Great idea dude! Posting to remind me to come back 
Can't wait to see the results
Can't wait to see the results
Wire Rope for Wick?
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SUBBED!! Can't wait to see the resultsGreat idea dude! Posting to remind me to come back
Can't wait to see the results
Well I got home briefly from my business trip and found my wire rope here today. First test was wicking. I cut a wick out of each rope using a dremel and electrical tape wrapped around the rope. Flamed both. Also flamed a wick of 1 5/8" x 3" (about 75mm wide) 500 mesh.
Tested the mesh first. Dipped it into juice, timed how long it took until a q-tip pressed against the top came away wet. Got 1:58. Then the 7x19 wire rope wick. Got 1:45. Finally, the 7x7 wire rope wick. 20 seconds. If that. It was SO FAST. The juice shot up the sides of it in 5 seconds or less....but it took 15-20 to get fully saturated. This was with 100% VG juice.
Pumped, I put my 7x7 wire rope wick into my AGA-T+ (it was a PERFECT fit), and wrapped a coil. Instant shorts, over and over and over. Popped many a coil. Tried the cig paper trick. That got the coil to fire evenly, but either the cig paper or the uneven surface of the wire rope wick meant the coil was not in good contact with the rope. It actually had a decent vape, in spite of the entire coil glowing red as it heated the wick and vaporized juice, (my guess is the heatsink effect of the wick helped me, and prevented the juice from burning. But it wasn't nirvana. Then I tried wrapping a small piece of 400mesh around just the top of the rope wick, making kind of a hybrid wick, hoping the wire rope would wick the juice quickly up, and the 400 mesh would provide an even surface to wrap the coil around.
Couldn't get the coil to fire without hotspots...most likely due to my luck with mesh. It's getting late, and so I went back to my old 500mesh wick and coil for the night.
Good news - this wire rope wicks FAST. Not sure why the 7x7 outpreformed the 7x19...my guess is the "lubrication" on the 7x19 might have impeded progress...(if a silicone based lube, which you'd want to repel water, it would also repel juice). I'm going to tinker more with it....but it shows some promise, at least. Definitely not for amateurs though....advanced users only, at this point, I'd say....and I'm not advanced!
This stuff does not oxidize black/grey like mesh does...it's very weird, it turns kind of a "gunmetal" color....maybe that's why I had so many hotspots?
Pic before flaming (mesh wick is torched already, wire rope is not):
Pic after flaming:
Tested the mesh first. Dipped it into juice, timed how long it took until a q-tip pressed against the top came away wet. Got 1:58. Then the 7x19 wire rope wick. Got 1:45. Finally, the 7x7 wire rope wick. 20 seconds. If that. It was SO FAST. The juice shot up the sides of it in 5 seconds or less....but it took 15-20 to get fully saturated. This was with 100% VG juice.
Pumped, I put my 7x7 wire rope wick into my AGA-T+ (it was a PERFECT fit), and wrapped a coil. Instant shorts, over and over and over. Popped many a coil. Tried the cig paper trick. That got the coil to fire evenly, but either the cig paper or the uneven surface of the wire rope wick meant the coil was not in good contact with the rope. It actually had a decent vape, in spite of the entire coil glowing red as it heated the wick and vaporized juice, (my guess is the heatsink effect of the wick helped me, and prevented the juice from burning. But it wasn't nirvana. Then I tried wrapping a small piece of 400mesh around just the top of the rope wick, making kind of a hybrid wick, hoping the wire rope would wick the juice quickly up, and the 400 mesh would provide an even surface to wrap the coil around.
Couldn't get the coil to fire without hotspots...most likely due to my luck with mesh. It's getting late, and so I went back to my old 500mesh wick and coil for the night.
Good news - this wire rope wicks FAST. Not sure why the 7x7 outpreformed the 7x19...my guess is the "lubrication" on the 7x19 might have impeded progress...(if a silicone based lube, which you'd want to repel water, it would also repel juice). I'm going to tinker more with it....but it shows some promise, at least. Definitely not for amateurs though....advanced users only, at this point, I'd say....and I'm not advanced!
This stuff does not oxidize black/grey like mesh does...it's very weird, it turns kind of a "gunmetal" color....maybe that's why I had so many hotspots?
Pic before flaming (mesh wick is torched already, wire rope is not):
Pic after flaming:
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Very interesting. That uneven surface has to be the reason you couldn't get rid of shorts, although I would think there's the potential for it to oxidize in only the "high" spots and give you a good-running coil.
