Marquis RDA Clone Review

With a mind boggling number of rebuildable dripping atomizers (RDA) on the market, and more emerging seemingly every day, it is truly refreshing when one comes along bearing a truly unique feature set. Introduced in the latter part of 2014, the Marquis RDA brings a bag of tricks previously unseen in the world of drippers. Developed by a joint collaboration of several vaping heavyweights under the moniker of the Insignia Design Group, the Marquis has quickly achieved great renown in the vaping community. The subject of this review is a clone of the Marquis.

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Where to buy a Marquis Clone:

• Buy from $8.04-$12.24 – Available in Silver, black, white, and copper. Free shipping from China

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What makes the Marquis unique?

Well, lots of things, actually. Perhaps the most innovative feature of the Marquis are the coil rods which can be used to build and install the coils. Once the coils are wrapped on the rods, the rods are inserted into holes in the bottom of the deck which allow coil placement precisely in front of the air holes in the deck. Additionally, the rods hold the coils in place which makes trapping the positive and negative leads a humorously easy task. Aiding in the ease of building is the crowned positive post. The raised tabs on the post allow you to capture your positive leads before securing them with the flanged positive screw.

The top cap of the Marquis features a removable lid to facilitate easy dripping and accommodates the included drip tip and two drip tip adapters, allowing the user to utilize any standard 510 drip tip of their choosing.

The two 2mm airflow holes run horizontally through the raised portion of the deck and the three holes in the top cap allow either single or dual coil builds.

The Packaging and Included Stuff

The Marquis clone from Focalecig comes packaged in a plain black box with inset cutouts for the various bits. Included are the atomizer, drip tip, two drip tip adapters, four coil building rods, and the requisite bag of spare o-rings, screws, magic blue screwdriver, some silica, and two pre-built coils. Worth noting, I suppose, the two pre-built coils appear to have an inner diameter of 2mm and do not fit on the building rods.

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Marquis RDA features:

• Brand: Clone from Focalecig (unknown manufacturer)
• 304 stainless steel construction
• 510 threading
• Dual ground screws for easy dual coil setup
• Dual coil/single coil capable
• Solid copper positive 510 pin
• Innovative crown style center post with wire capture tabs
• High temp PEEK insulators
• Vertical, horizontal or chimney coils
• Cotton, silica, SS mesh, etc. wicking
• Custom coiling rods in 2.5mm, 3.0mm, 3.5mm, 4.0mm diameters
• Blind holes in liquid well for perfect coil alignment
• 6mm deep liquid well
• Leak resistant design
• Seamless flush fit fop cap
• Double o rings for a positive top cap seal
• Adjustable airflow ( single and dual coil mode)
• Internal o ring relief for easy airflow adjustment
• Reduced atomizer chamber
• Removable lid (14mm) with PEEK insulator
• Custom wide bore drip tip (8.7mm Bore)
• 2x custom lid adapters for 510 style drip tips

Physical Specifications

• 22mm outside diameter
• 26mm overall height w/o drip tip
• Weight: 50g

Build Quality

The build quality of the Marquis RDA clone is very good, indeed. There are some light machining marks on the top cap but nothing egregious, especially considering the price point. The top cap fits securely on the deck but remains easy to remove and install on the deck. The removable top cap lid also fits securely and the drip tip and drip tip adapters thread smoothly into the insulator.

The deck itself is also very nicely machined and features an engraved logo on the top of the raised block and an etched serial number on the bottom. The o-rings fit in the grooves nicely and secure the top cap very well while still allowing the top cap to be easily rotated for airflow adjustments. The airflow holes appear to be cleanly and uniformly drilled. Also, the negative post screws and the positive post screw thread in and out with no issues. The juice well and blind building rod holes are similarly executed very well.

I’ve not had the pleasure of handling or using an authentic Marquis but this unit from Focalecig is certainly one of the better manufactured clones I’ve used.

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Building and Using the Marquis

Building the Marquis clone  is an exercise in joy. The building rods really do make installing your coils a simple affair – like, caveman simple. Simply insert the coiled rod into the blind hole, trap your negative lead under the corresponding negative post screw, capture the positive lead around one of the tabs on the crowned positive post, and install the positive screw. Rinse and repeat the first two steps for dual coil builds before installing the positive screw. The four rods are composed of two matched pairs – one pair with diameters of 2.5mm/3mm and one pair with diameters of 3.5mm/4mm.

