Check out my new toys! Need some help too

[chiliphil1]

Hey again, so I got a package in the mail today!

I got an AR mod, authentic and a phoenix (as i'm told) dripper. I got these used and the AR looks to be pretty good but I will need to sand the contacts as the are kind of rough looking.

The 2 questions I have are, with the dripper I built it to .9ohm with dual coils, wicked with organic cotton. When I fire it either from my MPV at 11 watts or from the AR there is VERY little vape production, I can't figure out why. I will say that the person I got it from drilled the air holes out to a massive size which I am not a fan of but I can live with it, I am just confused as to why I am not getting much out of it.. I have pics of the build and the air holes.

Second question is on the mod, it seems to fire sometimes, I can hit the button and hold it and nothing happens, other times the slightest touch and it will fire, this may be due to the contacts but I am not sure, I have adjusted all of the adjustment points on it and it still does the same thing. The battery is an efest IMR rated to 32a. I will replace that with an AW as soon as I am able.

Any help on this? I am sorta frustrated at getting the new stuff and it not working properly, or maybe I just don't know what I am doing

The new AR

The dripper

The air holes

My build

 

[Btsmokincat]

Hey again, so I got a package in the mail today!

I got an AR mod, authentic and a phoenix (as i'm told) dripper. I got these used and the AR looks to be pretty good but I will need to sand the contacts as the are kind of rough looking.

The 2 questions I have are, with the dripper I built it to .9ohm with dual coils, wicked with organic cotton. When I fire it either from my MPV at 11 watts or from the AR there is VERY little vape production, I can't figure out why. I will say that the person I got it from drilled the air holes out to a massive size which I am not a fan of but I can live with it, I am just confused as to why I am not getting much out of it.. I have pics of the build and the air holes.

Second question is on the mod, it seems to fire sometimes, I can hit the button and hold it and nothing happens, other times the slightest touch and it will fire, this may be due to the contacts but I am not sure, I have adjusted all of the adjustment points on it and it still does the same thing. The battery is an efest IMR rated to 32a. I will replace that with an AW as soon as I am able.

Any help on this? I am sorta frustrated at getting the new stuff and it not working properly, or maybe I just don't know what I am doing

First off the RDA is a "Patriot" and you probably would have wanted to drill out the stock air holes anyway (maybe not so big). As for vapor production, a .9 ohm dual coil is going to take longer to heat up and won't get quite hot enough for clouds to begin with. The MVP2 will fire down to .8 ohms but it has a 3 or 3.5 amp limit so the most it will fire is 3.1 volts or so. It would be like vaping on a mechanical with an almost dead battery. The Patriot will obviously perform much better on the AR.

Secondly the AR mods, if I recall, had switch issues in the beginning and that may be part of your problem. If your switch is clean and seems to be operating correctly then it could be the spring. Try replacing that and see if it makes a difference.

 

[chiliphil1]

First off the RDA is a "Patriot" and you probably would have wanted to drill out the stock air holes anyway (maybe not so big). As for vapor production, a .9 ohm dual coil is going to take longer to heat up and won't get quite hot enough for clouds to begin with. The MVP2 will fire down to .8 ohms but it has a 3 or 3.5 amp limit so the most it will fire is 3.1 volts or so. It would be like vaping on a mechanical with an almost dead battery. The Patriot will obviously perform much better on the AR.

Secondly the AR mods, if I recall, had switch issues in the beginning and that may be part of your problem. If your switch is clean and seems to be operating correctly then it could be the spring. Try replacing that and see if it makes a difference.

ok, cool thank you. I have actually come to question the authenticity of the mod and posted another thread asking about this, maybe I will get some replies. As far as the build I did it so that I could use it on the MVP, I have not yet acquired a charger so once this battery is dead the AR is going to have to go up for a week or so waiting for the charger but I can still use the RDA on the MVP for the time being. I also got another dripper with this that has posts for 4 coils, in that one I am going to attempt a .2ohm quad parallel coil build, we'll see how that one turns out.

Thanks again for the post, oh and I forgot to mention above that it did start working better after it was fired a few times I guess the coils were just too wet, as far as the button I think I figured out a "system" to get it to fire consistently.

 

[dchemist]

Hey again, so I got a package in the mail today!

I got an AR mod, authentic and a phoenix (as i'm told) dripper. I got these used and the AR looks to be pretty good but I will need to sand the contacts as the are kind of rough looking.

The 2 questions I have are, with the dripper I built it to .9ohm with dual coils, wicked with organic cotton. When I fire it either from my MPV at 11 watts or from the AR there is VERY little vape production, I can't figure out why. I will say that the person I got it from drilled the air holes out to a massive size which I am not a fan of but I can live with it, I am just confused as to why I am not getting much out of it.. I have pics of the build and the air holes.

Second question is on the mod, it seems to fire sometimes, I can hit the button and hold it and nothing happens, other times the slightest touch and it will fire, this may be due to the contacts but I am not sure, I have adjusted all of the adjustment points on it and it still does the same thing. The battery is an efest IMR rated to 32a. I will replace that with an AW as soon as I am able.

