Black Sheep

[eHuman]

Call me odd, going against the grain, swimming upstream, contrary, rebellious, or tout au contraire.

I will try something because others prefer it, but I will form my own opinion. I won't fanboi because a friend or respected individual does. I won't proclaim the the emperor has nice new clothes when I can plainly see that he is naked.

I jumped on the quest to make cotton work for me. I had good results on various platforms. I had some wicks last for a week before needing to be changed out.

Cotton is the only thing that my RM2 has seen since I got it, therefore I have only vaped with cotton on my REO.
Last night, my 2mm ekowool was closer than my cotton and I was bored of having to be careful of not taking too big of a drag/not squonking every other hit to avoid vaping a wick inadvertently

2mm ekowool doubled over, 3/4 wrap /w 28g @ 0.8Ω, Panny CGR18650CH button top. Vapor doubling flavor explosion.

I hit that thing this AM forgetting about the last recoil and WTH? Oh yeah that's right, this is what I was missing but didn't realize. I'd been off silica for a month trying all types of cotton builds. Some better than others, some pretty good, but non like this last ekowool build I'm fogging my office with.

So call me the black sheep of Reoville, but cotton is meh at best compared to the flavor, vapor, longevity, and maintenance considerations of my ekowool build. It's vaptastically delicious.

 

[dhomes]

Oh, no issue with ekowool, I actually like it a lot, certainly last longer and you can be careless with dry hits with it

flavor, well... we all have different tastes, I actually enjoy cotton for some things, SS mesh for other on my REO

What I am not using anymore is regular silica though, don't know, just not for me anymore

 

[moondragon]

I've only built one coil so far, and used cotton, because I already had it available. I hadn't even heard of ekowool until a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I'll have to give it a try one of these days

 

[redeyedancer]

I use silica wicks cotton is great for sweet juices but not for tobacco imo

 

[dhomes]

I use silica wicks cotton is great for sweet juices but not for tobacco imo

I find that is i use cotton with very dark juices a wick last me only 2 ~ 3 day before I can feel something is off

 

[vsummer1]

No, you are not the black sheep, we are just the silent ones while the cotton people are out in force.

I really don't like cotton. At all. I just put bamboo in place of the cotton and it was an instant improvement. I prefer the xc-116 and just bought some ekowool to try next time I recoil. I would only use cotton in a pinch if nothing better were available as a means to an end, and it is easy to just carry around a piece of cotton in my battery case for emergency bamboo wick failure (since bamboo needs to be inserted with a "needle"), but that is about the only time I would use it.

 

[darkzero]

Yup, your not the black sheep. 1mm Ekowool & micros is all I use in my Reos. I do use cotton too, just not in my Reos.

 

[pdib]

For me, ekowool just falls between the cracks. Before I started gooseboxin', XC-132 was the stuff for me. It wicks WAY faster than ekowool. Almost zero flavor footprint. However, once I got to REO, I found that I didn't need "wicking" (verb); rather I needed "here, hold this for me". I find cotton to be the best "holder" of juice. Vaping at `1/2Ω, I found that the ekowool just couldn't hold enough juice for me. And what juice is in the tail of the wick, couldn't be delivered to the coil fast enough for a long toot. Cotton wicks a little faster than ekowool, as well.

 

[Treebeard]

So, I was digging through the vape drawer this morning and found the last few inches of ekowool from way back when. I built a new (went outside to do this) .7 coil on a 1/16 bit and threaded the ewool in, vaped it on it for about 15 toots and it never rivaled the flavor I get with the CVS sterile rolled cotton and it didn't wick as fast. So, out it went and that was the last bit of any kind of silica in the house. My cotton wicks explode with flavor. I have a silica phobia anyway. I fear the near microscopic silica bits that fly when dry silica is snipped. But, hey, if the ewool is working for ya... as Paul Simon says, "who am I to blow against the wind".

 

[eHuman]

Air-hole on my brass RM2 is 1/16" too. A bit too airy if you mouth hit, just right if you lung hit. The combo is the shizznit. I'll keep my cotton around for back-up, it's definitely vapable/ Overall I prefer a good silica set up. Haven't even considered 500 mesh with a cotton bed yet... Hmmmm.....

 

[Vapeaddikt]

I also took your route eHuman after finding it was too easy for me at sub Ω builds to burn wicks because I take long drags.

For my all day every day I just use silica or eco wool. No worry about burning wicks. Flavor's still fantastic. My 2nd REO at home keep cotton in it.

I just swapped back to the dark side a few days ago after getting fed up w/ how easy cotton was burning on me even w/ pre-squonking per hit if it was too long of a hit.

Flavor wise is subjective. It has allot to do w/ the RDA/RBA's themselves. My nimbus gives me taste notes w/ Eco-wool on the same juices I don't get on the RM2 and vise versa. I suspect air chamber size paired w/ air hole(s) have to do w/ this.

 

[Matthee]

I use silica wicks cotton is great for sweet juices but not for tobacco imo

My experience too. I just do tobaccos and prefer silica.

 

[ChrisEU]

I use 1.5mm Ekowool in 2mm ID micro coils for my VVs and for the REOs that I just grab-n-run. It's great for the lazy like myself.
Fresh cotton tastes a bit better, but I don't mind sacrificing that for the ease of use.

