TC beyond Ni200: Nickel Purity, Dicodes; Ti, SS, Resistherm NiFe30; Coefficient of Resistance

[tchavei]

(...) and Sweet Spot Vapors (Titanium Grade 1 surrounded by a lot of pseudo-technnobabble, described by Titanium engineers as out and out nonsense and sold for, you guessed it, $1/foot!)

Sweet spot vapor Ti is grade 2.

Regards
Tony

Sent from my keyboard through my phone or something like that.

 

[cdrice15]

Ive read through the last few pages and now my head hurts!

All of the technical stuff is over my head. Can some explain in simple terms why the NiFe52 wire seems to be a better wire?

 

[TheBloke]

Ive read through the last few pages and now my head hurts!

All of the technical stuff is over my head. Can some explain in simple terms why the NiFe52 wire seems to be a better wire?

Depends what you want to compare it against.

Versus Ni200, Titanium, Stainless Steel and NiFe wire has the following advantages:

1. Higher resistance
   1. Enables (much easier) use of thicker wires, twisted wires, dual coils; and in general, just makes building easier
   2. Is more accurate for TC than coils of lower resistance
   3. Uses less power and therefore less battery
2. Micro/contact coils are possible
   1. Ni200 can't be used for micro/contact coils, and this limits certain builds
   2. Even though I can now use contact coils again, I find I don't do them the majority of the time because they gunk more. But it's nice to have the option, and sometimes they are the best or easiest build in a given deck.
   3. Besides which it's nice not having to be very careful to make sure the coil is 100% spaced all the way around - easier, quicker building.
3. Low, or zero nickel content
   1. Some people are allergic to nickel. It is not regarded as hugely safe.
4. Stronger, easier to work with
   1. Varies by wire, but generally all the wires are easy to work with where Ni200 is not.
5. Better taste
   1. Not something I've noticed, but some people have reported better taste from Titanium and Stainless Steel than Ni200

Versus Titanium and Ni200, Stainless Steel and NiFe have the following advantages:

1. Dry burnable
   1. Just like Kanthal, these wires can be dry burnt in VW mode
   2. This means they can be easily cleaned when changing juice, just by dry burning them to clear off all residue
   3. It also means the coil can be fired before going into TC mode, to check it is glowing nicely inside-out : just like we do/did with Kanthal. This is especially important for micro/contact coils, but I like to do it with all builds and sometimes I find an uneven glow, and fix the problem before I go to TC.
2. Strength and lack of springiness
   1. Titanium is very springy, and is annealed to make it less so
   2. But it's still quite springy even after annealing
   3. And the annealing makes it very soft. It can therefore break quite easily, especially in through-post atomizers.

Stainless Steel has the following major disadvantage compared to all other wires mentioned:

1. It has the lowest TCR, right at the low end of current TC technology.
   1. Therefore it requires a TC mod with TCR adjustment
   2. And even with such a mod, it can only be accurate to around the nearest 20-30°C, compared to 5°C on other wires.
   3. This doesn't mean it gives a poor TC vape, it just means you might end up setting a different temperature than you expect; maybe 215°C instead of 225°C.

Finally, Kanthal NiFe52 has the following advantage versus Kanthal NiFe30/70:

1. Higher resistance
   1. Kanthal NiF30/70 has quite low resistance, not as low as Ni200 but lower than all others mentioned
   2. NiFe52 has resistance nearly as high as Titanium
   3. This makes NiFe52 preferable to NiFe30/70, for the reasons mentioned under the Ni200 section (though not to the same extent.)

Putting this all together, NiFe52 has the most advantages overall, including two useful advantages over Titanium. Stainless Steel shares those advantages, but loses out on TC accuracy and the fact that it requires a TCR adjusting mod, which are still very much in the minority.

Until just now, the NiFes had a major disadvantage of their own - only available up to 0.28mm / 29G. But now that disadvantage appears to be going away, they are coming to the fore.

