Coming up a cloud. Where vapists gather!

[jae]

Mine already seems to spit on a 70 VG blend, and I'm looking into getting an RDA for home use. I ordered some 100(-n) VG juice, just because I was curious to try it. I'm also thinking I want to start playing with building coils on the RBA that came with my setup, as an off-the-shelf drop in (as with motorcycles) just doesn't seem as much fun.

[DerGolgo]

To the youtubes, young fellow!
There will be plenty of vids explaining how to do it.
Important tip: you want to de-tension your wire or what you call it BEFORE you try wrapping it to a coil.
You do that by taking your blowtorch/creme-brulet-browned/butane torch and passing the wire through the flame so that it glows nice and bright. Being careful not to cut it or light it on fire (titanium wire burns BRIGHT!!).
That way, all the spring tension that makes the wire want to coil up on it's own, or spring out and stretch and whatnot, will be gone. Trust me, it was weeks before I learned that. I wished someone had told me sooner ...
Once you've built your coil and installed it, but before you wick it, you want to pulse power through it at low wattage until it glows evenly.
Don't shove your wick in there till it won't move, that'll be too tight. Make it so you can just slide it back and forth, even if it tugs on the coil a bit when you do that. It will expand and make good contact with the coil once it gets wet.

The youbtubes should tell you the rest.

Remember to add liquid to fairly saturate your wick before reassembling your atomizer. Otherwise, you'll have to wait many hours for capillary action in a dry wick to do it's thing.

[jae]

Yeah, I spent way too long on the youtubes last night watching some ridiculous advanced coil builds (multiple gauge and shape wire combinations in parallel, etc) and think I picked up some useful pointers even for basic coil building. Saw at least one interesting method for straightening wire that doesn't involve heat, but rather tensioning the wire and twisting it with a drill, and carefully relaxing it after twisting. Looks like there's definitely a bit of an art to it.

I'm planning to go ahead and order a 5-pack of drop-in coils so I've got some on-hand, but I'm going to start playing with the RBA over the weekend. It came with a couple of pre-coiled wires and a bit of cotton, so I suppose I'll try out the actual assembly with that stuff before I worry too much about ordering wire and tools to start building my own.

[jae]

ok, I lied. I'm going to start researching wire diameters and probably order some to start playing with.

Also, do you know anything about the Mutation X V4 or Mad Hatter Mini? I'm looking primarily at sub-$25 RDA's and out of these, not sure if there's any given winner (or loser)...
https://www.myfreedomsmokes.com/mutation-x-v4-rda.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.myfreedomsmokes.com/mad-hat ... i-rda.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DerGolgo]

I do that with the drill, too. Problem with that is, it'll only straighten most wires.
Once you tray and wrap it into a coil, you don't want it to flex and spring all over the place, that's hindersome. The heat treatment takes the springiness.
Some types of wire may be fine if straightened with a drill, and some things for the advanced class need the smooth surface of fresh, non-heat-treated wire. Like braiding.

As wire diameters go. People who do business with vapers should give you values of Ohm's /unit-of-length. Over here, it's Ohms per meter, in the US it may well be per foot.
Don't go too low. When I first tried out 0.6mm Titanium wire, I had to build a coil that was about half an inch long so resistance wouldn't be too low for my mod.

There are five common materials for wire:
Kanthal, stainless steel, Titanium (of varying alloy), Nickel (Ni200) or some Nickel-Iron alloy.
Nickel wire has been accused of having an aftertaste, it's practically zero-resistance and only useful with temperature control. Don't. There are also a few health concerns.
Nickel-Iron was nothing worth writing about, tried it, don't even remember the results. Meh.
Titanium comes in varieties that are ONLY suitable for building artistic coils, and other varieties that are easy to work with. Tastes nice, actually, but tricky to work. Health concerns if you glow to anneal/remove hot-spots after coiling. Any pre-coiling heat-treatment is pointless anyway, titanium don't take none of that shit. Also popular with temperature control.

Kanthal used to be the one and only. It's okay to work with and won't change it's resistance with changing temperature as much as others do. Which is why the temperature control craze is driving it out of the market, really. I started with Kanthal. If you don't want temperature control, it's cool.

