Replace the wick :Is this idea worth me having a go at ?

[kinabaloo]

That's what ultrasonic claening baths aim to do. Well, sort of (but by vibrating a surrunding liquid).

While home-use ones don't seem to work, the chemist guy seemed to get good results with his industrial scale lab one.

Applying AC to the coil could kill it just like DC if it tried to expand but could not because of a heavy deposit overcoat.

[exogenesis]

Expectation is the driving force,
hopefull I'll try & find out, one way or the other.

[exogenesis]

Actually before I go and blow £50 on a reel of fine tungsten wire.

Is there anyone with relevent knowledge / experience who's got any
reasons why this is a good or bad idea ?

[kinabaloo]

It's a lot of money Exo. Can you think of a place to scrounge a tiny bit to try ?

[Jim Davis]

Pete - the problem is really the juice (deposit), not the atty.

And it's hard as a rock. Most liquids wont break it down.

Does this sound too far fetched?
A tiny piece of dry ice. Put it on the coil with tweezers to contract the buildup. Then pour hot water over it. The extreme contraction, combined with the rapid expansion, may crystallize the solid gunk so it can be blown or washed off. the coil wire should survive.

[exogenesis]

Exo - 2 things.

1) Wonder if you could try this (even if you think it's crazy) - take a cleaned up coil and simply remove the inner wick; try without it. Seems to me a reasonably good chance that it will work well enough without it. After all, most of the juice that's vaporized lands on the coil when (after) it is heated and the target area would still be pretty large (it might actually be hard for a droplet to squueze through a gap in the coil).

2) I think it best not to buy the reel for now but try to think where it is used and find a scrap item to salvage some from. It's a lot of money and not much use for other things.

Pretty sure most of the liquid that's being vapourised is from the wick
surface, or near the surface rather than what lands directly on the wire.

I think the wire on it's own has almost certainly not enough surface area.

Found a much cheaper source, Wires.co.uk.
I got this lot for the same price as the single reel from the other supplier:

10mtrs 0.058mm Bare Tungsten Wire £12.50
10mtrs 0.1mm Bare Tungsten Wire £12.50
10 Metres 0.05mm Nickel Chrome Wire £10.00
4 Metres of 0.4mm SILVER SOLDER £5.20
Shipping £2.02
VAT £6.34
Total £48.56

I thinking maybe the 0.025mm wire would have been
too thin to handle anyway.

Compared to the usual atomizer 35mm of 0.1mm nichrome,
it works out the same current will be drawn for 0.058mm tungsten
with 3 strands of 675mm length (!)

May (or not) take 20x as long to heat up,
(what's the heat-up time of an atomizer coil?)
but it will have 33x the wire surface area,
which may well be enough to give a good vape....


Anyone got any tips for silver soldering, please ?

[kinabaloo]

Pretty sure most of the liquid that's being vapourised is from the wick
surface, or near the surface rather than what lands directly on the wire.

I think the wire on it's own has almost certainly not enough surface area.

Looking at it again, the col covers most of the area on a 901; I tink it would work reasonably well.

On the other hand, deposit will still likely form inside the coil, but take longer to cause diinished performance.

If the opportunity comes along you could give it a go (and same here, or anybody else).

Re: the tungsten - will this be one strand, or parallel strands?

[surbitonPete]

Hey guys ..... another day and my coil is still working like new with this quick dry burn idea.....Exo ....I am thinking that if you can make an atomizer where the wicking material is also the atomizing wire itself..... a quick burn method of cleaning the gunk off would probably work far better with that.

[kinabaloo]

Hi Pete - was getting worried as not seen you around today. Thought you might be back on the analogs and hiding

Good news

Still looking ungunked ?

[kinabaloo]

Beginning to think the coil insert is necessary for the initial vapor before reinforcent droplets arrive.

That zippo wick material looks interesting (Wicking Material).