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BJ is ordering juice with NIC, and Jimi D is lusting after some 100% VG, the world is seriously about to end...
BJ seriously though, I wonder if the heat down there gives you an edge. I personally have issues with a VG juice at 5% flavor/water in a top genny, nothing that can't be fixed with tipping, but that crap annoys me lol. 10% is close to perfect, though I can totally outpace it if I go nuts. 15-20% is pretty much foolproof.
I think mwa gets good results with 5% flavor and VG, but he's a sissy Eagles fan who vapes fairy dust at 4 watts (lets see if that grabs his attention)
Yea it could also explain why despite my best efforts and butchering, I couldn't get the G-Bell to wick as nicely as the Did Gemini. Nice work peoples
Lol 0 nic, just want to try the Bobas flavor. Thinking back, I have not vaped in cold weather and can't really give an opinion. The storm postponed my visit to NYC and will probably wait until spring.
It's best to have the kanthal wraps nice and tight around the 500 wick, right?
Loose wraps sink ships LOL.
Yes you should see no air, when you do your dry fire and get those coils glowing you can more each wrap of coil one at a time to take up any slack (as long as there not really loose)
If you wrap your coil with enough gap between each wrap this gives you more adjustment potential.
Imagine you have a 3/4 wrap and the coil is like this: [[[ ,but you have air gaps or looseness, do your dry fire and one wrap at a lime with a tooth pick move the hot coil like [[/ then [// then /// ,I hope you get my drift
It was much easier than I thought. I messed up a few days ago on my first attempt, messed up threading on my chid, had to throw it away. Today with my chobra and #500, it was easy as microwave dinner.
We-e-e-elllll, I've been messing with my Chenisis fo0r a little while -had the 500 mesh almost from the start, and 32 awg Kanthal - struggled like flamin' crazy at first trying to wrap a coil right onto the mesh...
So, carried on reading this and other threads, tried to order some 28 awg, but none around so settled for 29 (0.3mm). After recieving my i-taste VV, I wrapped my first coil around a new wick early last week, and hit it first time - bit slack around the top coil but only couple minor shorts that I shifted easy with a toothpick - "YAY" thinks I - got this nailed finally ',;~}~
Well I was vaping some highly flavoured coffee home blend, so that gunked things up quite a bit over no time at all, and by about the 3rd or 4th or so cleaning, I trashed the coil. Wick was a mess too really, so last night I set-to and rolled another wick, wrapped another coil, expecting similar speedy results...
Let's just say, didn't get it working last night, and even took the morning off work too to get the bleeding thing done - seems *just* about alright now, but if it even approaches a dry burn I get a short in the top 1/2 of the coil. Am hoping by the time I've carefully vaped a tank or so full at low voltage (1.8-2 Ohm coil, low end of the itaste VV at 3.3v), it'll settle in a little more robustly...
This certainly isn't an easy knack for me to get by a long shot, and I really can learn to do almost anything given a short time and the desire (and I have the desire - best vape ever from this atty when it's tuned right, eh), and am used to doing fine work with my hands. Oh well! See how it gopes with this coil/wick, and the next and so on LOL!
Be Well Folks!
DV ',;~}~
So, carried on reading this and other threads, tried to order some 28 awg, but none around so settled for 29 (0.3mm). After recieving my i-taste VV, I wrapped my first coil around a new wick early last week, and hit it first time - bit slack around the top coil but only couple minor shorts that I shifted easy with a toothpick - "YAY" thinks I - got this nailed finally ',;~}~
Well I was vaping some highly flavoured coffee home blend, so that gunked things up quite a bit over no time at all, and by about the 3rd or 4th or so cleaning, I trashed the coil. Wick was a mess too really, so last night I set-to and rolled another wick, wrapped another coil, expecting similar speedy results...
Let's just say, didn't get it working last night, and even took the morning off work too to get the bleeding thing done - seems *just* about alright now, but if it even approaches a dry burn I get a short in the top 1/2 of the coil. Am hoping by the time I've carefully vaped a tank or so full at low voltage (1.8-2 Ohm coil, low end of the itaste VV at 3.3v), it'll settle in a little more robustly...
