What do you all prefer and why? I posted a thread on a good first time genesis and everyone went to ss mesh wicks by default. Why? It's certainly not the easiest wick system to use on a genesis, so why ss mesh over cable etc? Better flavor? Better wicking? The ability to tinker with it/customizability? Durability? It's cheaper than ceramic? Just wondering about the pros and cons of metal cable, ceramic wick, Pyrex tubing (new), cotton, ss mesh, ekowool...
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I've only tried silica and cotton, but I saw a picture once of someone who used ss mesh and cotton or silica together and it looks pretty awesome. I can't find a picture, but here's a video of someone who does that:
Phoenix XL Rebuildable Follow-up & Using SS Mesh With Silica Wick - YouTube
as for silica, the con I notice is poor wicking ability. It's fine if you don't chain vape, but other than that it's a good choice (doesn't burn, easy to use, reliable, don't have to change it often).
cotton is what I've been using lately (cotton yarn) and it's just as easy to manage as silica but it wicks much quicker. problem is it burns if you dry hit and because of that you gotta change it out pretty often (i change my wick daily, but reuse my coil). cotton balls I'm not a fan of. It always tastes a little funky to me even after I break it in, and it doesn't seem to wick as good as the yarn.
Phoenix XL Rebuildable Follow-up & Using SS Mesh With Silica Wick - YouTube
as for silica, the con I notice is poor wicking ability. It's fine if you don't chain vape, but other than that it's a good choice (doesn't burn, easy to use, reliable, don't have to change it often).
cotton is what I've been using lately (cotton yarn) and it's just as easy to manage as silica but it wicks much quicker. problem is it burns if you dry hit and because of that you gotta change it out pretty often (i change my wick daily, but reuse my coil). cotton balls I'm not a fan of. It always tastes a little funky to me even after I break it in, and it doesn't seem to wick as good as the yarn.
I've been using SS Mesh #3xx inside ekowool. The ekowool makes it easier to have an even burning coil and i run some into the tank to help with avoiding dry hits. Isn't the prettiest but works well.
making a ss mesh wick is actually very easy, it may look complicated at first, but dont let that scare u.
Wire rope and mesh wick is simular to prepare really, u still need to wrapp a piece of mesh around the top of a wirerope so the coil make good contact. Downside with wirerope is that is very powerconsuming since its so solid/dense. Some say wirerope gives u a bit better flavour over meshwicks, but i dont agree on that.
Mesh is cheap, easy to make, lasts long, excellent wicking outstanding vape and flavour. Nothing like silica or ekowool can even come close to match the flavour or vapor production in a gennie. and yes, you can adjust the thickness/tightness of the wick to ur liking, its all in the ammount of wick u chose to roll or wick from, and also the # number u chose. I recomend starting out with #400 mesh or maybe even 500, since they wick extremely well and is easiest to get a good wick from and will most likely wick fine even if u make ur wick a bit too tight or too lose.
Oxidizing only the top part of the wick is best, since doing that to the entire wick will distort ur flavour and faster gunk buildup on the coils. If you end up with something like the RSST, u dont need to oxidize at all and u can just use the pulse metod wich is very easy. You can also do the pulsemetod on for example the aga-t2, but thats a lot more tinkering and u will burn of the coilwire a few times.
Edit: i see you mention cotton, cotton will also work well in a gennie, but im not a fan of cotton, thats just my personal preference tho, many loves cotton. Cotton setups are very very easy, by far the easiest you can do. But, You need to get some good cottonwicks and most likely u will need to boil it before use, most cotton has a funky flavour before being boiled, some doesnt mind that, but most dislikes it. Downside of cotton is you need to change the cotton pretty often, but thats a fast job in a gennie. If you want a way to setup ur gennie easy cotton is def a way to go. Search cotton wick in genesis and im sure u will find a video on howto.
Wire rope and mesh wick is simular to prepare really, u still need to wrapp a piece of mesh around the top of a wirerope so the coil make good contact. Downside with wirerope is that is very powerconsuming since its so solid/dense. Some say wirerope gives u a bit better flavour over meshwicks, but i dont agree on that.
Mesh is cheap, easy to make, lasts long, excellent wicking outstanding vape and flavour. Nothing like silica or ekowool can even come close to match the flavour or vapor production in a gennie. and yes, you can adjust the thickness/tightness of the wick to ur liking, its all in the ammount of wick u chose to roll or wick from, and also the # number u chose. I recomend starting out with #400 mesh or maybe even 500, since they wick extremely well and is easiest to get a good wick from and will most likely wick fine even if u make ur wick a bit too tight or too lose.
Oxidizing only the top part of the wick is best, since doing that to the entire wick will distort ur flavour and faster gunk buildup on the coils. If you end up with something like the RSST, u dont need to oxidize at all and u can just use the pulse metod wich is very easy. You can also do the pulsemetod on for example the aga-t2, but thats a lot more tinkering and u will burn of the coilwire a few times.
Edit: i see you mention cotton, cotton will also work well in a gennie, but im not a fan of cotton, thats just my personal preference tho, many loves cotton. Cotton setups are very very easy, by far the easiest you can do. But, You need to get some good cottonwicks and most likely u will need to boil it before use, most cotton has a funky flavour before being boiled, some doesnt mind that, but most dislikes it. Downside of cotton is you need to change the cotton pretty often, but thats a fast job in a gennie. If you want a way to setup ur gennie easy cotton is def a way to go. Search cotton wick in genesis and im sure u will find a video on howto.
