Wire Rope for Wick?

[shortyjacobs]

So as I move forward here, it seems like the best SS Mesh wick is one made with 500 mesh wound VERY tight, as solid as possible.

It lead me to thinking, has anyone tried SS wire rope before? Stranded wire rope should work kind of like silica rope, but made of SS. With a high enough strand count, there should be decent capillary action. It also has the advantage of continuous "channels" running axially along the wick. With mesh, juice has to jump from "cell" to cell in the mesh, jumping over solid wire or between layers of mesh. With wire rope, it's free to continuously wick upwards. Also - no more rolling, just cut your piece of wick, oxidize, and insert.

I found this, which seems like a good fit for my AGA-T+:http://www.mcmaster.com/#8908T64 item 8908T64. It's 3/32", so would fit well into the stock wick hole. Boring the wick hole out to 1/8" would allow 8908T48 to fit, giving me 133 strands instead of the 49 strands in the 3/32" material, (more, smaller strands should equal better wicking).

Before I blow $10 to $15 on a flight of fancy....has this been done? I can find only a single reference to it on ECF, and no follow up, just someone suggesting it...

 

[Kemosabe]

sounds like it could be a winner. let us know if you decide to take the plunge!

 

[shortyjacobs]

I'm really leaning towards the 1/8" stuff, as the much higher strand count should really help, but boring out the wick hole in my AGA-T+ gives me the willies. It's currently my only genny atty, and I do NOT want to kill it.

 

[chuckie]

If you only found 1 post about it,my guess would be it doesn't work.If it were any good there would be endless posts about it. But If u like adventure take a shot at it.

 

[shortyjacobs]

Shot taken. Found some on AmazonSupply.com: Stainless Steel 316 Wire Rope, 7x7 Strand Core | AmazonSupply.com

The 0.094" stuff is 2.38mm diameter. Not 7x19 strand, but this way I don't have to bore out my wick hole. Plus, I'm an AmazonPrime member, so it ships free, and I'll have it saturday. And it's 25 feet of the stuff. $3.22 is worth it for the experiment.

1 post means it's either a REALLY dumb idea that's occurred to everyone and been considered SUCH a terrible idea that they never even bothered posting about it, or that it's just not occurred to anyone yet, and it might just work. I'll let ya'll know. Though I wish I could find some 7x19 strand stuff for this cheap!

 

[EDO]

Sounds very interesting. I really have no clue... but I would assume that you could get the 1/8 and pinch/roll it tighter and make it fit in the AgaT. Probably safer to buy both....10 ft 3/32 at $5.50 and 5ft of 1/8 for $5.

 

[shortyjacobs]

Nifty, found 3/32 7x19 on Amazon too. Another 3 bucks. It's lower grade SS, and is "lubricated", but some flame should take care of the lubrication and if it works well I can spend the scratch to go up to 316 SS.

https://www.amazonsupply.com/dp/B0013HEO38

 

[EDO]

Well definitely let us know how it works out for you either way.

 

[Crack3dOne]

If you're going to buy it I would get it from McMasterCARR for sure. Subscribed.

Shipping is only 5 bucks and you will have it in two days if not the next day sometimes

 

[tomaKBRN]

subbed>!
10 characters

 

[donnah]

This looks interesting.. not seen this before.. could be your invention lol.. rolling mesh is a pain!

 

[vapdivrr]

my guess would be a heat sink issue, it seems to dense of a wick. alot of power would be lost in heating up something so dense. mesh works because it is kind of hollow and doesnt hold this heat for to long. a more dense piece of metal would absorb to much power. even if it wicked well, which i doubt it would, i think you would need to power it with to many volts for it to be affective. but then again i really dont know, it could be the bomb.

 

[shortyjacobs]

my guess would be a heat sink issue, it seems to dense of a wick. alot of power would be lost in heating up something so dense. mesh works because it is kind of hollow and doesnt hold this heat for to long. a more dense piece of metal would absorb to much power. even if it wicked well, which i doubt it would, i think you would need to power it with to many volts for it to be affective. but then again i really dont know, it could be the bomb.

I was wondering about that. Can't seem to find the density or weight per x amount for 500 mesh to compare...

 

[fanatic205]

Wouldnt it unravel also, i would imagine it would be a pain to work with

 

[Section1]

I'm waiting to hear results on this too. Might work well and seems to be easy to get. Hope it gets tested soon and results posted.

