Capillary action of silica vs rayon

Note: the context of this test was in trying to understand why Dr Kurt @Kurt found so many carcinogens in Gen 2 devices, and hardly any in Gen 3 devices. Most Gen 2 devices used silica in a top coil configuration, where Gen 3 introduced cotton, and other materials, in bottom coil configurations.
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OK, so the "capillary" action of silica vs modern alternatives was killing me, couldnt get it out of my head all day. So whats a geek to do? TEST!

• Stock silica from a VV nova was 5cm long and weighed 0.09g
• I cut a length of rayon to match, 5cm long and 0.09g in weight
• Mixed some 50/50 pg/vg juice with a dab of pro food coloring
• Placed each sample inside of an identical clear tube
• Placed both tubes in a beaker and added juice

I am not a videographer, and this is a new phone so forgive the poor quality. It shows the start of the test, but I accidentally cut the camera off before it was finished.



So I waited a few minutes and took a still pic:



Notice the juice had barely got about half way up the silica, but if you looked from top down you could see the juice had reached the very top of the rayon.

So I weighed the juice content of each wick since I knew the tare weights.

• Silica wick contained 0.33g of liquid
• Rayon wick contained 1.2g of liquid

The poor performance of silica might well be the culprit in the Gen 2 tests performed by Dr Kurt. I.e. coil was being starved for juice.


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OK, I am officially sticking my neck out here! If you care about coil temp, and some evidence says you should, DO NOT USE STOCK COILS that rely on silica wicks!
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So I did another test, comparing rayon and silica in a modern atty.

This time I built a coil, then used the exact same atty, mod, coil, and juice, the ONLY change was swapping out the wick. I used Ekowool braided silica which is considered to be the most premium available. (Keep in mind that stock wicks use the cheap stuff)

• Measured only in watts as my Vamo did not like the low resistance of the coil, so I had to use my DNA in power mode instead.

• Coils was a 6/7 wrap of SS430 around a #33 drillbit (~2.9mm) and ohmed out to be 0.43 ohms. Same exact coil used for both wicks. I just rewicked the coil.
  
• Did not measure fiber weight, I prepared each wick like I would have done if I was building it for myself. Cut to proper length and fluffed and tucked on both, etc.
• Juice flow was 80% for all tests.
• Airflow was 100% for all tests.

Silica SUCKS (or rather - it doesnt!)


Test Results:



Test Porn:
Threaded the probe


Built the first wick


Ready to test:


Shows silica was fully saturated:


Type of silica used:






©2017 Mike Petro. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.