Stainless steel is better, though. As easy to work with as Kanthal, BUT. A stainless-steel coil of similar size and resistance as a Kanthal coil will respond quicker, which is nicer. Tastes good, too.
You can use some temperature control devices with stainless (though not all). It comes in different varieties, of course. I like V4a, but V2a is cool, too.

Your first coils will be spaced, single-strand, simple and boring. I can try and find a youtube video of a simple build you should try first.
You can try a micro coil if you have pliers and patience.
I recommend you get yourself some different sizes of wire to play around with. You don't need a mile of wire, thirty, forty feet will be more than you need for a start.
I'd get some V4a, also known as 316L for example, some 30 gauge, some 29 gauge, some 28 gauge. The difference seems minimal, but it is big.

Have fun!

EDIT: Nickel-Iron actually impressed me so much, I forgot it was actually Nickel-Chrome, NiCr.

[jae]

One thing I've been looking at is pre-braided (twisted, wrapped, clapton, etc) wire, but haven't seen anybody offer resistance/ft values for this stuff yet. Is it just not worth it to bother?

[DerGolgo]

I've been looking at that myself, and I'm someone who has built his very own clapton coils.
The people I know who use ready-made stuff like that, they seem to like it a lot. Also people who had learned how to make a clapton coil at one point.
It's worth it if you like it. I know people who will use only claptons, or stapled, or anything of that nature. They like not having to spend five hours making wire each time they want to coil their atty. I know people who've tried it but still prefer a simple micro-coil.
Apart from twisted, it's worth a try. It will take you days and leagues and leagues of wire to make your first clapton, and it probably won't be pretty. The pre-made stuff is made on equipment designed to make guitar strings, it'll be as perfect as those.
Twisted, meanwhile. If you have an electric drill with a clamp-chuck, it's just too easy to make and to get perfect. I have done it many times, comes out perfect with next to no effort, delivers good flavor. But that's for your third or fourth coil, at the very earliest. And try coiling that without heat treating. Twisted coils, even made from fairly thin wire, can get stiff as heck.

You can buy stuff even when they don't list the resistance, that's really just for guidance. Just keep in mind, the thicker the whole thing is, the thicker it's constituent wires are, the lower Ohms it will have. With low Ohms, you don't just need batteries that can deliver appreciable amperage, you'll need a device to fire many watts for it to work.

[wyckedsin]

there are ohm calculators online that take the diameter of the wire or clapton and can calculate what the final resistance /should be/ including overall length and number of wraps. Things you will need to know is the diameter of the wire or clapton, diameter of the wrap you intend to make (ie: what size screwdriver/drill bit/allen key etc) and the expected final length the wire will be once locked in place on the posts and the tails clipped off. My son missed that part of the calculator and was entering in the total length of wire he was using to start making the coil with. He couldn't figure out why the build calculator was claiming .8 ohm yet his builds were coming out less than .4 ohm .

[jae]

A calculator like this? http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp?si ... 9999999996" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I got the Mad Hatter Mini RDA in the other day and found that my mod doesn't like the coil setup that came on it, with a total resistance of 0.2 ohm. I tried it with a single coil installed (mod handles the 0.4 ohm just fine) and think I must've done something wrong because instead of lovely vapor I got that nasty dry coil nonsense. Not sure why that is as the cotton seemed sufficiently saturated and to be in good contact all around the coil. I'll watch some youtube videos and make sure I'm not screwing up somewhere else.

Also have some 30 ga. wire to start playing with. Should be a fine distraction when I get fed up with working on my kilt or guitar. I think I'm picking up too many hobbies, as I've got bikes getting neglected in the garage...

[DerGolgo]

A calculator like this? http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp?si ... 9999999996" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've tried that one a few times, I found it ... less than reliable.
BUT, that might have been down to incorrect values the wire suppliers had given me. Try it out, maybe you like it. Though I do recall that, once you enter something here, something else you entered in another field changes. That was annoying.
Play around, you'll get the feeling eventually.

I got the Mad Hatter Mini RDA in the other day and found that my mod doesn't like the coil setup that came on it, with a total resistance of 0.2 ohm. I tried it with a single coil installed (mod handles the 0.4 ohm just fine) and think I must've done something wrong because instead of lovely vapor I got that nasty dry coil nonsense. Not sure why that is as the cotton seemed sufficiently saturated and to be in good contact all around the coil. I'll watch some youtube videos and make sure I'm not screwing up somewhere else.

