Blackened Coil & Wick inside a week?

[VaporPhreak]

Ok, so I have brought this up to a few local vape buddy's who use rba/rda devices and I seem to be at a loss here so I am bringing it to ECF to get some answers. I have both an RSST & an Octopus dripper both of which are used on the same Mechanical mod and I have same issue with both. Inside a week's time, if not in just a 2 - 3 day period, after installing a fresh wick (silica) and coil (kanthal 28, 29, or 30 gauge) the coil and wick are completely black and all of my juices taste excessively burnt. Now, I know that the higher the heat the faster this is going to happen, but this has been the case no matter if resistance of the coil is 2 Ohm or 0.5 Ohm. It seems no matter what the final Wattage comes out to, in a week, often less, I have to start over with a new Coil and Wick. As the local guys I talk to frequently are also rebuildable noobs, I am hoping someone one here with a bit more experience in these can tell me if this is normal or if there is something wrong here. I just figured that a fresh wick and coil would get me at least two weeks. I should also mention that my juice is DIY, all flavors coming from TFA, no sweeteners used, 80% PG / 20% VG ratio. I am not sure if that may be the source or not, if this is even unusual, but I figured it couldn't hurt to drop that in. Thanks folks!

 

[subver]

2-3 days is not unusual, depending on the juice. I certainly would love if I could get a full week (not to mention TWO weeks!) out of my coils! I use thick dark flavor juices that gunk up fast. It really depends on the juice. Tobacco flavors and other dark flavors will gunk coils up faster than, say, light fruity flavors.

Anyway, you could try dry burning your coil/wick when it gets gunked up. Also depending on the juice, but a lot of the time you can just burn off the gunk and reuse the setup. Obviously it's not as good as a fresh wick and coil, a lot of people do it. I prefer to just rebuild, though.. so every few days I have a new build up and running. I would love to get 2 weeks out of it, but that's unrealistic (for me at least).

 

[Spacedoutart]

Personally I have found a lot of things can do this. I have some coils last a couple days, and others that last a week or two. The biggest factor I have found is the juice. Darker juices and Sweet juices will gunk up coils faster. Also the spacing in the coil can make a difference. I keep all of my coils close (almost micro coil style) and this helps heat the juice evenly and fully. I do a dry burn every other day on my wicks to help keep them clean and gunk free! Hope this helps. I know others will chime in but post a picture of your coil so maybe we can see if it something

 

[OperationMove]

I've only been playing around with rebuildables for a few months now, but I'll still take a guess at the problem. This was happening to me on my octopus rebuildables as well as clearos when I first started rebuilding. No matter how many times I rebuilt them they always tasted burnt within a day or two, if not less. For me, it was just the fact that I was wrapping my coil *Slightly* too tight and that was choking out my wick. So slowly but surely it would burn little by little until one time when I'd go to hit it, it'd just taste like burnt firewood.

Just remember that everything that holds liquid also swells to do so. Wrap your coil so that you can slide the dry wick in and out with only the slightest bit of resistance. That way, when you drip some liquid on it it will swell up to a perfect fit! You don't want visible gaps between the coil and wick, that would be too loose and cause hotspots, metallic taste or broken coil, but if it's too tight it will eventually burn as you have been describing. It can be extremely frustrating at first but it definitely pays off when you finally get it set up right! Hope this helps out some sort of way!

Edit: He's right, a picture would be killer, and could really get us on our way to helping you out!

 

[VaporPhreak]

Thanks folks. After posting realized its likely to do with my juice. I have been DIYing the same juice for two years now, so I am going to order a 100ml or so of prefab juice in a similar flavor and see if that changes anything. Also, in the meantime, I will try OperationMove's suggestion and wrap the next coil a bit looser. That could definitely be part of the problem. I have been wrapping it tight enough that the wick is held securely but not so tight that it couldn't wick from one end of the coil to the other. But maybe that's a bit too tight and its wicking but just not well enough.

