After seeing some success with cotton and the protank ill have to pull one out and give it a try.
Protank Cotton Rebuild, the way I do it
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I decided to give cotton wicked micro-coils one last try, and built an absolutely perfect coil: 9 tight 30 gauge wraps on a 1/16" drill bit, held them together with tweezers and torched, all wraps touching, beautiful, perfect symmetry, perfectly aligned in the head, 1.9Ω, a freakin' work of art- fires beautifully. Gently threaded a perfect organic cotton wick- not to tight, room to expand when saturated. Saturated the wick and a light flavor wick before replacing the stem.
The result: Lots of vapor, but all the flavor is not there. I compared with another EVOD with the same juice (Ahlusion's delicious Lime Cream) and a silica rebuild. The creamy sweetness and color notes are just not there with the cotton micro.
Conclusion: Either I'm doing something wrong (but doubt it, because I've really done my homework on this) or the folks who are raving about cotton micro-coils are using flavors that are so aggressive that they don't notice the difference, or these folks are just not that sensitive to flavor subtleties.
So, until I hear a reasonable suggestion for something different to try, I'm done with cotton micros.
The result: Lots of vapor, but all the flavor is not there. I compared with another EVOD with the same juice (Ahlusion's delicious Lime Cream) and a silica rebuild. The creamy sweetness and color notes are just not there with the cotton micro.
Conclusion: Either I'm doing something wrong (but doubt it, because I've really done my homework on this) or the folks who are raving about cotton micro-coils are using flavors that are so aggressive that they don't notice the difference, or these folks are just not that sensitive to flavor subtleties.
So, until I hear a reasonable suggestion for something different to try, I'm done with cotton micros.
As I've commented elsewhere, love the flavor. But magic hard to get the balance right in that little tiny slot without either inducing leaking or the opposite, flooding it. Much, much easier on an RDA. And as has been my point you need a really tightly controlled build to get that atomizer to work just right. When you do the Protank is fabulous. And it is so far with Nextel. Next Ekowool if I can find a coil config that's threadable. That's the ticket.
Still no reason for us not to try. And there are folks finding favorable results on this thread that I'd hate to discourage. They might be the ones to shed some light if they come back?
Congratz on the effort.
Good luck!
As far as I know, it's from dry burns due to cotton/silica not wicking enough, or residual machining oils left in tank or stuff left on the kanthal. I used to get weird tastes sometimes, but not since I started running a lighter over my kanthal and silica before rebuilding. Can't be done with cotton, but if you get 100% organic, there shouldn't be anything to worry about, but that may just be my little "paranoid obsession".
Three issues this brings up: a) The path of the legs; proximity of the coil to the coil cup of the top cap, and b) any tails left over after "snipping" the excess wire. You can experience intermittent or shorts with either or all of these resulting in wild swings of resistance, what may appear to be a marginal impedance error or dead circuit. The technique Metalhead describes of fixing the position of the coil in the cup goes a long way to avoiding these problems.
1) Use a guide (drill bit, needle, paperclip, etc.) to position the coil during assembly;
2) Bring the coil down the cup of the assembly as far as necessary to ensure you clear the top-cap!
3) Keep the coil secure using the guide making sure to separate the leads;
4) Insert grommet and pin ensuring the positive lead avoids the cup walls;and,
5) With assembly stable, hold firmly and twist off excess rather than snipping.
Done.
Good luck!
I would add also making sure to have at least a little flavor wick piece on top of the coil for a little extra "insulation", it's not necessarily needed, just something I like to do.
Can't do a good build without one of those. No sir! Thanks for the ack steel.
Just giving a nod to another good thread
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/clearomizers/486794-protank-microcoil-discussion.html
You'll find trayce and others have extended some excellent remarks on symmetrical builds for the Protank, etc. there.
Wish I'd had 'em when I started.
Good luck and thanks for kickin' in.
Which leg is positive. Im going to assume the one that goes between the groument and the bottom pin
I agree jf. I wish I'd had Metalhed's excellent writeup when I started.
