T3S vs EVOD: recoiling and rewicking results

[livethechoice]

For a little over the last week I've been attempting recoils and rewicks of both my EVOD and T3S with varying success, but here's what I've found.

Using a 1.3 screw (tried a 4-40 screw and the coils were WAY too big, huge compared to the factory coils, so I'm not sure where the miscommunication is but I don't know how people are getting such tight coils on a 4-40) and 32g Kanthal wire I can make a perfect 1.8 coil with 5 wraps or a 2.2 with 6 wraps. I use a cheesecloth wick (20 strands folded over for both the wick and flavor-wick). I keep the coil on the screw and rest it so that it fits at the bottom of that little groove in the housing, and then I finish it with the plugs and making sure the legs aren't touching. It comes out looking almost exactly like a factory atty.

The EVOD works, every time, exactly like it should. Clean hits, no gurgling, the legs don't get too hot, it's exactly what it should be.

The T3S is a disaster. The legs get so hot that the outer casing gets too hot to touch, it gurgles and flood all the time, it's to the point that my T3S's have become unusable. I've tried a thicker wick, I've tried setting the coils lower in the housing, double stacking the rubber grommet, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong but there has to be a solution to this. A 1.8 ohm atty vaping at between 3.4-4.0 volts should be perfect, and the size of the T3S tank is ideal for when I'm working at home and don't want to refill it every hour like I do on my EVOD.

Has anybody had any luck with the T3S, or is it just a poor design?

 

[Tmartin63]

I use the T3S as well, never had an Evod. I use 32 kanthal, 5 wraps around a 16 guage needle and cotton wick. I typically end up right around 1.7-1.9 ohms. Then I use two strands of peaches and cream yarn for the flavor wick. The yarn is four strands, just pull two off. This set up work perfect for thicker juices. The wife uses thinner juice so I use the entire piece of yarn (all four strands) on hers to prevent leaking. I feel your pain, good luck.

 

[WarHawk-AVG]

My rebuilds seem to work just fine as well...odd

Use cotton rolled into a thin string and lay across the coils as flavor wicks...works very well

Do you do any conditioning burns before full reassembly?

 

[livethechoice]

My rebuilds seem to work just fine as well...odd

Use cotton rolled into a thin string and lay across the coils as flavor wicks...works very well

Do you do any conditioning burns before full reassembly?

I anneal the coil before and after I wrap it, the screw that I use as to make the coils makes them pretty tight, usually takes me a good 5 minutes to stretch them out evenly and get them perfect (I'm a little OCD about it, it's always the little things).
What really throws me for a loop is that there aren't any gaps in the housing, whatever isn't covered by the grommet gets filled in by the wick, and once I switched to using cheesecloth I never had gurgling or flooding with the factory coils. I've lined them up and mine are almost exactly the same size.

EDIT: I should add that I know it's not a matter of the liquid, I've been using the same brand/strength/pg-vg ratio (80/20) for months

 

[livethechoice]

Maybe my coils are spread too far apart? There's a lot of gap in the 5-wrap, I'm going to try switching to 30g and see if I can fit a 1.8 in the T3S housing, could be that the wicking is working faster than the coils can vaporize the liquid?

 

[Tmartin63]

Maybe my coils are spread too far apart? There's a lot of gap in the 5-wrap, I'm going to try switching to 30g and see if I can fit a 1.8 in the T3S housing, could be that the wicking is working faster than the coils can vaporize the liquid?

I have learned too, that they don't have to be perfectly spaced at all. Micro coils actually touch, so if it is too wide just fire it up and squeeze it together a little. When I first started building I thought they had to be perfect too. I used the use a screw to make the them perfect and drove myself crazy. Relax and don't make it too hard for yourself. Also if they are too wide they could be shorting out against the chimney when you put that on?

If you have a cotton ball or Q Tip, try it. A little bit goes a long way with cotton. Roll up a small piece and thread it thru the coil. It should go thru with no resistance. It will swell to fill the coil. If it binds going in, that's too much. You would be surprised how little it actually takes. I unroll the cotton ball about an inch and cut about 1/8" off one side. Roll it lightly and to a point on one end.

 

[livethechoice]

they don't have to be perfectly spaced at all. Micro coils actually touch, so if it is too wide just fire it up and squeeze it together a little. When I first started building I thought they had to be perfect too. I used the use a screw to make the them perfect and drove myself crazy. Relax and don't make it too hard for yourself. Also if they are too wide they could be shorting out against the chimney when you put that on?

It's mostly some crazy OCD that kicks in that wants them to be as evenly spaced as possible. I thought about them shorting out on the chimney, I think one of my first coils did that, but lately it hasn't been the problem.

I finally got one to work like it should, for today at least. I used 30g and made 1.8 coil, increased the strand-count on the cheesecloth wicks to 25, cut the wicks to be much shorter than usual (just barely sticking out of the holes), and bought a variable voltage battery to run it off of. The combination of the changes to the build and running the battery between 3.7v and 4v, depending on the amount of liquid left in the tank, has had me gurgle and flood free all day, and the legs aren't getting too hot like they have before. I'm on my first refill for this new build, so here's hoping that I've found the secret to keep using my TS3s.

 

[CowbellDrummer]

For a little over the last week I've been attempting recoils and rewicks of both my EVOD and T3S with varying success, but here's what I've found.

Using a 1.3 screw (tried a 4-40 screw and the coils were WAY too big, huge compared to the factory coils, so I'm not sure where the miscommunication is but I don't know how people are getting such tight coils on a 4-40) and 32g Kanthal wire I can make a perfect 1.8 coil with 5 wraps or a 2.2 with 6 wraps. I use a cheesecloth wick (20 strands folded over for both the wick and flavor-wick). I keep the coil on the screw and rest it so that it fits at the bottom of that little groove in the housing, and then I finish it with the plugs and making sure the legs aren't touching. It comes out looking almost exactly like a factory atty.

The EVOD works, every time, exactly like it should. Clean hits, no gurgling, the legs don't get too hot, it's exactly what it should be.

The T3S is a disaster. The legs get so hot that the outer casing gets too hot to touch, it gurgles and flood all the time, it's to the point that my T3S's have become unusable. I've tried a thicker wick, I've tried setting the coils lower in the housing, double stacking the rubber grommet, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong but there has to be a solution to this. A 1.8 ohm atty vaping at between 3.4-4.0 volts should be perfect, and the size of the T3S tank is ideal for when I'm working at home and don't want to refill it every hour like I do on my EVOD.

Has anybody had any luck with the T3S, or is it just a poor design?

I love the T3's. Thing is, they are bottom coil, so they wick extremely easy.
When you take a draw, it will want to wick even more - so the key IMO is gentle draws.
If you draw too hard, it will leak down the middle VERY often. Nice light draws = no flooding.
If it's too airy...plug one of the air holes at the base with a toothpick.