even though this is the third iteration of the Galaxies (RTA, RDA, and now RDTA), it doesn't feel like it's riding the coattails of the previous iterations. Everything seems very well thought out and designed to make a good galaxies mtl rda.

Building & Performance

Build Album
I ran several more builds than are pictured, but as they only varied slightly in number of wraps and placement they were not photographed.

Building
Building the Galaxies RDTA is pretty straightforward. You do have to wrap your coils in the right direction and place them with the leads on the bottom. You cannot fit a build in with the leads on top, I tried. Smaller gauge wire can also be a little hard to trap in the posts. 28ga and above can get kicked out to the side and move freely between the screw and the post wall when the screw is fully in.

I found the best positioning raising the coil slightly from the cutouts. I secured the leads with the coiling rod resting in the cutout and then pulled upwards to tighten my coil up. this generally left it at the perfect height.

I recommend staying between 2.5mm and 3.5mm ID, with fancy coils capped at 3.0mm. Anything larger will touch the top cap and is also frankly unnecessary for this RDTA. Anything smaller and you won't have enough wick for the wick holes.

Wicking was also pretty easy. I haven't used an RDTA in a long time and was able to get it set without leaks and wicking well on my first try. The only real leaking I had was the issue with reseating the o-rings as mentioned earlier and when I didn't use enough cotton on a 2.5mm build. Like pretty much all RDTAs, if it spends a long time on its side then it will start to leak, though even then I haven't had it actually leak, just flood the deck a bit. With 2.5mm coils no trimming and minor fluffing worked best. With 3.0mm and larger coils, trimming it like so worked for me.
Performance
The included coils worked pretty well. Not bad as far as included coils go. They definitely give you a feel for what kinda coils to use in the Galaxies. No 2mm micro coils here, it’s built for larger MTL coils.

I did try to use a bit more traditional of a MTL build on it with a 2.5mm 28ga coil. For this I closed off the airflow adjustment inside the deck and used some of the tighter airflow holes on the top cap. While I was able to get the type of draw that I was looking for, the flavor was pretty muted. I tried a couple of permutations of this and couldn't get anything that was really good.

On the other end of the spectrum, using this as a looser MTL RDA

with larger coils has been great. Flavor is way more present in this configuration. If this is your style, the Galaxies should definitely be on your radar. A small fused clapton or 26ga round wire with the inner airflow about halfway (screws just about flush) and the airflow on the top cap opened up a bit worked really well for me.

Another place where this atomizer does really well is as a tight restricted lung hitter. Opened up it is around as airy as the Hadaly, maybe a bit tighter. I preferred using this 3.0mm 22ga coil in it for this. Just be aware that if you chain vape on it in this configuration that the top cap can get a little toasty.
Summary and Final Thoughts
Pros
Easy to build and wick
Good flavor with looser MTL builds and RLH builds
Versatile airflow for many building options
Locking outer airflow
Minimal leaking issues
Good build quality
Squonks!
Nice filling mechanism
(Subjective) Looks great
Cons
Muted flavor with traditional MTL builds
Drips on me when I remove the top cap
(Minor) Post screws could be stronger
(Minor) Gets hot with larger builds