Let's see if we can get some activity in here.

[Bizitz]

So let's start with a simple intro for the NC crowd. Who we are and what's our favorite rig?

I'll start[emoji12]

I'm from the NE side of Charlotte. Been stinky free for a little over 3 weeks now. Have experimented with equipment and have finally landed on an iTaste SVD topped with a kayfun Lite. It came with I think a 2 ohm coil. I tinkered around with it and put a dual coil running 1 ohm. Was ok, but not great. Seemed it only lasted about a day or two before I hade to rewick. (Using ... Cotton). Flavor was ok.. but I wasn't happy. Tonight I recoiled with a 2.4 ohm single coil and holy crap what a difference!

I also have a couple of juices in have made.. about 5 flavors... 4 were great and one dud so far.. but it may be different since I've rewicked.

Your turn!

 

[johndoe1027]

Hello fellow Tarheels.

I'm from Asheville. No analogs for 2.5 months so far. My vape evolution has been Blu (psh), eGo twist starter kit, EVOD tank upgrade, AeroTank Mini upgrade (this setup was the best thing I had until I got a dripper). Then the eGo batteries died got a M16 Sentinel Mech Mod, added an AeroTank Mega then a Kayfun 3.1. Then things got real... Got a Singray X clone mod and a Mutation X RDA. Grabbed a Hobo RDA. Built a 8V dual 18650 unregulated box mod and put a MutationX v2 on it. Next up will be a smaller box (1590G vs the 1590B I have now) with a true mechanical switch instead of the cheap chinese momentary switch. Really can't imagine what I'll need after that unless I decide I "need" a regulated mod or bottom feed RDA. Kind of want to try the Origen RBA but I'm not sure RBA's are for me. The Kayfun hasn't had long term success for me.

Haven't started DIY juice yet but that's next. I have only found a few flavors (out of 3+ dozen I've tried) that I want to re-buy. I have a couple 120ml bottles of Velvet Cloud Unflavored base that I use to dilute the flavor of most juices. They should make a convenient platform to start DIYing.

Current rigs
Hobo on the 18530 Sentinel at 0.5 ohm and 35W. Purple Efest 10.5A batteries. Filled with Velvet Cloud Harvest Berries 3mg/ml - Love this little guy. Can get about 25 hits between drips.
Mutation X v1 on the Stingray at 0.14 ohm and ~120W - Purple Efest "35A" batteries - Velvet Cloud Thorangine 3mg/ml. Chucks some clouds and still has decent flavor.
Mutation X v2 on the DIY 8V box at 0.36 ohm and ~190W - Sony VTC4s - Dark City Vapor Grappleade (Grape Apple Lemonade) No nic. This thing is a little scary.

 

[PorkChop7586]

Howdy from the Wilmington area! Haven't quite quit the burners yet, but I'm down to less than a pack a day from 2.5 packs a day. Anyway, here's my setup atm:

Kanger Aerotank V2 1.5 ohm on top of my Sigelei Legend V2 @13 watts, juiced with MFS SunDrop 50/50 6mg (world's greatest soda btw)
Indulgence Mutation X dual coil @ .6ohm on top of my Vanilla Copper Clone, juiced with Alicious Granny's Apples

 

[johndoe1027]

Howdy from the Wilmington area! Haven't quite quit the burners yet, but I'm down to less than a pack a day from 2.5 packs a day. Anyway, here's my setup atm:

Kanger Aerotank V2 1.5 ohm on top of my Sigelei Legend V2 @13 watts, juiced with MFS SunDrop 50/50 6mg (world's greatest soda btw)
Indulgence Mutation X Clone dual coil @ .6ohm on top of my Vanilla Copper Clone, juiced with Alicious Granny's Apples

Hooray for the Mutation X! I thought Indulgence was genuine. Almost no point in cloning a $25 genuine.

 

[PorkChop7586]

Hooray for the Mutation X! I thought Indulgence was genuine. Almost no point in cloning a $25 genuine.

Oops lol. The clone was the Vanilla, not sure why my brain decided to added it to the Mutation. Also, for a noob this thing is a freight train, so definitely a big hooray!

