DNA 40 Temp Control Setups

[Ayloxs]

I'm not finding a concise list of how people are setting up for temperature control on their dna 40s. There is a thread on Nickel builds, but its nearly 600 pages and the conversation wanders quite a bit. The idea here is to make a data sheet without the chatter. All of that extra stuff is covered in the other DNA Nickel Build thread.

So please only post:
-if you own/use an APV with a DNA 40 chip
-if you are using Ni200 for coils

Please list:
-wire gauge/# of wraps/inner diameter of coil//# of coils/Ohms
-atomizer
-temperature setting
-wattage setting

Feel free to tell us why you're using this particular setup, but keep it short please!

I'm just getting used to my DNA, and my current setup is:
30ga (Ni200), 10 parallel wraps around 3/32" punch, single coil, resting at 0.15Ω
Authentic Magma RDA
400 degrees F
16 Watts

This gets the coil warm fast, and gives me about an 8-second puff before temp control kicks in. My puffs are usually closer to 5 seconds, so this seems pretty good, but I'd like to see what's working for everyone else.

Cheers!

 

[autobiogphnation]

30g 15wraps .2 ohms (.061" ID)
Magma RDA
410°F to 430°F
13 Watts
15wraps gets more surface area and it just works decent for me, takes a while before it's dry but I'm not using this all day. Temp projection really only comes on when I chain vape it.

 

[RandyF]

Lemo RTA
28g
2.4 ID
9 wraps - spaced
22 watts
400F

I tried contact coils at first, but they never seem to stay consistent. Spaced coils have lasted me a week with no fluctuations. Ima 2 tank a day vaper....okay, maybe 2 1/2......

 

[rusirius]

I change up so much it's not really practical to list everything, but here's my current setups in my attys...

Atomic RDA - 30awg dual coil 3mm ID 12 wraps 490F (rayon) 40W
Lemo RTA - 28awg single coil 3.5mm ID 15 wraps 470F (rayon) 40W
Big Dripper RDTA - 30awg dual coil 3mm ID 13 wraps 480F (rayon) 40W
Fogger RTA - 30awg dual coil 2.5mm ID 15 wraps 450F (rayon) 40W
Orchid RTA - 30awg dual coil 2.5mm ID 13 wraps 470F (rayon) 40W
Tobh RDA - 30awg dual coil 3mm ID 13 wraps 480F (rayon) 40W

My wattage never changes, unless I happen to be experimenting with a build where the TP message shows up a lot and I'll bring it down enough that it doesn't. I build so I know my desired temp will suck somewhere around 35+ watts meaning my temp is hit quickly and wattage gets regulated down slightly to maintain that temp but not enough that it trips the TP message. The temp I'll change often depending on juice not build. Most of them I find taste best around the 470F range and since I run rayon that has a char point way above cotton it's not a problem.

 

[SeaNap]

I built gdeals DNA BF mod.

- Tightly Twisted 28g Ni200wire & 29g Kanthal / 7 wraps / 3mm ID / 0.11Ohms
- Cyclone AFC BF
- 400F (because it is twisted with Kanthal the actual temp may be off as much as 40F)
- 40W
- Rayon
- 25pg/75vg fruit eliquid


I actually have the exact same sentiments as rusirius, couldn't have said it better myself. I built coils that hit TP right away @ 40W and it wasn't nearly as satisfying as a different coil config that took 3 -4 sec to hit TP @ 36 watts and it was even at a higher resistance. If you hit TP right away you never truly get the full 40W vape, if just for a split second, but then your are floating around 20W. Where as if you can ramp up in 3 + seconds you actually get that much time at 40W and then the throttle back goes to ~35W. As brandon @ evolv said "Temperature is the heat of the vape, and watts is the volume (clouds)". I view TP as a safety, and the goal is to maximize flavor, and vapor within the variable safety limits.

 

[classwife]

Moved to Variable Voltage APV Discussion from APV Discussion

 

[fragger56]

I find it interesting that there is little discussion about using grade 1 TI wire for temperature controlled builds on a DNA 40. As I've had better luck with Ti builds compared to nickel due to nickels softness.

In any case Here are the builds:

Doge w/ Ni200 on hemp @0.3 ohm
Dual coil, 17 wraps each of 32Ga on a 1/8" bit @30ish watts and 450°

Doge with Grade 1 Ti also on hemp @0.32 ohm
Quad coil, 12 wraps each of 30Ga on a 1/8" bit @40w and 270-300°

The quad hits way better than the dual and produces more flavor, the coils are a bit too long on the dual Ni200 build for them to wick well on longer hits.

 

[cjpeltz]

Most of them I find taste best around the 470F range and since I run rayon that has a char point way above cotton it's not a problem

Where are you buying your rayon?