To be clear, Titanium is still a great wire. I use it every day and have for weeks. I would use it over Ni200 in a heart beat. It's just I believe NiFe52 comes out top in these two useful regards.

Sorry for the length, but as you can see there are various advantages/disadvantages to each, so it's a process of layering advantages by which we get to, in my view, the 'ultimate' TC wire

 

[cdrice15]

Thanks for the response. Will have to find some of the nife52 and give it a try.

 

[Shawn Hoefer]

I've half followed this list since close to its beginning. It just became relevant, though, as I will soon be the proud owner of the XCUBE II which has TCR adjustment. I got a lot of reading to do...

 

[druckle]

TheBloke

Are you sure NiFe52 is going to make good contact coils? My understanding is that the best contact coils have an electrically insulating oxide layer (usually aluminum oxide). Since NiFe52 doesn't have any significant quantity of aluminum content I'm not sure that it won't create shorts between the wraps quite easily.

Duane

 

[TheBloke]

TheBloke

Are you sure NiFe52 is going to make good contact coils? My understanding is that the best contact coils have an electrically insulating oxide layer (usually aluminum oxide). Since NiFe52 doesn't have any significant quantity of aluminum content I'm not sure that it won't create shorts between the wraps quite easily.

Duane

Fair point, I should not have assumed NiFe52 would because every alloy is different.

What I do know is that Titanium, Stainless Steel, Resistherm NiFe30 and Kanthal NiFe70 all form good contact coils. And none of those have Kanthal's unique alumina layer.

Edit: actually Resistherm NiFe30 has 0.6% aluminium. I don't know if that makes a difference. It forms contact coils, but so does NiFe70 which says it's just 70/30 Nickel/Iron. Anyway, SS and Titanium lack aluminium and form contact OK. So I don't think it's required? I know Kanthal's alumina layer is special in some way, but it doesn't seem to be a requirement for contact.

My current understanding/experience was that it was the other way around - most wires can do contact, it's only a minority (only Ni200 that I know of) that can't.

But yes very true that this can't be assumed about NiFe52 until it's been tried.

 

[druckle]

Fair point, I should not have assumed NiFe52 would because every alloy is different.

What I do know is that Titanium, Stainless Steel, Resistherm NiFe30 and Kanthal NiFe70 all form good contact coils. And none of those have Kanthal's unique alumina layer (well the first three don't, and I assume NiFe70 doesn't either.)

So my current understanding/experience was that it was the other way around - most wires can do contact, it's only a minority (only Ni200 that I know of) that can't.

But yes very true that this can't be assumed about NiFe52 until it's been tried.

I guess it's a matter of the details of the contact coil. I know Tchavei used to do titanium contact coils with no problem but personally I found it was a bit hit or miss. Some folks even had good luck with Ni200 but again I had big problems with them. My personal experience says that 100% rock solid/predictable contact coils require the nonconductive oxide layer ie, kanthal or the like.

I think it's a minor point either way because a little luck/coil strumming usually makes all of the materials you mention usable in a contact coil but for me, at least, it's not always easy to get what I want.

Lately, I haven't wanted to use contact coils personally since I prefer spaced (tightly spaced) coils also because of their longer life before they need to be cleaned.

As a side point I found some guitar strings that are 100% NiFe52 (so they say) and ordered some just to play with the alloy till ZiVipf has it in stock. If the chemistry is honest at least I'll have a range of gauges to explore for a low price.

Duane

 

[funkyrudi]

Got word back from my brother. He's pretty sure the Alloy 52 guitar strings have a SS core. Bummer if it's true.

All kind of guitar strings for electric guitar have a ss core - round or hex. Wound strings have a winding of SS, nickel plated steel, pure Nickel and some use an alloy. Most popular is nickel plated steel.

 

[druckle]

All kind of guitar strings for electric guitar have a ss core - round or hex. Wound strings have a winding of SS, nickel plated steel, pure Nickel and some use an alloy. Most popular is nickel plated steel.

