In spite of its name, the Asgard Mini is a 25mm diameter dripper.
It has won our prize for best dripper, thanks to the quality of its finish, its ease of assembly and its excellent flavour rendering.
Intended for high-powered direct inhalation, it makes dense vapour and delivers really well-defined, balanced flavours.
It’s perfect.
Drippers are rebuildable atomizers without a tank. They are simply a base you can fit a coil into, with a dome on the top to seal it all. The only reserve of liquid in the wick itself, so you have to add liquid regularly by hand, which is called dripping. Since there’s no tank covering it, the assembly is easy to access. All you have to do is remove the dome to soak the wick. You can even do it directly via the drip tip, and it’s even easier if this is a standard 810, which is wider than a 510. Depending on the size of the wick and the power you use, you usually need to do this every 3 to 10 puffs.
Most drippers come with a bottom feeder pin. This is a replacement positive pad with a hole drilled through its centre so the liquid can flow through it. You can also use it with a bottom feeder box, which holds a silicone bottle positioned just under the 510 connector. To send the liquid up to the wick, just squeeze the bottle. The liquid flows through the channel in the 510 connector to the base of the mounting plate inside the dripper.
This method means there’s no need to take out the bottle to drip because it’s inside the box and is always available. It can usually hold 8ml of liquid, sometimes more. That’s a lot more than most clearomizers can hold, but it’s still a compact size. That gives you the advantages of drippers, without – or almost without – the practical disadvantages.
Drippers are actually less practical than atomizers, since you have to add liquid regularly by hand. However, they remain very popular despite the huge progress made with atomizers. Credit where it’s due: they’re so easy to use because there’s no risk of leaks and you can forget about wicking.
Their simplicity allows drippers in particular to push the boundaries in terms of performance. Whether you use them to make vapour or to deliver flavour, nothing is as good as the best drippers yet, although the best atomizers have come very close. From a design point of view, the tank is the main constraint, so getting rid of it means you can improve flavour even more.
Like an atomizer, you choose a dripper depending on the vape you want from it. What your dripper looks like is the least important factor. If you don’t enjoy vaping with it, it’ll sit in a drawer – however beautiful you may think it is.
Drippers cover the full range of vaping, from the most restricted MTL to the airiest direct inhalation. Some can hold up to 8 coils, so the possibilities are endless. There are also practical aspects to consider, like the easy assembly and access to the dripper, which can make a dripper easier to use every day. Most importantly, you have to enjoy the way it vapes, then they way it works, and lastly you need to like the design.
There are lots of different drippers, and new models come onto the market all the time. Like atomizers, their average quality has improved a great deal, and there are very few bad drippers around. However, this doesn’t mean they are all equal – far from it. Most are good, some are very good, and a very few are excellent.
Our tests assess production quality, practical factors and flavour rendering. There’s not much between most drippers when you compare them. But some models perform perfectly, particularly by delivering exceptional flavour with precision and balance, and they are the ones on our podium.
Basic models start at about 20 Euro, but it’s not uncommon to come across some costing more than 150 Euro. A high price tag does not necessarily mean better quality, it means it is part of a smaller production run or is handmade. Regardless, most drippers perform very well these days.
Following extensive testing and analysis, our experts have named the Asgard Mini by Vaperz Cloud as the best dripper of 2021.
Some drippers will be better at making a lot of vapour, while others are clearly flavour-oriented and aim to deliver the flavour of your e-liquid best. It’s something to consider when you buy.
If you want to vape the way you smoke tobacco cigarettes, i.e. pulling the vapour into your mouth first, before then inhaling it to your lungs, you’ll need an indirect inhalation dripper. If you want to inhale straight into your lungs, like using a hookah, you should choose a direct inhalation dripper.
Yes, you have to clean a dripper. Since you put it into your mouth, you should clean it regularly. Plus, unlike clearomizers, there’s no need to take the coil out of a dripper before you can rinse it with water. To thoroughly clean your dripper, unscrew it from your box, remove the wick from inside it, then run the whole thing under lukewarm water for a few minutes. This process should remove any dirt inside it.
Since a dripper is a very simple device, usually made completely of metal, it should last a very long time, maybe even forever. In fact, apart from the screws for fitting the coils that may eventually wear out, you can’t really damage any part of a dripper. You can expect to get many years of use before your dripper begins to show any sign of wearing out.
The letters RDA stand for rebuildable dripping atomizer, which is just another name for a dripper. So there’s no difference between an RDA and a dripper.
Yes, all types of e-liquids work in a dripper. Unlike atomizers or clearomizers, drippers actually give vapers a lot more freedom in the way they build their coils. That means you can make coils to heat all types of liquid.
As far as we know, there’s no one fibre that’s best for drippers. While some vapers prefer to use a particular brand of wick, others can’t tell the difference between products from different manufacturers. We suggest you try a few different wicks and make up your own mind.
Yes. Drippers are a type of rebuildable, so the vaper has to make the coils they use. There are people, known as builders, who sell pre-made coils of this type. Although these coils usually cost a lot more than ones you make yourself, they may be a solution if you don’t want to make your own.
Some drippers may need several coils to work, and they usually use 2. These models are most often used by cloud chasing enthusiasts, i.e. vapers who enjoy creating large vapour clouds. If this isn’t you, a single coil dripper will suit you fine.
Yes, all drippers these days come with a standard 510 connector. Any model currently on sale in a shop or on a specialized site should fit your box.
Yes, most drippers work pretty well. Even so, a few really stand out, especially among the flavour drippers. Have a look at our favourites in our dripper tests if you want to know which ones are the best!
The power setting for your dripper will depend on what coil you’ve put into it. Try a few different settings, starting with a low power around 10 Watts, then increase it until you get a result you like.
You have to change your dripper coil regularly. Drippers are easy to open, so check the condition of your coil regularly. Any change in the usual flavour of your e-liquid or a blackened coil is usually a sign that it’s time to change it.
The letters BF stand for bottom feeder. To put it simply, a BF dripper has a hollow pin that lets e-liquid flow from the tank in the BF box to the wick inside the dripper. This process means there’s always liquid in your dripper, so you don’t have to open it and add more by hand all the time. But be careful – if you’re using a BF dripper you have to use a BF box. Check out our favourites among the best BF boxes to find out more about these products.