 

[rusirius]

Where are you buying your rayon?

Sally beauty supply. Life time supply is $11. you can order it on Amazon if you don't have one near by. The lady at the counter looked at me a little strangely when I told her I was going to give myself a perm. I guess it's cause I shave my head.

 

[Heespharm]

Spent the weekend playing with the sample pack of wire sent with my protovapor (28, 30, 33ga) on my diy 40 box with my veritas ... Single, dual, and twisted single

My findings was best flavor with twisted 32 or 33 guage with anywhere from 12-16 wraps around 5/64 at 440/25watts


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[puffon]

I am trying a Veritas with a single horizontal coil
3 strand twisted 32ga 10 wraps 3mm touching .13ohm
Not bad, first build on a Veritas tho.
For me 32ga is too flimsy, single strand

 

[Ayloxs]

Moved to Variable Voltage APV Discussion from APV Discussion

I swear, I'm trying to put posts in the proper place. I know it means more work for ya's, guess I'll have to try harder

 

[Firecrow]

rDNA 40 Build Date 11/17/2014

Russian 91%, 9 wraps touching, 2mm inner diameter of .30g Vapowire Pure Nickel Wire @ 0.23ohm on japanese cotton
400F

I am not experienced with Nickel wire at this resistance. Anyone have advice on spaced coils versus touching or microcoils - pros/cons?

 

[Firecrow]

Tried something radical.

Rebuilt an Aspire Nautius (Mini) head with 8 spaced wraps of .30g nickel. Came to .24ohm with no short, temperature set to 440F and TP kicking at about 5 seconds. Averages between 23W and 26W but my wicking was terrible - not enough cotton - was trying not to distort the coil. This is tricky as the coil has no strength so you have to be careful when reloading the wick. This is going to take more work - perhaps go to a microcoil instead. Can't wait for the general availability of nickel atomizers.

Its a fun but frustrating experiment.

I might try cannibilizing a fresh head and use that wicking material instead. Stay tuned.

 

[maleasdf]

Rebuilt Atlantis with 28g Ni around 4mm 7 wraps spaced and sufficient Japanese cotton to hold coil snug in place. Rebuilding was easy and done in minutes. Only tricky part was to get the top coil wrap covered in cotton without blocking airflow. Took two tried to get it right.

Note that build shouldn't be too wide as wicking only good to the center part of stock coil which is the kanthal portion. May not be able to rebuild it with kanthal alone as you might get hot legs due too long legs to seal on bottom. Here Dna40 and Ni200 with spaced wraps are perfect match.

Comes around .18 and with temp at 500 gives loads of vapor similar to stock coil. No leaks and only gurgles for first few hits. Does spit hot juice occasionally.

Flavour is sufficient but expected more than stock coil. Vapor is warm at 40 but slightly lower at 30w. Temperature protection kicks only when chain vaping.

Also my device had faulty board and with Atlantis I get garbled screen within 2 hits, much faster than any other tanks or attys.

 

[Firecrow]

Okay, second try was the charm with the Nautilus Mini.

The ceramic matting is just too delicate to handle rebuilding - I got owned on that. Perhaps if you're a swiss watchmaker you could pull it off but it was beyond my meager skills. I binned it after mangling it into nonrecognition.

I have a coil jig and I used the 2mm coil post. This time, I kept it in the whole time, including during reassembly - the coil post fits all the way through the bottom of the airhole postive post and seats - so it kept the coil exactly centered with no extra effort on my part. I wrapped the cotton to separate the leads and then wrapped a little more around it. I made sure I had extra cotton from the wrap above the coil and to the top of the atomizer and I packed that back down around the coil with the post in. The screen fit through the coil post as well, so the last step was to remove the coil post - voila, it was perfectly packed, plenty of wick this time but not too tightly packed with an open airhole all the way to the bottom. The nickel coil came out to 0.16ohm. That being said, the trick is to keep the coil post in for the whole build, as it supports the soft nickel coil while you get the cotton in and keeps it perfectly centered.

Took me about an hour but now that I know what I am doing I can see it being a 15 minute job.

Give it a try if you have a Nautilus Mini. I have it at 25W and 390F since its cotton. TP kicks at about 8 seconds - enough for me. The draw is almost the same as the original atomizer, good for mouth to lung at medium temperature. Only problem is I put 12mg in (I usually use 6mg for going this low) and I am getting nic-stoned.