I guess I wasted some money. Certainly not the first time.

Duane

 

[TheBloke]

I guess it's a matter of the details of the contact coil. I know Tchavei used to do titanium contact coils with no problem but personally I found it was a bit hit or miss. Some folks even had good luck with Ni200 but again I had big problems with them. My personal experience says that 100% rock solid/predictable contact coils require the nonconductive oxide layer ie, kanthal or the like.

I found Titanium contact a bit hit or miss at first, with TC not kicking in for at least the first couple of pulses (which meant I had to be very careful they were low-wattage, to avoid pushing the coil into grey nastiness.)

Lately it's worked just fine, and I am not sure what's different. There's only two things that have changed: 1) I was using Zivipf wire at first, and 2) I used to pre-pulse the Zivipf wire to make it less springy.

Maybe one of those affected it, surely most likely the latter.

Anyway in recent times with Stealth and Crazy Wire, every time I've made a contact it's worked just fine, with TC from the first press.

This speaks of another advantage of dry-burnability: when I do make contact coils with NiFe or SS, I dry burn it first and check for that consistent inside-out glow. When I made the NiFe70/30 coil last night, it started as contact and my first dry burns showed the characteristic "chess board" pattern of some parts glowing some not. I did the usual Kanthal-like tweaks with a screwdriver, poked and prodded it, and after a few burns it was glowing nicely inside out. That's one part of why I'm so keen on dry burning: I can test my coils first, be sure they're working right.

True it's a lot less of an issue when coils are fully spaced, but a) I'd rather not have to be absolutely sure they're fully spaced (sometimes you space them at the top but the underside is still slightly touching, and b) it still applies I've found to spaced coils - sometimes they can have hot spots, inconsistent glowing, etc, and I'd rather find and fix that in a test burn than put the whole atomizer together and then find I've got a bad taste.

I'll say again that my Titanium coils, which I never dry burn, work well. I do sometimes get a bit of a dry taste, which I fix with a bit of poking and prodding. Usually it's bad wicking (part of the coil not touching the wick) but I do believe sometimes it's caused by firing issues that could have been resolved earlier with a pre-burn. My hope/belief is that with NiFe, that will go away. But I'll update on that when I've done a couple of weeks of exclusive NiFe, especially once I can use 26G NiFe as twisted can change things a little.

I think it's a minor point either way because a little luck/coil strumming usually makes all of the materials you mention usable in a contact coil but for me, at least, it's not always easy to get what I want.

I will say that with NiFe it feels identical to Kanthal - doesn't burn quite right the first time, a few strums and it's working. So I can't notice any difference there compared to Kanthal's alumina layer. But again I'll update when I have a lot more experience; it's been over 6 weeks since I used Resistherm regularly, and even then I didn't use it as extensively as I am now using Titanium. I'll be able to do a better comparison once I've had a long NiFe period

Lately, I haven't wanted to use contact coils personally since I prefer spaced (tightly spaced) coils also because of their longer life before they need to be cleaned.

Yeah ditto, I have noticed a huge difference in gunk on contact versus slightly spaced. So I now always go for slightly spaced where possible. But I have done a few contact coils where it proved most convenient. For example in my new Squape Rs clones, I found when I wound the Titanium coil round the screw heads it pushed the coil together into a tight micro, so I just left it like that rather than doing it all again. Coil worked fine first time, but I do have to de-gunk it every few days.

The benefit of "contact coil ability", for me, is not so much that I want to have all-contact coils. But rather as I touched upon above, I don't want to have to ensure all spaced. With Ni200 I felt I had to go round it with a microscope, almost at least, making sure no part was touching any other part. Maybe I went too far. But now I don't even have to worry - I space the wraps a little with a a razor blade and/or tweezers, and as long as they're spaced on top, I don't worry if they might be angling down slightly at the bottom. It's the top of the coil that forms the gunk, the bottom is fine left contact from a gunk perspective.

