Been vaping this puppy about 14 hours now and on a verge of making a decision. First off lemme list the hardware:
1. Nextel XC-116 (1/32") Ceramic Wick purchased from Big Tex Vapor
2. Reo Grand from REOSMODS
3. Reomizer 2 from REOSMODS
4. 0.7mm x 0.1mm Kanthal D ribbon wire from ebay (Zivipf Versandhandel)
5. 0.6mm x 0.1mm Kanthal D ribbon wire from ebay " "
6. Noalox from Amazon
To be fair I washed the RM2 and filed/cleaned the firing pin of my Grand and applied Noalox. The 1/32" Nextel so reminds me of parachute cord in size, just about perfect for my needs as you shall see. I looked for the hollow core of the ceramic wick and thought, no way I'm gonna find something that'll fit inside. To my surprise it expands quite well, like it was made for a wire to run through it (it is). Tried 32 gage, then 30, then 0.5mm ribbon wire, then 0.6mm and the hole kept on getting bigger and bigger. Stopped there not needing anything larger. Note: Be careful with round wire it'll pierce the inner layers of the ceramic and stab ya if you're not careful. Able to run 2" of the 0.6mm ribbon wire inside the wick with no trouble at all. For my purposes I was able to use the wire inside the wick to act as a mold. All wire were torched prior to assembly.
I used 0.7mm ribbon wire to wrap around one end of the wick (no mold was necessary as the wire inside the wick was stiff enough to maintain a straight run), counted 9 wide wraps of wire. Resistance after mounting coming in at 1.1 ohm. Long leg of wick/wire exits coil on the side that the feed hole is on. I ran this leg of the wick/wire on the outside of the post, following the rim around to the outside of the opposite post, going under the coil and ending shortly thereafter. The leg is barely touching the coil as it goes under, no wire is sticking out from either end of this wick/wire (to prevent chance of a short). Sounds complicated but without doing a lot of trial and error it should take me less than 5 minutes to build a new one. Not a snap, but believe longevity will outweigh any extra time spent in rebuilding.
First impressions:
Squonked some juice after doing a dry burn and an additional squonk a couple minutes later to saturate coil and leg. Cotton is still king, as far as absorption is concerned. Ceramic rope is about par with silica.
First hit, flavor was good but not as good as ss mesh. Vapor production was dismal with little throat hit. Seemed like the coil was choking for more juice. Subsequent hits without doing a squonk got worse until finally nothing, must've been a dry burn. Surprisingly, there weren't any bad harsh hits, just a gradual diminishing of vapor and flavor. I did not quit at this point, plodded on and on and on. Then began noticing a slight increase in vapor production possibly a 1/2 hour later. Flavor remained about the same. The vapor production continued to increase, as time went by. Flavor improved to excellent from good, I'd say 95% as flavorful as ss mesh. End of day 1, vapor production is decent. Lets see how it goes after more time
1. Nextel XC-116 (1/32") Ceramic Wick purchased from Big Tex Vapor
2. Reo Grand from REOSMODS
3. Reomizer 2 from REOSMODS
4. 0.7mm x 0.1mm Kanthal D ribbon wire from ebay (Zivipf Versandhandel)
5. 0.6mm x 0.1mm Kanthal D ribbon wire from ebay " "
6. Noalox from Amazon
To be fair I washed the RM2 and filed/cleaned the firing pin of my Grand and applied Noalox. The 1/32" Nextel so reminds me of parachute cord in size, just about perfect for my needs as you shall see. I looked for the hollow core of the ceramic wick and thought, no way I'm gonna find something that'll fit inside. To my surprise it expands quite well, like it was made for a wire to run through it (it is). Tried 32 gage, then 30, then 0.5mm ribbon wire, then 0.6mm and the hole kept on getting bigger and bigger. Stopped there not needing anything larger. Note: Be careful with round wire it'll pierce the inner layers of the ceramic and stab ya if you're not careful. Able to run 2" of the 0.6mm ribbon wire inside the wick with no trouble at all. For my purposes I was able to use the wire inside the wick to act as a mold. All wire were torched prior to assembly.
I used 0.7mm ribbon wire to wrap around one end of the wick (no mold was necessary as the wire inside the wick was stiff enough to maintain a straight run), counted 9 wide wraps of wire. Resistance after mounting coming in at 1.1 ohm. Long leg of wick/wire exits coil on the side that the feed hole is on. I ran this leg of the wick/wire on the outside of the post, following the rim around to the outside of the opposite post, going under the coil and ending shortly thereafter. The leg is barely touching the coil as it goes under, no wire is sticking out from either end of this wick/wire (to prevent chance of a short). Sounds complicated but without doing a lot of trial and error it should take me less than 5 minutes to build a new one. Not a snap, but believe longevity will outweigh any extra time spent in rebuilding.
First impressions:
Squonked some juice after doing a dry burn and an additional squonk a couple minutes later to saturate coil and leg. Cotton is still king, as far as absorption is concerned. Ceramic rope is about par with silica.
First hit, flavor was good but not as good as ss mesh. Vapor production was dismal with little throat hit. Seemed like the coil was choking for more juice. Subsequent hits without doing a squonk got worse until finally nothing, must've been a dry burn. Surprisingly, there weren't any bad harsh hits, just a gradual diminishing of vapor and flavor. I did not quit at this point, plodded on and on and on. Then began noticing a slight increase in vapor production possibly a 1/2 hour later. Flavor remained about the same. The vapor production continued to increase, as time went by. Flavor improved to excellent from good, I'd say 95% as flavorful as ss mesh. End of day 1, vapor production is decent. Lets see how it goes after more time
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. I even contemplated running a tail down the squonk hole and fed directly into the juice bottle. Hows that for a lazy freak? 
