Difference in wire?

[Grimwald]

I just started wrapping my own coils 2 1/2 months ago on protanks, evods, kayfun, drippers, etc. For my first coils I used 32ga wire from my local B&M (no telling who made it). I had 5' I think. On protank style, 6 wraps on a 1/16" drill bit got me 1.8-2.0 ohms...usually in the 1.9 range...just what I wanted.

Now I have a 30' roll 32ga A1 from vapowire. 5 wraps gets me 2.1-2.3 ohms. So 1 less wrap but still higher ohms. If I wrap just as tight and close together as possible, I can get it down to 1.98.

Now I realize that it is possible something was mis-marked or my B&M put the wrong wire in the wrong plastic baggie.

Is there really any difference (or should there be) between different manufacturers? I guess I could get some 30ga...but I have 60' to use up.

 

[Ronald3638]

Even if it was made by Kanthal themselves there is always some variation from batch to batch so it stands to reason that companies that copy Kanthal's formula are going to end up with some variation in resistance.

 

[readeuler]

Even if it was made by Kanthal themselves there is always some variation from batch to batch so it stands to reason that companies that copy Kanthal's formula are going to end up with some variation in resistance.

Assuming the OP's coil-wrapping is nearly identical, that's a significant variation. It seems that the resistance/inch of the first wire is about 1.69 ohms/inch (I think those are the units I calculated), whereas the second is about 2.13 ohms/inch, roughly 26% more resistance per inch. That would be way out of bounds for any half-decent manufacturer, so I think it's almost certainly different wire.

I don't know all the various applications of Kanthal, but I assume it's so widely-used because it has a pretty consistent resistance per length. I'd think even knock-off wire would have to be in the right ballpark.

 

[AzPlumber]

It's possible the first wire was NiChrome. The resistance of NiChrome is lower than the same gauge in Kanthal. For example 32 gauge Kanthal is about 13.1 ohms per foot and 32 gauge NiChrome 60 is about 10.55 ohms per foot.

 

[Grimwald]

They were both labeled Kanthal A1...but who knows.

Just struggling a bit...in order to get this last batch down to the 1,8 range, I'm going to have to go down to 4 wraps...pretty small coil for getting vapor. Or maybe get 28-30ga wire. I just don't like how long it takes to heat up the 28-30ga.

 

[AzPlumber]

They were both labeled Kanthal A1...but who knows.

Just struggling a bit...in order to get this last batch down to the 1,8 range, I'm going to have to go down to 4 wraps...pretty small coil for getting vapor. Or maybe get 28-30ga wire. I just don't like how long it takes to heat up the 28-30ga.

Each batch of resistance wire varies a bit but not by very much and certainly not as much as you've got. You could always try twisted, It is a great way to use up smaller gauge wires.

 

[Alien Traveler]

They were both labeled Kanthal A1...but who knows.

As I remember, Fasttech sells both kanthal and nichrome under the name kanthal. B&M shop could get their supply form fasttech.

 

[SITS]

I got all of my wire from Kanthal A1 you can get a lifetime supply for a few dollars.

 

[MedicatedDeveloper]

I would think the wire having lower resistance at more wraps (your first set of wire) would be nichrome which used to be the standard for coils but has now been superseded by kanthal.

Temco (which SITS linked above) is the best place to buy kanthal I've found.

 

[JMarca]

Vapowire = Temco with a nice little markup for the name and pretty box.
Just buy it from Temco themselves either on their site or on e-bay, sometimes it's actually cheaper to buy from them via e-bay since they'll throw in the shipping and only markup the price by a few cents.