 

[TheBloke]

we get to, in my view, the 'ultimate' TC wire [NiFe52]

Just to caveat this by saying "for now"

Of course I don't mean that NiFe52 is going to be the best forever. There might be yet another alloy that has further advantages. NiFe52 is the best we know of right now, and is going to be cheap and (relatively) available, and seems to tick all the major boxes. But everything can be improved upon.

What would be the ultimate wire? Hmm. Higher resistance would be good. Zero % nickel might help some people (though we don't yet know if 52% Nickel is too much for those with sensitivities, it might be OK.) Even stronger, maybe.

Of course this could all be a passing thing. Maybe Innokin will storm the market with their in-tank sensors, and in a year's time there will be Kayfun-TC, Lemo-TC, Footoon Aqua v4 featuring ATTACK (Aqua Temperature Technology And Clever Knobs), and we'll all be back to using Kanthal but temp controlled

 

[funkyrudi]

I see no benefit for contact coils using TC. I tested Ni200, titanium and ss. The windings heat up very fast and because the micro coil is a tube there is not enough cooling liquid at the outside of the tube and so the TC is kicking in very fast and working to much. Even on atomizers like the Flash e Vapor with its very good liquid flow I get much better results with a std coil. A Clapton coil could give better results because of the tiny spaces in the outer winding - I never made one. But I pulse(d) all my wires/coils, also Titanium ( a bit ). With the new Kanthal NiFe wires there is no need for me to use Titanium any longer.

 

[cigatron]

For perfectly spaced coils I use a machine screw as a winding mandrel. That way I can mindlessly wind coils. I'm really good at being mindless.

 

[vapealone]

So the Nife30 sold from Zivpif is actually Nifethal 70 ?
Anyone like to share his DNA 200 csv?

Yes it is.

This is Steam Engine's DNA 200 csv for Resistherm NiFe30:

"Temperature (degF)","Electrical Resistivity"
-58,0.776
68,1
212,1.256
302,1.416
392,1.576
482,1.736
572,1.896
800,2.3013333333

Take that, and change the numbers in the second column to match the figures given in the Kanthal 70 datasheet - matching the °C temp stages from the datasheet against their °F equivalents in the above CSV. (212 = 100°C, 392 = 200°C, etc.)

Then Save As whatever.csv, and put into eScribe.

Or, use eScribe to enter the numbers from the data sheet (adding points to the graph as necessary) and then save it from there.

To get NiFe70 and NiFe52 added to Steam Engine for easy CSV export we need @Dampmaskin to add them; who has now been notified of that request

or simply take the offering and use copy paste will give you this:
"Temperature (degF)","Electrical Resistivity"
-148,0.576
68,1
212,1.42
302,1.68
392,1.91
482,2.19
572,2.47
932,3.66

 

[TheBloke]

Oh you put all the CSVs in there as well! I didn't understand what you meant by CSV in your last post, I thought you were referring to importing data into your sheet. Stupid me, or course you're always one step ahead with the data

Great work.

 

[vapealone]

Oh you put all the CSVs in there as well! I didn't understand what you meant by CSV in your last post, I thought you were referring to importing data into your sheet. Stupid me, or course you're always one step ahead with the data

Great work.

I may reorganise the data and put the CS on the top and source/reference data on the bottom
Edit: Done

 

[vapealone]

@TheBloke
ATM I can't find the post you mentioned detailed test on Nifethals but let me pretend I quoted it and adding that I expect some offset on an Evolv DNA40 compare to the table due to mod/atty SR.
But really would like to see some DNA200 test of them with contact/micro coils on an atomizer tested by Escribe and R(68F) locked.

 

[cigatron]

New kid on the block. Another tcr adjustable mod.
Apollo Reliant 60W Temp Control Mod (Body Only)

 

[TheBloke]

New kid on the block. Another tcr adjustable mod.
Apollo Reliant 60W Temp Control Mod (Body Only)

Wow, great find! Available here in the UK/EU: Apollo Reliant 60W Temp Control Mod (Body Only)