Any help on this? I am sorta frustrated at getting the new stuff and it not working properly, or maybe I just don't know what I am doing

The new AR

The dripper

The air holes

My build

Just to clarify, you do have a DMM (and possibly an Ohm meter) right? I question this since you don't have a charger. If not, how did you measure the resistance of the build?

I'm not surprised about the lack of vapor on the MVP. As for the AR, could it be a battery that needs charged?

 

[Stacy1]

Just to clarify, you do have a DMM (and possibly an Ohm meter) right? I question this since you don't have a charger. If not, how did you measure the resistance of the build?

I'm not surprised about the lack of vapor on the MVP. As for the AR, could it be a battery that needs charged?

The Mvp will read ohms

 

[eyerhere]

Your coils at least in the pics, look a bit wonky. Coils should either be evenly spaced or all contacting each other. Watch rip trippers micro coil on youtube.

 

[dchemist]

The Mvp will read ohms

But the MVP won't read the charge in your 18650. Hence the need for a DMM.

 

[chiliphil1]

Just to clarify, you do have a DMM (and possibly an Ohm meter) right? I question this since you don't have a charger. If not, how did you measure the resistance of the build?

I'm not surprised about the lack of vapor on the MVP. As for the AR, could it be a battery that needs charged?

I do, in this case since the resistance was high enough I was able to read the impedance on the MVP, I checked the battery with my meter and got 4.1v across the leads. Once I go into anything lower than .8 I will have to use the meter exclusively. I am fairly well informed when it comes to electronics, my grandfather was an electronics technician.. Safety is the utmost to me, if you look at my posts I have asked a ton of dumb and redundant questions just to make sure I am looking at it correctly.

 

[chiliphil1]

Your coils at least in the pics, look a bit wonky. Coils should either be evenly spaced or all contacting each other. Watch rip trippers micro coil on youtube.

You are correct, They do look better in person than the pic shows but yes the are wonky. I am still trying to perfect the art of coil building. I think the biggest thing I need is a torch and a pair of ceramic tweezers. I am using a torch type lighter to pre heat the wire, then I squeeze it with pliers while heating it, then I fire it on the mod and squeeze after letting go of the button. I will also say that I think another issue I am having is what I am using to wrap them on which is a small screwdriver, it's got a fairly large diameter and it has no grip so when I wrap wires and squeeze them together they just pop back loose. The first coil I did was my best one, it was wrapped on a toothpick which didn't allow it to pop back out but it was so small I couldn't wick it so I started using the screwdriver. I will be buying one of those coil jigs eventually as well, what I really need to do is just sit down and wrap coils until I get it right.

 

[MrPlink]

Short and not sweet: your build sucks.

 

[chiliphil1]

Short and not sweet: your build sucks.

You're right, but we've already established that.. I'll build it again tomorrow. I'll repost when it looks better

 

[Blackboar]

For your next build, try to use a slightly thicker gauge wire. It looks like you're using 30g. Try switching to 28 gauge. Wrap a couple more wraps with the lower gauge wire to achieve the same ohm reading. By increasing the number of wraps, you'll increase the surface area with which the juice is vaporizing, increasing your flavor and vapor production.

With a mech mod, you'll definitely want to buy some kind of ohm reader. While the MVP does read resistance, it won't read it lower than it can fire. And with a mech mod, you may eventually want to achieve a lower resistance build, like 0.6 or 0.7 ohms. You can buy an el'cheapo ohm reader for $10. Even a semi decent one like the Smok Omnitester runs about $20. If you're building greater than 0.2 ohms, either one of those will serve you well.

As for the mech mod, AR mods have copper contacts and pins. Try to polish the contacts with something like Neverdull. Don't use anything too abrasive so you don't remove too much material. Your mod should be a pretty hard hitting mod if your contacts are clean and working right.

Nowadays I typically use 26g or 24g for my RDA builds. For my dual coil builds, a typical all day vape will be built at about 0.4 - 0.6 ohms. Usually with 10 wraps around a 5/64 or 3/32 drill bit. And I'll vape that on a mechanical.

 

[MrPlink]

Get on YouTube and watch some build vids and just copy them.
Beats experimenting and wasting a lot of material until you get it right.

 

[chiliphil1]

Alright. I spent the better part of the morning experimenting, I watched several rip tripper videos last night and I think I learned a lot. I will admit, I tried to build a set of parallel coils for the patriot, like the one in my kayfun but with the resistance being so high at .9 they took forever to heat up, even on the mech. I trashed the parallel coils and just wrapped regular old singles. I did 6 wraps each and tried to make them as tight as I could, and truthfully for better or worse these are the best coils I have ever made. So, here it is attempt 2



Coils firing on the mech


Wicked, in this pic the right coil is spread a little, this is from where I wicked it, after the pic I pinched it back together.


