Why do people compress their coils to make the wraps touch each other?

[Tortus]

I'm sort of new to building. I watched a few videos and people were taking ceramic tweezers and squeezing the coils super tight.

I tried this with one of my builds, and it dry hit like crazy. I can only assume it's because the coil was so tight it wasn't getting juice fast enough to the wick. I threw it out and built another one with space between the wraps and it was great.

Not sure if I did something wrong with that first one or what, but it was pretty bad.

 

[Elizabeth Baldwin]

Compressing the coils makes it a micro coil.
Micro and Macro actually refers the inside diameter of the coil. 1.5mm - 2mm or so is a 'micro' and 2.5mm - 3mm is a 'macro'.. Something of that sort. Now people just say 'micro-coil' when talking about all coils with wraps squeezed together. which, technically, is incorrect.

One thing I've noticed over my 4 years of vaping is that spaced coils or micro coils usually don't make much difference. What really makes a huge difference is how you wick them. That's just my opinion though.

 

[KenD]

When using compressed coils you need to make sure that they fire evenly. From the middle out without any hot spots. If you do that you shouldn't have any more problems than with spaced coils.

Sent from my M7_PLUS using Tapatalk

 

[edyle]

I'm sort of new to building. I watched a few videos and people were taking ceramic tweezers and squeezing the coils super tight.

I tried this with one of my builds, and it dry hit like crazy. I can only assume it's because the coil was so tight it wasn't getting juice fast enough to the wick. I threw it out and built another one with space between the wraps and it was great.

Not sure if I did something wrong with that first one or what, but it was pretty bad.

Back when I used to rebuild protank coils, squeezing the coil together was pretty critical to just getting the coil to fit into the chamber without shorting out on the sides.

 

[sonicbomb]

Whats going on with the squeezing and strumming, is 'encouraging' the kanthal wire to develop an layer of oxidization which protects the coil from further oxidation, and also slightly insulates the coil electrically. You want an even flow of electricity through the coil.
You want the coil to heat evenly from the inside out.

Regular pliers will do. Some people use ceramic ones so they can squeeze the coils while applying power and not get shocked.

 

[93gc40]

I'm sort of new to building. I watched a few videos and people were taking ceramic tweezers and squeezing the coils super tight.

I tried this with one of my builds, and it dry hit like crazy. I can only assume it's because the coil was so tight it wasn't getting juice fast enough to the wick. I threw it out and built another one with space between the wraps and it was great.

Not sure if I did something wrong with that first one or what, but it was pretty bad.

I find spaced coils provide Better flavor than contact. They also don't seem to gunk up as fast. For me it the difference of cleaning the coil every 2-3 days vs Daily or more.

In your case squeezing the coil was NOT totally the problem. Being a contact coil may have contributed to it but the cause was the wick. Squeezing didn't cause the problem though, I don't squeeze my coils and have the same problems.

There wasn't enough juice inside the coil, to prevent burning. So the problem was the wick. I say contribute, because the contact coil does concentrate heat in a smaller section of the wick then a spaced coil does. So they can be more sensitive to wicking. As you know too much wick a coil chokes off the juice flow and you get burning, too little wick and now the wick is not carrying enough juice to prevent burning, along with less capacity for juice flow. With spaced coils are a bit more forgiving on wicking, mainly they don't choke as easy. The spaces allow the wick to expand into and through the voids.

 

[SkvLTD]

Now that lots of decks became bigger, I too space mine out a bit if just for easier dry-burning when cleaning and a more even heating of the wick instead of just super-concentrated in the middle.

 

[Moonface]

When I re wick a spaced coil I tend to knock the coil out of shape, and I have to re coil. A contact, or touching, coil keeps its form, just dry burn and re wick.
Too thick a wick is the usual suspect for dry hits