About DiD postal over a hot top coil!

[DuaneNeveu]

After reading this forum area for a week and a half (including today's very detailed Blog post by eHuman), and logging more hours on YouTube than some people work, I settled in at 10 p.m. to leisurely dive into my first rba.

With steel mesh between my fingers offering delightfully wispy crunches, I imagined the best vape of my life might be had before the calendar turned to the next day. Tonight's slumber would bring me peace unlike any I've known. After all, if these practiced gentlemen on the interwebs can do this in less than 30 minutes, giving myself 2 hours should be amply generous. Even without a crackle in the fireplace, my chimney should soon be billowing sweet clouds of vapor, certain to confound my neighbours.

I was like a medieval royal smith charged with suiting the King himself in new armour, so deftly I worked the forge.



As I beheld my matte ebony wick, I felt a deep satisfaction.

Then, it was onto the spiral that would send the billows of fog wafting through my haven, lulling me into an abyss of relaxation. Employing this spell first cast by "Petar K", I conjured the magic of the perfect coil. After making what I considered a rather impressive 6/7 coil from my 32 gauge Kanthal wire, I wondered what accolades the ECF members might bestow on this inaugural marvel. How dazzled they would all be at what this neophyte accomplished so effortlessly.



Watching the glow develop from a just a hint of illumination at the median, to then work its way outward so fluently reminded me of so many peaceful sunrises on Pigeon Lake with a cup of fresh French roast in hand.

It was time...

Gingerly, the black steel artery was so readily enveloped by the alloy tendril that shone so warmly just minutes ago. United, their bourn to be realized in but a breath.












I'm 'bout ready to launch my Vamo right through the front picture window!

Nothing but a red hot top coil that I've been fiddling with for almost two hours!

...I'm going to vape the begeezes out of a Vivi Nova! See you all later.

 

[Thrasher]

lol that is one nasty looking wick - looks like an old nail you found in the yard.

only thing i can see is a few too many wraps for my taste and the top coil looks a bit loose.

 

[huysus]

Very entertaining post. Try fewer coils like Thrasher said. It allows more room for adjustment. Fewer places for things to go wrong too. 4/3 should be good with 32awg.

 

[j4mmin42]

Interested in writing a guest blog post?

That was, quite possibly, the most entertaining read of the morning. Thank you for that, sir.

 

[iowajosh]

LAF, mine is sitting here unused as well. The only way I made a working coil was wrapping the wick in paper and burning it off with a red hot coil. A pretty coil with no wick inside means very little, imo. And yes, I got mad at mine also.

 

[KillTheNoise]

That was hilarious. As Trash and ninja said, try less wraps on the coil. These two guys are masters of the craft, they are two of the people who have brought my coil/wick making down to around 30 minutes from around 2 hours, lol.

You're not alone! Keep trying, it's really a simple concept that is over-thought way too much. Good luck!

 

[donnah]

LOL! This has been my experience exactly! I've been able to get mine to work for a day or two and then the burnt taste starts. I thought that once I got a good setup that that was it.. game won, no more fiddling. But no, it doesn't work that way for me. I can't understand how my zap is still working great almost a month later, with the stock wick and coil and I can't get this did clone to work for more than a few hours.. and lately not at all.

Oxidize the mesh, don't oxidize the mesh
roll the mesh tight, roll the mesh loose
juice burn the mesh, don't juice burn the mesh
roll the wick solid, roll the mesh like a straw
take the mesh out to dinner, let the mesh starve

maybe I oxidized the mesh, rolled it tight, juice burned it and I was supposed to not oxidize the mesh, roll it loose and not juice burn it. Or maybe I am supposed to oxidize the mesh, roll it loose and juice burn it. Or maybe I'm supposed to not oxidize it, roll it loose and juice burn it.............or maybe I ..

 

[DuaneNeveu]

Oxidize the mesh, don't oxidize the mesh
roll the mesh tight, roll the mesh loose
juice burn the mesh, don't juice burn the mesh
roll the wick solid, roll the mesh like a straw
take the mesh out to dinner, let the mesh starve

I know, right?

Thank you all for your comments.

I did consider less wraps from jump, but I've gotten rather fond of the warm vape of 2.5 Ω to 3.0 Ω so I thought I'd try to wrap it tight like the spring in a Bic pen. Even as I wrote that diatribe, I was thinking that today (after a good night's rest) I would do exactly what most of you have suggested and scale back...

And then donnah posted what has been going through my head over the last day and a half.

You see, I did what I considered my due diligence and researched the heck out of this topic before even attempting my first RBA. Ultimately I decided to go with the method I had the most notes on, and that's why I ended up with the wick that I did. The drill bit method was favoured for how much easier it looked than wrapping a coil onto the wick itself, at least that's how it looked to me. Now that I'm intent on giving it another go, I'm paralyzed into inaction by questioning whether I should just try to wrap a new coil, or truly start from scratch...wick and all.