There is a minimum resistance for any kind of mod. Many won't handle resistance below 0.3 Ohm, for others it's 0.2 or 0.1. They will refuse to do stuff if it's too low.
When you put your cotton in your coil, make sure it's not sitting too tight. It shouldn't slide through with no resistance, but not sit tight, either. When adding your juice, make sure you put some directly on the coil itself and that the cotton is totally soaked.
Start on a lower power setting and work your way up.
If those coils are very small, the amount of liquid available for vaporization will be accordingly small, so it'll get dry quicker.
Best idea, I should think: Build a coil. Nice, big diameter, a bunch of windings, see where it takes ya. This is something you can really only learn by doing.

[jae]

I did a couple last night. According to that calculator I should've been right at 0.4 ohm, actual build is measuring at 0.7 ohm according to my mod. Did a 2-wire twist of 30 ga. kanthal A1, 5 wraps around a .094 drill bit, running two coils in parallel. To be safe I wound one, installed, and once I found it was measuring 1.5 ohm I felt pretty safe going dual (though my mod does have a safety if resistance is too low). I'm thinking next time around I'll probably do a 4 wire twist and go with a larger wrap so the cotton fits a bit looser in there.

Not the best picture, but it's what I've got:


I'm headed to the vape shop this afternoon to pick up some more juice and I'll see what pointers they can give me. I've found (so far) that I'm liking the 70/30 juice more than the 100% (or max) VG, but I'm not sure if that's the flavors I selected, the higher nic level (6mg/ml vs the 3 I've been using), or the blend itself. More experimentation is in order.

[DerGolgo]

That looks like a good, solid start, sir!

Some notes:
As far as possible, the coils should be right in front of the air-holes. For good flavor, good vapor and to keep the coils from overheating, you want the airflow to impinge the coils directly.
Don't worry liquid coming out of the airholes. A little is probably going to come out anyway, with the airflow from below. But that kind of atty can deliver bombastic flavor, if only you arrange the coil right. The way you've got it now, most of the air will bypass the coil.
Dunno if this manner of building was recommended in a video. But I have used atties like that, still got my Kepler Best Selection. I put the coil right over the airflow, as far as that awkward curve permitted. Was very happy. By arranging your cotton carefully, and using a micro-coil as you do, seepage will be minimal. I had next to none on my Kepler Best Selection, basically the same setup as yours there. High VG also aids in avoiding seepage.

0.094 inches is way too small. Not enough liquid can get into the coil. 3mm, 0.118 inches and upwards is what you want for your interior diameter, especially with high-VG stuff. I use 4mm, 0.157 inches most of the time. I don't go bigger because I don't think any of my atties would fit that while still delivering sufficient airflow.

Twist more. Especially in a dripper, you can use more windings. I rebuilt a tank-atty this morning, my Indulgence Mutation X MT, with 0.28mm stainless steel wire, parallel, nothing fancy. 3.5mm, 0.137 inch core, eight and a half windings.
Heat transfer happens on a surface. You want maximum surface area for your coil. That means big inner diameter and a lot of wire.

If memory serves, the way I built my Kepler Best Selection, I'd use the 3.5mm inner diameter, make a LONG coil. One end would be just at the edge of the airhole, so the wick wouldn't hang over it at that end, the other end of the coil would be pretty close to the other end of the airhole. Bending microcoils to fit such a curved shape is tricky, and it won't match perfectly, but a bit of bent is possible.

Do not think you have to have short and straight wire ends going from your coil to your posts. L-shapes and suchlike are permitted. When I wrap parallel, I twist the ends together, makes things easier. Keep whatever you wind your coil around in it while you do that, use some thin-nosed pliers to hold the wires so that when you twist, the coil won't get warped.

But like I said, those coils look pretty good for a beginner, you're on the right path, I should think!

