first coil on an RSST (pics)

[humpstyles]

Hey guys, just got a Pyrex RSST in the other day and tried my first coil on it.

the only juice I had to use was some cheap stuff I got a while back. I torched some 400 mesh, about 2" x 1", oxidized and quenched, clipped the bottom diagonally, and threaded it down the wick hole. used about 5-6" of 30ga, I secured the negative post and wrapped a 5/4, came in around 1.5 ohm. this was what I was looking for since I am running it on a regulated eVic right now, as I don't want to get into mechs until I am much more fluent at it. I also tried to keep the wick as close to the post as possible without them touching.

anyways, I filled up the tank, fired the battery, and I'm getting a terrible smell. smells like burnt tires. the coil is heating from the outside in, which I believe is correct for what I'm going for. also, the eVic will sometimes say "Atomizer Short", so I just finagle with the wraps until it fires again.

any suggestions or advice for my next wrap, and what I do for a cleaner vape? I'm looking into running a cotton microcoil just to see what I get out of it.

 

[Nikkita6]

You have a major hot spot there buddy .. in the last pic. Trying moving that top coil around until that hot leg goes away.

 

[Nikkita6]

Also hard to tell from the pic, but it looks like your wick is touching the center post, so after you play with the top coil, also try moving the wick away from the positive post a bit. I use a flat head mini screwdriver, and place it between the wick and the positive post and pry the wick away without breaking the coil, or ruining the build.

 

[Vaslovik]

I've used 28 kanthal for a long time and on my RSST it worked very well. Yes, you have a hot spot, and that needs to be worked out. What I do is gently nudge the coil loops with a dental pick until the coil glows evenly when you push the button. I recently went from 28 kanthal 4/3 wrap at .8 ohm to 26 kanthal 4/5 wrap at .7 ohm, and I'm liking that a lot. I got ohms creep with the 28 kanthal and it would go from .8 to .89 and higher over a few hours of vaping. I didn't like that. I'm really liking the 26 kanthal. Very short hit on the button gives me a good vape, and the ohms creep has been eliminated.

 

[Bunnykiller]

quenching the SS after torching it may be the reason for the nasty taste, also could have reversed the oxidizing effect of the torching. you are getting some serious hot spots and a hot leg.

try pulling the mesh, retorch it, let it cool naturally, retorch again, let cool and install with new coil ( probably would help to torch the wire too to build up oxidation on the wire too) oxidizing helps build a layer of "insulation" on the metals.

 

[humpstyles]

Also hard to tell from the pic, but it looks like your wick is touching the center post, so after you play with the top coil, also try moving the wick away from the positive post a bit. I use a flat head mini screwdriver, and place it between the wick and the positive post and pry the wick away without breaking the coil, or ruining the build.

it's a few mm away from the center post. I also moved the coil down away from where the leg wraps onto the positive post. it still smells reaaaal bad.

 

[JulesXsmokr]

Take your time when you wrap it and keep it a bit tight to the mesh
Start off of the floor a bit and try to keep them wound even
Do a Dry burn slowly (pulsing the fire button) and move the coils up and down a little
It oxidizes as you do this, slowly you will see the coil turn red glow more evenly
Keep at it, you will do just fine

 

[humpstyles]

I think my coil is okay, it's just the smell is atrocious. I think Bunnykiller may be right. I also forgot to saturate it with ejuice and burn it off with a lighter as I've seen a bunch of tutorials do.

 

[humpstyles]

I'm going to retry it and I'll post new pics in a little!

 

[Sthur]

This works great.

Cotton wick on an RSST - YouTube

 

[humpstyles]

^ I watched that one. guess I'll need to try cotton tomorrow.

 

[Snickerfritz]

I've had my RSST for a couple of weeks now and have been trying to find the best wick. To me the ss mesh wicks are the most consistent, but only give a decent vape, good but not great. The cotton wicks hit like a dream, but I've been having trouble getting them to draw fluid out of the tank consistently, so the wick dries out and gives off burnt hit pretty quickly. Here's the best I've found so far. I wrap 30 gauge kanthal around a 1/8th inch drill bit, then roll a fairly thin ss mesh wick, but at the top where the coil is going to go I'll wrap some cotton from a cotton ball. It should looks similar to a qtip at this point, but instead of the stick, it's got a ss mesh wick. Wrap enough cotton around so that the 1/8th coil will fit snuggly over your ss qtip, fit the other end of the wick down in the hole and connect your wires. This method, to me, gives the best qualities of ss and cotton.

 

[humpstyles]

^ that sounds very reliable and 'bestofbothworlds'esque. once again, this was my first RBA build, as I have done a handful of EVOD/Protank heads before. i only have an eVic to run it on, so sub-ohms and 28 go and below wire are useless to me for now. just want to get consistently good at making coils and such before I grab a mech. that way I'm not risking being toothless the rest of my life

 

[Ryedan]

I think my coil is okay, it's just the smell is atrocious. I think Bunnykiller may be right. I also forgot to saturate it with ejuice and burn it off with a lighter as I've seen a bunch of tutorials do.

When you say atrocious smell, is it burnt juice? Looks like the short is gone in the last picture which is good. If it is burnt juice, are you tilting the mod bottom end up when you fire it to keep the coil good and wet? I can fire my AGA-T for 20 seconds with the cap off and no coil will become red. If one does I have a problem and I fix it before continuing. Could be because of a slight short or it could need tilt.

 

[humpstyles]

it could definitely be burnt juice. what is a standard wattage to fire a 1.7 ohm at? 8w?

 

[Nikkita6]

it's a few mm away from the center post. I also moved the coil down away from where the leg wraps onto the positive post. it still smells reaaaal bad.

That looks better, but you still have a hot spot on the 2nd coil, so you need to keep gently playing with the coils until that goes away .. A hot spot is a short, and so that will give a bad taste, as well as a bad odor.

 

[humpstyles]

to be completely honest, it could always be this juice too. I don't have a stockpile, so I'm using the first bottle I ever bought which is 2+ months old, and I just know it's poor quality.

let's say I had a fresh bottle of something I wanted to try out; what's the best method for removing any trace of previous juice? boiling the entire RBA?

 

[NiNi]

You just might need to trim the end of the mesh just above the coil? It's probably burning off (instead of "vaping" off) because it's not wicking past the top of the coil thoroughly. JMO

 

[humpstyles]

I popped the cap on, came down to 7.5 W, took a hit, and it was fine. still had a little bad taste, but it's probably a faulty coil again. still need to get better at it. I'll resurrect this thread on Tuesday when I dive back into working on it. I appreciate everyone's help so far!!

 

[Nikkita6]

to be completely honest, it could always be this juice too. I don't have a stockpile, so I'm using the first bottle I ever bought which is 2+ months old, and I just know it's poor quality.

let's say I had a fresh bottle of something I wanted to try out; what's the best method for removing any trace of previous juice? boiling the entire RBA?

But thats kind of the thing ... when your coil is properly wicked and saturated with eliquid (from wicking), you should not be able to see the coils glowing ..at all. If this was a dry burn then ok, but you have juice in the tank, and being that your coils are still glowing, that means your wick is not wicking, and you will get a bad taste and smell because you are just burning straight mesh right now.