 

[VaporPhreak]

I just took a pic of a 2 day old coil. The wick doesnt look too bad, but thats because I just spend the better part of 15 minutes washing it out with host water in the bathroom sink here at the office. Washed a LOT of gunk off the wick but the build up on the coil did not want to come off. Going to try a dry burn here in a few minutes to see that helps.

http://ageekinabox.com/img/octo-coil.jpg

 

[Spacedoutart]

A dry burn would help clean up the coil itself. Is that a dual coil set up on a single air hole RDA? It looks like a coil behind the post also. I see the wick is not choked at all. I use a paper clip or pin with the wick while wrapping it. This way you can wrap the coil onto the wick nicely without choking it. Also has a tip while wrapping your coil, bring each wrap closer together to a point that its almost touching. It will heat up better and nicer. Good Luck!

 

[Thrasher]

I rinse and dry burn every other day on my silica attys. the more sugary or darker the juices the faster they tend to cake up the coils. and usually isnt a problem. if you clean it more frequently it is easier to clean and you dont have to excessively dryburn the wick which also means it takes less damage.

waiting too long means you have to overpower the gunk off by getting it really hot multiple times . it wont destroy the wick but it does wear out faster this way.

so for me i pop the caps on my drippers, rinse, dry burn and keep going.

on my geii i just fire it up till it glows and blow the gunk off, refill and fire it a few times to get it wicking real good and do a couple fast pulls to get past the burned taste, once wicking normally it usually tastes ok again.

 

[Thrasher]

Hiccup!!!...........................

 

[VaporPhreak]

Yeah it is setup for dual coil, but I have bored a hole in the side to compensate for the second coil. Plenty of airflow. Actually I am considering stuffing up the built in airhole in the base and boring a second hole in the side. I took it outside (stupid Indiana laws... grumble grumble...) and did a dry burn. I was surprised at how fast the coils went from black to clean. Blew the ash off but for some reason it wouldn't wick well after that. So I have recoiled using a single Micro-coil @ 10 wraps. Roughly 2 Ohm by my guesstimation, but will hit it with the multimeter tonight. Anyway, its too high Ohm to give me the kind hit I want on my mech, but I have a VV at home I will test it out on tonight and see if I like it. Couldn't get the coils to be right up against each other, but as close as I could get them. For those that have done Micro-Coils before, how close is this? http://ageekinabox.com/img/octo-coil2.jpg Thanks everyone for the help.

 

[dwcraig1]

I just took a pic of a 2 day old coil. The wick doesnt look too bad, but thats because I just spend the better part of 15 minutes washing it out with host water in the bathroom sink here at the office. Washed a LOT of gunk off the wick but the build up on the coil did not want to come off. Going to try a dry burn here in a few minutes to see that helps.

http://ageekinabox.com/img/octo-coil.jpg

 

[Spacedoutart]

The new coil is a much better coil and should work alot better... if it is not suitable just take a wrap off to lower the ohms. The only issue I see still is that the wick is too loose inside the coil... Maybe try folding the coil in half and use a string or piece of scrap wire to pull the wick through. You want the wick to be in full contact with the coil without it chocking it. Hard to explain but you want it snug but not super tight...

 

[VaporPhreak]

Thats actually what I did. The pic is at a bad angle, but it spinning the thing around and looking at the wick inside the coil its actually pretty well covered. Also, the wick is dry (replaced it as the first wick was way too little) so it will expand a bit once I drip a bit of juice on it I think.

 

[st0nedpenguin]

That new coil looks veeeeery loose.

 

[VaporPhreak]

So once I got home yesterday I metered out the coil at 2.1 Ohm. Popped it on my iTaste MVP and cranked it to 5v. It works pretty dang well. Its actually hitting much harder than I expected and the flavor is great. Although when I pulled the topcap off and test fired it a few times with juice on the wick, the wick and coil at one point caught fire. So I guess I won't be chain vaping this coil too much, LOL. Thanks for all the help folks.

 

[Spacedoutart]

oh yeah. She'll do that flame thing every once in a dry burn.... hahahaha! But I have found a coil like this works extremely efficient.

 

[VaporPhreak]

I was genuinely surprised that this coil would catch fire like that but my Dual Coil setup which came out to about 0.5 Ohm (used on a mech mod) never did. Oh well, still fairly amusing to see it happen. LOL