In for review today I have the Dovpo Abyss by Suicide Mods.
We’re a little late to the party on reviewing this one, but as there have been some quality control issues with the earlier batches (we are now on batch 3 I believe) I’m quite happy to be late to the game.
As you can see, it’s a collaboration with Dovpo the manufacturer.
What Can We Expect From The Abyss by Suicide Mods?
Most vapers have at least heard of the Billet Box, it sounds like a really interesting device that can take more or less any coil you can throw at it (with the right bridge) as well as a host of rebuildable options.
Unfortunately it’s also quite a pricey proposition!
So Suicide Mods decided to take some of the ideas behind the Billet Box, and make their own device, that is (arguably) even more customisable with some options that simply aren’t possible on a Billet Box, also, quite a lot cheaper!
I won’t cover this in the review, but if you have bridges for a Billet Box, then the vast majority will also fit in the Abyss! (though not the other way around)
With the Abyss, Suicide Mods has created something that looks (at first glance) like a side by side mod and tank combination. However the tank is not a normal 510, rather it is a housing that you put bridges into.
Building Bridges!
A “Bridge” is the catch all name for the pieces that fit inside the tank, to make it compatible with a wide range of coils. The Abyss ships with a bridge to allow you to use Nautilus coils, but there are several other options available.
The name Abyss by the way, means an immeasurably deep gulf or great space. So does the Abyss propel us into new and undiscovered areas of customisation, or is it simply Abyssmal.
Lets crack on with the review and find out, strap yourselves in, as this is going to be a long one!
The Abyss was sent over from Dovpo for the purpose of this review (thank you) as usual I shall report back honestly with what I find, and I am not influenced by freebies!
Inside the Box
- Abyss Aio Device
- 21700 Conversion Plate
- Nautilus Bridge
- 21700 Battery Cover
- 21700 Battery Wraps
- USB C Cable
- Battery Warning Card
- User Manual
Specs
- Dimensions – 83x53x25mm
- Power Output – 5-60W
- Battery – Single 18650 or 21700
- Charging – USB C
- Capacity – Dependant on bridge (up to around 8ml), TPD versions come with removable plug
Design and Build Quality
The Abyss originally launched in three colours, Onyx, Classical, and Storm.
However it is now available in a further 4, Mars, Amethyst, Nato and Tidal.
Not to mention the fact that the customisability of it allows you to change the look. Suicide Mods themselves offer a variety of different ways to mix things up, but they positively encourage third parties to create all sorts of interesting accessories for it.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Body
First impressions are very good with this thing, it feels incredibly well built and designed. It’s made out of CNC’ed Aluminium, and it feel reassuringly solid in the hand.
Because it will take me far too many words (and this is already going to be a long review!) to go through every moving part on this, I’ve prepared a couple of GIFs below that I’ll summarise.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Taking it Apart
- Unscrew the drip tip. The drip tip screws in to the the battery plate, this holds everything together, but also completes the circuit for the device to fire
- Rotate the battery cap 90 degrees to unlock it, at this point you can just lift it off
- Lift out the tank section, you’ll notice here that there’s no unscrewing, the tank is basically just held in place between the body and the battery cap by pressure
- Should you want to switch to 21700 (or switch out to an optional battery tube) to remove the battery tube you just slide it out. It’s secured at the top with an o-ring
Putting it all together, I’ll show you how you would do so if you were wanting to use a 21700 instead of using the 18650 tube that it comes with and how to use the Nautilus adapter.
- First things first, screw your nautilus coil into your bridge. You’ll see you have a bit that screws on the bottom and one that screws on the top. If you ever can’t remember which way up a bridge goes, just looks for the little lip as that always goes up
- Construct the tank. You’ll have noticed when taking it to pieces that it’s only held together with o-rings. These can be really stiff at first, so just use a thumbnail to ease it open and once you get one end off, you can push out the other. To put it together, place one end on first, then put your bridge in, then secure the other end
- Place the tank onto the connector, nothing holds it on, so I’d recommend keeping a finger on it
- Put your battery in, positive down, there is a battery indicator on the battery cap
- Place the battery cap (the one with the “hump” for the 21700s longer length) on top at 90 degrees, push it down and rotate it so it covers the top of the tank. I’d seriously recommend doing this on a flat solid surface so you can push it down and twist it, you may also need to apply some downwards pressure to the tank
- Finally you can screw down your drip tip, and attach the battery cover over your 21700
One thing I did notice is that the 21700 cover doesn’t quite cover the whole of the battery, on one of the long edges you’ll see there’s a little gap. It’s not a major issue, but it definitely messes with my OCD a little!