 

[johndoe1027]

Oops lol. The clone was the Vanilla, not sure why my brain decided to added it to the Mutation. Also, for a noob this thing is a freight train, so definitely a big hooray!

Haha I gotcha. Build that MX down to 0.2 ohm (IF YOU HAVE APPROPRIATE BATTERIES), get you some yummy juice and those tubes of burning plant matter will start to seem pretty unappealing.

2.5 packs a day?!?! You know that was 50 (I repeat, fifty) cigs a day, right? Did you have time for anything else? You know who else smoked a ridiculous amount of cigarettes? The BTK killer. I kid, I kid.

It's funny. It wasn't until I started dripping and sub-ohming that I realized the nicotine wasn't the "goal" or the fix I needed. Turns out it was just the ritual of having a break from the day-to-day craziness of life. I still get my moments of peace, they are just less stinky than they used to be. And also they sometimes totally fog the F out of my car or a room in my house hehe.

Good job on that serious cut-back PorkChop! I was a half pack a day kind of guy and I could not imagine being able to quit before I started dripping. You're well on your way. For me it took the MX at 0.13 ohm to give up the analogs.

 

[PorkChop7586]

I drive trucks for a living, and when I was riding down the road it just seem natural to fire up an analog to pass the time. that's the great thing about vaping. It gives me something to do to replace that boredom ritual! Oh and I will be dropping the ohms, as soon as I'm a little more comfortable building coils and such. Thanks for encouragement!!!

 

[johndoe1027]

I drive trucks for a living, and when I was riding down the road it just seem natural to fire up an analog to pass the time. that's the great thing about vaping. It gives me something to do to replace that boredom ritual! Oh and I will be dropping the ohms, as soon as I'm a little more comfortable building coils and such. Thanks for encouragement!!!

Any time. I bet that Aerotank makes for a great driving rig. I loved my Aerotanks and will probbly get the mega back out soon and see if I can make something work on it. I think those tanks are better on a VV mod than on a mech, which is all I have. My Aerotank mini on an eGo twist battery set at 4.2V was awesome. I experimented with the AT Mega on a mech with the 1.0 and 0.8 ohm coils but wasn't getting good life out of them. Felt like I was using the wrong tool which is why I went to the Kayfun and RDAs.

Building coils is a little scary at first but it gets easy fast. Just make sure you have a ohmmeter, an Ohm's law calculator and know your batteries amperage limit. Watch out for coils touching the outer part of the RDA or deck before you fire it. Sometimes my negative legs get close to the positive post as I try to center my coils. That would be bad if they touched (the coil is bypassed and resistance drops to 0). As long as your resistance isn't too low for the battery and there aren't any shorts, the worst that'll happen is that the vape isn't quite good enough. What I've learned so far is to pick the biggest wire that will fit into the RDA (bigger wire requires more wraps than skinnier wire). 6 wraps of 24ga will vape better than 4 wraps of 26ga at the same resistance since there is more surface area on the 24ga coil. The 26 will heat up and cool down a little faster but the 24 will produce more vapor and better flavor IMO.

If you're going to do regular contact microcoils I suggest a pair of ceramic tipped tweezers. They help a lot with getting the coils shaped once you mount them. Prepare for spending some of your spare time building though. Once you build a set of regular coils you'll want to try parallel and twisted. Once you try those you'll want to try nano dragons. Then onto the macro nano triceratops coil haha (not a real thing, saw it on a RIPtripper spoof video).

I couldn't imagine building coils without this calculator. Spending some time with it will help you understand the difference in resistance between different gauge wire and different diameter coils. Just make sure your variables are all set correctly.

 

[PorkChop7586]

I've rebuilt the coils 4 times today, getting good looking coils and making it down to .5, using 26g kanthal with cotton. Definitely hits harder than the Aero. I think I'll stay here til I learn a little more on how to use that calc, battery resistance, etc. Oh and watch a bajillion more videos lol.