This certainly isn't an easy knack for me to get by a long shot, and I really can learn to do almost anything given a short time and the desire (and I have the desire - best vape ever from this atty when it's tuned right, eh), and am used to doing fine work with my hands. Oh well! See how it gopes with this coil/wick, and the next and so on LOL!
Be Well Folks!
DV ',;~}~
@ Dearth Vaper
It can be frustrating sometimes mate, but it gets easier and easier. Persistence will pay off and when you hit the spot, there's nothing better, well at least not in the form of vapour
It can be frustrating sometimes mate, but it gets easier and easier. Persistence will pay off and when you hit the spot, there's nothing better, well at least not in the form of vapour
@ Dearth Vaper
It can be frustrating sometimes mate, but it gets easier and easier. Persistence will pay off and when you hit the spot, there's nothing better, well at least not in the form of vapour
LOL! Yeah mate I know - got the last wick working really quite well enough and it was *DrEaMy*!
Anyways and besides - I'm a stubborn, presitant, heels-dug-in SOB when it comes to the (any) crunch, so even if I get frustrated to the point of "Hulk SMASHEM!!!" and hurl the object of said frustration around, I always come back and have another go - I've lost many battles, but very, very few wars LOL!
',;~}~
Anyways again - I progressed with this wick and coil since earlier - was still playing up on the itaste and losing a coil or 3 at the lower end to shorts, so when I came back home I removed the coil and wick, gently relaxed the grip of the coil and slid it off the wetted wick.
Slid the coil over the shaft of a 2.5mm drill bit, heated it, let it cool slowly, rolled it around on there a bit now it was softened (annealed) to re-round it out/remove any slight wobbles or kinks, re-spaced and levelled off each coil turn, then heated and quenched it to stiffen it back up a little.
I gave the wick another hard rolling to make sure it was as round as I cold get it, gave it another heating too at the 'top' end, then put the whole shebang back together again, and fired it up...
... To find I'd now got hot spots/shorts back up at the top end too - UGH!
I tried to poke those suckers away with the toothpick as well but to little or no avail...
So I dug out the big-guns! - That is, I hooked the atty up to the USB PT I lashed up - 4.5 to 4.9 v, and for all intents and purposes, no real current limit (from the chosen port), and fired it half dry...
- I just kept hitting the button until the coil hit a short then stopping, hitting it again right away and so-on, and the short would most often fix itself as the coil made the wick glow orange and 'oxidise' the bad spot(s), but the stubborn ones I'd fiddle at with the toothpick, then fire coil again - after about 5 mins of this I had all turns of the coil, and entire upper wick, glowing nicely, plus a rather hot atty indeed, but it's working about 95% good now - just the very lowest turn shorting every now and then (the itaste shows this - hit both lower buttons and it recommends 3.3 to 4.1V for the totally un-shorted coil, but 3.3 to 3.9v if the lower coil drops out the equation). I can live with that no bother, and it may well fix itself after a few hundred more vapes (2 or 3 hours LOL!) anyways, heheheh...
And on it goes, heheheheh...
Cheers bud! Be Well ',;~}~
P.s. DV - Yaknow, the *not* dry-ice based disco smoke machines work on the same principle, even using flavoured /glycol for the smoke juice - I'm thinking one of those machines and a bunch of hoses would be... interesting for a vape party LOL...
Heh, and you just clicked it over to 170 pages - congrats Rattman - you win 100 clouds of vapour ',;~}~
DV still reading through ~366 pages of "wick materials safe vs dangerous" LOL!
I got up to page 20 and found really good info thus far. I just purchased an Orion 2.1 and cant wait for it this weekend. The seller i got it from suggested the 500 mesh and was curious about it and found this thread. So far from page 20 and the video of Monty and lots of vapor. What im looking for to answer is if using the 32 awg kanthal with the 500 mesh, hows the throat hit ? Is it base on the wraps you do on the mesh ? My apologies if this is such a noob question ..
