#500 SS Mesh

[overall]

I use the 500 mesh from the mesh company. I find that less is better when it comes to oxidizing the mesh. I do a quickie jack frost just a few seconds with the propane torch. Then roll. I wrap my coil on the wick out of the atty. Then I torch the section with the coil until the coil glows red for a couple of seconds. I ten pop it into my genesis a secure the ends. When adjusting the coils to deal with hot spots do it while firing as the coils are nice and flexible when glowing. Take your time .... have something delicious to vape while you work.

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

 

[altura]

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 always do a light jackfrost torch first. First I tried after rolling, lightly torch the entire wick to a nice copperish color. After that that failed, I torched to a light grey. Still shorting right where the coil hits the mesh. So I torched it black. I knew it wasn't going to work...and it didn't. Shorted and in a millisecond it had burnt a hole in the mesh and popped the 28g wire lol. All testing done at 3.3v btw. I first started wrapping these coils by wrapping directly on the mesh while inside my genesis. I thought maybe I'm just wrapping too tightly so I tried wrapping a coil around a drill bit and dropping a new wick in place. Same result, immediate short. I tried that with different levels of torching, quenching, not quenching, burning juice off and not burning juice off. I've tried boiling the mesh, thinking maybe the oils from my fingers were causing it to not oxidize properly but to no avail. Also, I've tried dripping some juice on the coils before firing, but the hotspot always comes back and eventually will turn into a short.

With the 325(which is the only other mesh I have), I roll it and torch once to golden and nothing else. Then wrap as tight on the mesh as possible without pushing into the mesh and fix the hotspots and I'm done. I'm vaping 70pg/30vg and it's keeping up with my vaping style but I'd like to move to 100% vg so I MUST get this 500 working lol. I've wasted nearly a whole sheet of 500 trying to get it right .

 

[studiovap]

I posted this elsewhere but it solved my problems consistently.:
I find my coil does a lot of the oxidizing if I do this:
Loose wraps sink ships LOL. So Do minor shorts
As we know you should see no air, when you do your dry fire and get those coils ( even one or Two) 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 wrap and the coil is like this: [[[ ,but you have air gaps or looseness,or minor shorts. 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.

Don't be afraid to push and pull your wick away from a short, particularly with the top coil where it first meets the wick. The heat of the coil will oxidize your mesh as long as you jiggle prod and poke before your shorts burn holes in your mesh. Oxidizing to copper/grey should be fine initially but that is only the first part of the battle IMHO. Good luck

 

[Njt07]

Ive been wondering about using a 500mesh core for the wicking benefits and a 325 outer shell for the ease of prep... now I guess I need to try it cause I too had no problems with 400 mesh that i got from mountain oaks but this 500 is kicking my rear.

Right now im using a twisted cotton yarn in the coil with the tail minus 4 threads going into the tank, works great but im stubborn and want to get the mesh to towork

 

[altura]

Ive been wondering about using a 500mesh core for the wicking benefits and a 325 outer shell for the ease of prep... now I guess I need to try it cause I too had no problems with 400 mesh that i got from mountain oaks but this 500 is kicking my rear.

That sounds like a great idea to me, after having so much trouble with the 500. I think I'll try it when I get time over the weekend. I've used a cotton wrap under the coil but it tastes terrible to me.

 

[Njt07]

That sounds like a great idea to me, after having so much trouble with the 500. I think I'll try it when I get time over the weekend. I've used a cotton wrap under the coil but it tastes terrible to me.

Welp it worked, its wicking well and set up was infinitely easier than straight 500, maybe cause the 500 wire is so tiny? Doesnt make sense though cause if the wire in the 500 mesh is tiny shouldnt that make it More resistant not less?

 

[Big Screen D]

See I'm not the only vapor building atty's on a Friday night.

I agree, the 500 mesh is trickier to rid of shorts, but once done is worth the effort. I build mine with the drill bit method, then do a bit of adjusting on the wick itself as I slide the wick through. I find doing a pre adjustment on the bottom side of the wick to insure no wrap is either to tight or loose before sliding the wick fully into place makes things much easier. Less disturbing of the oxidation this way.

I torch and quench 3 times after rolling to oxidize. Most of the time if I do have a short, it was because the coil was pressing to firmly against the wick somewhere. Tends to happen at the top and or bottom mostly if there is to much tension to the connectors.

My best build on my Duds is not a fat wick. I'm ecstatic with a 45mm, 500 mesh 6-7 wrap, 2 ohm, 32g kanthal build @4v on a Provari. Coils spaced very close together connected between the 1st and 2nd positive post nuts from the bottom. Wick is only 1/16" or about 1.5mm in diameter.

