Hey guys. So basically I'm getting frustrated with wick materials in general. I'm having to change my wick at least twice a day, though I do vape heavily. I'm running .95 ohm kanthal dual contact coils (10/11 wraps on a 2.5mm ID) on a stillare rda with a chuff enuff cap on a VaporShark DNA 40. I always keep the wattage at 40, which is about 6.15 volts. I've tried all different kinds of juices, different attys, and different wick materials. So far I've tried cvs brand organic cotton, koh gen do Japanese cotton, Cotton bacon, cellucotton rayon fiber, and something called unicorn hair, which I think is just rebranded rayon. I run a strand of wick material through each coil, making sure not to get it too tight or too loose. Then I put a little under the coils and between the posts, wet it, and go back and push it down so it's not touching the outside of the coils. I get the best results using Japanese cotton, but I feel like I should be getting longer out of my wicks than half a day. Are there any other wick materials or wicking techniques that I haven't tried yet or might last longer?
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Dude, that is a lot of volts. What kind of juice are you using? Post some pictures of your setup. Regardless, silica or stainless will be the longest lasting. Ceramic is an option. Silica is probably most practical.
My buddy seems to annihilate his wick quickly too when mine lasts weeks on plain old organic cotton and japanese cotton from 0.1 ohms up to 0.4 ohms. I think it's because I make my own juice with zero coloring or sweeteners. My juice is always water clear. My cotton stays white for a minimum of 2 weeks. Either it's the lack of sweeteners or that I'm OCD as heck and almost never let it go dry.
Will post pictures sometime tomorrow. I use a lot of juice from Propaganda, vaping rabbit, and Drakes. All premium lines and I usually use 0 nicotine. I should have clarified that my cotton doesn't appear physically burnt, but it tastes like it is.
In the rayon thread, there's an illustrious club (of which I'm not a member... Yet) of people who have gone 100ml or more before rewicking. The thread creator and rayon prophet Jeremy's most recent build went 180ml before a rewick.
I'm going on 40ml now and it's doing OK. Unfortunately I don't have any specific advice, but I do believe rayon is the answer. There's definitely a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it pays dividends.
I'm going on 40ml now and it's doing OK. Unfortunately I don't have any specific advice, but I do believe rayon is the answer. There's definitely a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it pays dividends.
I'm thinkin maybe 40 watts wouldn't take but one or two dry hits and the wick will become burnt toast, have you tried a single @ lower watts ?
40 might be alot if he's running sub 30awg coils. But it looks to me he's running 28, which should produce on the cool side. I'd say he's either using too much or too little wick. Did I read you position the wick away from the coil, this for air flow issues???? Cause its, not helping your wicking issues.
It might not even take that, if it's a large wrap coil and the wick isn't perfect then it's going to dry out at the center and eventually start glowing. This will burn the wick tucked under it & the wick inside it.
Next time you re-wick, fill it, vape it, fill it again, vape it til there's just a 'lil juice left in the wells. Go to a dark room, and see if you can fire for 10+ seconds without any part of the coil glowing. If you can, then I have no clue :O If not, there's your problem.
Maybe Readywick, abbreviated here as RxW.
I just don't see that you will ever get longevity at those levels from cotton.
T
I just don't see that you will ever get longevity at those levels from cotton.
T
40w to duals is 20w a coil.
Mine is standard vv, spaced single coil (\\32 or 28) 1.3ohm at 6v ~25w, medium color Arabic tobacco. 180ml on last wick and coil. *still no gunking at all.* The coil density and proper tail trimming are essential to break 100ml.
Your using DNA 40 which should be a huge bonus to normal.
Are you using a dirty net?
Otherwise it does sound like your doing something wrong or different to get such poor run times. Could even be your draw is too weak.
(If you switch wick types a lot its hard to master one, as they are all different)
Mine is standard vv, spaced single coil (\\32 or 28) 1.3ohm at 6v ~25w, medium color Arabic tobacco. 180ml on last wick and coil. *still no gunking at all.* The coil density and proper tail trimming are essential to break 100ml.
Your using DNA 40 which should be a huge bonus to normal.
Are you using a dirty net?
Otherwise it does sound like your doing something wrong or different to get such poor run times. Could even be your draw is too weak.
(If you switch wick types a lot its hard to master one, as they are all different)
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Run a spaced coil !!
Contact coils gunk much faster..
DNA 40 nickle builds also need to be spaced so they don't contact.
Contact coils gunk much faster..
DNA 40 nickle builds also need to be spaced so they don't contact.
What do you mean by dirty net? And I can't seem to post pictures from my phone, but I'll try wicking with a bit less wick.
You would know if you were using a soaked tobacco extraction. So your not using a net.
Not sure which wick your going to use so not sure if less will be the answer. I'm assuming cotton because its usually too tight. If it was rayon I would say use more because most new to it people don't use enough.. If you want to work with the rayon stop by the thread and ask well help you out. (Or here, its your thread)
Photo from your phone, you'll need the photo bucket app, upload to that then copy the IMG code directly into your post.. That's it. (Or another photo host)
Not sure which wick your going to use so not sure if less will be the answer. I'm assuming cotton because its usually too tight. If it was rayon I would say use more because most new to it people don't use enough.. If you want to work with the rayon stop by the thread and ask well help you out. (Or here, its your thread)
Photo from your phone, you'll need the photo bucket app, upload to that then copy the IMG code directly into your post.. That's it. (Or another photo host)
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I tried using less wick, that didn't seem to make a difference. I'm using 2.0mm coil now which are smaller than what I had before, and they seem to be tasting bad even quicker. Still not physically burning the wicks, but it tastes burnt. This never used to happen to me, and the only thing I've changed is upgrading from the rdna30 to the rdna40. Could it be this extra ten watts in power is just too much? And if so then why does this not happen to my roommate who uses a cloupor t6 at 66 watts? Thanks for all the help and advice everyone.