Right, still with me? There’s a lot of moving parts in this device, and it gets even more complex when you start throwing in the optional accessories!
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Quality Control
Now that I’ve introduced you to the Abyss, I should take this opportunity to say that there were some issues with my first unit.
- The 21700 battery cap wasn’t threaded correctly for the drip tip. This meant that you couldn’t screw the drip tip in all the way, making it unusable
- The Nautilus bridge that came included in the box also had some issues with threading. In this case it was that the bottom section wouldn’t screw on fully to the coil. Although it was almost there, the slight increase in length meant that it no longer fitted correctly into the tank, attempting to close the battery cover wound up with everything getting stuck together
- Finally there was something up with the actual chip or the connections. When testing out a known good coil, I kept on getting a 9.99Ω resistance reading
Unfortunately with all of these issues, it meant that my original Abyss was DOA. Happily Dovpo swiftly sent out a replacement.
It’s disappointing when things make it through quality control and aren’t right, and I try to be fair that mistakes happen with everything.
But three separate issues on one unit seems excessive. Though this wasn’t quite the end of my problems…
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Drip Tip
The trip tip is a screw in drip tip, as to complete the circuit and hold the thing together, you need to screw it into the device.
However if you’re not keen on the drip tip that comes supplied, I found it very low profile, you can just pull the central section out.
Turns out that this bit is actually just a small standard 510 drip tip, so you can use your own if that’s what you prefer.
The Abyss Tank
As mentioned, the tank is held in by pressure between the battery plate and the device itself.
In fact, the tank is held together using only o-rings.
There’s really not much to speak about here, as all the interesting stuff happens depending on the bridge you put in.
One thing I was always nervous of though, was the prospect of accidentally pinching the silicone stopper on the inside of the fill port when I put my bridge in!
How To Fill the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss Tank
On one side of the tank you have a fill port, like the rest of the tank the cover is made of metal and has a silicone plug on the back.
One of the changes they made to the later batches was increasing the the size of of silicone attachment at the rear, to stop you accidentally pulling it off.
Filling up can be a bit of a pain though, you’ve got quite a deep fill port.
This means that you have to fill up hella slowly.
If you get overenthusiastic, chances are you’re going to end up with e-liquid forming an airlock and spilling out all over your hand!
How To Change the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss Coil
I’m not going to get into this two much, partly because it varies dependant on the bridge you have installed.
However there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Firstly, you should make your peace with the fact that you’re probably going to get e-liquid all over yourself as some point.
What you want to do is then remove the coil, and if at all possible, keep the bridge in place. On some of the bridges you’ll need to remove the bottom section of the tank, on others (like my favourite for coil changing the Uwell Caliburn G) you can just pull the coil out the base.
However there’s a fair change that the grip your coil has on the top section of the bridge is going to be stronger, so it’s likely the bridge will come out as well. Along with any e-liquid you had left in the tank!
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss Airflow Control
The airflow control on the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss is actually on the device itself, rather than the tank section.
You have a small lever at the front, which you open up by pushing it to the left, or close it down to the right (reversed on earlier batches).
With the honeycomb airflow it gives a very smooth vape, with no noticeable turbulence. However a couple of things to keep in mind is that if you want a tight mouth to lung vape, it is only in the last 3 or 4 holes that this is possible. So you have to close it down quite a lot.
Also it is very stiff!
Now honestly I don’t mind this at all, as with it sticking out, if it were loose you’d be very likely to knock it out of place. But some people may find it too stiff to comfortably adjust.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss Screen and Controls
The screen on the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss is on the bottom, it’s a very clear and simple screen to read, with an up and down button on one side.