Also, I do not dry fire the coil with the wick in place. I fire the coil before inserting the wick, and check ohms. After the wick is in, WITH juice in the tank, I do long burns to work out any shorts while periodically checking resistance. If the resistance is more than .1 or .2 lower than what I measured with the naked coil, I keep firing and tweaking the coil until the short is cleared. Doing this on a juiced coil eliminates any chance of burning into the wick, and I believe helps lay down some gunk insulator at the hot spot.

at

 

[Njt07]

I am actually doing homework... but I will say that using 500 as the core seems to be working very well, I get the same wicking I had with 500 by itself, but seriously the set up with 400 was so much easier, kinda the best of both worlds I guess. I guess we will see how easy this is the next time I do this...

 

[studiovap]

See I'm not the only vapor building atty's on a Friday night.

Also, I do not dry fire the coil with the wick in place. I fire the coil before inserting the wick, and check ohms. After the wick is in, WITH juice in the tank, I do long burns to work out any shorts while periodically checking resistance. If the resistance is more than .1 or .2 lower than what I measured with the naked coil, I keep firing and tweaking the coil until the short is cleared. Doing this on a juiced coil eliminates any chance of burning into the wick, and I believe helps lay down some gunk insulator at the hot spot.

at

This is the way I used to do it, but I found that "laying down gunk on a hot spot" only leads to instability further down the line. IMHO hotspots are caused by minor shorts, loose wrap or too much distance between wick and connection terminal. All these factors can be eliminated by a sound technique without needing gunk to tempararily solve the problem. If I do not have an even glowing coil with tight wraps darker glow where the coil exits the wick, I no longer add juice to the equation. I have found hot coils do not burn through my wick surface but persistant shorts in one spot left un nudged/adjusten will.
When I add juice I am done, I have a very stable setup for a long time, and this is with a 2/3 wrap 28g 0.6Ohm coil pushing 30watts on a fresh battery, so it's not going to put up with any instability my method has to be rock solid.
What ever works for you is great, this is just my opinion based on my own extensive experimentation. I have at times been still up at 6am fiddling torching rolling re rolling. But not anymore

 

[gdeal]

This was a good laugh for early Saturday morning. I always start my set ups trying to do what Studiovap just posted, but can end up going with a bit of what Big Screen D posted.

I believe Studiovap's technique will produce a more robust, longer lasting, less gunked coil because he is optimizing thermal transfer and getting even wire temperature. (Probably explains his ability to put 7 amps though 28g. and not burn juice)

The hard part here (for me at least), is that I am using a VV device capped at 3.5 amps. So I need to have at least 7 turn coils (28g). If I do not hit a close to perfect full coil apposition on the first try, I have very little room between coils for tweaking and moving the coils around. If I can't work very minor shorts out with the space I have between coils, I go to the juice.

The juice technique is a good fix, but I know at this point, I just lost an optimized coil. However, if I can quickly resolve a single short with juice and get the same level of resistance that I had without the wick in place, I go with it. If I have to start playing with the coil to resolve more that one maybe two very minor shorts. I scrap it and start over.

 

[Big Screen D]

Have to love that RBA's leave us the ability to experiment and optimize to our individual preferences and gear. My skinny, closely spaced, coil at the bottom wicks are simply perfect for my vaping style. I vape much like I used to smoke. Quick two second or three second drags so the near instant vape production from closely spaced coils on a smaller heat sink is what works for me. I leave about a cm of naked wick above the coils, and this set up wicks to perfection. I can fire the coil and drain the tank with juice popping all over the place if I want to.

With a thick wick stuffed into the did hole, I was simply destroying 18350's in my mini. Only would get about an hour out of a battery lol. The wasted current to heat sink was plainly evident by how hot the atty and mouthpiece would get when chain vaping before I changed to the mini wick.

Did a little experiment. Using the same wick, I wrapped a small piece of coffee filter around the wick so that the area that sits in the wick hole would be insulated from the atty base. Complete fail. While it did it's job of insulating the wick from ground, it would not wick worth a darn. The same wick situated to not, or barely touching the sides of the wick hole wicks like a vacuum. Moral of the story is the surface tension on the outside of the wick clearly inhibits capillary action drastically. Just my before my second cup and morning tank

 

[studiovap]

Have to love that RBA's leave us the ability to experiment and optimize to our individual preferences and gear. My skinny, closely spaced, coil at the bottom wicks are simply perfect for my vaping style. I vape much like I used to smoke. Quick two second or three second drags so the near instant vape production from closely spaced coils on a smaller heat sink is what works for me. I leave about a cm of naked wick above the coils, and this set up wicks to perfection. I can fire the coil and drain the tank with juice popping all over the place if I want to.

