newbie on coil building - got stuck on kanthal wire

[Raico]

Hi all~ im new to vaping and just tried for about 1.5 month. An Im so new to coil wrapping...so new that I have a question that might sounds silly....

Im a MTL vaper and recently got the galaxies rdta and berserker rda, and tried to build my very own coil. I planned to make some 24ga kanthal A1 6 wraps 2.5mm single coil that should gives around 1.2ohm. However everytime I do so the ohm reader reads at 1.4ohm. I wonder if the ohm reader is down so I test it with stock coil like nautilus 2 or veco tank and it reads perfectly.

this is the stock coil from Galaxies which is a 2.5mm ni80 9 wraps and it read 0.85, just like what steam engine tells.

This is my own coil made by kanthal A1 28ga 2.5mm 6 wraps which should give me 1.15ohm but end up it reads 1.37 to 1.4 ohm

I am so frustrated and anyone can give me a hand on this? many thanks

 

[vlajone]

Did you dry burn your coils before cotton placing? The resistance will change a bit after dry burning. I also vape 90% MTL and I never use other wires but 28, 30 ss and kanthal. In some cases 32AWG.

 

[Raico]

Did you dry burn your coils before cotton placing? The resistance will change a bit after dry burning. I also vape 90% MTL and I never use other wires but 28, 30 ss and kanthal. In some cases 32AWG.

yes i usually burn it and check for hotspot. after i burn it the ohm even goes higher...around 1.4
i even think maybe I got the wrong wire...but the package do say 28ga lol

 

[Raico]

Did you dry burn your coils before cotton placing? The resistance will change a bit after dry burning. I also vape 90% MTL and I never use other wires but 28, 30 ss and kanthal. In some cases 32AWG.

btw may u share your everyday build? i tried various combination on the 28ga kanthal but flavor is mute between 10 to 20w and im not sure if i should go anywhere higher

 

[vlajone]

Every Ati has a bit different build in it. Here is few.
I would suggest that you forgot about the coil engine and have a look at your deck, air hole size and just imagine what type if coil you would think would work the best for you. At least that is how I usually do it.
Here is mine few. 2x Galaxies RTA 2.5mm contact coil, RDA 2.5mm slightly spaced. Both SS 28AWG. And Dwarv 2mm coil kanthal 30AWG.
Oh, the cotton is dark because of such eliquid. Don't pay attention to it

 

[Alter]

Space the wraps a bit, ever so slightly but not have any touching.
I ran contact coils but gave them up quickly.... unless perfectly made they can be a pain. Burning the center out from lack of juice gets old fast. I never did grasp the concept of how a tight coil can vaporize juice in the center and how juice gets into the center. I can just barely get a business card between the wraps but still not touching. The not so perfect build is more forgiving if the wraps are spaced a bit. 24 gauge is heavy wire and takes lots of power to heat up then ages to cool down enough to vape again without becoming too hot so fast.
Learn to clapton..A single core clapton is simple and slick as snot to make. I use a bead threader and protank head with the slit in the pin but lots make them holding the spool by hand. I haven't built a single wire coil in a few years now...just single core claptons. With claptons the mod registers the core wire and the wraps only transfer the heat so the less core wire mass the more efficient the vape and thinner 34 or 36 gauge SS works dandy as wraps(less resistance wire). 28 kanthal/34SS or kanthal wraps you can yield the 1.2Ω but less wire mass. I build 29K/34SS 5 wrap spaced 2.5ID with rayon and its 1.2ohm...great cloudz..and easy on the batts. I've claptoned with 30 gauge and 32 gauge cores with 34 wrap with success but my best vape comes from 29k/34ss or 29k/36ss clapton builds.
One other thing is ditch the cotton...no matter is its generic balls from the drug store or expensive foo-man-choo brand...its all cotton and all cotton have the same properties when it comes to vaping...get fiber wet the fiber expands so juice flows inside the fiber so one by one they burn and/or plug up until no fibers left to move juice...dryhitting. Try rayon...opposite properties to cotton, juice flows outside the fiber so the build cocoons up with burnt juice long before the wicking dies. Rayon wicking has a much longer life than cotton. Researching rayon as wicking is IMO well spent time and I'll have many others agreeing....rayon is the only wick to use.

 

[gopher_byrd]

Hi all~ im new to vaping and just tried for about 1.5 month. An Im so new to coil wrapping...so new that I have a question that might sounds silly....

Im a MTL vaper and recently got the galaxies rdta and berserker rda, and tried to build my very own coil. I planned to make some 24ga kanthal A1 6 wraps 2.5mm single coil that should gives around 1.2ohm. However everytime I do so the ohm reader reads at 1.4ohm. I wonder if the ohm reader is down so I test it with stock coil like nautilus 2 or veco tank and it reads perfectly.

this is the stock coil from Galaxies which is a 2.5mm ni80 9 wraps and it read 0.85, just like what steam engine tells.

