*** I guess this marks the start of me blogging here. I'm not one of those crazy cloud-chasing fellas with the ridiculous sub-ohms and crazy builds. I do, however, like many guys enjoy tinkering with small metallic parts. Decided I would just document some of my builds as I learn more stuff about vaping and what not. Who knows, someone might actually find this useful!
** Edit: Decided to add in more "commentaries" after some folks started asking me about different stages of the build. so here goes!
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Alright! Finished work early and here I am. Double 32ga twisted kanthal, 7 wraps, 1.3 ohms. vertical build.
Build a simple microcoil the same way you usually would for a kayfun: make sure both leads are pointing in opposite directions. I almost always take the coil out, compress it with a tweezer and torch it so that it gets very nice and compressed. then slide the drill bit back in, and just plop the drill bit into the air hole as shown below:
So there are different ways of doing it, but I personally highly HIGHLY recommend that the top lead goes onto the negative post screw (it's the smaller separate post) while the bottom lead goes to the positive post. The reason is simple: having the bottom lead at the native positive post (larger block) eliminates the possibility of a cross-pole short (happens when the leads from the negative post ends up touching the building deck (positive post). it's a BAD thing to happen, esp if you're using a mech.
Once the leads are secured, the first thing I do is to lift the coil approx 1.3 mm above the airhole. this is usually the trickiest part of the entire build. After you're done securely the leads tightly, chances are the tension is gonna cause the coil to be tightly pressed down on the deck. I use my tinniest flat headscrew driver, wriggle it underneath and then lift it up. I got a bunch of people telling me that when they do that, the coil kinda "topples over" or kinda slants at an angle. That's normal, and it happens because of the tension from the top lead. Don't worry about it for now. (Just wanna add that I usually do this WITH the DRILLBIT inside still. This reduces the slanting, and makes it easier for me to just push the coil up) Please please make sure you do this step. Forgetting to do so will result in issues such as:
1) varying resistance
2) insanely long heat up time (because the metal positive block is conducting heat away from the coil)
3) and even if you are patient enough to wait for the coil to get red hot, you should at this point realize that the atty base and the positive block is ridiculously hot. you WILL melt your positive post insulator (that square-ish piece).
Next stage, you wanna check on the ohm meter just to make sure it isn't shorting. REMOVE YOUR DRILL BIT FIRST!!!!! failure to do so will cause either a wildly fluctuation resistance reading, or just straight short. You CAN damage your mods (especially mech mods) and batteries.
Then pulse fire it red hot. At this stage, you wanna achieve/do 2 things:
1) compress the coils with the tweezers. Keep doing it until there's no more hot spots, and it lights up evenly from center-out; typical microcoil stuff.
2) Remember how I said don't worry about the slanted coil? Now when kanthal is red hot, is it extremely malleable. So while you're compressing the coils with your tweezer, use the time to also angle the coils back vertically again. It should end up looking nice and pretty like this:
Note that this coil is pretty damn high off the positive deck. That's because in this case I'm using a kayfun black edition clone, which has an extended airhole. On my authentic kfl+ and r91, the top of this air hole (which is also the center post) sits flush with the positive post, so you won't have to lift it too high up.
The single most impt thing: the coil must must must be aligned with the airhole. The best way to do it is to just wriggle your drill bit back through the coil, and use it to shift the coil to get it aligned. Remember, make sure that the drill bit goes all the way through the coil before shifting, or else you'll end up with a vertical coil that's kinda staggered and misaligned in the middle.
My little secret to ensure success. A lot of people fail and say that the airflow is horrendous even after aligning the coil with the hole. That's because during the wicking stage, the cotton gets caught between the airhole and the bottom of the coil. Leave the drill bit in it while wicking, and you're guaranteed a clear air channel. The amount of wick is entirely up to you, but as you'll see at the end of this entry, I personally prefer a slightly fatter wick (seen below) because the flavor is ridiculously saturated and rich that way. In any case, pass the wick under the top leg (so that it sits between the negative post and the coil)
wrap both ends of the wick around. this might be annoying, but to make it a heck lot easier, I wet the wick with juice, and it's easy peasy. I also use a screw driver to kinda just push the cotton and seat it between the coil and the positive post screw.
snip off the ends of the cotton, leaving just enough for it to sit in a "L" shape on the deck. again, juice is your best friend. use it to get it to stick to the walls of the juice deck.
Unfortunately, the nature of the build is such that the top leg is extra long because it has to come down to the screw. So that leads to a hot leg. Place a wick over (it reaches down to the deck on both side). Extra vapor!
At this point, wickin is complete. check to make sure that the airflow is not obstructed (it really shouldnt be, as long as you've left the drill bit in while you were wicking)
Remember, cotton takes time to break in. I like to test fire it for quite a bit, then assemble everything, and take multiple quick puffs to accelerate that process. vapor might be thin at the start, but once it gets going, the vapor is very, very good.
And of course, the vape:
Some stuff:
1) throat hit: I learnt this from Rip Tripper. Now in his video he went ape-sh** on the throat hit and stuff. I might be building this wrong, but I thought throat hit was nothing special. Don't get me wrong: the throat hit is VERY good. but it isn't like a world of a difference from a solid microcoil. In fact, I get a waaaay harder throat hit from a triple-32ga microcoil.