With a thick wick stuffed into the did hole, I was simply destroying 18350's in my mini. Only would get about an hour out of a battery lol. The wasted current to heat sink was plainly evident by how hot the atty and mouthpiece would get when chain vaping before I changed to the mini wick.

Did a little experiment. Using the same wick, I wrapped a small piece of coffee filter around the wick so that the area that sits in the wick hole would be insulated from the atty base. Complete fail. While it did it's job of insulating the wick from ground, it would not wick worth a darn. The same wick situated to not, or barely touching the sides of the wick hole wicks like a vacuum. Moral of the story is the surface tension on the outside of the wick clearly inhibits capillary action drastically. Just my before my second cup and morning tank

I've reread both your posts a couple of times D, and although I differ in my setup method on some points I do agree on others, I have tried upto a 10/11 wrap on the DID standard and at that time found a temporary sweet spot with around a 6/7 wraps 28g nichrome 1.2ohms, but my "problem" is my ADV is vapeKing Royal Blend 70% VG its a very thick and highly flavored tobacco juice and is super hard on the coils and wick as far as gunking up, that's on of the reasons I'm settled on a 2/3 wrap at present. I've also been experimenting with the skinnier wicks
#500 45mm rolled tightish to around 2.2mm in the DID std with a 30d 5/6 wrap at 1.6 Ohms to run on the Zmax with the fill screw in, and although it works ok wicks well ( when warmed up) I just don't seem to pick it up to vape while my 0.6 ohm 2/3 setup on the Paps has charged batteries available. And I've started goin out for short errands in the car with the 0.6Ohm DID as my only pv because I trust it's stability so much. Ordinarily in the past I wouldn't go out the door without a backup and a backup for my backup.
I love the way we can all learn somthing from each other here. I will try the close coil skinny wick again on a flavor other than my ADV after reading your info, if only to get that instant vapor at lower wattages. I have to say though I hav'nt been happier with any setup so far as I am with this 0.6 ohm 2/3 ,28g kanthal even if it is a battery hog LOL.

 

[Big Screen D]

Yeah, my next mod is going to have to be a mechanical to try out some sub 1 ohm builds. I tried a couple of builds right 1.1-1.2ohms, but it's to much of a PIA with the Provari.

Off hand, can a 18350 run an 0.6 ohm coil in a mechanical decently? As much as I like my Provari Mini, I'd like to find something smaller and lighter weight so long as I can get a vape as good as I have now.

 

[Cyrus Vap]

Good to see you Big Screen

I have to say, I forgot how good my Provari Battery life could be because I been running fat wick DID/ZAP set ups on it for so long

I used a bamboo A7 the other day and my 18490 actually lasted all day pretty much.

I had honestly gotten used to destroying a 18490 in a few hours lol. Part of it is running my mesh at 12+ watts vs 9-11 on the bamboo, but its also the longer drags I take on a Geny, and the really long drags I take with a geny/fat wick.

The heat sink is no joke lol. More firing time, and higher watts. Bye bye battery life lol.

Have to love that RBA's leave us the ability to experiment and optimize to our individual preferences and gear. My skinny, closely spaced, coil at the bottom wicks are simply perfect for my vaping style. I vape much like I used to smoke. Quick two second or three second drags so the near instant vape production from closely spaced coils on a smaller heat sink is what works for me. I leave about a cm of naked wick above the coils, and this set up wicks to perfection. I can fire the coil and drain the tank with juice popping all over the place if I want to.

With a thick wick stuffed into the did hole, I was simply destroying 18350's in my mini. Only would get about an hour out of a battery lol. The wasted current to heat sink was plainly evident by how hot the atty and mouthpiece would get when chain vaping before I changed to the mini wick.

Did a little experiment. Using the same wick, I wrapped a small piece of coffee filter around the wick so that the area that sits in the wick hole would be insulated from the atty base. Complete fail. While it did it's job of insulating the wick from ground, it would not wick worth a darn. The same wick situated to not, or barely touching the sides of the wick hole wicks like a vacuum. Moral of the story is the surface tension on the outside of the wick clearly inhibits capillary action drastically. Just my before my second cup and morning tank

 

[Big Screen D]

Good crossing paths with ya again Cyrus. LOL, I'd been carrying 7 18350's with me to work, and about panicked when I dropped on and it rolled into a storm drain. Barely made it home.

