Mod Reviews

OBS Engine 100W

Antony checks out the OBS Engine 100W mod to see if It’s firing on all cylinders or if it’s going to be a MOT failure!

by Antony Lord
Jul 21, 2021

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OBS Engine 100W

Always on the lookout for something a little bit different from the rest of the pack, I asked our friends over at Sourcemore if I could try out the OBS Engine 100W mod as I was intrigued by the replaceable battery tube. So is this particular Engine firing on all cylinders or is it going to be a MOT fail?

OBS Engine 100W Boxed and contents

This arrives in fairly simple packaging with the Engine 100W mod, a manual, USB-C charge cable and a 18650 adapter hidden in the battery compartment. It’s available with either a gunmetal or stainless steel frame with six coloured battery tube options, I was sent the “Gunmetal & Puzzle Purple” variant, additionally it’s available as a full kit with the OBS Engine S sub-ohm tank.

Specifications

Size 90 x 37.8 x 27mm
99.8grams
Zinc Alloy + resin construction
Replaceable battery tube
External 21700 battery / 2 amp fast charging
Power 5~100W / 1.0~8.4V

OBS Engine 100W all angles

The Engine 100W mod is surprisingly small and light once you pick it up out of the box, and it remains very pocketable even with a tank and battery fitted. Whilst at first glance this might appear to be a deceptively simple design, there’s actually a delicate mix of curves and bevels on the chassis which make it look appealing and it feels comfortable to hold, my thumb or fingers tend to fall on the beveled section above the battery tube ensuring a good grip, a very clever ergonomic design. I appreciate the minimal branding in play here as well with a simple OBS logo screen printed on one bottom corner and raised “engine” lettering at the top/back, however the black battery cap on the bottom seems a little out of place and I would have preferred this to have matched the rest of the chassis.

The 510 platform is flush with the top of the mod and it’s about 27mm across in this area. Twenty five millimeter atomizers sit perfectly here and there’s even a little room to spare.

Whilst I’m happy to report zero button rattle with nice clicky buttons, the whole front panel does feel a bit “plastic fantastic” and I am concerned about how this will hold up to scratches in the long term. There’s a 0.96” colour screen in play here which is visible even in bright sunlight, or at least current wattage is, despite the deeply tinted finish on the front panel.

On the bottom right corner there’s a USB-C charge port with a claimed 2 amp fast charge capability and, for once, this lived up to the hype. I recorded a peak charging rate of 1.9 amps and everything remained fairly cool to the touch, handy in an emergency but I’d still recommend using an external charger whenever possible.

OBS Engine 100W battery tube

One of the main draws for the Engine 100W mod is the replaceable battery tube, this is accessed by removing the battery cap and pulling the resin tube down, and these will be available separately if you like to colour coordinate your gear. The battery tube is held in place by an o-ring near the spring loaded positive pin and whilst it is held in place fairly securely, it does come with a couple of issues.

First of all when you’re installing a battery and screwing the battery cap back on, it’s all too easy to pull the tube out of place. I’ve found that the best solution here is to grab hold of the top of the chassis rather than the tube whilst doing this. Speaking of batteries, this passed both of my oversized battery tests which is a bonus.

The second issue is that the battery tube spins, it’s not so loose that it spins freely but if you’re the type that tends to fidget with things then you might find yourself absentmindedly twisting this about in your hands.

OBS Engine 100W battery cap

So with all that out of the way, what’s the OBS Engine 100W mod like in use?

This sports a rather cutback experience as is becoming common these days with just a single “power” (wattage) mode available ranging from 5W to 100W with a 21700 battery fitted or 80W with an 18650. You’ll be asked which type of battery you’re using when you change batteries, rather annoyingly the board will then default to a 40W watt output every time, but at least it doesn’t do this if you simply turn the mod on/off with the usual five clicks.

There’s a slightly strange non-standard user interface in use here:

Wattage adjustment is locked by default. Press up or down 3x to unlock it then adjust wattage, wattage is locked again once you hit the power button.
Power + down button clears the puff counter.
Press power 3x to change the screen colour.
Pressing power + up + down shows what appears to be a serial no and software version.

Whilst this is all very serviceable and easy to use, it is a little odd. The “power 3x to change screen colour” in particular seems out of place and I have occasionally found myself doing this by accident. As “Power + up” and “up + down” both appear to be unused, either of those would probably have been a better choice to prevent this sort of behaviour.

Power delivery seems spot on though and as this has a maximum 8.4 volt output which means there’s a boost circuit in play here so at least it’s not a totally bare bones board, this makes it a much more attractive proposition.

Wattage is only adjustable in 1W increments so I’m sure the mouth to lung crowd will be crying foul here or asking for a voltage mode with finer 0.1v increments. One thing I couldn’t find mentioned anywhere is the supported resistance range, but I’d hazard a guess at the standard 0.1 to 3.0ohm range common in most devices.

Pros

Attractive compact design
Replaceable battery tube
Boost circuit with 8.4V output

Cons

Non-standard interface with a few bugs

Conclusion

The non quirky, non-standard interface and a couple of other issues I noticed during testing sometimes make this feel like a rushed or unfinished product. For example when you put in a freshly charged battery whilst the battery bar is full, the battery percentage will still only display 90% charge!

Whilst this might make it seem like I’m picking on the OBS Engine 100W mod, that would be an unfair assessment as the board seems to be more than capable and there is proper boost capability here as well which I definitely appreciate. I also like the aesthetics and have found it very comfortable to use. I’m even tempted to purchase a couple of the replaceable battery tubes at some point as well.

So did the OBS Engine 100W mod pass its MOT? Yes but with several minor advisory notices!

Many thanks to Sourcemore for sending the OBS Engine 100W mod out for review.

They also supplied me with a couple of discount codes to use if you’re interested:

Code: OEBM $29.99 - OBS Engine 100W mod
Code: OE1K $40.60 - OBS Engine 100W kit

OBS Engine 100W handcheck

Antony Lord

Reviewer at POTV

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I was a twenty a day smoker for 25 years and like most smokers I was always going to quit "next week". Having hit my mid forties and having the usual smokers cough and difficulty with anything more than moderate exercise it was obviously time to give up the cancer sticks. I bought my first e-cigarette in 2013 when they were expensive, difficult to find and quite frankly... crap. I used it for about a week then went back to the roll ups, mark up another failed quit attempt. The fact that I had just changed jobs and was under quite a lot of stress probably didn't help. Move on to 2016 and whilst I was browsing eBay I noticed that one of the suggested items that would occasionally pop up was for a cheap e-cigarette. It looked similar to the one I'd bought 3 years earlier but it was only £5 (about 8 times cheaper than before) so I decided to give it another go on a whim. Once the kit arrived I managed to gradually replace the cigarettes with my new kit over a two month period and got into watching YouTube reviews for newer kit. My cheap and cheerful kit was replaced by a more upmarket affair, and being a noob I made a mistake once it arrived... I put in the supplied direct lung coil, this was of course a complete revelation and I haven't touched a cigarette since. Oh and I no longer spend the first five minutes of every day having a coughing fit either.