2) Vapor production: I mean, it's GOOD. Obviously you can't compare it to a sub-ohm RDA with enlarged airholes. But just look at the last picture. I don't sub-ohm or fancy build (not too much at least). That was 1.3 ohms, 4.1 V on my provari. that's all. The vapor production is very good by my standards. But then again, I'm not a cloud chase, so what do I know?
3) Flavor: THIS. THIS. Interesting I've learnt about the vertical build is that less isn't always more. Unlike in normal microcoils where using too much cotton will choke the coil and lead to dry hits, there is absolutely nothing to get choked here.
You can see here that the build got pretty fat and bulky at the end.
Just from simple trial and error, I found that getting a fatter wick around the coil gives me a slight wetter and definitely way more saturated vapor. It's almost like im eating it. Very very flavorful. Wicking is also not at issue at all. I've got Boba's bounty on this sucker and she's working sweet. At this point, I've tried quite a lot of different builds (i'm a sucker for youtube and reddit reviews). But this. Build the way I like it with the fat saturated wick, the flavor is just too damned good. Nice, rich, super dense and just flavorful. definitely the biggest plus of this build.
4) Just thought I would mention this: I see alot of people talk about failed chimney builds, and it's always one of the 2 things:
a) airflow: like i mention in the step by step part, the KEY that I've learnt is just to leave the drill bit in. it solves everything. Also I recommend a 1/16 drill bit, because it fits perfectly snug (slightly loose sorry) in the airhole, so you're getting the most optimized coil inner diameter imo. In fact when you do this right, I guarantee you that your airflow is DEFINITELY gonna be looser than a horizontal coil. I mean, it makes sense. With a horizontal coil, your air flow is partially obstructed and has to flow around the coil. With the vertical coil, it's completely unobstructed.
I'm also an engineer and my current specialty is in fluid and air flow, and I would LOVE to bore you to tears with explanation about laminar and turbulent and fully developed flow and all that jazz, but I'll spare y'all that. Point is, it works and there's no jazz to it. There's a reason for the ultra-smooth and thick vape.
In any case, this has gotten too wordy. I hope this has been as helpful for you as it has been fun for me. If you have any question, feel free to PM. Heck, I'm not the best person with my chubby fingers, but feel free to PM me about some random build you see, and I'll do my best to replicate it and post a step-by-step guide like above. disclaimer though, I'm NOT a pro, and i most certainly don't think of myself as one. but hey, I love having a ton of mangled coils lying around on my work desk, so why not.
cheers!
Burping out loud using Tapatalk
** Edit: Decided to add in more "commentaries" after some folks started asking me about different stages of the build. so here goes!
-------
Alright! Finished work early and here I am. Double 32ga twisted kanthal, 7 wraps, 1.3 ohms. vertical build.
Build a simple microcoil the same way you usually would for a kayfun: make sure both leads are pointing in opposite directions. I almost always take the coil out, compress it with a tweezer and torch it so that it gets very nice and compressed. then slide the drill bit back in, and just plop the drill bit into the air hole as shown below:
So there are different ways of doing it, but I personally highly HIGHLY recommend that the top lead goes onto the negative post screw (it's the smaller separate post) while the bottom lead goes to the positive post. The reason is simple: having the bottom lead at the native positive post (larger block) eliminates the possibility of a cross-pole short (happens when the leads from the negative post ends up touching the building deck (positive post). it's a BAD thing to happen, esp if you're using a mech.
Once the leads are secured, the first thing I do is to lift the coil approx 1.3 mm above the airhole. this is usually the trickiest part of the entire build. After you're done securely the leads tightly, chances are the tension is gonna cause the coil to be tightly pressed down on the deck. I use my tinniest flat headscrew driver, wriggle it underneath and then lift it up. I got a bunch of people telling me that when they do that, the coil kinda "topples over" or kinda slants at an angle. That's normal, and it happens because of the tension from the top lead. Don't worry about it for now. (Just wanna add that I usually do this WITH the DRILLBIT inside still. This reduces the slanting, and makes it easier for me to just push the coil up) Please please make sure you do this step. Forgetting to do so will result in issues such as:
1) varying resistance
2) insanely long heat up time (because the metal positive block is conducting heat away from the coil)
3) and even if you are patient enough to wait for the coil to get red hot, you should at this point realize that the atty base and the positive block is ridiculously hot. you WILL melt your positive post insulator (that square-ish piece).
Next stage, you wanna check on the ohm meter just to make sure it isn't shorting. REMOVE YOUR DRILL BIT FIRST!!!!! failure to do so will cause either a wildly fluctuation resistance reading, or just straight short. You CAN damage your mods (especially mech mods) and batteries.
Then pulse fire it red hot. At this stage, you wanna achieve/do 2 things:
1) compress the coils with the tweezers. Keep doing it until there's no more hot spots, and it lights up evenly from center-out; typical microcoil stuff.