One minor nit pick is that there’s no way to flip it so that it reads the other way up. Something I always find essential on these types of devices.
You have a USB port (C thankfully!) on the front, and your fire button is on the side of the device.
Though of course with the accessories available, you can change what this looks like quite a lot.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Accessories
Yes we don’t normally have a section just for accessories, but there are so many that are available for the Abyss, that it feels only right to describe them separately.
All of the accessories I was sent were colour matched to the device I received, but obviously there’s nothing stopping you putting a silver button on a black device!
In my picture is the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss with the square button kit, the battery tube, the ultem tank and (though you can’t see it through the ultem!) the SMOK Nord bridge.
Not necessarily a pretty combo, but starts to show you how many pieces you can change!
Side by Side Kit
This is one of my favourite accessories for the Abyss, because I’m a sucker for side by side mods.
What you get in the kit is two new battery covers (18650 and 21700), these are much smaller than the originals as they just cover the top of the battery.
The other piece of this package is a little screw in 510 adapter.
You can either screw this directly into the mod itself, or you can screw it on to your tanks 510 and then screw that in.
This has been really well thought out in that you have a large slot on either end of this that you can put a flat head screwdriver into. So if you ever screw it into the mod too tightly and struggled to get it out, you can just use a large bladed flat head to unscrew it.
One thing I wasn’t keen on, is that the battery cap doesn’t cover all the exposed metal at the top. You’ll see in mine that with the black version, I now have two little pieces of silver poking out from underneath.
Obviously if you have a silver Abyss this will look fine, but it’s a bit irritating on the black one.
I kind of wish they had made the battery cover a little larger so it would cover these.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Bridge Pack
You can either buy these separately, or as a complete pack.
These give you the option of using a whole range of different coils on your Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss.
- VooPoo PnP/Vaporesso GTX
- Vaporesso EUC
- Caliburn G
- Smok Nord
They all work fairly similarly with a couple of notable differences.
The PNP/GTX bridge actually comes with a new bottom for your tank. This is because the coil is much wider and the o-ring configuration is changed.
The EUC bridge is the most interesting, as you basically put your coil inside the two pieces of it, and screw it together.
Similar to how the Nautilus bridge works. All the other bridges are single pieces so your coil is always accessible from the bottom of the tank.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Glass Pack
The glass that came installed in your tank will match your Abyss.
Clear glass for the Classic Silver or Storm Gunmetal, and smoked glass for all the others.
The glass pack gives you a full set that includes a clear glass, a smoked glass and also an ultem tank section. I’m usually quite a fan of Ultem, but I’m not sure how good it looks here.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – 18650 Battery Tube
The Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss will have come with either a metal battery tube, either silver for the Classic Silver of the Storm Gunmetal, or black on all of the others.
If you have an 18650 wrap that you particularly want to show off, feel like making it a couple of grams lighter, or just fancy a change.
You have the option of two clear plastic battery tubes. Either Smoked (which I received) or Clear.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Button Kits
The button kits come in one of two different designs, either Square, with ridges on the button, or round.
They then also come in a variety of three finishes: Matte Black, Brushed Stainless, or Polished Stainless.
Unfortunately I found that this was one of the most frustrating add-ons for the Abyss.
You need a torx screwdriver to remove the screws from the body, and although they should be T4, you may well find that T5 fits better.
On my first attempt, I managed to remove two of the screws with little problem.
However the third screw was tightened down incredibly hard. Because the screw is not the strongest in the world, attempting to unscrew it just wound up with me destroying the grooves in the head.
My advice when you get an Abyss, is get a good quality torx screwdriver and remove these first. Then screw them back in, but don’t over tighten them.
I have had various pieces of advice on how to remove the damaged screw, from a rubber band, to gluing in a torx screwdriver, and using a broken screw remover, but as of yet nothing has succeeded.
Sad Will!
So how was I able to take a photo showing the square button kit on a device?
Well if you remember the non-functional Abyss I was originally sent, I was easily able to remove the screws on that one. So a silver lining I guess?
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Drip Tip Kit
The drip tip kit comes with a replacement drip tip, and unlike the one that comes in the with the abyss, this uses a sleeve style.