Thanks in advance
Hey there Ginsu bud,
From what I've read, my background knowledge and my limited experience, 'throat hit' is a function of nic. level, pg/vg ratio, and vaporisation temperature plus the temperature of the vapour as it hits your throat, plus the flavour composition of the juice itself.
Saying that, less wraps of a given gauge wire, at a given voltage gives more TH but that's also easy to overdo if not using a VV, and you can end up 'burning' your juice, which gives *SUPERMASSIVE* TH but makes one rather ill (did to me anyway).
The biggest factor with these atties (and, well, all atties and cartos really) IMExp. is wattage the coil runs at - personally I've found that with 1.8 to 2.0 Ohm coil, I like between 3.8 and 4.2 Volts, depending on how warm the ambient temperature is, which juice I'm using, and time of day - I seem to feel less and less throat hit as the day vapes by ',;~}~
Do you have a multimeter by the way? Are you using a VV PV, or is it a regulated one? Unregulated right from the battery? - You'll have to do some playing with coils/number of wraps etc. anyway, but having a meter and either knowing the voltage of your PV or being able to adjust it, plus being able to measure the resistance of a length of kanthal/nichrome will speed things up somewhat.
The factors involved are one thing, but 'throat hit' itself is so subjective. I can say I've not had it be much of an issue, but I did go out and get a VVPV (itaste) pretty soon after messing with these things so I could better tune thing to my varying tastes.
I was using a Smoktech Epower at first, and found as soon as I left the house it just wouldn't cut it for me - wasn't getting the vapour production or the TH I was getting indoors, and even indoors soon as the battery started to wane in power a little, the vapour and TH dropped right off. If I wound a shorter/hotter coil to compensate, the e-power would make it unvapable until it started to lose a bit of 'oomph'...
Nuther thang - I started off with 32 guage, but I couldn't get a single coil to work for me wound right on the mesh - every one of them shorted like crazy. I read some more and saw mention that a thicker gauge wire helped (for reasons of lower resistance in the wire at any given point, the wire thus giving an easier path for the electrons compared to the oxidised mesh surface - I understand it, but it's been explained better here LOL!), and went with 29 awg more recently (with 'some' success LOL). Having said that there hunnerds of folk can wind 32gauge or thinner onto SS mesh and get a short free coil.
Well I've said a lot, but I bet I've not answered your question huh?!? ',;~}~
Hope I've been of some help anyway - be well!
D'WindBag'V
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Hey guys, I did my first SS Mesh for my Mini ViVi tank with 500 and a 32 Kanthal, but I'm getting a slight burnt taste from my juice sometimes, especially if I don't tip. This has probably been answered before but after the first 5 pages I didn't really want to do the other 165....lol can anyone help me with this?
burnt taste comes from hotspots of the coil. to avoid you have to fiddle on the coil e.g. with a needle, or sometimes you can move the mesh roll a bit up and down or turn it slightly against the direction, the roll is turned ...
Finally got to the end. Probably the best thread available for SS Mesh though at my age I've probably forgotten more than I remember. That said I have a bunch of mesh including SS500 and quite a bit of various resistance wire, Kanthal and Nichrome. Have experimented with several different mesh wicks, mostly 500 and have yet to make one that wouldn't short, particularly in the hole to the Niquid with my genesis clone.
Not asking for advice for preparing the wick as I've tried every way I've read in this thread and others to no avail. Have no doubt that I'll get there eventually but that's for another day.
Have read a couple of suggestions about wrapping the wick with tobacco paper thus having it between the wick and coil. Does this leave an insulation between the wick and the coil once the excess paper has been burned off? Haven't tried it as I have no tobacco paper and I hope to find out if it's worth the time to get some or if it's just another disappointment like the coated resistance wire.
FWIW, anyone having problems with shorts and may be tempted to buy coated resistance wire thinking the coating will hold up when the coil is fired is in for a disappointment. It doesn't come anywhere near the advertised temp before it burns off.