Once you have the stabilization technique down, are dry burning your recycled bare coils and re-wicking them in place sanity returns. For approaches to fine tune the assemblies you design and specifically target resistance for flavor preferences try this thread…
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/clearomizers/486794-protank-microcoil-discussion-16.html
Good luck!
What causes the legs to get hot? I built some this weekend and the first on I built was 6 coil 32gauge wraped on a 6 penny finish nail and came up with around 1.8-1.9. It tasted and Vaped great! I then tried to wrap more boils closer together on one of those needle like thingamagigars that the wifey uses to hold meat together in the oven. I didn't measure it but it is smaller than the nail, I'm gonna say its a1/16" maybe. I was wrapping 4,5,6,7 wraps and coming in at 1.4,1.8,1.8,2.1. But on a couple of them they were tasting like burnt rubber. I was vaping Mistr E Liquid green van, which is a mint. I put in a factory 1.8 and still had a faint taste of the rubber. Suggestions please... PS using a ego-c battery at 3.7 volts and a ... Damn, can't remember if it was in an Evod or my Protank mini. Thanks!
The short answer? Pardon the pun.
I'm not an engineer by education, rather the school of hard knocks. And yes too, I've had some exposure to the electrical, high voltage. So you could say I have a bit of knowledge from personal, first hand, experience. Yikes! So I would offer...
Maxim: Electrons follow the path of least resistance.
So, any inconsistency in flow will result in release of energy (heat). A coil needs to be a clear flat super-highway, not the gravel road. The physics behind the contact coil, or microcoil, indicate that electrons don't view a connected helix as individual pathways rather a single undivided river and flood it. When done right the energy flows outward in all directions, seemingly from the center.
Key factors:
1. Individual turn misalignment or deformity;
2. Raised end turn misalignment (high turns, loose turns);
3. Insufficient coil contact (temperature variation);
4. Incidental contact of positive leg to assembly;
5. Incidental contact of terminated leg "hangers"; and,
6. Incidental contact of pos. leg to ground leg.
All may induce intermittent or dead short. All may produce discrete or wild swings in resistance. Oxidation may alleviate the problem and the coil may vape and settle in; but not at it's design resistance.
When you remove this coil after operation you will frequently see there is significantly more carbonization on the affected part of the element than the others (of juice, not merely oxidation). Or you may find a segment of leg severely oxidized whereas the remainder of the coil looks unscathed. Or the opposite, one segment pristine. These are things to examine that confirm the deviation.
Each may have their own causes like a slightly high end turn not merely causing a hot leg below it or burn hotter than the rest but an intermittent short on the top cap (happens when silica top wicks fray and fall to the sides of the coil and coil is too big or set too high). A positive pin pressed in too tight might come in contact with the "hanger" from the neg. leg. Rotation of the grommet pin combination may skew the coil if the atomizer is installed to tight (through pressure from the bottom of the pin).
The important thing is to analyze each segment of the coil element and your build in the context of the above. Too low a resistance and you are likely to see a point of discharge to ground. Something is seeking that path of least resistance and you are hot somewhere. Look and you will find it.
To this I'll add a footnote and try to keep it brief because its a peeve of mine at this point. And I'll pose it like this…
How do you know your resistance is now wrong? Because you metered initially and it changed?
Forgetting for a moment the burned rubber which points to a hot leg or shorted positive at the pin. Which is right?
It really is important not just so we enjoy the reward of flavor for our efforts but for our safety. There needs to be a metric in play. That metric is resistance and you should know the resistance you're building. That really requires you know what it is you're winding in terms of diameter, wire length, etc. And it's not difficult math. Or, at least to know the value of a known wind (because I know not all of us can mess with with a calculator). That's to say you know for example that 8 wraps of 30 on 1/16" will yield 1.8Ω. Then you know what you metered was right when.