So you can screw the metal section of the drip tip onto your device, then switch between three different styles of sleeve – short, long, or whistle shaped.
These also come in either black or white. As with the original drip tip, they’re all fairly wide bore.
Ether Bridge
Suicide Mods first (and currently only) dedicated bridge for the Abyss is the Ether.
If that names is familiar to you, it’s because I recently reviewed the Ether RTA and this is based on the same design.
In the package you get the ether bridge, a 510 adapter for building your coils, 4 different bottom airflow inserts that replace the positive pin (0.8, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0mm), as well as a new drip tip with two sleeves.
It’s a lovely easy deck to build on, honestly I got the most satisfying vape using the Ether compared to any of the stock coil bridges.
It is unfortunately still a bit of a faff when you want to rewick, and I’d recommend only doing this when you’re e-liquid is very low.
Special shout out goes to the drip tip here, as it has a noticeably narrower bore than the drip tip kit or the one that comes with the device.
So it’s much easier to tailor it towards mouth to lung.
However, and I’m starting to feel like I say that a lot in this review, on the first version of the ether bridge I received, the threading on the drip tip wasn’t good.
This meant it would screw down some of the way, and then immediately bind up.
So I wasn’t able to test it out until a replacement was sent out.
How Does the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss Perform?
I’ve been testing out the Abyss for several weeks now, I’ve tried every single bridge, several different builds and airflow on the ether, tested in 18650 and 21700 mod, and used a variety of different e-liquids.
There’s no point really talking about coil performance (clouds and flavour) as the coils are not part of the device in the same way as another tank.
So instead I’m going to talk about my experiences actually using this little beast!
Nautilus Coil
I used my favourite 0.7Ω mesh for testing the Nautilus bridge.
I found that I didn’t quite get the flavour I was used to from this coil, but it was still fairly punchy.
I usually like to vape this coil with quite a restricted mouth to lung airflow, and this is where I have my first negative.
The Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss offers a huge amount of airflow, and very fine control in the direct lung/restricted direct lung area, however to reduce the airflow enough for mouth to lung, you’re working with only a tiny amount of movement in the airflow lever.
It’s certainly doable, but it’s not easy.
However I’m happy to report that this leaked very little in my time using it!
PNP/GTX Coil
This coil performed really quite well, I didn’t notice any flavour drop off compared to using it on a tank.
However I did notice a particular quirk of this coil/bridge was that it would dump e-liquid whenever it got lower than about half full.
Now this wasn’t a massive problem, as with the enormous capacity of the tank, you could easily keep it topped up and not risk going lower.
However as I explained when talking about changing coils, this inevitably means that when it comes time to take things to pieces, you’re going to have a few ml of e-liquid left that are probably going to go to waste, or end up all over your hands.
EUC Coil
Great flavour from this coil, and I figured that as it is totally contained within a screw together section I probably wouldn’t have to worry about leaking.
Unfortunately I was very wrong!
Left it alone on my desk for a couple of days, and it emptied out the entire tank over the mod/desk! I continued to use it for a bit, and it may have been a one off, but worth reporting.
Nord Coil
Very happy with this coil, like with the Nautilus coil you need to close the airflow right down to get a good mouth to lung vape.
There was a little bit of leaking at the beginning, but I’m pretty sure that was just whilst the coil was still dry.
Having tried out another one, I can say that priming your coil beforehand should help alleviate this.
After that, absolutely no complaints here.
Caliburn G Coil
Well this was a surprise!
Turns out there is one stock coil you can easily change when you still have a little e-liquid in the device, and this is due to having quite a different construction to the other bridges.
It’s a decently flavourful little coil, and due to the narrow bore it’s quite well suited for mouth to lung.
However the standard drip tip has far too wide a bore to really take advantage of it.
It ends up with the vapour and airflow all dissipating. It’s definitely a little better with the Ether’s drip tip, but I’m definitely hoping that Suicide Mods (or someone else) comes out with a really narrow bore drip tip to do mouth to lung.
Also, I noticed no leaking whatsoever with this bridge.
Ether RBA
I’m a rebuildable fan at heart, so I really enjoyed my time with the Ether RBA.
