I use SS316L in my RTAs. I think it's got the best flavor and best health rating according to this board.
One of my RTAs has 3.5mm coils (why don't people use larger coil diameters like this, btw?) and the other has 2.5mm coils. The main one I vape is at 0.11 ohms, at 125 watts with a 150% 1s boost.
I wick with cotton bacon 2.
I made some really nice SS316L Stagger Fused Clapton coils, and balanced them perfectly in my Kylin RTA (on a Predator mod with Arcticfox). I really want to keep using these coils because they're perfect for what I want.
So every few days when I re-wick, I try to clean the coils. I've tried just about every method found on the internet... Dry burning, dry burn and run under the sink, etc. I can see that the sugary gunk comes off, but the color of the wire is not quite black, but close to it. Definitely darker than the original wire. Should it be this way? Or does that mean the coils are burnt/ruined? I do feel like even after cleaning, I'm not getting "pure" flavor anymore; they're retaining flavor; and smell like a dull e-liquid.
This brings me to my second question. There are a lot of opinions out there on coil wire and oxidation. Some stuff says you want to heat SS316 to red or even orange, and it will produce a "protective oxidative layer". Other opinions say that you should never dry heat to orange, because it produces harmful oxidation that gets inhaled.
So when balancing coils, I do the whole thing where I go down to 25-30W, go into a pitch black room, and fire them that way so I can see the heating position without having to heat the wire much. But I don't know if that is ideal, or not.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that I see people offer coil cleaning advice all the time and they say "dry burn them until they are bright orange and then hit it with sink water". Something about that seems weird to me... Seems like a bad idea. You've got both high heat (orange–potential oxidation?) and then dropping the temp back to nearly room temp right away. That's a chemical reaction going on. Is it a good idea? If not, what alternatives are there to cleaning coils well? I've heard of people going six MONTHS on coils so I know it can be done, but I'm not satisfied with the loudest advice on the web on the subject, yet.
Lastly, as I'm sure many have noticed, SS wire changes color when you first start to heat it (even at low, slow wattage). It'll turn blue, red, purple, black, and sometimes actually sometimes back to silver (but usually not). What does this mean and should it be avoided?
One of my RTAs has 3.5mm coils (why don't people use larger coil diameters like this, btw?) and the other has 2.5mm coils. The main one I vape is at 0.11 ohms, at 125 watts with a 150% 1s boost.
I wick with cotton bacon 2.
I made some really nice SS316L Stagger Fused Clapton coils, and balanced them perfectly in my Kylin RTA (on a Predator mod with Arcticfox). I really want to keep using these coils because they're perfect for what I want.
So every few days when I re-wick, I try to clean the coils. I've tried just about every method found on the internet... Dry burning, dry burn and run under the sink, etc. I can see that the sugary gunk comes off, but the color of the wire is not quite black, but close to it. Definitely darker than the original wire. Should it be this way? Or does that mean the coils are burnt/ruined? I do feel like even after cleaning, I'm not getting "pure" flavor anymore; they're retaining flavor; and smell like a dull e-liquid.
This brings me to my second question. There are a lot of opinions out there on coil wire and oxidation. Some stuff says you want to heat SS316 to red or even orange, and it will produce a "protective oxidative layer". Other opinions say that you should never dry heat to orange, because it produces harmful oxidation that gets inhaled.
So when balancing coils, I do the whole thing where I go down to 25-30W, go into a pitch black room, and fire them that way so I can see the heating position without having to heat the wire much. But I don't know if that is ideal, or not.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that I see people offer coil cleaning advice all the time and they say "dry burn them until they are bright orange and then hit it with sink water". Something about that seems weird to me... Seems like a bad idea. You've got both high heat (orange–potential oxidation?) and then dropping the temp back to nearly room temp right away. That's a chemical reaction going on. Is it a good idea? If not, what alternatives are there to cleaning coils well? I've heard of people going six MONTHS on coils so I know it can be done, but I'm not satisfied with the loudest advice on the web on the subject, yet.
Lastly, as I'm sure many have noticed, SS wire changes color when you first start to heat it (even at low, slow wattage). It'll turn blue, red, purple, black, and sometimes actually sometimes back to silver (but usually not). What does this mean and should it be avoided?