A few notes: the Marquis clone came with a non-flanged positive screw installed. Why? Because clone, I guess. A flanged screw is provided in the baggie of spares. You’ll want to use it to securely trap your positive leads. Also, for dual coil builds you’ll want to wind each coil in opposite directions to properly orient the leads. And, lastly, I did not wind my coils on the supplied rods. Rather, I used my Kuro 2.5mm tool (because it rocks) and used the Marquis rods only for installing the coils.

Wicking in single coil mode isn’t terrible difficult. I used Koh Gen Do organic cotton pads for this review. I simply cut an appropriate width strip of cotton, twisted one end, fed it down into the coil, grabbed the twisted end with some tweezers, and pulled the cotton through. I trimmed to wick to a length which allowed the wick to bed in the juice well. Wicking dual coils is a little trickier as there isn’t much room to grab the end of the cotton and pull it through. A little perseverance is usually all which is required (or, in my case, a few beers and some swearing).

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For the illustrative purposes of this review, I used a single coil setup – 24ga, 2.5mm, coming it at .582Ω. I later added a second identical coil to experience some dual coil goodness. Horizontal and chimney builds are also possible with the Marquis but I’ve yet to attempt anything other than the “standard” vertical coil builds. All testing was done using my Super T Workhorse 18650 mechanical mod.

To adjust the airflow for a single coil, simply align the center hole in the top cap with the deck airflow hole corresponding to the side where your coil is installed. For dual coils, align the two outside holes in the top cap with the two holes in the deck. You can also position the cap to provide back and side airflow for a single coil by aligning one outer hole with the corresponding hole in the deck and the other outer hole aligned to the side of your coil.

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So, how does the Marquis RDA clone perform? Like a champ, that’s how. I ran the Marquis clone in single coil utilizing both airflow options and also in dual coil with airflow adjusted accordingly.

In all configurations the Marquis clone produced voluminous amounts of dense, flavorful vapor. I believe my preferred configuration from this review was single coil with just the single behind-the-coil airflow option. Flavor was off the charts. Dual coil also produced excellent flavor but was a tad warm resulting in the drip tip becoming hot – this may be due to the .28Ω resistance. The dual coil builds certainly made fog though and lots of it. I’m sure further experimentation would yield even better builds. I’m looking forward to trying a chimney build which should really bring the flavor.

I decided to use Suicide Bunny Mother’s Milk for the Marquis clone review since I already had my MMV OverOne loaded up with Mother’s Milk. With similar dual coil builds, the Marquis clone went toe-to-toe with the OverOne on flavor and came out with a slight advantage. In terms of vapor production, the Marquis clone can’t hang with the OverOne using the same builds. The OverOne makes stupid amounts of haze. However, I was comparing two drippers that probably couldn’t be more different from a design standpoint.

The juice well, while deep, doesn’t have a huge capacity since it only occupies half of the deck area. I don’t count how many drops a dripper will hold in its well but I do have to re-juice the Marquis frequently. This is due to the half-sized juice well and I suspect it eats juice at a pretty rapid rate.

The performance, both in terms of flavor and vapor production, of the Marquis RDA clone is excellent. I’m not sure how much better the authentic could possibly perform but I’m inspired to buy one now after using the excellent clone version.

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Conclusion

The Marquis RDA clone is a fantastic dripper. For a clone, the build quality is great and the performance is top notch. The unique features of the Marquis, the ease of building, and the awesome flavor make this a must-have RDA for me. At the clone’s price point, there exists a massive amount of value. I’d argue the authentic Marquis is worth the price of admission as well but I’ll leave that judgement up to the reader. You are reading Vaping Cheap, after all.

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Where to buy a Marquis Clone?

• Buy for $12.05 – Same version reviewed, Free shipping from China
• Buy for $19.99 – Free shipping from USA
• Buy from $8.04-$12.24 – Available in Silver, black, white, and copper. Free shipping from China

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