You never did say what kinda juice you are using, how much PG/VG, dark juices, acidic juices, juices with sweetener in it.. Makes a difference. What kind of atty are you using? It makes a difference. Sounds to me that your either not wicking your device properly, or your using a dark juice or something and your getting a bit of carbon build up quickly and yes that extra 10 watts could make a difference. If your wicks aren't burnt, that's most likely it. But if you want to try a durable wick, that wicks really well, have you considered giving ekowool a try?
True, I wasn't very specific with the juice. Since I rotate juices frequently I won't list all of then but they're all 70/30 vg/pg or higher, not dark or high nic content but very sweet and creamy and I'm sure that gunks them up quickly. I'm using a cartel stillare right now but I get the same issue with a tobh 2.5 that I use sometimes. I built some new coils with 26 gauge 6/7 wraps on a 3.0mm screw driver and so far no sign of off taste. I've tried Ekowool once or twice but wasn't able to get the weird taste to go away. I've heard something about torching it before juicing it up but that didn't seem to make a difference. How exactly do you successfully use Ekowool? And sorry if that's a noobish question.
If I had easy access to different wick materials I would probably test as many as you have jclifford94. That being said,
I agree 100% with Jeremy that some wick types require practice to be mastered. I was getting similar performance as you, and had to replace my cotton wicks daily. When I first tested rayon I saw great improvement in wicking ability but zero improvement in longevity. Once I started learning how to trim the tails, and really figured out the correct wick density, I started to understand why so many folks love rayon. Currently, instead of replacing it daily, I can go a full week before I taste any difference and replace the rayon wick.
edit: and +1 on spaced coils for wick longevity
I agree 100% with Jeremy that some wick types require practice to be mastered. I was getting similar performance as you, and had to replace my cotton wicks daily. When I first tested rayon I saw great improvement in wicking ability but zero improvement in longevity. Once I started learning how to trim the tails, and really figured out the correct wick density, I started to understand why so many folks love rayon. Currently, instead of replacing it daily, I can go a full week before I taste any difference and replace the rayon wick.
edit: and +1 on spaced coils for wick longevity
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Lol, it's silica, you learn to love the taste! Yeah, you can't really do much about that. Honestly, I don't drip myself and I don't make subohm coils. I use Kayfuns with 2mm micro coils and sugar and cream yarns as wicks. Even with this I have to rewick twice a week or so. It really does seem to me that you are very sensitive to taste and you seem like your bothered at the first sign of carbon build up on your coils. I have never tried them myself, but if I were using sub ohm drippers, I would give Clapton coils a shot. Just an idea....
I have run readyxwick(ceramic) for months without changing. You should check out the thread on it.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=539791
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=539791
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I'm curious about a few things.
Is that .95 oHm for the both of the coils or a single coil (which would effectively bring your total build down to .4 ohm)
Ok, so if its not then the thin gauge wire was burning in to the wick basically acting like a foam cutter which would burn through anything. The lesson here is to turn down the wattage and or decrease the voltage because your running too hot.
Ok, so now you have a new build on 26 gauge wire, larger contact surface area for the coils will help with the wicking material not burning. You had mentioned how to deal with Ekowool which is an interesting thing to handle.
You'll have to torch it until its glowing white, remember Ekowool is highly resistant to heat by nature unless you get the hybrids out there with the cotton core or whatever else they can stuff in there. If you want ultra clean tasting then you'll also want to boil it which will help remove the residue that they use on the ekowool pre production. Remember that Ekowool and Silica are insulators and the general intent for the product was not vaping (they are not going to change the production procedures for vapors when they have companies like NASA ordering millions of dollars of ekowool for insulation purposes).
If cleaned you should have no "Weird" taste from the wicking material, if you do then it's likely that your juice is getting to dry burn status. I used and still use braided silica aka ekowool and if I didn't tell you which atomizer is which then you would never know between the silica and rayon (I've done this before to several people is why I know it works). The idea here is to ensure that your not strangling your wick even with ekowool and or silica you should be able to slide the wicking back and forth with only minimal tension, anything more then that and you'll end up with issues.
Is that .95 oHm for the both of the coils or a single coil (which would effectively bring your total build down to .4 ohm)
Ok, so if its not then the thin gauge wire was burning in to the wick basically acting like a foam cutter which would burn through anything. The lesson here is to turn down the wattage and or decrease the voltage because your running too hot.
Ok, so now you have a new build on 26 gauge wire, larger contact surface area for the coils will help with the wicking material not burning. You had mentioned how to deal with Ekowool which is an interesting thing to handle.
You'll have to torch it until its glowing white, remember Ekowool is highly resistant to heat by nature unless you get the hybrids out there with the cotton core or whatever else they can stuff in there. If you want ultra clean tasting then you'll also want to boil it which will help remove the residue that they use on the ekowool pre production. Remember that Ekowool and Silica are insulators and the general intent for the product was not vaping (they are not going to change the production procedures for vapors when they have companies like NASA ordering millions of dollars of ekowool for insulation purposes).
If cleaned you should have no "Weird" taste from the wicking material, if you do then it's likely that your juice is getting to dry burn status. I used and still use braided silica aka ekowool and if I didn't tell you which atomizer is which then you would never know between the silica and rayon (I've done this before to several people is why I know it works). The idea here is to ensure that your not strangling your wick even with ekowool and or silica you should be able to slide the wicking back and forth with only minimal tension, anything more then that and you'll end up with issues.
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