EDIT:
This is for the advanced class, but some day, soon I suspect, you will build something like this:
3 strands of 0.28mm, 0.011 inch V4a stainless steel wire, braided, 8 1/2 rotations around a 4mm core. Vapor galore with 80% VG.
Lovely thing about braided, also "alien", "tank tread" and "clapton" coils is that liquid can soak into the space between the wires, which helps with flavor and vapor production.

[jae]

Yeah, makes sense having the coil right by the air holes. Don't know why I was so worried about possibly contacting the cover, as the ID is really pretty large. As long as I don't go past the o-ring surface I should be fine. I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of having the air holes on the bottom of the deck as opposed to the sides though, practically guarantees a mess.

I've got quite a bit of this wire left that I twisted, I may double it over, twist again with the drill and try winding around a larger bit. I'm betting that wrapping around a larger shaft will also make tight colis quite a bit easier.

[DerGolgo]

What you should do, what all experienced builders do.
Build your coil. Anneal/glow-out the hot-spots to your delight, get it to the point you're about ready to wick it. Note what resistance your mod reports.
Don't wick it. Instead, put the top-cao or whatnot on. Fire the mod for a fraction of a second, see what resistance is reported. If it stays the same, all is well. If only the last digit changes, take the cap off and fire again. The last digit is often wobbly anyway.
Then, when all is well, wick it. And repeat, just one short burst, to see whether there's a change in resistance. When you wick it, you will move the coil about just a tiny bit, better be safe than the other thing.
What I've started doing to avoid shorts at the post when putting a freshly wound coil into a tight deck? Wedge some paper in there. Folded double. Tighten the coil in place, remove paper, no short.

[jae]

So let's see here....

The wire is going to have a fairly constant resistance per given length, so if I double the number of coils (same diameter), I'll roughly double the overall resistance. (I am ignoring the tail ends for this approximation...)

If I double the number of wires running in parallel in a coil that was originally 1.5 ohm, my resulting equation is 1 / ( 1/1.5 + 1/1.5 ), which is a pretty straight-forward 1.5 / 2 = .75 ohm.

So if I double the number of wires and double the number of coils (assuming the same wrap diameter) I should end up with roughly the same resistance. For the sake of easy math, let's say my coil wrapped around the 0.093" shaft are really 0.125" diameter when accounting for the height of the helix and a loose fit. Circumference is PI(d), so 5 coils is approximately 1.9" + tails (say .25" each) or 2.4" overall. If I want to double the overall wire length and wrap around .125" shaft (.156" diameter), I'll need 4.8" (minus ends) which is 4.3". Working backward, I get about 8.5 - 9 coils... (Tell me if I'm doing weird things here.)

If I make the center post leg a bit longer so I can get the coil closer to centered I'm thinking I could do an 8 wrap coil on each side? The rough math seems to work out ok, though I'm not sure how well a quad-wrap is going to want to coil for me. Either way, it sounds like a fun project for tomorrow night.

[DerGolgo]

Sounds about right, ya.
Thought you're complicating things a bit.
The factor, by which you make stuff longer, is the factor by which resistance increases.
Parallel/multi coiling reduces resistance by how many times you add what you previously had. R[new]=(1/n)*R[old], where n is the number you add in parallel/as additional coils what you had before.
I've built dual coils, each with six strands of wire in parallel ... oh, what fun.

[jae]

Sounds about right, ya.
Thought you're complicating things a bit.
The factor, by which you make stuff longer, is the factor by which resistance increases.
Parallel/multi coiling reduces resistance by how many times you add what you previously had. R[new]=(1/n)*R[old], where n is the number you add in parallel/as additional coils what you had before.
I've built dual coils, each with six strands of wire in parallel ... oh, what fun.

Your statement for parallel/multi holds up until you start adding in different gauges, ribbon wire, etc. where each has a different resistance.

On the other hand, I know I'm just making this WAY more complicated than it needs to be. Wire's cheap. Build a coil, measure, modify to suit.

One thing I found out this weekend is that while the dual wrap still coiled easily, once I doubled that over and tried to wrap it there was much more resistance to maintain the shape. I'll try coiling it over a smaller bit in order to get the final coil diameter I wanted.

[DerGolgo]

On the other hand, I know I'm just making this WAY more complicated than it needs to be. Wire's cheap. Build a coil, measure, modify to suit.

Perzactly, sah!

