Here’s a little change of pace from the typical mech mods you see me reviewing often here. This is a 3.7v 14500 Box Mod from Madvapes with the Greenhorn switch. I have actually had this little guy for quite a while.

Back at the end of January 13, I decided to make my 3rd attempt at quitting cigs and vaping full time. As I had already had 2 unsuccessful attempts using Volcano ecigs, I decided to go another direction and after spending some time doing research, I ended up picking a carto tank ego starter kit from Madvapes. In addition to the kit, I also tacked this little guy onto my order. I bought it because I had seen a lot of cool pictures of REO setups, but wasn’t ready to shell out the big bucks for a REO since I didn’t know what I was doing yet, and I wanted to at least get a feel for a box mod.

Well, REO this aint. While it is a mod in the shape of a box, that’s where the similarities end.

This is not technically a mechanical mod, although it does function somewhat like one. It takes a single 14500 battery and has a standard 510 connection that will work for most atomizers. So basically this is just a straight up 14500 3.7 volt mod that’s not quite a mechanical since it has wires.

What I DIDN’T Like About the 14500 Box Mod

In general, this isn’t really a very good quality piece. To me it looks like they just threw it together with a hot glue gun and some spare parts before shipping it out. Here’s what the innards look like:

As you can see, it doesn’t look particularly well made, although it probably doesn’t really need to be anyway. Mine has held up decently well, but with very sparse use.

The outer appearance isn’t particularly great either. My friends seemed to think it looked pretty cool, but I don’t think it looks that great at all. If you’re trying to stick anything besides a cartomizer or a prebuilt dripping atomizer on there, chances are it will look clumsy at best. So really this thing doesn’t offer much in the way of looks.

I also don’t care much for the blinking light that flashes all different colors when you take a hit. I guess it’s a cute feature, but it doesn’t really serve any particular purpose.

With a 14500, you are also limited in terms of your battery. It doesn’t hold a charge for particularly long, and you can’t run super low sub ohm coils, although you can technically run sub ohm coils if you dare.

What I DID like about the 14500 Box Mod

It’s very easy to use. There is basically no guesswork here at all. Put the battery in, flip the switch, screw in your atty and fire away.

It’s fairly small, so it could be decent for a stealth vape.

The switch is really big and in a good position to comfortably fire while in your hand.

It has an on/off switch.

Who is it good for?

This is really more of an entry-level device. Advanced users into mechs and rebuildables aren’t going to have a lot of use for this. This is more for taking a small step up from an Ego. It is also only worth it if you REALLY like the way it looks. If you are unsure of whether you will like the form factor from looking at the picture, then it’s probably not right for you. This is really kind of a niche device that is not likely going to be right for most people.

Where to Buy?

I got mine from MadVapes for $20 here http://www.madvapes.com/37v-box-mod-with-green-horn-switch.html. It looks like they have the blue horn version available for $10 right now.

Do I use it?

I have never been too crazy for this device and I haven’t used it for anything more than a novelty purpose in almost a year of owning it. I am actually most likely going to sell it in the classifieds and try to get $5 for it.

The Bottom Line

Quality. What can I say? It seems to be pretty poor quality for me. It’s basically a cheap plastic battery box with some wired hot glued in and a 510 connection added to the top. I can’t imagine these parts costed more than 1-2 dollars at most. So for me, the quality is not there.

Performance. It actually performs OK. Only about as good as the atty you use. Just for a tester, I tried running my 0.6 ohm YK1 KTS on it and it does fire. Now I would normally not run anything at 0.6 ohms on a 14500 batteries, so this was strictly just a test to see if it worked. I will not ever be doing that again after I am done with this review. Here’s a quick video of a hit:

So you can see it does produce an admirable amount of vapor and it hits OK. Generally you are going to only want to run coils over 1 ohm on these things – and really it is mostly meant for prebuilt atomizers and cartomizers – which don’t come lower than 1.5 ohm. At 1.5 ohm, I personally don’t get much of a substantive hit, so for me, this guy is lacking in performance in that you can’t really run the type of coil you need to to produce a big enough hit.

Although if you are just jumping up from an eGo, running an 1.5ohm atomizer on this thing would probably be suitable for you.

Ease of Use. The big plus with this device is that it is super easy to use. There is really nothing to it at all.

Appearance. I really dislike the appearance of this piece. It looks like a cheap little crappy box, and that is basically what it is.

Price. I paid $20 for mine. I think that is way too much. I bought my Launcher and JM22 for under $20, and there is absolutely no comparison to this thing performance wise, so it’s pretty safe to say that you can do a lot better with your $20. I have seen that for now they are selling the blue one for $10 – that is a pretty decent deal, and 14500 batteries are cheap, so it’s not a terrible thing to tack on to your order if you are already picking something up on Madvapes, but just know that it’s still not even that great of a deal at that price.

Overall. I get the feeling that this device is targeted more towards newbs who have seen cool box mods, and think this piece is somehow similar. It is really not. This is probably a lot more similar to a standard eGo battery than it is to a REO or Billet Box.

It’s cheap looking, it looks like it was hastily constructed, and I can’t imagine it would hold up great with everyday use. That said, it does work.

This is basically a very low-end device. If you think you are going to be stepping into the world of box mods, mechanicals and bottom feeders by picking one of these up, you are going to be very disappointed. If you are decently happy with your ego and think this thing looks cool – then you just might like it. You could do worse for $10, but it’s not worth $20.