This is my own coil made by kanthal A1 28ga 2.5mm 6 wraps which should give me 1.15ohm but end up it reads 1.37 to 1.4 ohm

I am so frustrated and anyone can give me a hand on this? many thanks

Judging by the picture you posted of your coil, the legs would be adding the extra resistance. Steam-engine defaults to 5mm total, i.e. 2.5mm per leg. The legs on your coil appear to be close to 10mm each, so you are adding an extra 15mm of wire. I put in 1.4 ohms for target with the leg length of 20mm and the rest of the specs for your 28 gauge coil, steam-engine shows 6 full wraps.

 

[SteveS45]

I was going to post about the coil legs but @gopher_byrd has it covered~!

 

[Hoggy]

One other thing is ditch the cotton...no matter is its generic balls from the drug store or expensive foo-man-choo brand...its all cotton and all cotton have the same properties when it comes to vaping...get fiber wet the fiber expands so juice flows inside the fiber so one by one they burn and/or plug up until no fibers left to move juice...dryhitting. Try rayon...opposite properties to cotton, juice flows outside the fiber so the build cocoons up with burnt juice long before the wicking dies. Rayon wicking has a much longer life than cotton. Researching rayon as wicking is IMO well spent time and I'll have many others agreeing....rayon is the only wick to use.

Can't agree more about this.. It always baffles me why people still use cotton. Especially when they have a box of it sitting right in their Youtube frame (we're looking at you, Rin Vapes ).

I guess people get too used to the [clean]-socks taste, that rayon 'tastes funny' to them since it's so pure. Or they got some from a Sally's that was stocked near some powerful odors/aromas. Or else, they vape higher wattages and don't pack the coil tight enough, since it's the opposite of cotton and shrinks when wetted - resulting in juice that burns.

Or they just want to be pretentious, and think they're getting 'the best' since they spent so much on their overpriced fancy-boy cotton.

I just splurged on a couple hundred bucks of wire for starting my clapton making adventures with the Daedalus, and Lightning Vapes included a free sample packet of Cotton Bacon 'Prime'... I'm not sure if I should try to use it up - or just toss it straight into the trash. Last time I tried some KGD samples from someplace, I couldn't wait to finish it and get back to rayon. And when I finally got back to rayon, I was like . So much more flavor and powerful/dense hits.
Ehh.. I'll probably just use it up.. I can't stand waste.

 

[bobnat]

...rayon is the only wick to use.

Here's another thing I've learned as I started using rayon just a few weeks ago. It doesn't discolor very much at all. I've got a Peanut Butter ADV that will turn cotton black in two days. The rayon gets a light beige and that's it.

 

[r055co]

Researching rayon as wicking is IMO well spent time and I'll have many others agreeing....rayon is the only wick to use.

Can't agree more about this.. It always baffles me why people still use cotton. Especially when they have a box of it sitting right in their Youtube frame (we're looking at you, Rin Vapes ).

I can't stand Rayon, tastes like shit, gives me a dry scratchy throat and as for longevity hell my coils will gunk up long before my Koh gen Doh, Cotton Bacon Prime or Native Wicks Platinum even comes close to breaking down. And to cut you off at the pass yes I did use Sally's and yes I did wick it properly.

 

[Hoggy]

I can't stand Rayon, tastes like shit, gives me a dry scratchy throat and as for longevity hell my coils will gunk up long before my Koh gen Doh, Cotton Bacon Prime or Native Wicks Platinum even comes close to breaking down.

You may have gotten some that was near some powerful odors known to be in beauty shops. I got lucky with mine on that front. As far as scratchy throat, I'm not too sure why - but it could have something to do with the much higher nic hit. Some other rayon 'experts' might know more about that, as I forget about what I read regarding some people saying that same thing. (Although I might now check back into that, since I have heard some other people say that, and I know that there were responses to that by the rayon 'experts' (for lack of a better term right now). ...... Also, it just came to mind that I think one of the responses to that may have been that the power level needs to be changed a bit - either lower or higher, I forget - due to IIRC, how the rayon wicks [faster?].. Dunno, I'm kinda talking out of my ass on this one - I'll have to check into that again.

As far as the coil gunking long before the wicking needs changing, I tend to agree. Even when I make very low-gunking juice. Although I have read that rayon won't form gunk on the coils as fast when wicked properly, but I've never tested that myself since I have so much that I don't care how often I need to re-wick.

 

[Hoggy]

Does anyone know if there's a main rayon thread here? Or is that only on the ridiculously censorship-ridden 'other' site that I'm getting fed up with?