One thing I found out this weekend is that while the dual wrap still coiled easily, once I doubled that over and tried to wrap it there was much more resistance to maintain the shape. I'll try coiling it over a smaller bit in order to get the final coil diameter I wanted.

And this just goes to show yer, you're never done learning. I've cursed about stubborn wire not sticking to the diameter I was wrapping around. This lateral approach of yours had never even occurred to me! Great idea!

[jae]

When bending any metal there is going to be some spring-back, unless it's held in place and heat treated to relax the internal stresses. Makes sense, as to deform metal you have to stress it past the elastic limit into plastic deformation. Typically when bending tubing there's a certain percent spring-back you can accommodate for, such that if you want a 30 deg. bend you will bend (for example) 10% over to 33 deg, so that when it relaxes you're left with a 30 deg. bend. I think it's just a lot more obvious when trying to bend .120 wall 1-1/2" DOM tubing than 26 ga. wire.

My over-thinking comes from being trained in mechanical engineering. My work-arounds come from practical experience fabricating. Sometimes it's easier to sit and over-think than to just say "screw it" and see what happens, but I eventually come back to the sign my manager had on the wall in his office: "Done is better than perfect."

[jae]

I finished wrapping my coils last night and I'm still a little high on resistance, but I'm getting a nice even glow when I dry fire. Just need to add some cotton and I'll try it out, but for the next set I think it's time to try some bigger wire. I'm not a huge fan of this RDA so far because of the weird kink I have to put in the lead for each coil to keep them over the air holes and still hit the center post.

I don't know how much difference it really makes, but for my quad-wire twist instead of twisting 4 wires together, I twisted two together, then doubled that over and twisted the two halves of the same length, so I guess it's really a dual-'dual-twist'-twist.

[DerGolgo]

Man, are you ever blowing off the beginner's class!

I've been trying to put a new vertical quad-coil setup on my Genius² for ... damn, two hourse. Something would always burn through, or fall under the table, I must have built like ten coils, steel or titanium, it just refused to work.
I took it as a sign that I should try a horizontal coil, now that I've been getting more comfortable with the peculiar wickiong necessary for this device.
20 minutes, a pair of bog-simple parallel coils, stainless steel. Still a bit of a spazz, had to build three coils for the dual-coil build.
But it's making clouds now, which is nice.

As for putting kinks in wires:
Yes, that's annoying. See my picture of my build I posted earlier? Deck of a "Velocity" RDA. Shitty top-section, but super-luxury deck, fits many other top sections. Two posts, each with two screw-holes. Assembly couldn't be easier or more elegant, no sir.

[jae]

Yeah, I think I may have to try that deck. I'm very unimpressed with the deck on the mad hatter mini the more I try to build on it. Aside from the coil positioning issue, which necessarily gives you weirdness when trying to insert the wire into the center post, the two coils share the centerpost with a single screw. Couple that with questionable material (or machining? either way the center post screw thread is damn-near stripped already) and I'm ready to just cut my loss on a cheap RDA and move on.

Man, are you ever blowing off the beginner's class!

I've been known to blindly dive into water of unknown depth before... bought wire of an unsuitable diameter for what I was trying to do so I searched for a problem that required my on-hand solution. Little ass-backwards approach, but it's working so far.

[DerGolgo]

Something new for a change.
Oval coil.
"Wrapped" around a pair of 3mm drill bits, then squeezed and tugged into shape with liberal application of blowtorch.
The wide shape nicely matches the air-holes and the arrangement of the steel-rope wicks. Works quite well, but the non-steel wicks still have some optimization potential, methinks.
Currently, inside the coils, it's Fiber Freaks density 2, while below, on top and around the steel-rope wicks it's density 1.
Why?
Because density 1 is better at transporting the juice, so it gets to do the dirty capillary work around the steel rope. But it don't taste so nice. Density 2, which is supposed to go into dripper atties (though I use it in all my RTAs, it's good enough), is pretty much free of it's own aroma, so that's good.
The wire: pre-fabricated fused-clapton. Kanthal A1, two strands of 28GA inside and a single strand of 32GA wrapped around. I do suspect the GA here is AWG.

[jae]

I guess this is one more reason I'm not a big fan of visible clouds...