The result


I said I have learned some things, here they are. 1 Get ceramic tweezers, 2 get a good torch (I used a grill lighter for these), 3 get thicker wire (I bought this 30g as a newbie who didn't really get it, so in the future I am going to get some 24g and build macro coils). Please let me know if this isn't very good as well, but I will say I think I can do better with thicker wire, this 30g is so springy that if you do wrap it tight it bounces back out as soon as you let go(even after heating), it's extremely hard to get it to stay tight no matter how I go about it. With the new coils this thing is surprising, it chucks the clouds (as rip trippers would say) even at the higher impedance. This patriot makes at least twice the vapor that my kayfun with a 1.6 parallel does, even when it's on the mech.. I am happy with it and confident that once I get thicker wire I can make some nice coils, even though these might suck for now I think they are much better than the ones I posted first and the performance is much better.

 

[chiliphil1]

I also forgot to mention, I believe that both the Patriot RDA and the AR mod are not authentic. I don't imagine that it makes much difference but I figured I would mention it.

 

[bholcomb22]

What are you wrapping around? Those coils look pretty huge... Also with airholes like that .9 ohms on a mech is not going to be low enough... That is probably a big factor, as well as your wick job...

I would recommend wrapping on something 2 mm and smaller considering the gauge of your wire... Try something around the 1.5 mm size and throw 5 wraps around. Should net you around .5 or .6. wick it pretty tight but not so tight it will ruin the coil....

You really need to get some 24 gauge for those aireholes..... 26 gauge would be pretty good as well, but 24 would probably give you better results.

 

[chiliphil1]

What are you wrapping around? Those coils look pretty huge... Also with airholes like that .9 ohms on a mech is not going to be low enough... That is probably a big factor, as well as your wick job...

I would recommend wrapping on something 2 mm and smaller considering the gauge of your wire... Try something around the 1.5 mm size and throw 5 wraps around. Should net you around .5 or .6. wick it pretty tight but not so tight it will ruin the coil....

You really need to get some 24 gauge for those aireholes..... 26 gauge would be pretty good as well, but 24 would probably give you better results.

I am using a small screwdriver, it's approx 2.7mm. What am I doing wrong with the wick? Also I am not looking to go to .5 or .6 right now, I am trying to get .9 which is where I am now. I also mentioned in the above post that I am going to get some 24g when I buy wire again, I definitely realize that is an issue. In my first post I said I am waiting to get my battery charger, hopefully it will arrive within the next week, then I will play with lower sub ohm type stuff, but right now I building them to work on the MVP, that said I did get to use the mech for a few hours since the battery was charged when I got it and as stated above it worked well after I redid everything.. I am curious though on my wicking, you said it isn't good, how do I do it better? I tried to stick close to the videos I have seen.

 

[bholcomb22]

I wasn't saying that your wick job isn't good, just saying that wicking can be a major factor in vapor production, and overall performance of an RDA... IF you want to stay at .9 ohms wrap around something smaller... I think that is a big issue. the ID of your coils is just so big.. I would probably only wrap around something that big if I was using 22 or 24 gauge.

You have a ton of wick material but not much surface area on your coil, and thats why I think you are getting sub par performance.... Find something smaller to wrap on like 1.5 mm or 1.8 mm.. if you can find something at 1.5 mm you can throw about 9 wraps per coil on that bad boy and get some more surface area horizontally and make the wick not so huge for the resistance. I really think this will dramatically increase your vape experience.

 

[chiliphil1]

I wasn't saying that your wick job isn't good, just saying that wicking can be a major factor in vapor production, and overall performance of an RDA... IF you want to stay at .9 ohms wrap around something smaller... I think that is a big issue. the ID of your coils is just so big.. I would probably only wrap around something that big if I was using 22 or 24 gauge.

You have a ton of wick material but not much surface area on your coil, and thats why I think you are getting sub par performance.... Find something smaller to wrap on like 1.5 mm or 1.8 mm.. if you can find something at 1.5 mm you can throw about 9 wraps per coil on that bad boy and get some more surface area horizontally and make the wick not so huge for the resistance. I really think this will dramatically increase your vape experience.

Ok, cool.. Sounds good to me. when I redo these I will go ahead and use a smaller tool. You know, to start with I was using a toothpick but it was so small that I really had a hard time wicking it, plus to get to the 1.8 I was shooting for it took 13 wraps! I completely agree with you that more coil surface area will help but I have had an issue finding anything that's the "right" size to use, I will jus have to keep looking. I also tested that theory with parallel coils, that let me get 10 wraps with 2 pieces of wire but then they didn't heat up very well, so I scrapped them I am really not sure what went wrong there, they were completely by the book and looked pretty good. The 24g wire is definitely top of my list you are 100% right on that one, I really wish I hadn't bought this 30g I have had nothing but problems with it. My personal opinion is that a beginner does not need 30g, it's just too hard to work with. I am looking forward to trying thicker wire though because I want to see if I can build some of these beautiful coils that I see on this forum.

I will also say I got an igo w6 with this package and am looking forward to building it but I am holding off until I get the thick wire and the battery charger, but rip trippers really did make that one look mean!

Thank you again for your suggestions. I will take them all into consideration, I am just now beginning my journey into rebuildables, especially RDA's. The kayfun was easy to build in comparison, making 2 coils the same is tougher than I thought it would be but I think once the correct technique is learned and mastered it should be a walk in the park

 

[bholcomb22]

Do you have drill bits? That is what I typically wrap coils around