That's why I've begun to try to document some basic targets on this thread. So people can easily build something with some proven techniques, get the result in resistance they expect and be able to rely upon it for their safety. I ask folks to kick in with their findings for common wraps on known diameters with defined wire gauge so we can start to gather some confidence. And not be poking in the dark guessing whether we're seeing an error or not.
The simplest tool, a basic instrument screw set with common bit sizes is a couple of bucks at the dollar store. Build that first, find out what the resistance should come to for each wind. There's plenty of room to grow from there. And a world of time to do it in. Let's stop guessing and we gain a confidence in our result. That's what drove me crazy for a bit. Not knowing the result and poking around not knowing that I didn't. So a word to the wise. Prove all things, remove all doubt.
So b, I hope this explains why I can't tell if you have a short for sure. I really don't know the diameter of a six penny and your wind or I could roughly tell ya. But it sure would seem like it from the burning you describe. And I sure hope this information helps you. Been there done that, plenty. I would say play particularly close attention to the symmetry of your build going in and coming out.
Good luck!
I'm not an engineer by education, rather the school of hard knocks. And yes too, I've had some exposure to the electrical, high voltage. So you could say I have a bit of knowledge from personal, first hand, experience. Yikes! So I would offer...
Maxim: Electrons follow the path of least resistance.
So, any inconsistency in flow will result in release of energy (heat). A coil needs to be a clear flat super-highway, not the gravel road. The physics behind the contact coil, or microcoil, indicate that electrons don't view a connected helix as individual pathways rather a single undivided river and flood it. When done right the energy flows outward in all directions, seemingly from the center.
Key factors:
1. Individual turn misalignment or deformity;
2. Raised end turn misalignment (high turns, loose turns);
3. Insufficient coil contact (temperature variation);
4. Incidental contact of positive leg to assembly;
5. Incidental contact of terminated leg "hangers"; and,
6. Incidental contact of pos. leg to ground leg.
All may induce intermittent or dead short. All may produce discrete or wild swings in resistance. Oxidation may alleviate the problem and the coil may vape and settle in; but not at it's design resistance.
When you remove this coil after operation you will frequently see there is significantly more carbonization on the affected part of the element than the others (of juice, not merely oxidation). Or you may find a segment of leg severely oxidized whereas the remainder of the coil looks unscathed. Or the opposite, one segment pristine. These are things to examine that confirm the deviation.
Each may have their own causes like a slightly high end turn not merely causing a hot leg below it or burn hotter than the rest but an intermittent short on the top cap (happens when silica top wicks fray and fall to the sides of the coil and coil is too big or set too high). A positive pin pressed in too tight might come in contact with the "hanger" from the neg. leg. Rotation of the grommet pin combination may skew the coil if the atomizer is installed to tight (through pressure from the bottom of the pin).
The important thing is to analyze each segment of the coil element and your build in the context of the above. Too low a resistance and you are likely to see a point of discharge to ground. Something is seeking that path of least resistance and you are hot somewhere. Look and you will find it.
To this I'll add a footnote and try to keep it brief because its a peeve of mine at this point. And I'll pose it like this…
How do you know your resistance is now wrong? Because you metered initially and it changed?
Forgetting for a moment the burned rubber which points to a hot leg or shorted positive at the pin. Which is right?
It really is important not just so we enjoy the reward of flavor for our efforts but for our safety. There needs to be a metric in play. That metric is resistance and you should know the resistance you're building. That really requires you know what it is you're winding in terms of diameter, wire length, etc. And it's not difficult math. Or, at least to know the value of a known wind (because I know not all of us can mess with with a calculator). That's to say you know for example that 8 wraps of 30 on 1/16" will yield 1.8Ω. Then you know what you metered was right when.
That's why I've begun to try to document some basic targets on this thread. So people can easily build something with some proven techniques, get the result in resistance they expect and be able to rely upon it for their safety. I ask folks to kick in with their findings for common wraps on known diameters with defined wire gauge so we can start to gather some confidence. And not be poking in the dark guessing whether we're seeing an error or not.
