I bought my first genny several months ago. I watched dozens of videos, read countless guides and posts on how to build it properly with SS mesh, but continued to struggle with shorts and hotspots up until recently. I had all but given up on ever getting a good vape from a mesh wick and had luckily found a good method for building with ekowool sleeving the top of SS cable. Using a non-conductive sleeve is easy and produces very good results, but not great results. I figured it was "good enough" and used this for quite a while, but having the sleeve gunk up and fall apart after a few cleanings was not ideal. Also, I frequently experienced dry hits as the tank got low which required an absurd amount of tilting (nearly inverting the mod).
Recently I found a single tip which allowed me to finally discover what I had been getting wrong all along - coil tension. The tip was to remove the positive post while wrapping wire around the wick, which simply gave me an opportunity to wrap the coil perfectly. It may have been sheer luck which led me to these two keys of my own to get my RSST working they way it was intended - beautifully. Now I honestly get the best flavor and consistent performance of any device I've used so far, perhaps beating out my best RDA builds.
Without further ado, here are my keys to success. These may be obvious to you, and perhaps you are already doing these things correctly and your issues lie elsewhere, but these are what gave me my breakthrough.
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1. The coil must be wrapped consistently tight enough such that all the wraps touch the wick. There can be no gaps or significant variation in tension, because these things will lead to hotspots. The only places where the wire doesn't touch the wick is where it tails off on a tangent path to the positive/negative connections.
2. The coil must be loose enough everywhere such that gently plucking each wrap with a fine tipped tool (like a mini screwdriver) causes them to slide easily along the wick. Anywhere the coil is too tight ("biting into the wick"), a short will likely form over time even if everything is oxidized properly.
***
So there is a balance of tightness and looseness with a fairly narrow window of what is going to be correct. However, this is something to take your time on and get right before you ever fire the coil and start adjusting it based on where and how it is lighting up.
Once the two keys are achieved, simply poke the mesh and nudge the coils to get a nice consistent glow that starts from the middle wrap(s). Drip a little juice on, burn it off, and repeat small adjustments until it stays perfect. At this point, saturate the coil, fill the tank and vape.
There are other steps for various methods of setting up a genny, such as oxidizing the wick or pulsing, rolling a solid wick or a hollow wick, wrap spacing and number of wraps vs wire gauge and wick diameter, etc, etc; but all these things are covered at length in multitudes of videos and guides all over the web. As a reference I will say that I use 500 mesh, rolled solid, lightly oxidized, filling the wick hole (but not pushed against the edge of it in any direction), and 4 wraps 28 gauge kanthal for about 0.9 ohms.
As always, good luck and feel free to contact me with any questions!
Thanks for reading
Recently I found a single tip which allowed me to finally discover what I had been getting wrong all along - coil tension. The tip was to remove the positive post while wrapping wire around the wick, which simply gave me an opportunity to wrap the coil perfectly. It may have been sheer luck which led me to these two keys of my own to get my RSST working they way it was intended - beautifully. Now I honestly get the best flavor and consistent performance of any device I've used so far, perhaps beating out my best RDA builds.
Without further ado, here are my keys to success. These may be obvious to you, and perhaps you are already doing these things correctly and your issues lie elsewhere, but these are what gave me my breakthrough.
***
1. The coil must be wrapped consistently tight enough such that all the wraps touch the wick. There can be no gaps or significant variation in tension, because these things will lead to hotspots. The only places where the wire doesn't touch the wick is where it tails off on a tangent path to the positive/negative connections.
2. The coil must be loose enough everywhere such that gently plucking each wrap with a fine tipped tool (like a mini screwdriver) causes them to slide easily along the wick. Anywhere the coil is too tight ("biting into the wick"), a short will likely form over time even if everything is oxidized properly.
***
So there is a balance of tightness and looseness with a fairly narrow window of what is going to be correct. However, this is something to take your time on and get right before you ever fire the coil and start adjusting it based on where and how it is lighting up.
Once the two keys are achieved, simply poke the mesh and nudge the coils to get a nice consistent glow that starts from the middle wrap(s). Drip a little juice on, burn it off, and repeat small adjustments until it stays perfect. At this point, saturate the coil, fill the tank and vape.
There are other steps for various methods of setting up a genny, such as oxidizing the wick or pulsing, rolling a solid wick or a hollow wick, wrap spacing and number of wraps vs wire gauge and wick diameter, etc, etc; but all these things are covered at length in multitudes of videos and guides all over the web. As a reference I will say that I use 500 mesh, rolled solid, lightly oxidized, filling the wick hole (but not pushed against the edge of it in any direction), and 4 wraps 28 gauge kanthal for about 0.9 ohms.
As always, good luck and feel free to contact me with any questions!
Thanks for reading