 

[Firecrow]

I'm posting this from the other massive thread on an interview with Brandon at Evolv - there is a lot of very helpful information that should be here on Nickel builds and temp control:

Question about what kind of wire can be used: http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=26m37s
Brandon's answer on how it works implies that the mod chip itself has a separate temperature sensor and is measuring temperature too! "The most important thing is that the mod and the atomizer match temperature".
This might explain some strangeness in cold weather if the mod chip itself hasn't cooled but the atomizer has.

Brandon also implied that they went with nickel because it has a very known safety profile compared to the alternatives (titanium, stainless steel). And that one problem with stainless steel is that it isn't as standardized as other materials.

http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=32m8s
Brandon: "What the preheat does is it throws for either 1 second or until you reach 100°F(50°C) below your set point it dumps all the power"

----
Screen bug: http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=36m30s
You can send / RMA in the mod itself to evolv to get it fixed. He definitely is sorry for the issue. Personally I just wonder and hope evolv and the mod makers aren't loosing money with the DNA40 over this issue.

Best moment of the show: Brandon runs out of application memory and had to be rebooted again: http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=42m4s

V/F mode and connectivity issues:
http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=59m13s
"This is a very... errr... because we're reading resistance at such an exacting level [small connectivity issues can cause havoc on the system]" Haha nice save there Brandon!

Refinement mode: http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=1h2m2s
"After about 4-5 minutes it goes into refinement mode". It watches the coil cool and resistance descent until it levels out, looks at the temperature of the board itself and calls that the new reference. "Run it for a minute set it down for 5 minutes to let it do refining" (Goes on about post hole problems)

Contact coils: http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=1h4m2s
"If you are going to build a micro[contact] coil make sure all coils[wraps] are shorting if you are doing that way... me I don't have the patience for it... just leave a little bit of spacing between the wraps".
Brandon mentioned that they didn't know the best practices and have learned a lot by reading forum themselves. "Thinking about putting out 30 second FAQ videos"

Watch Brandon squirm about a new darwin: http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=1h7m10s

Large screen version: http://youtu.be/-2ypik16QdA?t=1h9m54s
"It's sort of the geriatric version of the little screen"

Celcius version production started late last week so it's "rolling down".

--------- Another set of take-aways from the interview --------------

IMHO this is what was said of value:
1. Thru hole post suck.
2. Micro touching coils can and most likely will cause you troubles.
3. The only know problems with the DNA-40 are the screen glitches. They think they have them fixed.
4. Most of the problems other than the screen issues are bad connections.
a. thru hole connections. Brandon mentioned using a couple of piece of heavy Kanthal to crimp the Ni200. I use Sterling Silver crimps (works great).
b intermittent touching coils.
c. 510 connection issues.
5. Generally a steep learning curve compared to non TP mode.
6. Picking up bad coil resistance measurements. Typically caused by a difference in coil temperature and the DNA40 board temperature. Solution; let the joined mod and atty sit for (I don't remember how long he said exactly) 7 or 8 minutes and the unit will self adjust and will continue to refine the readings for an hour after the last firing.

 

[Firecrow]

Biggest takeaway for me on this is micro-coils in nickel - I did not realize the problems it presents although my latest nickel microcoil is very stable at 0.20 ohms. It occasionally re-reads it as 0.21ohm so its not too bad, but I will do a spaced build when this coil is done.

What temp control does is very complex (to me) but what we have to do to take advantage of it in our builds is very simple (again to me), its just a matter of understanding that its necessary for TP to work correctly. This was not apparent to me without spending time building and watching this YouTube video. As the rDNA40 gets more circulation I am sure this will all turn into community shared common knowledge, but right now its fringe building esoterica. Hope you find the condsolidated information helpful.

 

[zipflint]

Very helpful and interesting stuff! I don't have a DNA40 device yet, although I expect to have a VaporShark rDNA40 in time for Crimbo. So I'm playing catchup on all the common practices regarding the temp control feature. I really really want to take advantage of this because I like the idea, and it sounds like they put a LOT of effort into it.

Just to make sure I'm thinking straight: microcoils might not be the best idea, due to the difficulty(?) of keeping a nickel coil uniform, but they can work. Right?
I'll be experimenting with nickel builds and temp control with drippers first; I'm not gonna bother with my RTAs until I've got the whole nickel/temp control stuff fully down.

 

[Steam Turbine]

Alright... I had some issues with temperature controlled coil. Every time my mod stayed idle for more than 1 or 2 minutes my resistance reading changed and the board wasn't firing the coil properly either to hot or to cold.

After multiple trials and errors I found a fix.

The problem was the post holes...Feeding the wires trough the hole appears to be a big no no, at least in my case.... I wrapped the wires around the srewes (kayfun style) to ensure a good connection and now every thing works perfectly.

A rock solid connection seems to be more important here than with any other builds that I have ever done.

28 gage
15 wraps
0.1 ohm