Help with the Drop RDA

[SladeRaven22]

So the stuff I've been using first.
- Drop RDA
- Native wicks cotton, platinum blend
- Coilology pre-built Nichrome coils and hand wraped geekvape kanthal coils.
-Mostly 70/30 blend eliquid

Lately I have had very little success with the builds I have put into my drop RDA. I feel like I have tried everything. I used to have amazing builds. But it seems that I don't get that warm, saturated and flavorful vape that I used to. It's more hot and spity.
I have tried using less cotton to avoid choking the coil. I have tried different kinds and size coils, and the position of said coils. Nothing I do seems to help. It seems that when I do get a decent build, I do nothing different.
The best build I can remember was hand wrapped claptons very close to the airflow with the bottom 4 holes taped off. Also with that build I used to wick my rdas really tight.
If anyone has decent advice, be sure to let me know.

 

[Kitsune]

Did you check the resistance? If it used to be great, maybe something's wrong with the RDA and the resistance is off ...
With spity, do you mean you experience spitback? I usually have that when not using enough cotton.

I usually keep the coils on level with the airflow, about 1mm-1.5mm away from it, on the Drop.

Might be a stupid question, but did you check for the coils to glow evenly and without hotspots?

 

[SladeRaven22]

The resistance does not fluctuate when I put on the barrel and topcap so it's not shorting.
Yes the spit back has been worse lately. I have tried using less cotton to not starve the coil for juice
I do remove the hot spots from my coils. I wonder if I should try spacing them.
The thing I'm missing is that snap crackle pop (not spit back) of the capillary action at work.

 

[Kitsune]

I meant the resistance being what it's supposed to be, as in a .15 setup really having .15 on the RDA.
Microcoils should work perfectly well on the Drop, especially since you mentioned you already had amazing builds.

Could you post some pictures of the setup?

 

[MyMagicMist]

I do remove the hot spots from my coils. I wonder if I should try spacing them.

Pull the coil gently from both ends to evenly space it out. Then, push the coil back together from both ends evenly. This will get you spacing that remains even, even when the firing heats the coil. The even spacing will help eliminate some of the spitback.

Wicking? Try having just enough to look like waterfalls off each end of the coil. Then it ought to fan like wispy tree roots in the deck's juice well. You'll note the cotton will contract when wet. ( I know that seems conter-intutive and backwards even but it is that way and not quite sure why.) This should leave you about .5 to 1mm space in the top of the coil. This is okay, if you get too much more space than that you'll not have a good vape. The small space allows for 'breathing' of the cotton which will expand in the coil as it heats, then contract once saturated and cooled again. You don't want the cotton too tight, nor too loose. I struggle with it sometimes as well.

Also might try reducing your airflow a bit. If you're taking direct lung hits restricting your air can help in the sense of it draws a little tight but draws a full load to your lungs. No, you don't want to suck golf balls through a straw but you do need some pull against your draw in order to let you actually draw. Vapor needs some friction to move unfortunately. Doing mouth only hits I'd suggest wide open airflow as you'll not need much pull against your draw. Currently running a Dead Rabbit SQ here and got two side airflow slots at about 6mm. Each side looks to be slotted with 20mm long slots. Getting real good full hits off of it.

Know the RDA I'm using is not the RDA you're using. Ultimately though when you break it down, an RDA is an RDA, is an RDA. *chuckles* All the basic priniciples are the same and we can use that as commonality despite the varied subjective designs of them. It's like, "all one big green machine."

GHope I've helped out, mate.