Burnt hair smell / taste on RDA build

[CanadiVape]

Hi all. I just picked up the wotofo Sapor today to take a stab at rba. After getting home from work I got to figuring out how to build a coil and I must have attempted ten times to just get the coils in without shorting.

I did two coils, both with 5 wraps of 28 gauge kanthal. I dont know what the size is but I'm guessing it's around 2mm. I wrapped them both using the screwdriver I have. The reading is about .58 ohms. I made sure that both coils heated up nicely and evenly before wicking.

I dry fired the coils to burn off any nasty residue off, then wicked them.

I'm using cotton bacon v2 by wick n vape. I made sure I got the perfect amounts in and tucked into the drip well. Completely and liberally saturated in my 80/20 vg juice. Let soak aaaaaaaand...

Awful. Literally tastes like burnt hair. My chest feels heavy after puffing on it for a couple minutes. I don't really feel like going through the hassle of remaking the coils anytime soon, if this is to be expected every time.

Does anyone have experience rebuilding rda that they can give me guidance? I'm literally at a loss here.

 

[nyiddle]

Might be a big ol' dumb ol' question but.. Are the airflows lined up with the coil, and are the airflows open? I've never worked with a Sapor, but I can see how it's designed and it'd be pretty easy to accidentally set it up such that there's no airflow to the coils.

That'd be a burnt taste. But you'd probably be able to tell because the airflow would be tight as heck.

Also, if that's the case, re-wick. When it comes to cotton, once you go black, there's no goin' back. Or like, once it gets brown, don't leave it hangin' around? Idk. You get it.

 

[CanadiVape]

I don't know. The airflow is at the top of the tank, not down by the wicks. Weird design but I guess it keeps it from leaking. Super airy with the af wide open, I'm not getting a large amount of vapor so I have to choke it down a bit. Even if I take the top cap off and burn it there's no sweet kiwi smell. Just a nasty smell.

Basically if you have ever rolled loose tobacco with a couple of hairs in it, that's what its like.

I'll post pics of my setup in a sec

 

[nyiddle]

I don't know. The airflow is at the top of the tank, not down by the wicks. Weird design but I guess it keeps it from leaking. Super airy with the af wide open, I'm not getting a large amount of vapor so I have to choke it down a bit. Even if I take the top cap off and burn it there's no sweet kiwi smell. Just a nasty smell.

I'm not a wacky tobaccy smoker, haven't been for over a year. But if you have ever rolled a special cig before (or a normal one I guess) and you end up burning a couple dog hairs and accidentally inhaling it, that's the same feeling I'm getting.

I'll post pics of my setup in a sec

Yeah it has one of these new "top/sorta-raised airflow" designs. It's rather important that the coils are pretty much directly in line with the cyclopes holes so that, ideally, fresh air supplies the coils with enough cooling/suction that the wicks don't burn. If your coils are way lower than the airflow holes, that might be a problem.

Also a side-note but any sorta "non-tobacco" talk is pretty strictly frowned upon around here, so might wanna edit that out. But yeah, burnt cat/dog/other hair is something I experienced once or twice in my life, heh.

 

[CanadiVape]

Ah yeah wasn't sure about the policies here about that. But yeah, I re wicked with a lot less this time. The taste is still meh but it's not as bad. I dry burned the crud buildup on my coils, I'm not sure why they would have residue already but I could definitely see there was too much cotton in there. But now I'm thinking there's not quite enough. Argh

Edit:

You were right about the af placement. Above the coils it works much better. I'm also used to tighter draws from the subtank. If I pull hard enough I get massive plumes. I'm definitely not used to this. Flavor is still mute but for my first (successful) coil built, albeit a dual coil with no proper tools or experience I'm pretty proud of myself.

 

[nyiddle]

Ah yeah wasn't sure about the policies here about that. But yeah, I re wicked with a lot less this time. The taste is still meh but it's not as bad. I dry burned the crud buildup on my coils, I'm not sure why they would have residue already but I could definitely see there was too much cotton in there. But now I'm thinking there's not quite enough. Argh

Edit:

You were right about the af placement. Above the coils it works much better. I'm also used to tighter draws from the subtank. If I pull hard enough I get massive plumes. I'm definitely not used to this. Flavor is still mute but for my first (successful) coil built, albeit a dual coil with no proper tools or experience I'm pretty proud of myself.

