Was curious about gravity fed tank atomizers, so I had a go at making one using kanthal and cotton atty. My experience in the finished product showed quite a few benefits over bottom feeders. Constant feed of juice directly to atty, no dry hits. No contamination of juice due to carbon build up. has anyone else built their own and do you have any tips? I built mine to use a 5ml dropper bottle, so it's huge, around 70mm long, but I don't need to top it up very often! I have cartomisers and a modded cotton vivi nova but I prefer gravity fed!! Will post some pics of my attempt soon. Thanks.
Advice... Best gravity fed design?
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Thanks. I'm lucky to have Access to mills and lathes so I tried to make something that could use easy available parts such as the bottle. Easy enough to fill or change, and easier to change the kanthal and cotton than a vivi nova!! Reasonably easy construction... Just wish it wasn't so big! Gonna try and get some 3ml dropper bottles and see how that goes. My biggest problem was deciding how to connect the atty negative and positive poles up to the threaded connector - trickiest part of the job that slowed up production!!! I was hoping that someone may have a better technique of doing it! Mine is just -ve pressed into atty base, +ve post isolated through base with PTFE then soldered to centre of threaded connector.
I know the 3 ml dropper bottles that I have are just as long as the 5 ml bottles.... just smaller in diameter
ok, so i have a bit of an update (if anyone's interested!!), more in regards to the atty than the tank. had a chance to spend a bit more time 'developing' the atty and have come up with what i think is a better design. the base is only about 10mm high, and there is the possibility to fit it into a 10mm diameter tube, but haven't had a chance to try that yet (think that would only be suitable for dripping...). it is all 'mechanical' connections, no soldering required. have used 1.6mm stainless split pins which i have held in a vice and tapped through M2. as i use 2mm candle wick, this means one end wraps over, the other under, seems to work out quite well. just a tweek of the M2 screws holds the kanthal in place. i see all these other attys and they seems to have lots of different parts to them which makes it overcomplicated, so i think this simplifies things a little...(?!). please have a look at the pics, i hope it helps make sense of what i mean...
if anyone is interested, i can explain more....
if anyone is interested, i can explain more....
apologies... it's christmas and i have a little spare time on my hands....
just tried it with stainless mesh wick and it seems to work ok, will be able to burn the crud off!!! just need to sort the feed of the juice. using a small PTFE nozzle i made with a 0.5mm hole through it to feed the juice directly onto the wick. when it's all assembled, the negative pressure created when drawing on the mouthpiece pulls the juice out of the bottle. just need to play with the airhole in the base to control the pressure created to allow a decent flow of juice. at the moment i have to give a couple of hard draws to get enough juice.
just tried it with stainless mesh wick and it seems to work ok, will be able to burn the crud off!!! just need to sort the feed of the juice. using a small PTFE nozzle i made with a 0.5mm hole through it to feed the juice directly onto the wick. when it's all assembled, the negative pressure created when drawing on the mouthpiece pulls the juice out of the bottle. just need to play with the airhole in the base to control the pressure created to allow a decent flow of juice. at the moment i have to give a couple of hard draws to get enough juice.
very cool nelson,and while I know what I am about to taslk about is a bit of a different beast,you may want to check it out..Its called the penelope,..it is not a gennie style atty,but is gravity fed with juice control..
yeah, had a look. it looks good, but i wanted to make something that was a bit less complicated, using cheaper things everyone has in their vaping toolkit, also with the mininum number of parts, so hopefully less to go wrong..??!! this is still a work in progress, but if it gives anyone any help or ideas to make their own then that's great. just trying to make something with the tools at my disposal without having to spend too much money!!! also if i can get this working consistantly, then i have 5ml of juice per bottle to keep me going before a refill, i expect the battery will run dry first!!! as i have said before though, any help or hints with my quest much appreciated!!!
does it flood the coil or leak from the bottle when stood up for long periods?
I think this kinda design has to be the optimal, if you can stop gravity from making it leak when not in use.
I like the design, I'm interested in how it vapes, Is there a design like this out there that doesn’t use a wick and just dripps onto a coil in a cup?
