Who's Still Vaping Nickel ?

I'm sure everyone is familiar with all the talk of the dangers of nickel wire for vaping and many people are moving away from it. I myself swore off of it until I picked up a Crown for the second time and tried out the nickel coils which I find to make for a superb vaping experience. I recently got a Evic VTC mini and have been using SS in TC and while it certainly is enjoyable, I find the Ni200 crown coils to be a bit better. So, who out there is still using nickel? I don't intend this to be a debate thread, I'm just curious as to how all the chatter from reviewers and researchers is effecting the community. It certainly is not having an effect on the industry as almost every mod coming out has the option for nickel.

Thanks in advance for your responses and Merry Christmas to all..

I use it every now and then. Most of my TC builds are in SS316L. Never liked the flavor I got from Titanium.

I find with claptons I dont need TC anymore. Now to be fair I am using aromamizers which wick like demons but the combo of the rdta+claptons=no need for temp control anymore. That said if I was to use TC which I am sure I will it would be back to SS and Ti.

I must live under a rock because I still use ni200. Matter of fact, I just rebuilt my derringer with it and it tastes magnificent. Anyone care to clue me in as to why nickel can be bad? What alternatives do I have to use for TC that will work considering I use IPV products ( IPV4 & IPV D2/3).

vape it with the subtank plus...want the crown to check it out with stainless steel, will also use the nickel coils there also...so yeah...would like to see whats going on with these claptons, as superjeep stated, in the aromamizer a set of claptons never seem to go dry and vape cooler...

Ya the clapton acts like a wick on its own with capillary action. I also wanna add I dont vape nickel simply because its a pain in the ass sometimes. I think nickel is fine unless you have a nickel allergy.

I just started in with the Ni200 coils a few weeks ago when I got my first TC mods...not impressed in any way, likely won't continue this experiment. I may try SS next, or go back to wattage vaping, or start wattage vaping with SS instead of Kanthal. but nickel just has no appeal to me, even putting the health concerns aside. That may make me weird, but so be it.

I don't vape TC. I tried 28g nickel in a Sapor the other day and you know? It sort of surprised me with its performance. It wasn't bad at all on the Sigelei 150w. I like that I can dial in a hot vape without really hitting that wicking wall that you inevitably hit from upping the wattage on a kanthal coil. I think I'd like to try thicker wire to get the flavor and density up.

I'm a bit spoiled by claptons, though. They just seem to have a lot more oomph and make the flavor more complex. I'd describe the flavor on nickel as being full, smooth, and bold, but also very one-note.

Don't get me wrong. It was a pretty well-rounded vape. I'd have no problems vaping on a setup like that if it was all that I had. But that is to say that there are a lot of different builds with other types of wire that I'd take over the nickel. Maybe that's just my inexperience with TC talking, though.

I can see myself maybe going with the TC for more space-limited RTA's. I could see a need for precision in controlling the heat and helping the wicking keep up in one of those. I just imagine there's less of a chance of it sputtering and giving dry hits when you can dial a coil up to a certain point and keep it there.

I've always built with certain temperature-ranges, airflow, and wicking in mind. I can build kanthal vapes that wick perfectly, hit the temperatures I want, and give me the flavor/texture/density profiles I want. I just feel like it would be redundant for me to use TC. I can see the benefits in being able to somewhat dial-in that balance, but it almost makes tweaking the builds trickier to work out in my mind because it contradicts the way I'm used to doing things.

robot zombie said:

I don't vape TC. I tried 28g nickel in a Sapor the other day and you know? It sort of surprised me with its performance. It wasn't bad at all on the Sigelei 150w. I like that I can dial in a hot vape without really hitting that wicking wall that you inevitably hit from upping the wattage on a kanthal coil. I think I'd like to try thicker wire to get the flavor and density up.

I'm a bit spoiled by claptons, though. They just seem to have a lot more oomph and make the flavor more complex. I'd describe the flavor on nickel as being full, smooth, and bold, but also very one-note.

Don't get me wrong. It was a pretty well-rounded vape. I'd have no problems vaping on a setup like that if it was all that I had. But that is to say that there are a lot of different builds with other types of wire that I'd take over the nickel. Maybe that's just my inexperience with TC talking, though.

I can see myself maybe going with the TC for more space-limited RTA's. I could see a need for precision in controlling the heat and helping the wicking keep up in one of those. I just imagine there's less of a chance of it sputtering and giving dry hits when you can dial a coil up to a certain point and keep it there.

I've always built with certain temperature-ranges, airflow, and wicking in mind. I can build kanthal vapes that wick perfectly, hit the temperatures I want, and give me the flavor/texture/density profiles I want. I just feel like it would be redundant for me to use TC. I can see the benefits in being able to somewhat dial-in that balance, but it almost makes tweaking the builds trickier to work out in my mind because it contradicts the way I'm used to doing things.

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you also have to look at it from the perspective of vapers that dont build, they want to screw a premade tc coil in and go, theres a shit ton more of them than builders...safe would be good... throw a prebuilt in a crown or subtank and off to the grand kids for the day with no worries,,,

I seem to have a more consistent vape with the premade Ni200 coils, especially with the Crown, when compared with the SS coils. Flavor and vapor production is just fantastic day in and day out, and can last a month or more before having to change it out. The V1 Herakles coils also deliver a superior flavor over the kanthal offerings (premade) and are often cheaper and more readily available. So yeah, nickel is definitely my first choice in most of my sub ohm tanks.