 

[shortyjacobs]

Wouldnt it unravel also, i would imagine it would be a pain to work with

Yeah, I'll have to see. I figure once it's installed and has a coil, it'll be fine. The trick will be not fraying it while cutting it and installing it. I figure I can wrap the part I want to cut with a wrap of electrical tape and use a dremel with a cutoff wheel to cut it, (works well for not fraying ends). Then, torching it should stiffen it up nicely, just like it does with SS mesh or kanthal.

Wire rope arrives tomorrow, then I get to experiment, (if the damn stuff even wicks!).

 

[shortyjacobs]

So I got curious about the heat sink problem. I wanted to see if these wicks would take longer to heat up or if they would hold heat longer...

Here's my calculations, for SS mesh, 7x7 wire (2.4mm diameter), and 7x49 wire (2.4 mm diameter):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtEdMrMJb0UwdHAtZWNnczFHYnlVeVNXSzNPUzNvcHc&usp=sharing

Salient results:
Mass of the mesh wick IS far lower than rope wick. Mesh weighs 0.46 grams. 7x7 rope weighs 0.82 grams, 7x19 rope weighs 1.02 grams.

So it looks like the SS wire rope wick would hold at least twice as much heat, which would be bad. BUT all hope is not lost. Anything that is not steel is gonna be juice, (e-juice would fill all the air voids in each wick).

So then I calculated how much juice each wick would hold, and the heat capacity of the wick, of the juice, and then combined. Result?

SS Mesh has a heat cap of 0.58 J/K. 7x7 Wire rope is 0.62 J/K, and 7x19 wire rope is 0.65 J/K. So the 7x19 wire rope only has a 10% higher heat capacity per wick than a mesh wick. That doesn't sound nearly as bad.

Of course, these calculations also show how much less juice a wire rope wick would hold compared with a mesh wick, (around half as much). My hope is that the wicking SPEED is what's important, not the total wick capacity. After all, it's only a small part of the wick that needs to be "Refreshed" with each puff, and its that refresh rate that denotes if we get dry hits or not.

Oh well, bored friday babbling...I found it nifty at least.

 

[vapdivrr]

So I got curious about the heat sink problem. I wanted to see if these wicks would take longer to heat up or if they would hold heat longer...

Here's my calculations, for SS mesh, 7x7 wire (2.4mm diameter), and 7x49 wire (2.4 mm diameter):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtEdMrMJb0UwdHAtZWNnczFHYnlVeVNXSzNPUzNvcHc&usp=sharing

Salient results:
Mass of the mesh wick IS far lower than rope wick. Mesh weighs 0.46 grams. 7x7 rope weighs 0.82 grams, 7x19 rope weighs 1.02 grams.

So it looks like the SS wire rope wick would hold at least twice as much heat, which would be bad. BUT all hope is not lost. Anything that is not steel is gonna be juice, (e-juice would fill all the air voids in each wick).

So then I calculated how much juice each wick would hold, and the heat capacity of the wick, of the juice, and then combined. Result?

SS Mesh has a heat cap of 0.58 J/K. 7x7 Wire rope is 0.62 J/K, and 7x19 wire rope is 0.65 J/K. So the 7x19 wire rope only has a 10% higher heat capacity per wick than a mesh wick. That doesn't sound nearly as bad.

Of course, these calculations also show how much less juice a wire rope wick would hold compared with a mesh wick, (around half as much). My hope is that the wicking SPEED is what's important, not the total wick capacity. After all, it's only a small part of the wick that needs to be "Refreshed" with each puff, and its that refresh rate that denotes if we get dry hits or not.

Oh well, bored friday babbling...I found it nifty at least.

wow, those calculations are pretty awesome, i dont know what they mean but i like them. so with the ss wire rope wick not holding as much juice, maybe the coils should be more compressed in a smaller area then spread out to a larger area of the wick,

 

[shortyjacobs]

wow, those calculations are pretty awesome, i dont know what they mean but i like them. so with the ss wire rope wick not holding as much juice, maybe the coils should be more compressed in a smaller area then spread out to a larger area of the wick,

That's a good point. I'd guess that the "optimal" coil would be just concentrated enough to dump the most amount of heat into an area as fast as juice can be fed to it. So if this wicks well, smaller's better.

This is assuming it wicks at all....

 

[shortyjacobs]

Sigh, amazon screwed up, I won't have my stuff til Monday. And I'm away on business til Wednesday. I promise I'll update when I try it out.