You’ve got a decent amount of airflow options controlled under the deck (always a must for mouth to lung!), a really easy to build deck, great flavour, and best of all… no leaking!
Provided you wick it right of course.
Notes on using the device day to day
I’m really conflicted about the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss.
I want to love it for it’s versatility, but there are a few quirks that I just find hard to live with.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Leaking
Using stock coils, I could never reliably say that it wasn’t going to start dumping e-liquid out the airflow.
This didn’t happen all the time, and I’ve tried to highlight circumstances where it is more likely in my run down of the coils.
But even when you think it should be fine, you might still end up with liquid escaping.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Changing Coils
Secondly I found that changing coils was always likely to end up with you wasting a few ml of e-liquid.
This may not worry you too much, especially if you’re coming from a Billet Box which has a similar design with bridges.
But I did find it irritating that there was no “easy” way to replace the coil.
For some of the bridges this is worse than others, with the Nautilus and the EUC coil, you have to totally remove the bridge to unscrew the pieces to access the coil.
On some of the the bridges, like the PNP or the Nord coil, you can theoretically remove the coil from the bottom of the tank without taking everything to pieces.
However I found that this usually also pulled out the bridge from the top of the tank, so e-liquid would end up coming out of there!
The Caliburn G bridge was the one exception here.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Access to Battery
Finally the battery access is a bit of a pain.
To change your battery you have to unscrew the drip tip, open the battery door (whilst holding onto the tank), take out your battery, then put a new one in and reverse the process.
It’s not that many steps, but it definitely benefits from having somewhere solid to rest everything, and not easy to do “on the go“.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Temperamental Chip
Ignoring my first unit, that seemed totally dead, I’ve noticed a couple of quirks with the one that does work
Firstly the battery seems to drain incredibly quickly. I put a freshly charged 18650 in it, and even testing it at 15W (Caliburn G coil) I was lucky to get a full day out of it.
Secondly I’ve noticed that it tends to read the resistance of the coils about 0.1-0.2Ω higher than I would expect.
I’ve verified this by using the Ether bridge and measuring the resistance on my build station and a DNA device.
On these it was reading 0.61, whereas on the Abyss I was getting a reading of 0.75.
Now obviously it’s hard to make a direct comparison as it’s not connecting using a 510, but I noticed the same thing with the stock coils, my 0.6Ω Nord coil was reading as 0.8Ω for example.
Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss – Customisation
This is really where the Dovpo Suicide Mods Abyss shines, and if we had a points category for this, it would get full marks any day of the week!
There’s a plethora of optional extras that Suicide Mods can sell you, but there are also more and more third parties making accessories for it.
From new buttons, to replacement bottom plates, battery covers and more!
So if you like to tinker, then this is a great device for that.
Pros
- Immense customisation options
- 21700 option
- Compatible with almost all Billet Box bridges
Cons
- Hard to change coils without losing e-liquid
- Prone to leaking, especially with stock coils
- Faff to change a battery
Final Review Verdict
Still with me? Well done if you made it this far!
I’m sorry that was such a long review, but this is a complicated bit of kit!
And I think that sums it up really, it’s one for the tinkerers out there.
This kit, despite taking stock coil options, is not really “plug and play“, and that’s OK. I don’t think it was designed to be.
So who’s it for?
If you’re new to vaping? Don’t buy this device. You will get frustrated way too quickly, even if your device is all working as it should with no quality control issues.
However if you want a compact device, that can fit a load of different coils and rebuildable options, that has a huge scope for customisation. And you’re not worried about occasionally getting e-liquid everywhere? This might just be the ticket.
Despite the QC Issues and Faff…I Like It!
I’m not going to pretend like this was an easy review.
It was frustrating and long winded (a little like me) I had to deal with QC issues that really shouldn’t have made it through, and even on my device where everything fit I ended up mangling a screw.
But you know what? I still kind of like it. It’s ambitious, and interesting, and dare I say it… innovative?
Whilst my review unit will probably live out it’s days in side by side mode (which is great by the way), with a mangled screw, I’ll definitely be putting my name down if a V2 comes out in the future!
Are you using the Abyss..?
How are you finding it and what’s your favourite bridge or accessory?
Please let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