The simplest tool, a basic instrument screw set with common bit sizes is a couple of bucks at the dollar store. Build that first, find out what the resistance should come to for each wind. There's plenty of room to grow from there. And a world of time to do it in. Let's stop guessing and we gain a confidence in our result. That's what drove me crazy for a bit. Not knowing the result and poking around not knowing that I didn't. So a word to the wise. Prove all things, remove all doubt.
So b, I hope this explains why I can't tell if you have a short for sure. I really don't know the diameter of a six penny and your wind or I could roughly tell ya. But it sure would seem like it from the burning you describe. And I sure hope this information helps you. Been there done that, plenty. I would say play particularly close attention to the symmetry of your build going in and coming out.
Good luck!
I was getting consistent readings on the nail wraps of 4,5,6. I thought I tried to keep the legs tight as I seated the coil with the nail inside of it. After reading more of your post as well as others I think I may have had too thick of cotton wick in there. As far as the size of the nail.... It fits down in the base so as the bottom of the coils are even with the slot. I think my problems started when I went down in diameter using that meat skewer thing and wrapping more coils closer if not touching. Thanks for your feedback. I'll get some measurements and get back with ya
I think you have the right idea trying to make the coil uniform, stabilize and locate it. First step, calling it by it's name (specifying it by its value) comes later. As you find a comfortable method and devices to assist in your design and installation. It's going to be a bit of trial and error since you're such a youngster, lol, for you to understand where you want to be on resistance. But that in itself is a great part of the fun of this adventure, or should be. For most of us it's a guessing game for a quite a while unless we stumble upon the how. There's no vaping academy or "Vaping 101".
Basically you're going to be somewhere between 1.8 and 2.4Ω and you can start anywhere. You're going to find exactly where in there your best vape happens and resistance will be your roadmap to get there. I'd recommend a simple template, if you see this table, in a 1/16" or 5/64" (nominally 1.5 and 2mm) to use for wind. In there it's going to be easier to insert some kind of media of the right cross-section, about 1.5mm. Some will work better for you than others. Ekowool is excellent and durable, cotton easier and flavorful, Nextel XC-132 outstanding IMO in every category. I also prefer the middle which is a bit size that's somewhat difficult to find in a screwdriver. Try 1.8mm as approximate. In the middle of the preceding is my target of 2.0Ω with 8 wraps of AWG and media of about 1.6-1.9 in cross-section. That [media] will be the second part of your selection preference model. And that is when you start to see the rewards of this experiential approach.
Now said this way perhaps we can see a bit better where this goes. But you need a good voltage chart for starters to know where you stand. Rely on it for planning your trip and your safety. Always check your resistance.
Good luck!
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"I also prefer the middle which is a bit size that's somewhat difficult to find in a screwdriver. Try 1.8mm as approximate." What do you mean by this statement? Please excuse me for my lack of knowledge
No worries b. I was referring to the difference between a 1/16" and 5/32" or about the middle, which is roughly 1.8mm. Screwdriver kits with that metric size are cheap and common. And it fits what most believe to be the best size wick for the Protank which is roughly 1.5mm. A bit loose but just about right when wet and the media swells, certainly Ekowool. Especially cotton.
It also has the advantage that it drops to the bottom of the slot in the Protank (Kanger) head assembly. So you can stabilize the coil and legs during assembly. That's what we're after.
Hope this helps.
Good luck b!
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Cool! Thanks! I will go tomorrow and look for the drivers. In the meantime I'll take apart the coils I have done.
Sorry I didn't get back faster. No I don't use the cotton on top as a wick, I only use it to help hold the coil in place while inserting the rubber insulator and pin in the bottom and getting the legs in proper positions. Once I have the coil seated properly and the leg wires cut I remove the chimney and cotton and thread cotton through the coil.
Happy Vaping!
The short answer? Pardon the pun.
I'm not an engineer by education, rather the school of hard knocks. And yes too, I've had some exposure to the electrical, high voltage. So you could say I have a bit of knowledge from personal, first hand, experience. Yikes! So I would offer...