Oh and definitely get a VV/VW for that Aero. I've already gotten a ton more life out of this 1.5 than I did woth the .8s. I may even need to switch to using the volts instead of watts

 

[johndoe1027]

Good job jumping into coil building dude! Look into parallel coils for when you want to drop below 0.4. That'll increase the surface area and drop the resistance (mucho bigger clouds). They aren't too hard. It helps me a lot to get the Kanthal straight before wrapping. I cut a piece, chuck one end up in my cordless drill, grab the other end with needle nose pliers and run it one way for a second. Switch directions on the drill and run it the other way for a sec. Takes all of the curve and kinks out.

In my basic understanding switching from VW to VV won't make a difference in the vape unless you change coil resistance. When you change coil resistance, VW calculates and adjusts the voltage so that the wattage (heat of the vape) is the same. VV just puts out the volts you set it at and if you increase the resistance, wattage (and vapor production) drops. Decrease resistance, wattage (and vapor production) increases. Much like a mech mod but the VV is keeping the voltage constant while the mech is dying with every press of the button.

In VW mode -
1.5 ohm and 13W = 4.416V
change out to a 1.8 ohm coil and
1.8 ohm and 13W = 4.837V
Same vape, just less battery time on the 1.8 ohm coil because of the higher amperage draw on the battery (mo volts = mo amps).

If you left it in VV mode at 4.4V and swapped your coil from 1.5 to 1.8, your wattage drops from 13 to 10.8. Same battery time, less vapor per hit.

All of that just to say the vape won't change unless you change the wattage. There is more than one way to do that.

I now realize 2 things.
1 - You might have known all of that already.
2 - I could be wrong.

I'll stop typing now and get back to this Highland Oatmeal Porter and some pistachios.

 

[PorkChop7586]

Yeh after I posted that I went and looked up the differences. Definitely think imma go with watts lol.

 

[Bizitz]

Well I upgraded...

Now using a Steampunk stainless mod that I torched the body, topped with a Tobh Atty running dual coils at .7

Loving this and have a hard time using my Kayfun now... just not the same anymore.

Anyways the Steampunk had beautiful engraving... but being all stainless it didn't stand out well... until I torched it. Now it is a dark bronze body and lock ring with stainless fire button/bottom and top rings. It's the middle one in the pic.

And yes, I torched parts of my svd too. Only thing I use it for now it to check the ohms of my builds lol.

 

[ncpatches]

Hi all! Been out of the loop for a few months, lots been happening 'round the homestead.

Glad to see some more NCer's in here! We tried a few months ago to get something together in the Raleigh area but it never happened.

As for me, next week makes 1 yr off the analogs and I couldn't be happier!

Best to you!

Deb

 

[PorkChop7586]

Here in a few I'll post the pics from the cloud comp in Wilmington last night!

 

[johndoe1027]

Well I upgraded...

Now using a Steampunk stainless mod that I torched the body, topped with a Tobh Atty running dual coils at .7

Loving this and have a hard time using my Kayfun now... just not the same anymore.

Anyways the Steampunk had beautiful engraving... but being all stainless it didn't stand out well... until I torched it. Now it is a dark bronze body and lock ring with stainless fire button/bottom and top rings. It's the middle one in the pic.

And yes, I torched parts of my svd too. Only thing I use it for now it to check the ohms of my builds lol.

Oh my. I LOVE the torched look. I want to do that too my stingray and mutation x. I'll have to look up some tutorials. And find a torch.

 

[PorkChop7586]

Guess I can brag about my upgrade. Finally broke down and got a Segelei 100w box. Bought another Mutation X for it, and sold the Legend V2 and Aerotank V2. Got a tugboat, tobh atty, plume veil, and a hammer of the gods (all clones) coming in, as well as a coil jig, 100ft Kanthal A1 in 24g, and a good pair of wire cutters on the way.

 

[Bizitz]

Oh my. I LOVE the torched look. I want to do that too my stingray and mutation x. I'll have to look up some tutorials. And find a torch.

It's really easy. I am sure there are tutorials on google, but I work with torches and metal quite a bit. I knew stainless changed color with heat so I figured what the heck? At worst I'd have to get a Dremel and polish it back out. You can go from light gold to dark gold to the chocolate to blue. After blue it turns black/burnt and would look horrible.