This is actually a good case for a cotton-hybrid wick. The cotton will soak up the juice and fill in the gaps, and you never have to worry about shorts if there's a good layer of cotton on the wick.
It's interesting that it wicks so quickly. I didn't have high hopes for it actually acting as a wick, but there you have it.
I'd be curious to see a Petar K.-style coil tried with this. The lack of firm contact with the wick might make eliminating shorts easier, and minimize any heat-sink action.
How tight does it fit in the wick hole? If it's making firm contact, it's going to be hard to get it running well without shorts unless it oxidizes very easily. Do you have a multi-meter to test continuity?
This is actually a good case for a cotton-hybrid wick. The cotton will soak up the juice and fill in the gaps, and you never have to worry about shorts if there's a good layer of cotton on the wick.
It's interesting that it wicks so quickly. I didn't have high hopes for it actually acting as a wick, but there you have it.
I'd be curious to see a Petar K.-style coil tried with this. The lack of firm contact with the wick might make eliminating shorts easier, and minimize any heat-sink action.
How tight does it fit in the wick hole? If it's making firm contact, it's going to be hard to get it running well without shorts unless it oxidizes very easily. Do you have a multi-meter to test continuity?
Thanks.
I'm trying to avoid anything but SS. I like being able to dry burn, and tend to be rough on my coils, and I don't trust the silica or ceramic very much.
Doing the rolling paper basically was similar to the Petar K. style coil....it gave me a gap between coil and wick...unfortunately the gap meant that the wick wasn't really in good contact with the wick, so while it heated evenly, it didn't vaporize all that well....the coil actually was heating the wick indirectly, (radiant/convection heating), which was then vaporising the juice, I think.
It fits, um, very nicely, I'd say, in the wick hole. Loose enough to slide easily, and turn easily, tight enough to not fall out if I turn the atty upside down. I never worry about grounded wicks, I plant the bottom of my wicks firmly against the bottom of the AGA tank, which certainly gives full continuity between wick and ground. I trust in the coil's isolation from the wick to prevent shorts, which has worked out pretty well so far, but not with this. I had not run my multimeter over the ropewick itself after torching to see if it had oxidized well though, (again, in a hurry!).
I'm pumped to try the hybrid wick idea again with SS mesh. Wrap a single or double layer of SS mesh just around the top of the wick, where the coil is, (like the rolling paper method, but with SS instead of paper). I think that has the potential to work very well....I was just in too much of a rush last night to do it "right". The one wrap of mesh I put on last night did, however, wick ejuice almost instantly out of the rope wick. While I was pulsing to try and get rid of hotspots, (I didn't even oxidize that small piece of mesh), it was pumping out mad amounts of vapor just from residual juice in the wick even with the shorts.
It wicks so well that I can't stand to give up any time soon on it. It was so cool, when I dropped the wick into the juice for the wicking test, (about 5 mm of juice in a small container), I could see juice literally SHOOTING up the wick, like little wet lightening bolts. It was far more rapid than I ever thought it'd be.
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can you tell if the juice is just coating the outside of rope, or within. i am thinking about how much juice it actually holds
It looked like it shot up the outside within seconds, and it was fully saturated, as best as I could tell, in under 20 seconds. I was going to try a controlled volume test though to tell when it really stops wicking.
I'm very curious how well the mesh hybrid will work. You could even oxidize it in-place on the wire rope, then insert and wrap your coil. You even have the potential to also use the rolling paper method at the same time for a hybrid-hybrid.
Keep us posted. I may have to order some of this to play around with.
Maybe if a few of us got some free samples of the wire we could tackle this collectively /nudge /nudge /wink /wink
just picked up 25 ft to try some stuff out.... great find man. hopefully we can get something working!
Quick update, on a conference call for work so can't snap pics with my phone, but got the hybrid wick working. Cut a ~7 mm wide x 20mm long bit of mesh, rolled it real tight by hand. Flamed it to set the curl, then wrapped the tip of the rope wick with it. Treated it 3x with juice/bic lighter, (torching always seems to cause me to have endless hotspots), and wrapped a full 5 wrap, 30 ga coil. 1.7 ohms after working out hotspots.
Works GREAT. Can chainvape with no issues at 4.5 volts, 12 watts. Going to slowly crank up voltage to see what I can run.
It was much faster to make this than a mesh wick. Rolling 3+" of mesh wick down to 2.4mm to fit into the hole can take forever, and hurts the fingers. This was a 10 minute affair from start to vape.