2) Remember how I said don't worry about the slanted coil? Now when kanthal is red hot, is it extremely malleable. So while you're compressing the coils with your tweezer, use the time to also angle the coils back vertically again. It should end up looking nice and pretty like this:
Note that this coil is pretty damn high off the positive deck. That's because in this case I'm using a kayfun black edition clone, which has an extended airhole. On my authentic kfl+ and r91, the top of this air hole (which is also the center post) sits flush with the positive post, so you won't have to lift it too high up.
The single most impt thing: the coil must must must be aligned with the airhole. The best way to do it is to just wriggle your drill bit back through the coil, and use it to shift the coil to get it aligned. Remember, make sure that the drill bit goes all the way through the coil before shifting, or else you'll end up with a vertical coil that's kinda staggered and misaligned in the middle.
My little secret to ensure success. A lot of people fail and say that the airflow is horrendous even after aligning the coil with the hole. That's because during the wicking stage, the cotton gets caught between the airhole and the bottom of the coil. Leave the drill bit in it while wicking, and you're guaranteed a clear air channel. The amount of wick is entirely up to you, but as you'll see at the end of this entry, I personally prefer a slightly fatter wick (seen below) because the flavor is ridiculously saturated and rich that way. In any case, pass the wick under the top leg (so that it sits between the negative post and the coil)
wrap both ends of the wick around. this might be annoying, but to make it a heck lot easier, I wet the wick with juice, and it's easy peasy. I also use a screw driver to kinda just push the cotton and seat it between the coil and the positive post screw.
snip off the ends of the cotton, leaving just enough for it to sit in a "L" shape on the deck. again, juice is your best friend. use it to get it to stick to the walls of the juice deck.
Unfortunately, the nature of the build is such that the top leg is extra long because it has to come down to the screw. So that leads to a hot leg. Place a wick over (it reaches down to the deck on both side). Extra vapor!
At this point, wickin is complete. check to make sure that the airflow is not obstructed (it really shouldnt be, as long as you've left the drill bit in while you were wicking)
Remember, cotton takes time to break in. I like to test fire it for quite a bit, then assemble everything, and take multiple quick puffs to accelerate that process. vapor might be thin at the start, but once it gets going, the vapor is very, very good.
And of course, the vape:
Some stuff:
1) throat hit: I learnt this from Rip Tripper. Now in his video he went ape-sh** on the throat hit and stuff. I might be building this wrong, but I thought throat hit was nothing special. Don't get me wrong: the throat hit is VERY good. but it isn't like a world of a difference from a solid microcoil. In fact, I get a waaaay harder throat hit from a triple-32ga microcoil.
2) Vapor production: I mean, it's GOOD. Obviously you can't compare it to a sub-ohm RDA with enlarged airholes. But just look at the last picture. I don't sub-ohm or fancy build (not too much at least). That was 1.3 ohms, 4.1 V on my provari. that's all. The vapor production is very good by my standards. But then again, I'm not a cloud chase, so what do I know?
3) Flavor: THIS. THIS. Interesting I've learnt about the vertical build is that less isn't always more. Unlike in normal microcoils where using too much cotton will choke the coil and lead to dry hits, there is absolutely nothing to get choked here.
You can see here that the build got pretty fat and bulky at the end.
Just from simple trial and error, I found that getting a fatter wick around the coil gives me a slight wetter and definitely way more saturated vapor. It's almost like im eating it. Very very flavorful. Wicking is also not at issue at all. I've got Boba's bounty on this sucker and she's working sweet. At this point, I've tried quite a lot of different builds (i'm a sucker for youtube and reddit reviews). But this. Build the way I like it with the fat saturated wick, the flavor is just too damned good. Nice, rich, super dense and just flavorful. definitely the biggest plus of this build.
4) Just thought I would mention this: I see alot of people talk about failed chimney builds, and it's always one of the 2 things:
a) airflow: like i mention in the step by step part, the KEY that I've learnt is just to leave the drill bit in. it solves everything. Also I recommend a 1/16 drill bit, because it fits perfectly snug (slightly loose sorry) in the airhole, so you're getting the most optimized coil inner diameter imo. In fact when you do this right, I guarantee you that your airflow is DEFINITELY gonna be looser than a horizontal coil. I mean, it makes sense. With a horizontal coil, your air flow is partially obstructed and has to flow around the coil. With the vertical coil, it's completely unobstructed.
I'm also an engineer and my current specialty is in fluid and air flow, and I would LOVE to bore you to tears with explanation about laminar and turbulent and fully developed flow and all that jazz, but I'll spare y'all that. Point is, it works and there's no jazz to it. There's a reason for the ultra-smooth and thick vape.
In any case, this has gotten too wordy. I hope this has been as helpful for you as it has been fun for me. If you have any question, feel free to PM. Heck, I'm not the best person with my chubby fingers, but feel free to PM me about some random build you see, and I'll do my best to replicate it and post a step-by-step guide like above. disclaimer though, I'm NOT a pro, and i most certainly don't think of myself as one. but hey, I love having a ton of mangled coils lying around on my work desk, so why not.
cheers!
Burping out loud using Tapatalk