 

[pulsevape]

I can't stand Rayon, tastes like shit, gives me a dry scratchy throat and as for longevity hell my coils will gunk up long before my Koh gen Doh, Cotton Bacon Prime or Native Wicks Platinum even comes close to breaking down. And to cut you off at the pass yes I did use Sally's and yes I did wick it properly.

What is your favorite cotton dude.

 

[JuicyLucy]

Space the wraps a bit, ever so slightly but not have any touching.
I ran contact coils but gave them up quickly.... unless perfectly made they can be a pain. Burning the center out from lack of juice gets old fast. I never did grasp the concept of how a tight coil can vaporize juice in the center and how juice gets into the center. I can just barely get a business card between the wraps but still not touching. The not so perfect build is more forgiving if the wraps are spaced a bit. 24 gauge is heavy wire and takes lots of power to heat up then ages to cool down enough to vape again without becoming too hot so fast.
Learn to clapton..A single core clapton is simple and slick as snot to make. I use a bead threader and protank head with the slit in the pin but lots make them holding the spool by hand. I haven't built a single wire coil in a few years now...just single core claptons. With claptons the mod registers the core wire and the wraps only transfer the heat so the less core wire mass the more efficient the vape and thinner 34 or 36 gauge SS works dandy as wraps(less resistance wire). 28 kanthal/34SS or kanthal wraps you can yield the 1.2Ω but less wire mass. I build 29K/34SS 5 wrap spaced 2.5ID with rayon and its 1.2ohm...great cloudz..and easy on the batts. I've claptoned with 30 gauge and 32 gauge cores with 34 wrap with success but my best vape comes from 29k/34ss or 29k/36ss clapton builds.
One other thing is ditch the cotton...no matter is its generic balls from the drug store or expensive foo-man-choo brand...its all cotton and all cotton have the same properties when it comes to vaping...get fiber wet the fiber expands so juice flows inside the fiber so one by one they burn and/or plug up until no fibers left to move juice...dryhitting. Try rayon...opposite properties to cotton, juice flows outside the fiber so the build cocoons up with burnt juice long before the wicking dies. Rayon wicking has a much longer life than cotton. Researching rayon as wicking is IMO well spent time and I'll have many others agreeing....rayon is the only wick to use.

Untrue - not all cotton is created equal and they do not behave the same

Rayon tastes horrible if you have very acutely sensitive taste buds

While I can appreciate that some really like rayon, claiming it it the only way to fly or not understanding the differences in the properties of types of cotton is a grave disservice to newbies

 

[r055co]

What is your favorite cotton dude.

It was Koh gen Do until a couple of months ago, I'm really digging Cotton Bacon Prime. I still go back and forth sometimes between them but CBP has been my go to now.

 

[r055co]

Untrue - not all cotton is created equal and they do not behave the same

Rayon tastes horrible if you have very acutely sensitive taste buds

While I can appreciate that some really like rayon, claiming it it the only way to fly or not understanding the differences in the properties of types of cotton is a grave disservice to newbies

^^^^^ This

 

[Hoggy]

Bah.... What a bunch of pretentious people here.

No... I'm JUUUUST kiding!
As is always said, different strokes for different folks.

But hey --- at least you can't accuse some of us of not being opinionated.

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Although, on a more serious note - how do those that say it tastes horrible know that it wasn't, in fact, a tainted sample? The problem with the main rayon products, as I see it, is their close association with beauty shops. And as we all know, there can be some mighty powerful odors/aromas from a great number of items they stock in there. So it's hard to know if any particular box was near any of them as they moved down the chain, from warehouse to store.

It's true that I'm not fortunate (or cursed) enough to be a super-taster, so I'm genuinely curious if there could be other reasons that some people say this. OTOH, I think Rin Vapes seems to be a super-taster based on how low she likes her flavoring percentages (similar to Jen Jarvis) - and I think she said her dad (IIRC) is ok with the box in her Youtube frame, but she isn't (I forget why, though).

I can't help but wonder what might be behind such a thing, since they're both cellulose fibers - one that's spun through an extruder and washed/rinsed extensively, and the other from a tree which is hopefully washed extensively as well. It makes me wonder if there isn't some kind of genome situation going on here like with broccoli and cilantro... As I'm one of those people in which cilantro tastes like 'bad breath' to me --- awful nasty stuff! (Broccoli is ok to me though.) ..... I mean, here, other cotton types don't taste "HORRIBLE" -- they just taste like [clean] socks, is all.

I think I'll wick the atty-mod that I'm currently upgrading to one of my many new home-spun fused clapton varieties with that sample of Cotton Bacon Prime I received (thanks to Lightning Vapes). I'll give it a shot, at least. Of course I'll have to put that on one of the tiny stickers I put on mods to remind me of which build is in it, so it won't be 'double-blind' or anything. But I'll still try to be fair.. And hopefully report back here. I only got about 6/7 more mods left to upgrade here.