I like it, keep us updated. I would be love to buy one if its not going to leak.
I think this kinda design has to be the optimal, if you can stop gravity from making it leak when not in use.
I like the design, I'm interested in how it vapes, Is there a design like this out there that doesn’t use a wick and just dripps onto a coil in a cup?
I like it, keep us updated. I would be love to buy one if its not going to leak.
there's quite a few variables at the minute (!) that relate to the leaking issue. tried a 0.8mm hole in the nozzle and that seems a bit too big, also a 0.5mm hole which seems a bit too small, hopefully next one will be just right!!!! yeah, the size of the nozzle hole, the size of the air hole, the thickness of liquid and probably the outside temp. what may work in january may not work in the summer!!! it's just experimentation at the moment, but i don't have a huge amount of time to do it!!! the thing i like about this design is the fact that your wick won't pollute any new juice you may want to swap to, just change bottles!! i suppose if you were not going to use it for a while, or you were going on a long journey/flight where you couldn't use it, you could just take the bottle out and put the lid on!!! besides the juice feed challenge, i need to find a good juice holding medium that will last a long time. cotton burns eventually, don't want to use silica. is there a good way to set-up mesh so it holds juice well?(it doesn't need to wick). getting condensation too.....
good job i enjoy a challenge!!!!
good job i enjoy a challenge!!!!
Have you thought about making it into a kinda semi automatic dripping atomizer by putting a thumb side hole in the casing or someway to squeese the bottle (the squeezy see thru primers on chainsaws and lawn mowers comes to mind), then you could use a bottle with a tiny hole so it wont leak it will just drop when u press the button, Then you can put a coil in a ceramic type cup with some small amount of wicking material and you've got all the benifits of a dripping atomizer with the benifits of a tank system.
think that may complicate things. the wall thickness of the outside chamber is less than 1mm, so to do that i would have to make the diameter larger, therefore the whole thing would be bulkier (20mm stock SS at the mo). i don't think it would be a particularly easy thing to accomplish either! it would need to be air tight so the vapour still made it up to the mouthpiece. i may make a new bottle/atty assembly and play with the size of the holes in it (instead of the large slots) to see if i can increase the level of negative pressure to help suck out the juice, just hope it doesn't tighten up the draw too much. i also may try a Bonut™ to see if it can take up any excess juice.
i don't have access to ceramic and wouldn't know where to get it or how to work it really, but i can see where you're coming from.
I almost used a 13a fuse with the metal removed for something I was building, because its a nice diameter for a wick and coil if your having a vertical wick like the genesis.
Do you have access to a lathe then, I'm shopping for a very cheap one atm.
ok, so slight update. a bit of possible progress...
drilled a hole in the side of the atty base to control the airflow and pull:
i have also changed the bottle holder and made it an almost closed unit over the base, bar a small hole for the vaper:
there is also a mod inside the bottle holder.... it has been mentioned (and experienced!) about possible juice leakage when the atty is not being used etc... so i am trying to make a small one way valve that will only open when the mouthpiece is drawn on...
it's basically (see pics of modded holder to see where they go) a small spring, a small ball bearing and a small grub screw. they are currently on order, so i have no idea whether it will actually work, but i couldn't resist giving it a go.
i'm hoping that a very lightly sprung ball bearing will be enough to prevent any leak of juice when it's not being used. fingers crossed......
drilled a hole in the side of the atty base to control the airflow and pull:
i have also changed the bottle holder and made it an almost closed unit over the base, bar a small hole for the vaper:
there is also a mod inside the bottle holder.... it has been mentioned (and experienced!) about possible juice leakage when the atty is not being used etc... so i am trying to make a small one way valve that will only open when the mouthpiece is drawn on...
it's basically (see pics of modded holder to see where they go) a small spring, a small ball bearing and a small grub screw. they are currently on order, so i have no idea whether it will actually work, but i couldn't resist giving it a go.
i'm hoping that a very lightly sprung ball bearing will be enough to prevent any leak of juice when it's not being used. fingers crossed......
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