And for those with sore fingers from rolling mesh wicks, once you get the initial roll started try rolling them between two pieces of wood. It allows me to do in a few minutes what I had been struggling with off and on for hours. Once you're sure you have it rolling in the right direction you can exert as much pressure as you like to get it tight.
Errol
Probably the best thread available for SS Mesh though at my age I've probably forgotten more than I remember. That said I have a bunch of mesh including SS500 and quite a bit of various resistance wire, Kanthal and Nichrome. Have experimented with several different mesh wicks, mostly 500 and have yet to make one that wouldn't short, particularly in the hole to the Niquid with my genesis clone.Not asking for advice for preparing the wick as I've tried every way I've read in this thread and others to no avail. Have no doubt that I'll get there eventually but that's for another day.
Have read a couple of suggestions about wrapping the wick with tobacco paper thus having it between the wick and coil. Does this leave an insulation between the wick and the coil once the excess paper has been burned off? Haven't tried it as I have no tobacco paper and I hope to find out if it's worth the time to get some or if it's just another disappointment like the coated resistance wire.
FWIW, anyone having problems with shorts and may be tempted to buy coated resistance wire thinking the coating will hold up when the coil is fired is in for a disappointment. It doesn't come anywhere near the advertised temp before it burns off.
And for those with sore fingers from rolling mesh wicks, once you get the initial roll started try rolling them between two pieces of wood. It allows me to do in a few minutes what I had been struggling with off and on for hours. Once you're sure you have it rolling in the right direction you can exert as much pressure as you like to get it tight.
Errol
...Have read a couple of suggestions about wrapping the wick with tobacco paper thus having it between the wick and coil. Does this leave an insulation between the wick and the coil once the excess paper has been burned off? Haven't tried it as I have no tobacco paper and I hope to find out if it's worth the time to get some or if it's just another disappointment like the coated resistance wire.
I tried the rolling-paper method once and it didn't seem to do anything for me, but others swear by it. It makes sense though; perhaps my technique was bad... Best thing I found to improve the battle with shorts was a move to lower gauge (lower resistance) wire. I have far fewer problems with 30ga and 28ga than I did with 32ga.
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Finally got to the end.
Not asking for advice for preparing the wick as I've tried every way I've read in this thread and others to no avail. Have no doubt that I'll get there eventually but that's for another day.
Have read a couple of suggestions about wrapping the wick with tobacco paper thus having it between the wick and coil. Does this leave an insulation between the wick and the coil once the excess paper has been burned off? Haven't tried it as I have no tobacco paper and I hope to find out if it's worth the time to get some or if it's just another disappointment like the coated resistance wire.
FWIW, anyone having problems with shorts and may be tempted to buy coated resistance wire thinking the coating will hold up when the coil is fired is in for a disappointment. It doesn't come anywhere near the advertised temp before it burns off.
And for those with sore fingers from rolling mesh wicks, once you get the initial roll started try rolling them between two pieces of wood. It allows me to do in a few minutes what I had been struggling with off and on for hours. Once you're sure you have it rolling in the right direction you can exert as much pressure as you like to get it tight.
Errol
I too haven't been able to get my 500 mesh from themeshcompany to oxidize properly. Even using 28g kanthal it shorts and actually burns a hole in the mesh no matter what. I've tried every method i can find even the petar k method with super loose coils. FWIW, my tightly rolled 325 mesh I got from ebay I can get oxidized and vaping in a couple minutes with 34g so its not that I'm completely incompetent
. I just don't get where I'm going wrong 
Post your method details and some pics and the wealth of knowledge here will undoubtedly steer you to success with the #500, I get my mesh from the same firm and although it took a while I now have very consistent results, I now only use #500 and 30&28g kanthal and 28g nichrome.I too haven't been able to get my 500 mesh from themeshcompany to oxidize properly. Even using 28g kanthal it shorts and actually burns a hole in the mesh no matter what. I've tried every method i can find even the petar k method with super loose coils. FWIW, my tightly rolled 325 mesh I got from ebay I can get oxidized and vaping in a couple minutes with 34g so its not that I'm completely incompetent
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