Honest review time: The Cold Steel 100 from EHPRO

Here’s a look at a new mod from EHPRO called the Cold Steel 100. It’s actually a collaboration project between EHPRO and Ambitionz Vaper a well known YouTube vape reviewer and community figure. Though EHRPO might not be one of the first companies you think of when it comes to interesting new vape gear they’ve actually been around since 2011 and over the years quite a few of my favorites have come from them including the Billow series of tanks and more recently the Mod 101 and 101 Pro. From what I understand this new project was mainly designed by EHPRO but with some insight and feedback from Ambitionz. I got mine from Heavengifts.com a wonderful online retail company out of China that specializes in vape gear. Here are my honest thoughts on the Cold Steel 100 from EHPRO.

Package contents:

Listed features and specs:

Packaging and contents:

The mod came packed in a rather thin and compact cardboard box. Mine took quite a beating in transit but everything inside arrived safe and sound. It’s probably because the mod comes in a thick protective belt loop holster inside the box and the only other thing in the box aside from the paper materials is a short micro USB cable for charging. The cold steel kit does include an 18650 adapter but it’s shipped inside the mod to save space and keep it safe. It’s a nice looking belt loop case but it’s unlikely I’ll ever use it considering you can’t really have any atomizer attached or it won’t close. The paper materials include a user manual, a warranty card, a battery safety card and a QC card. A very modest kit but you get what you need without any unnecessary junk and the belt loop case is a nice added touch even if you don’t use it.

The mod:

The Cold Steel 100 mod has a fairly unique profile. It’s tube shaped like a mechanical mod but with a trapezoidal box strapped to the side of it. Basically it looks like they took a mech mod and attached a regulatory chip, screen and buttons on the side of it. It does have a slight resemblance to a particular yihi mod but I think it has a much more industrial look and it’s just different enough to standout on it’s own. Being made of a combination brass, zinc-alloy and cold hard steel it lives up to it’s name and feels really really solid in hand. Being so solid it is a bit on the heavy side and without a battery installed it weighs in around 177g, with a 21700 installed you’re looking at approximately 246g and that’s before attaching an atomizer. That’s comparable to some dual battery mods if weight is a concern but personally I appreciate the heft of it and the way it feels in hand. It comes in three colours Grey Champagne, Black Obsidian and Old Gold. I got the Grey Champagne which has a brushed metal finish but from pics it looks like the Obsidian at least might have a more matte painted finish but I can’t say for sure. I should mention this brushed finish might make it a challenge matching it up with your atomizers. The real issue is the direction of the bushed finish, on the mod it’s vertical but most of my brushed gear is horizontal.

Starting at the top it comes to a bit of a taper with some decorative tear shaped indents dotting the circumference. It’s a bit hard to tell but the body may actually be zinc alloy as it meets up with what looks like a stainless steel plate in the top that measures roughly 25mm in diameter. The 510 plate is laser engraved with some simple branding and a serial number. The threads are really nice and smooth and the gold plated spring loaded 510 pin has some decent travel to it so pretty much any atomizer up to 25mm should square up nicely. I should mention there is the tiniest gap between the 510 plate and the bottom of the atomizer though, like paper thin and with any atomizer I’ve tried but unless you’re looking for it you probably won’t notice. The taper might limit things to about 25.5mm and up but it looks pretty good with most 24-25mm gear.

Working down the side we come to that trapezoid control box that’s sort of bolted on to the side of the tube. It’s tapered and smooth so again it feels great in the hand and I can easily fire it with my index, thumb or even just gripping it in my fist. For both the fire and adjustment buttons it uses metal rocker style buttons that feel good and solid without any rattle or anything. Just on top of the trapezoid the mod is laser engraved with Ambitionz Vaper, just above the fire button. Below the fire button is the OLED screen which is actually quite small but it’s clear and bright with everything well laid out and easy to read. Just below the adjustment buttons is a little LED indicator and micro USB port for charging and firmware updates. While it doesn’t mention quick charge in the features when tested it charged at a rate of 1.8A but seemed to throttle a bit as it gets close to a full charge. At the time of this review no firmware updates were yet available.

The battery is accessed through the bottom of the device with a threaded battery cap. It’s got two vent holes and the same tear drop indents around the circumference as the top has. The threads are nice and smooth and it’s clearly marked for positive and negative inside the tube and the cap. It houses 18650 batteries with the included battery adapter or 20700 and 21700 without. Clearance in the tube is decent and it fits my thicker Golisi batteries with ease. With any of the three battery types installed I don’t get any battery rattle whatsoever. On the tube just above the battery cap it’s stamped/engraved with the name Cold Steel which I think looks nice and clean.

Usage and Performance:

Using the device will feel familiar to most folks with five clicks to turn it on and off and three clicks to highlight the mode which you cycle through using the up/down buttons. It has options for PWR, TEMP, CURVE, BYPASS, VOLT and BACK. In PWR or power mode it has built in curves so you’ve got the option of Normal which is just regular power, hard and soft which throttles the power a bit either up or down respectively. In TEMP it has support for SS, Ni, Ti and TCR and when selecting TEMP it will prompt you to select your material followed by max wattage or TCR value and max wattage if you chose TCR. One thing I noticed is it doesn’t confirm a new coil nor could I find any means of locking resistance which made me wary of using it for temp control. Under CURVE you’ve got three mem slots where you can setup a custom curve in 0.1 increments for a total of 2 seconds using a wattage multiplier which you can also set in 0.1 increments up to 2x. In BYPASS it acts like a true mechanical but with the built in protections still in place and VOLT works much like PWR but using volt increments rather than watts. In PWR it increments in 0.5 and in VOLT it increments in 0.1 increments with PWR going to full increments if held down but not so with VOLT. It does try and suggest the wattage when in PWR mode which I suppose is helpful for some beginners but can be considered an annoyance for more seasoned vapers. Pressing fire and + locks the adjustment buttons, pressing fire and – flips the screen and pressing both adjustment buttons locks the mod.

It fires up to 120W and includes all of the usual safety features we come to expect like short-circuit, over heat, over current, weak battery, reverse battery, low voltage, over-charge and a 10 second cutoff. I’ve mainly tested it in PWR and VOLT modes but I did test out the other features as well which for the most part worked well. However I don’t tend to use Temp control so when I found I couldn’t lock or adjust my resistance or even confirm a coil change I didn’t put a whole lot of effort in to it. Hopefully that can be corrected with a future firmware update.

Overall:

I’ve got to say I was very pleasantly surprised by this mod. It’s solidly built, works well and it just feels really great in the hand. It kind of gives you the feeling of gripping a mech mod but with the added benefits of a regulatory chip, screen and buttons. I think a device like this would be really well suited to someone who wants the form factor of a mech but could still use the protections of a regulated mod. I looked around and it’s available for a reasonable price, sort of mid-range so it should be accessible to most.

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