Also I probably should've asked earlier, what wattage/voltage are you applying to this? Assuming you're not on a mech mod.

 

[CanadiVape]

I was playing around trying to find the sweet spot, but I couldn't notice an "epiphany" of flavor that I get with most devices. I danced all over from 10w to 25w. Burnt taste is not noticeable but neither is the flavor. My lungs feel like they took a big hit after all of this so I'm going to take it easy for tonight. Until I get coil wrapping down pat my subtank still trumps it for clouds and flavor.

Some proper tools would be nice too, as well as some knowledge on the precise wraps and sizes to get the most out of it. Maybe even use different wiring? Idk.

I noticed this one guy had a ceramic based pair of pliers for manipulating the coil without shorting it. Would've been handy, must've shorted about ten of them by accident.

 

[Bunnykiller]

did you wash the atty before using?? may be some manufacturing chemicals involved somewhere...

 

[CanadiVape]

No the thought never occurred to me. It didn't go look or smell like it needed it but I'm starting to think some small amounts of machine oil could possibly be causing some disruption. I need to do a better job making the coil for sure though.

 

[suprtrkr]

You're getting the right advice. Try washing it-- if you're careful you won't damage the coils, but you will need to rewick. Be sure of the airflow slignment. The Sapor-- one of my favorites, I have 3 of them-- can use less air for better flavor. With a .6 coil and 25 watts, I'd probably be using about half air flow. It's easy, just "misalign" the top cap on the barrel by about half the airflow hole. But make sure the top cap air is still pointing at the coils. Cotton can be tricky to wick until you get the hang of it. Too much and it will choke and not wick, too little and it will pop and make less vapor. The cotton should slide smoothly through the coil without a lot of resistance. You should be able to pull the cotton back and forth thru the coil without moving the atty on the build stand or mod. And you may want to try rayon wick. It's less finicky and, I think, tastes better.

 

[edyle]

No the thought never occurred to me. It didn't go look or smell like it needed it but I'm starting to think some small amounts of machine oil could possibly be causing some disruption. I need to do a better job making the coil for sure though.

First thing I do if I get an rda or rta is take it apart, drop it in a cup, and pour hot water on it and maybe a drop of dishwasher liquid and leave to soak overnight.

 

[edyle]

I was playing around trying to find the sweet spot, but I couldn't notice an "epiphany" of flavor that I get with most devices. I danced all over from 10w to 25w. Burnt taste is not noticeable but neither is the flavor. My lungs feel like they took a big hit after all of this so I'm going to take it easy for tonight. Until I get coil wrapping down pat my subtank still trumps it for clouds and flavor.

Some proper tools would be nice too, as well as some knowledge on the precise wraps and sizes to get the most out of it. Maybe even use different wiring? Idk.

I noticed this one guy had a ceramic based pair of pliers for manipulating the coil without shorting it. Would've been handy, must've shorted about ten of them by accident.

For precise wraps etc, use steam-engine.org

 

[thetrucker]

If you watch youtube videos on how to make coils and wicking and type in your specific model atomizer......sometimes you can get a pretty close

of an idea on how to best build your atomizer/dripper.........by watching somebody else with the same exact model work on theirs........

helped me out lots of times..........youtube videos priceless.......just sayin......

 

[CanadiVape]

I want to try a twisted coil lol. Looks easy enough and pretty damn cool

 

[CanadiVape]

Thank you everybody for your advice! I am currently in flavor heaven!

I took everything out and washed it thoroughly. Then I decided to wrap with fresh kanthal with 7 wraps at 0.82 ohms. Cotton was perfect size this time. I'm at 25w and it's flavorful and smooth. I'm really glad I stuck with it. It's so rewarding to get a really nice build.

Once again thank you all! This is only the beginning of my building. Next stop, quad twisted coils!

 

[Airmasher]

Good for you! It took me days to figure out how to build my subtanks correctly but once I got it they rock. Cheaper than buying premade coils too. Now just wait until you try Clapton wire....

 

[CanadiVape]

Good for you! It took me days to figure out how to build my subtanks correctly but once I got it they rock. Cheaper than buying premade coils too. Now just wait until you try Clapton wire....

Yeah I was sick of buying Kanger coils that barely worked. I just built a single parallel coil for my first time and that worked pretty nicely