Congratulations on getting a working build!
OMG, I'm so glad I didn't find this thread until today. I just got caught up on things and I would have been all stressed out waiting for updates! So I thought that maybe I'd contribute what I can.
I'm no expert, but I do know how painful getting into rebuilding can be. Just finding the perfect (for you) setup on a new device can be daunting all by itself, I can't imagine how hard it is trying to learn on a KFL with all the factors thrown in at you at once! (coil builds, wick, bottom fed wicking, and tanks)
Hopefully some of this helps for workability of future builds. All of these steps really require the previous steps to be complete. In this way you can pinpoint the problems pretty quickly. I consider rebuilding to be all about certain steps and are generally applied to any device you are rebuilding especially for the first few tries.
1. Coil building.
2. Wick choices.
3. Wicking.
4. Flavor.
1. Building the microcoil. It seems that you've already figured it out so I won't go into much detail here aside to say that my recommendation would be to stay in the 1.5 - 2 Ohm range, at first, to rule out the possibility that you're just using too much power on your juice.
2. Wick. So many choices, so many opinions. If you're building a microcoil, though, one of the best and most easily available options is cotton. Cotton balls or cotton yarn?
Cotton balls in my experience, when setup correctly in comparable builds, provides a bit more vapor and definitely a far more saturated flavor profile. Cotton yarn (Peaches N Cream from Walmart is what I, and many others here, use) I use only in a couple of specific builds when I need the wick to hold its shape (i.e. - GP Spheroid and Heron). It's much easier to get consistent wick sizes with cotton yarn, the performance of cotton balls/fluff work much better.
Note: Remember to boil your cotton yarn, and let dry, before use!
Once your coil is wicked, make sure to test fire the build once you have saturated the wick with liquid of your choice. Smell the vapor. It should smell like you imagine the liquid to taste. If it smells burnt or if you notice immediate discoloration of your wick, coil, or liquid, you should stop, here, and reevaluate your previous coil/wick setup. Essentially, this mimics what you are doing when you are direct dripping. If it doesn't work well, at this step, it won't get any better when you add complexity to it by wicking from a reservoir, with airflow adjustments, etc.
3. Wicking/Vapour production - Make sure your build wicks in your device. Forget juice flavor for now. Make sure your device provides consistent wicking and vapour. If you get burnt hits you aren't wicking enough. If you get a few good hits and then get dry hits you aren't wicking fast enough to keep up with your coil. Either you aren't getting proper liquid delivery, your wicks are choked, or your wicking medium/setup needs to be adjusted for your device. This is where you just fiddle with your device as you already know your coil/wick works. Make sure that the liquid/vapor can keep up with the way you vape - Whether you chain vape, mouth/lung hit, take shallow/deep pulls as you want to adjust at this step.
4. Flavor - This is the most satisfying part but also the trickiest. You may want to adjust your build, wicking medium/amount/size, device (AFCs, etc), or even juice at this step. The good thing is that you got all the basics already covered!
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Here's some extra tips that I've basically bumbled into and hope that it helps you out.
- Having TOO MUCH liquid can actually smother the taste of your vape. Getting good vapor production with no taste is indicative of this unless you've had too many dry hits or have vaper's tongue. For this I usually adjust the density of my cotton wick or fiddle with the flow of my device (if its in some sort of tank).
- Better airflow will help with vapor production but may also "dilute" the taste of your vape. Conversely, less airflow (a tighter draw) sometimes helps me get more flavor out of my builds. AFCs are pretty awesome.
- If you take big hits, you may get dry hits once in awhile while your wick/juice catches up with you. You can either choose to give it some time (and tips/swirls) to catch up, or adjust the wicking speed with length/density of your wicks or fiddling with your devices tank if available.
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Hope it helps and you keep off the analogs!