I think I'll probably stick with my nasty black wick just to see if I can get a set up of any kind working.

 

[calpis]

It took me 2 weeks until I made a coil/wick that I truly liked. That's around 5 different wicks and about 25 different coils. I like 30g and 28g for my genesis setups and I leave the 32g for silica/cotton one.

 

[overall]

Your wick looks over-oxidized. Try running through the torch before rolling ....just a few seconds on each area. Then roll your wick and run it through the flame again just to a glow red. No quenching.(should look dull grey and brown)...you can do a juice burn or not. I do solid wicks now just a bit smaller than the hole. I run my kanthal through the lighter flame then wrap the coil right on the wick with an extra turn on the top and bottom. Pop it in unwrap the bottom and connect to the negative. Unwrap the top coil and hook to the positive. You should have minimal hot spots. To tinker with the coil do it while firing as the kanthal is very flexible when glowing and will stay where you put it.
The extra wrap on the top and bottom help keep the tightness of the coil stay even.
For a top coil hot spot tinker with the bottom coil first. I have found the grounding to be a common problem.

 

[DuaneNeveu]

Your wick looks over-oxidized. Try running through the torch before rolling ....just a few seconds on each area. Then roll your wick and run it through the flame again just to a glow red. No quenching.(should look dull grey and brown)...you can do a juice burn or not. I do solid wicks now just a bit smaller than the hole. I run my kanthal through the lighter flame then wrap the coil right on the wick with an extra turn on the top and bottom. Pop it in unwrap the bottom and connect to the negative. Unwrap the top coil and hook to the positive. You should have minimal hot spots. To tinker with the coil do it while firing as the kanthal is very flexible when glowing and will stay where you put it.
The extra wrap on the top and bottom help keep the tightness of the coil stay even.
For a top coil hot spot tinker with the bottom coil first. I have found the grounding to be a common problem.

Yeah, I did lightly torch prior to rolling, but after it was rolled I torched and quenched 3 times, then juice burned 3 times.

Ran the kanthal through a Bic lighter flame, then got to work.

Thanks for the tips, I really appreciate it. I'm likely not going to do anything until later this evening. I want to carefully re-assess my new approach after more reading.

 

[Pete54]

One thing I see that may be causing the hot top coil is that the whole coil seems to be leaning away from the positive post which will result in too great a distance from the top coil to the post which usually results in that top hot spot. Undo the positive connection and pull everything as close as you can to the post without any part of the wick actually touching it. Should see that hot spot go away.

One more thing. A 7/6 with 32awg must be a very high resistance coil. Believe it or not, try a 4/3 or even a 3/2!

 

[Kamoch]

Just keep at it & don't give up however frustrated you get. IMO 32 gage Kanthal coils are like learning to drive a stick shift, master it & you can drive anything!

EDIT TO ADD: I find that folding the mesh at the trailing edge prior to rolling helps in preventing the wire ends from shorting on the coil. Hope this helps.

 

[DuaneNeveu]

Just keep at it & don't give up however frustrated you get. IMO 32 gage Kanthal coils are like learning to drive a stick shift, master it & you can drive anything!

This is my hope.

 

[overall]

Duane if you are not a writer you need to be.

 

[donnah]

yea.. I put mine down for awhile also... it's sitting here staring at me, daring me to mess with it. I'm wondering what I should do.. continue working with what I've made already or just start over. I've got plenty of wire and mesh. But right now I just want to watch the snow and relax and vape on what I've already got that's working right now! (my zap and my drunker)

 

[DuaneNeveu]

Duane if you are not a writer you need to be.

Ha ha...thanks a bunch, but it's really just a hobby.

 

[DuaneNeveu]

One thing I see that may be causing the hot top coil is that the whole coil seems to be leaning away from the positive post which will result in too great a distance from the top coil to the post which usually results in that top hot spot. Undo the positive connection and pull everything as close as you can to the post without any part of the wick actually touching it. Should see that hot spot go away.

Thanks Pete, I actually noticed that too and tried that very thing but the hot spot continued to taunt me.

After a lot of frustration, I eventually wrapped two more coils. The original (pictured) and one other are in the bin. The third is sitting right here in front of me, calling me names.

 

[overall]

Are you really gonna let a tiny bit of wire get the best of you? Let it know who is boss.

 

[Thrasher]

personally i would take this in 2 directions -
with that much oxidation try hand wrapping the coil
or
if using the drill bit method try a less oxidized wick. the drillbit method came about as a way to lesson having to oxidize the wick so much. with less tension and wire actually grabbing the wick, there is much less oxidation needed to prevent shorting. one thing to keep in mind when making coils this way is the wick should easily float within the coil, not too tight or loose.
while it makes getting a perfect coil easier it actually forces us to make more of a perfect setup to run efficiently. it comes down to now we have a perfect coil so it needs a perfect wick to go with it and all things need to be even, the wick fits the hole and coil the coil fits the wick and so on.