Cotton is good for a day, the ekowool for a week or two.

 

[Big Hitter]

I finally got cotton working for me about a week ago .... maybe 10 days.
Over the course of a few days I had every device wicked with cotton .....

Over the course of the next few days I had over half of them back to silica

Doing some playing around with my kayfun I decided its not the device ... almost any device I have can work great with cotton.

For me it is most certainly the juice .... period.

Its a different flavor and I might like it more with either (actually 3 counting mesh)

Its good, but its not the end all solution for everyone .... or for every juice flavor.

My two main juices AVE Gorilla Juice and DIY RY4 are much better on silica. Or I should say I'm used to and prefer the flavor of silica.

I didn't mind the squonking more but I stay around 1.4 ohms and with my wicks I can easily get 4-5 drags off of it before I feel (hear) it getting dry. Thats cool with me. The biggest thing was picking up a device that sat a while and hitting it not knowing where I left off .... that has had some hideous result never experienced before with silica .....

I gots to get me some ekowool, I'm pretty sure I would love it, just been lazy about it. But I'm going to order some today--promise

Right now I only have two devices wicked with cotton ... My one and only RM2 (really made for micro/cotton IMO) and one of my kayfun lites. My two chalice attys are a not a PIA for micros but surely not easy compare to my 1 minute 4 wrap around double silica so they both went back to silica as did my other Kayfun.

Gasp --- I'm also running 2 cartomizers. One in the Zen Carto tank on a sidewinder which I love. As much as I dislike other zen devices the sidewinder with brass upgrade is awesome and very much REOlike in the hand. And his carto mumbo jumbo really does work .... what ever is going on with the air flow it does taste much less carto-like than any other carto tank.

Recently I put my Mini 2.1 back on cartos for out and about. The 2.0 ohm mini cartos are perfect for a throw around leak proof REO set-up. Is the vape great ?? No but its 10X better than the vape gear I started on and it surely satisfies my needs.

If I had more Chalice atomizers I would probably have one on there for out and about but I only have two and I prefer them on my woodvils. I do take my 18650 Cocobolo out quite a bit as well if I want a fantastic vape when I'm out.

Honestly I think we are all getting a little spoiled .... especially the newbs .... the best is great but sometimes good enough is all we need. Heck I love great food and we go out for it and make some great stuff at home but sometimes I make a PB&J and call it good enough for lunch.

 

[Stringer63]

The micro-coil was the key for me in the transition to cotton exclusively. On a regular 4 or 5 hand-wrapped coil, I didn't find cotton that much better than silica. If you haven't tried cotton on a legit 1/16 micro, you should.

 

[dominus2nd]

ive been using cotton beds for a while now. i tried silica 3/4 wrap and loved it. did ekowool sleeved mesh and loved that even more. then cotton beds with microcoil sitting on top was even better than that. but then i tried the same microcoil with ekowool bed... really really thick vapor. the taste isn't as clean as cotton, but it wicks very well. it holds half the amount cotton does but is very nice. plus i dont have to worry about burning it.

 

[Vapolith]

Just ordered some Ekowool from Stormy's, 1mm and 1.5mm, to give it a try.

 

[Crash Moses]

Nah...yer not going against the grain, eHuman. There are plenty of folks out there that cotton just doesn't cut it for them. I've only just been able to tell the difference between silica and cotton but a buddy at work says the silica just mutes the flavors to much for him. As mentioned, this is very juice dependent.

What I like about silica is you can dry burn it on the fly to get rid of an old flavor in order to try a new one. Or heck, even run it under the sink to get rid of a particularly strong flavor (Pluid anyone?). What I don't like about it is it's a pain in the rear to get into a micro-coil and this is where cotton comes in.

I've found that 3mm silica will fit nicely in an 18 gauge micro but it just doesn't make enough contact with the coil for effective wicking. Very dry and harsh. I've recently found that I can separate the strands in the 3mm silica and then fold over two strands (effectively making four strands) and pull them through a 1/16 micro using a piece of Kanthal with a hook on the end. The strands always break right after I pull them out the other end of the coil but they wick well and there is no harsh throat hit. This is what I've been using in my dedicated dripper...haven't tried them in a Reo yet...maybe I'll try that today.

 

[Matthee]

ive been using cotton beds for a while now. i tried silica 3/4 wrap and loved it. did ekowool sleeved mesh and loved that even more. then cotton beds with microcoil sitting on top was even better than that. but then i tried the same microcoil with ekowool bed... really really thick vapor. the taste isn't as clean as cotton, but it wicks very well. it holds half the amount cotton does but is very nice. plus i dont have to worry about burning it.

Pictures of how you do the cotton bed with coil please Dominador.

 

[Matthee]

ive been using cotton beds for a while now. i tried silica 3/4 wrap and loved it. did ekowool sleeved mesh and loved that even more. then cotton beds with microcoil sitting on top was even better than that. but then i tried the same microcoil with ekowool bed... really really thick vapor. the taste isn't as clean as cotton, but it wicks very well. it holds half the amount cotton does but is very nice. plus i dont have to worry about burning it.

Pictures of how you do the cotton bed with coil please Dominador.