Man, I've been itching to get a ZAP. Love the way they look on the Provari. Sort of ashamed to admit it, but I'm hoping for a clone to come along. I like to change up juice pretty often during the day, so for now my 5 duds work out pretty good.

 

[lannister]

Yeah, my next mod is going to have to be a mechanical to try out some sub 1 ohm builds. I tried a couple of builds right 1.1-1.2ohms, but it's to much of a PIA with the Provari.

Off hand, can a 18350 run an 0.6 ohm coil in a mechanical decently? As much as I like my Provari Mini, I'd like to find something smaller and lighter weight so long as I can get a vape as good as I have now.

I'm running a .6 on my precise 18500, can be kicked with 350's. looks great and vapes quite nicely. Atty is a DID by the way.

 

[Big Screen D]

I'm running a .6 on my precise 18500, can be kicked with 350's. looks great and vapes quite nicely. Atty is a DID by the way.

Nice set up. SuperT makes some great gear.

 

[Errol]

You have pretty well described my experience with ss mesh though I never tried anything courser than 400. I was able to get some of them oxidized to where the coil wouldn't short but the instant I put it through the hole to the niquid it would short. Drilled the hole out a little so it was loose but any contact at all going through to the niquid would short. That is where I was going to try the tobacco paper.

Errol

I always do a light jackfrost torch first. First I tried after rolling, lightly torch the entire wick to a nice copperish color. After that that failed, I torched to a light grey. Still shorting right where the coil hits the mesh. So I torched it black. I knew it wasn't going to work...and it didn't. Shorted and in a millisecond it had burnt a hole in the mesh and popped the 28g wire lol. All testing done at 3.3v btw. I first started wrapping these coils by wrapping directly on the mesh while inside my genesis. I thought maybe I'm just wrapping too tightly so I tried wrapping a coil around a drill bit and dropping a new wick in place. Same result, immediate short. I tried that with different levels of torching, quenching, not quenching, burning juice off and not burning juice off. I've tried boiling the mesh, thinking maybe the oils from my fingers were causing it to not oxidize properly but to no avail. Also, I've tried dripping some juice on the coils before firing, but the hotspot always comes back and eventually will turn into a short.

With the 325(which is the only other mesh I have), I roll it and torch once to golden and nothing else. Then wrap as tight on the mesh as possible without pushing into the mesh and fix the hotspots and I'm done. I'm vaping 70pg/30vg and it's keeping up with my vaping style but I'd like to move to 100% vg so I MUST get this 500 working lol. I've wasted nearly a whole sheet of 500 trying to get it right .

 

[studiovap]

Yeah, my next mod is going to have to be a mechanical to try out some sub 1 ohm builds. I tried a couple of builds right 1.1-1.2ohms, but it's to much of a PIA with the Provari.

Off hand, can a 18350 run an 0.6 ohm coil in a mechanical decently? As much as I like my Provari Mini, I'd like to find something smaller and lighter weight so long as I can get a vape as good as I have now.

I found in the end my 0.6 Ohm coil although great, was gobbling up my 18350s in no time so I have moved down to 30g Kanthal on my latest setup on DID No.2 of 3, my last setup was:
0.6 Ohm
#500 wick 37 x 105mm.
Solidish wick rolled to 3.3-3.4mm
2/3 wraps 28awg Kanthal, 34mm length of wire,2mm pitch of coil,
0.6 Ohms

This one is # 500 wick 37 x 65mm.
Solidish wick rolled to 2.5-2.6mm
2/3 wraps 30awg Kanthal, less wire ?, 1.2mm pitch of coil
0.9 Ohms

Seems to give the same flavor vapor and with lower Ohms my batteries are lasting longer, as you can see I have concentrated the coils lower down the wick and closer together, and as a result the airhole hits the action a lot more than a more spaced out coil. The hit is even more instant than the 28g 0.6 Ohm coil, havnt had any shorts or dry hits yet, and I do vape a fair bit LOL.

 

[Ragaey]

Hello Gents ,

not sure if my question is off topic however I like to post here because my this is the thread which combines all the experienced vapor out there , I recently setup my steam machine (genesis upgrade) with 400 mesh , twisted coil reading 0.6 ohm no hot spots however the vapor production , throat hit is almost the same as I use the same juice in a clearomizer the vapor is very cold and not satisfying at all I wonder if this is normal , or it has to do with the battery cuz I am using an ego twist not sure if it does have amp limit or something of this sort