Drip tips are an essential part of an atomizer, where we put our lips on while vaping. As a vaper, you might have noticed there’re a lot of drip tips sold for atomizers, and some of us might have ever bought some. What drip tips should we get for different vape setups? What makes a drip tip different from another?
First of all, we can divide drip tips to a few different kinds basing on material and connection type.
Drip Tip Materials
The most common material we can see from drip tips include Delrin, Ultem, Stainless Steel, Resin/Acrylic, Ceramic, Teflon, Glass, and Wooden.
Delrin drip tips have been widely used since the beginning of vape industry, now it still plays an important part in vape accessories. Delrin drip tips usually don’t get hot as quickly as other drip tips and they’re able to protect your lips from heat efficiently.
Ultem drip tips are just like delrin drip tip that do a really good job at protecting your lips from heat.
Stainless steel drip tips is a pretty common type drip tip, it does a good job on matching your atomizers because most atomizers come in stainless steel. The key drawback of a stainless steel drip tip is that it can’t protect your lips from the heat of the atomizer. With an MTL type of atomizer, it works fine though.
Resin/Acrylic drip tips have a wider range of outlooks with mixing colors and patterns. It also does a great job on prevent your lips from heat.
Ceramic drip tips on the other hand feels very cool on your lips, not many people like ceramic drip tips.
Teflon is a material that looks like delrin, but it’s much softer and feels more comfortable on your lips.
Glass drip tip usually needs to be mixed with stainless steel at the bottom as it’s very hard to put orings around glass. Glass is a heat resistant material that you won’t get heat on your lips and it slightly gives you different flavor. However, with glass drip tip you can see the condensed vapor on the glass itself, making it look messy.
Wooded drip tips are also usually mixed with stainless steel at the bottom with good heat resistant capability. The disadvantage wood drip tip has is that it attempts to retain the flavor of your eliquid and tends to get moisture. And the moisture just sticks around. When you change to another flavor, you’ll still have a chance to taste the old flavor even after you clear up the drip tip.
Connection Type
When it comes to connection type, we have 510 and 810/Goon drip tips. Connection type is first thing you need to check with your atomizer before purchasing, because if your atomizer is able to fit 510 only, 810 drip tips won’t fit, vise versa. The diameter of 510 drip tip connection is about 8.5mm, which is a standard universal size that a lot of atomizers use. Most mouth to lung atomizers use 510 drip tips with a very narrow hole inside, delivering much more flavor and giving you tighter draw. A wider top opening is for direct to lung vapes. Recently the Goon/810 drip tips are quite popular, we can always see 810 drip tips pre-installed in RDAs while 510 drip tip adapter is included in the package as well.
The length of drip tips
Short drip tip means less distance for the vapor to travel. But since the drip tip is too short, your lip will end up touching the atomizer top cap. With longer atomizer, your lip will not contact the atomizer that can become hot when you use an RDA. The length does not make a huge difference but it depends on the setup.
The diameter of drip tip top
With wide bore drip tips, you need to open your mouth really wide, and wide bore drip tips are usually used on cloud chasing atomizers, better for direct to lung vapes. With a narrower top of drip tip, you can get a more restrictive draw.
Same types of drip tips have similar impact on flavor. To find out your favorite drip tip, you may try the different types of drip tips.