Maxim: Electrons follow the path of least resistance.
So, any inconsistency in flow will result in release of energy (heat). A coil needs to be a clear flat super-highway, not the gravel road. The physics behind the contact coil, or microcoil, indicate that electrons don't view a connected helix as individual pathways rather a single undivided river and flood it. When done right the energy flows outward in all directions, seemingly from the center.
Key factors:
1. Individual turn misalignment or deformity;
2. Raised end turn misalignment (high turns, loose turns);
3. Insufficient coil contact (temperature variation);
4. Incidental contact of positive leg to assembly;
5. Incidental contact of terminated leg "hangers"; and,
6. Incidental contact of pos. leg to ground leg.
All may induce intermittent or dead short. All may produce discrete or wild swings in resistance. Oxidation may alleviate the problem and the coil may vape and settle in; but not at it's design resistance.
When you remove this coil after operation you will frequently see there is significantly more carbonization on the affected part of the element than the others (of juice, not merely oxidation). Or you may find a segment of leg severely oxidized whereas the remainder of the coil looks unscathed. Or the opposite, one segment pristine. These are things to examine that confirm the deviation.
Each may have their own causes like a slightly high end turn not merely causing a hot leg below it or burn hotter than the rest but an intermittent short on the top cap (happens when silica top wicks fray and fall to the sides of the coil and coil is too big or set too high). A positive pin pressed in too tight might come in contact with the "hanger" from the neg. leg. Rotation of the grommet pin combination may skew the coil if the atomizer is installed to tight (through pressure from the bottom of the pin).
The important thing is to analyze each segment of the coil element and your build in the context of the above. Too low a resistance and you are likely to see a point of discharge to ground. Something is seeking that path of least resistance and you are hot somewhere. Look and you will find it.
To this I'll add a footnote and try to keep it brief because its a peeve of mine at this point. And I'll pose it like this
How do you know your resistance is now wrong? Because you metered initially and it changed?
Forgetting for a moment the burned rubber which points to a hot leg or shorted positive at the pin. Which is right?
It really is important not just so we enjoy the reward of flavor for our efforts but for our safety. There needs to be a metric in play. That metric is resistance and you should know the resistance you're building. That really requires you know what it is you're winding in terms of diameter, wire length, etc. And it's not difficult math. Or, at least to know the value of a known wind (because I know not all of us can mess with with a calculator). That's to say you know for example that 8 wraps of 30 on 1/16" will yield 1.8Ω. Then you know what you metered was right when.
That's why I've begun to try to document some basic targets on this thread. So people can easily build something with some proven techniques, get the result in resistance they expect and be able to rely upon it for their safety. I ask folks to kick in with their findings for common wraps on known diameters with defined wire gauge so we can start to gather some confidence. And not be poking in the dark guessing whether we're seeing an error or not.
The simplest tool, a basic instrument screw set with common bit sizes is a couple of bucks at the dollar store. Build that first, find out what the resistance should come to for each wind. There's plenty of room to grow from there. And a world of time to do it in. Let's stop guessing and we gain a confidence in our result. That's what drove me crazy for a bit. Not knowing the result and poking around not knowing that I didn't. So a word to the wise. Prove all things, remove all doubt.
So b, I hope this explains why I can't tell if you have a short for sure. I really don't know the diameter of a six penny and your wind or I could roughly tell ya. But it sure would seem like it from the burning you describe. And I sure hope this information helps you. Been there done that, plenty. I would say play particularly close attention to the symmetry of your build going in and coming out.
Good luck!
Mac.....your posts exude the passion that all of us have inside us but are still too new to the (art) of vaping to feel comfortable. I am grateful for you sharing your experience here with all your post full of facts and helping me move forward every day. I was rebuilding my Kanger coils on my mini's at week 4 into the vaping scene.....I just wished I found your posts sooner but am glad I keep looking for help here on EFC.
Thanks and happy Thanksgiving to all the veterans of vaping.
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