Works GREAT. Can chainvape with no issues at 4.5 volts, 12 watts. Going to slowly crank up voltage to see what I can run.
It was much faster to make this than a mesh wick. Rolling 3+" of mesh wick down to 2.4mm to fit into the hole can take forever, and hurts the fingers. This was a 10 minute affair from start to vape.
I was at the local hardware store today and found some ss wire rope there. Went ahead a bought some and tried the cotton hybrid method using a thin layer from a cotton ball at the top of the wick and seems to work pretty good so far. Maybe to good as it seems to keep the cotton really wet causing a lot of popping but good vapor production. I really like that it was fast to make and wrap a coil and be done. So far the only drawback I'm having is it throws a lot of juice around the inside of the cap covering the coil/wick. My coil is 2.1 ohm and set at 4.0 volts in a AGA-T. I'll keep using it awhile and see what happens.
Ugh - gave up with the 1.7 ohm coil...kept getting shorts. The damn VAMO's low freq PWM seems to kill me with hotspots...the pulsing just zaps through any oxidation/gunk layer I build and shorts out.
Built a 0.7 ohm, 28ga coil and firing it on an unprotected 14500. Anyone recommend a good 18650 mech mod cheap in the US?
Pics:
Rope in tank:
Coil:
Vapor:
Video, excuse the hair, been a long week...I don't normally look like a turtle:
Built a 0.7 ohm, 28ga coil and firing it on an unprotected 14500. Anyone recommend a good 18650 mech mod cheap in the US?
Pics:
Rope in tank:
Coil:
Vapor:
Video, excuse the hair, been a long week...I don't normally look like a turtle:
That is just amazing.
How certain are you that you got rid of machine oils and the like? These things are even more "complicated" than mesh in terms of internal surface area that could potentially hide a lot of nasty materials. I imagine they aren't too careful to eliminate oil or other lubricants when they twist the strands. Did you boil the wire rope? I'd think it would require at least boiling and probably a good soak in either isopropyl alcohol or Everclear. I wouldn't trust just flame treating the wire rope, unless you do a *very* thorough job.
Looks like it has great potential, though. Imagine an everlasting piece of wick that only needs re-wrapping with stainless mesh every once in a while?
If you're going to be using it as your regular setup for a while, keep an eye on the juice for discoloration. This could be a great solution to the discoloration common with heavily-oxidized mesh.
Great idea and glad to see it appears to be a success!
LOL.. I still have my Old Goat!
Gotvapes has a nice looking SS telescope mech mod
Then there's the Natural at madvapes
and the Lavafire at discountvapers
Gotvapes has a nice looking SS telescope mech mod
Then there's the Natural at madvapes
and the Lavafire at discountvapers
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Ha, yeah, my Goat was the easiest to make my AGA-T+ fit on.
I was looking at all of those. I will be getting a Chi Chi from the coop but that will take a while, so I liked the look of the lavafire in the interim, (then ill have a bottom firing and a side firing mod). I can't find out if the lavafire will take flat top 18650s though :-(.
I am not certain at all, especially on the 7x19 rope which should have wicked very well, if my reasoning is right. I torched both until they glowed completely bright red, like a firing coil, through and through. They were HOT. But next time I think I will do a solvent soak, (maybe MEK or EtOAc - something I know will eat oil for lunch), then heat treat.
If you mean the dark discoloration that seeps into the tank, I will keep an eye on it. My bobas and Gorilla Juice are terrible for darkening up. So far, on the first tankful, it's going well.
It's not wicking perfectly yet, though I'd say it's wicking as well as any of the best 500mesh solid wicks I've rolled. The nice thing I can see with the wire rope is consistency....whereas if I roll 5 500mesh wicks in a row, some will be awesome and some will suck.
I think I'll redo it in a day or two with about half the mesh at the top hybrid part. The 20mm I used is too much, I think, and I'm hoping that with only 1.5ish wraps of mesh it'll pull juice out of the rope faster.
Yes, I was referring to the darkening of juice that occurs with a heavily-oxidized mesh wick. My current wick is only lightly flame-passed to remove oil, and it has hardly darkened the juice at all through three tanks. My earlier builds with heavy oxidizing darkened juice dramatically, and I'd like to avoid that, because who knows what's getting into the juice.
I thought the 20mm might be a bit much. I think I'd try so little as a single wrap of mesh, or maybe doubled, to keep the distance between the wire rope and the coil to a minimum.
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