I'm using nickel SOLEY in the crown tanks as I've found the TC with the "pre-made" SS coils to be "wonky"...this is for the crown tank ONLY... I think I remember reading that the crown pre built SS coils have legs of something else... Irregardless you can watch the temperature fluctuate in the escribe software.... I have no problems with SS in anything else on the DNA200

I'm steering away from nickel where possible because of the slight metallic taste I get (more or less depending on what juice I currently have in that tank)

I'm running 316SS in all my drippers whether I'm using TC or power modes...

I have been running NiFe 52 exclusively since mid August. American made, clean, reliable, and builds like Kanthal. The TCR & resistance is high enough that I can fit dual 26ga micro coils in my Goblin Mini or 27/36 Claptons. I dry burn it & re-wick till I'm sick of the build and want to try something new. And I typically design my builds for what I want on my tube mech and then I can swap them between devices.

I totally understand someone using pre-built Nickel coils just for convenience plus your just going to chuck it when it's gunked anyway.

Personally I build every coil I vape so Nickel is a non starter for me
I've hated Nickel since the first attempt to fit a 28ga 16 wrap wet noodle POS shit in a Kafun last October. Nickel is to soft, not enough resistance to allow thicker Ga's, can't dry burn to re-wick, can't oxidize to build contact coils, can't swap between mech, VW, & TC devices etc. never mind the health concerns.

Titanium works well for TC & would be my #2 choice Downsides are you can't oxidize it, so spaced coils work best, and you have to be very cautious when dry burning to re-wick so as not to form Ti02

I don't think SS is reliable enough for TC yet. The TCR is just to low for my liking. Plus most SS has a pretty high percentage of Nickel anyway 10-14% for 316L plus it has Molybdenum and Manganese. I don't know if either of them are bad, but I'm not willing to be the Guinna pig. So IMO with SS you sacrifice TC accuracy due to barely usable TCR without the benefit of safer composition.

It seems the reviewers are afraid to tackle it. Not sure why? Maybe they're afraid to get burned like they did with some of the other repackaged $1+ a foot BS wires. I suppose they have good reason to be cautious especially since one US vender sold a bunch of "NiFe 52" on pre sale & it turned out to be some sort of Chinese garbage or ?? but not NiFe 52

I think it will catch on later this year. So far there just hasn't been much exposure. Unlike Titanium & SS, the NiFe 52 was never available from anywhere in usable gauges. It's not readily available yet, but there are at least 3 reputable online US venders selling Reactor Wire (US made NiFe 52) & 1 vendor in Europe selling NiFe 48 (supposedly same as 52 on steam engine) + another 2 European vendors selling different versions of NiFe 70 called Resistherm or NiFe 30

All the different versions I mentioned above can be selected from the drop down menu on Steam Engine so you can play around with different builds & see what can be done with these Ni 200 alternative alloys

Below is a link to a translated Italian Vape forum thread & below the link is an excerpt from it showing a TC precision comparison of most of the popular TC alloys available. The poster built the exact same coil geometry for each alloy using the wire wizard tab of steam engine. When you build a coil on wire wizard it generates a TC precision # for your build. The higher the TC precision # the more accurate the coil will perform. In order to get the real picture of TC accuracy you must combine the TCR with the alloys resistance as wire wizard has done. When using that calculation TCR + Res it shows Ni200 is one of the least accurate wires available



https://translate.google.com/transl...el-controllo-di-temperatura-7290/&prev=search

"By coming to terms with the [Only registered users can see links. ] Steam-engine, with a particular geometry of the coil (ID = 2.5 mm, 5 coils, diameter 30 AWG, terminals 5 mm) are the results we carry out in the following table

material TC precision
Kanthal A 76
Nichrome N60 202
SS 304 742
SS 317 L 780
SS 430 840
Titanium gr1 1762
Ni200 590
Resistherm 1082
NiFe (reactor wire) 1776
Nifethal 52 1529

As the table shows, the materials currently used the better the titanium alloy NiFe reactor together with wire, while among those usable the Ni200 is the worst (Nichrome and Kanthal have an accuracy so low as to be unusable with the TC). It is worth noting that these stainless steels are better than Ni200 but worse than titanium."

Tried out nickel build yesterday for the first time the dudes at vaporshark offered when i got new rda and i didnt like it....
Clouds were big, flavor was great, those things i cant complain about. Vapor was cold though, to me. I like a hot vape. So when i got home i pulled it out and put in a parallel n80 build.... much more satisfying to me.

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I like my Ni200 coil heads on the TFV4. It's a super predictable, consistent pull every time. Flavor is fine, not as good as a juicy fused Clapton build on an RDA, but for running around town or work it's just fine.


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Very interesting replies.

I recently got a Snow Wolf Mini that I almost exclusivly use with my stainless crown in nickel mode. The SW mini allows you to set the temp but not the wattage. I thought I'd hate that feature at first but for nickel it seems to work perfectly.