While I was pumping gas this morning the attendant came out to yell at me to turn off my engine. It was a fairly warm 70F and extremely humid and foggy, so the vapor I exhaled did not dissipate much at all. She assumed that what she was seeing was the exhaust from my car.



How did those oval coils work out?

[DerGolgo]

She assumed that what she was seeing was the exhaust from my car.

EPIC!

How did those oval coils work out?

Good flavor, good vapor. Until there wasn't.
Well, the vapor remained good. But the flavor got that nasty burnt-motif to it soon enough.
No matter how I'd wick it, it would burn much too quickly at the extremes of the coil, where the wire goes around the bent. I diagnose heat-build up there, due to the geometry of the thing. Not as much wick there, not as much liquid to get up in the bends, so it gets hotter and the wick gets messed up.

Different wire-setup or different wicking style might solve it. But I'm quite happy with the quad-coil I'm now running in it, so I'm not in a hurry to give the oval another go right now.

Though, if that heat-buildup can be resolved, it'd be pretty rockin.

[DerGolgo]

Took delivery of a brand new vaporizer today.
This. Thing. Is. A. Monster.
It's the RTA to end all RTAs.
It doesn't have airflow like a small dripper ... it has airflow like a BIG dripper. AND you can get coils wound around a 4mm core in there, too. Two of them!
With the dual-post design, there isn't a central post obstructing airflow. There is pretty much nothing to obstruct airflow.
All the metal bits of the chimney look a big flimsy - but that's only because of their size. This thing is built like a GUN.
I made video for my Jerry vapist buddies. Nevermind the narration in German, I've illustrated just how big it is.
Not long ago, the Indulgence MT (aka "Mutation X RTA", aka "Mutank") was praised as the big cloud-chaser super-wearpon tank thing.
I've held it up next to the Mega-Tank for size comparison. It's no comparison. The sheer size of EVERYTHING on the Mega-Tank is ridiculous.
The holes for the coil-wires are enormous, as is the length of thread for the screws that go with 'em. Seriously, this thing is WELL MADE.

And yes, yes, I know I should have held the phone the other way around.
Try improvising a camera-stand thingy from an old mirror and a plastic clamp from the hardware store in under three minutes, I dare ya!

[media]https://youtu.be/ur_gsFFfCaE[/media]

[jae]

Nice, I'll give it a watch.

Finally got a picture of the 30 ga. dual/dual twist wire coils I was working on a few weeks back, as I finally wicked it and tested them out. I'm pretty happy with them after an evening of use, but I need to get some good cotton and see how much better it can be. You sure weren't joking about the wire getting difficult to coil though. Now that I've heat cycled it on the deck I may see if it is any easier to bend into shape.

[DerGolgo]

Looking pretty good, that!
There is great debate whether a spaced coil like that, or a micro coil (where there are no gaps) tastes better and/or makes bigger could.
But I should think that one looks pretty decent!

[guitargeek]

[Jaeger]

Mishka has been busting my chops about the snus ("I ain't kissing you, that shit tastes awful"). As a result, I re-read this thread (thanks for the info!) and picked up a Kanger Subox this morning.

My initial impression is that this is a helluva lot better than the shitty little wannabe e-cig I tried about 6 years ago. Good draw, and it seems to scratch the itch. That, and I did miss being able to breathe smoke.

Right now I'm using "Uncle Junk's John Wayne" juice (12mg) with the gizmo set at 30W. I'm still messing with it. The guys as the store talked me out of getting the 18mg juice I'd originally requested, though I have a feeling I'll be going in that direction fairly soon. We'll see.

My goal here is to reduce the amount of snus. I don't think I'll be getting rid of it—it's too damn convenient and discrete—but sitting here in my office, this seems like a nice way to shake it up. The big problems are:

1) Mishka hates the shit;
2) I gotta order the snus from overseas, which gets expensive; and
3) I suspect that overdoing ANYTHING (including the snus) is prob unhealthy, so I'm hoping to spread the damage over a couple of areas.

Any recommendations on tobacco-flavored juice? I'll consider menthol and/or mint too, but I started smoking Camel straights when I was 14 or so, and I just likes me some tobacco.

--Jaeger