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Awesome info everyone thank you. And what about ceramic wicks? Vapor production, wickability, durability (do you have to change it often or do they last), general pros and cons?
Waiting on a order for some stainless rope to come in. Anyone else can confirm that you do not have to do the Genny tilt with the wicking ability of stainless rope and a ekowool or mesh top? I love the Gennys, just hate the tilting to not get a dry hit issue.
one thing to remember is all the other wick materials are after thoughts from tinkering and people trying new things. the original design was based on SS mesh, this is the default method and they are built to run around this concept. so many times people get them and just stick with wha works, until very recently every geni you buy, if they include wick it is mesh so that is what people use.
personally I have played a little with the other wicks and I prefer the flavor of mesh in a geni. like the other posters comments ,it does have a learning curve a first but after a few times you can set the wicks up in minutes and becomes second nature.
personally I have played a little with the other wicks and I prefer the flavor of mesh in a geni. like the other posters comments ,it does have a learning curve a first but after a few times you can set the wicks up in minutes and becomes second nature.
I have done just about every wick set-up in a genny and do prefer the porous ceramic. although it may not be the easiest wick to get right, it certainly provides the best flavor. although I don't vape gennys that much anymore I still continue to use ceramic in other devices. taste is so subjective as you know and the only way to know is thru experimentation. in a genesis ss is probably the most popular for many reasons, you can make the wick any size you want, as dense or as wide. also it is very cheap and lasts along time, it produces some of the best vapor & flavor of any. ceramic however is expensive, can break, only comes in certain sizes (so those particular sizes may not fit into your device). probably consumes a little more power then mesh, thus creating a slight more lag time in heating (unless you can make the 3/32 size your self, these are not available anymore) also with ceramic the wraps need to be very tight on the wick(this requires a learning curve as there are a variety of ways to achieve this). if one puts in the time and does it correctly, ceramic is absolutely the best flavor, imo, that you can achieve from a wick although it does take time to get right. I now use the ceramics in the reo & kayfun along with a micro coil, because of the much smaller size of the wick and micro coil itself its a lot easier to make a build with this wick in these devices compared to a genesis device.
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I cant answer for ceramic since i never tried that.
About wirerope; it will wick well if you go low on ohms, 1 ohm or lower, on a mech. As i wrote earlier, since wirerope is solid it takes a lot of power/volt/watts to get it going, or rather to heat it up. When u do get it hot, it wicks like crazy and no need to tilt.
I dont really get why people say they need to tilt a gennie on mesh either, with #400 or 500 mesh and a good wick i never need to tilt unless its pretty much a empty tank and im a chainvapor.
Wirerope is cheap and its worth a try to see if it floats ur boat, but i personally get a better experience from mesh and i feel like wirerope is an alternative for hardcore sub ohm vapors.
About wirerope; it will wick well if you go low on ohms, 1 ohm or lower, on a mech. As i wrote earlier, since wirerope is solid it takes a lot of power/volt/watts to get it going, or rather to heat it up. When u do get it hot, it wicks like crazy and no need to tilt.
I dont really get why people say they need to tilt a gennie on mesh either, with #400 or 500 mesh and a good wick i never need to tilt unless its pretty much a empty tank and im a chainvapor.
Wirerope is cheap and its worth a try to see if it floats ur boat, but i personally get a better experience from mesh and i feel like wirerope is an alternative for hardcore sub ohm vapors.
I've tried using SS mesh and I just can't get it to work right. I always get hot spots or it just wouldn't wick fast enough. I am currently using SS rope and it is much easier to work with. The problem I was having was my coils were always too loose or too tight, but with SS rope it's much more forgiving. I've tried both ekowool sleeves and mesh sleeves on it, and am currently running a a mesh sleeve with the rope and it works perfectly.
SS rope definitely does need to heat up to get it to work nicely, but I found that if I ran two coils side by side it would heat up much faster.
SS rope definitely does need to heat up to get it to work nicely, but I found that if I ran two coils side by side it would heat up much faster.
So it sounds like what I'm getting here is the secret is there is no secret. You just have to tinker find what works for you.
I don't remember exactly what was said, but kanthal ribbon is made from kanthal wire I believe. They press it and flatten it and then fold it over on itself. This creates a seam which burns hotter than the rest of the wire, causing inconsistent performance. This is just what I was told, I don't know though, dude could be wrong. It can't be too bad or nobody would use it.
dead on man.
this is the most interesting part of rba's I think. 20 people will have the same rba set up 20 different ways and all will enjoy them while swearing their set up is the best they ever tried. so yea it will ulimately come down to what you like best.
if we all like the same thing there would be one flavor of ice cream lol
so you are able to keep your genesis device totally vertical, no slight tilt at all, and chain vape it without any issues? and this is with a straight mesh wick?
Upon first hearing about the necessity of tilting Genesis atomizers to promote proper wicking, I was very put off. As a result, I have been paying closer attention to how I vape. I have noticed that I rarely they on a device while holding it vertically. More often than not I find myself tilting it horizontally, so the "chore" of tilting a Genesis to get it to Wick would be something I would do naturally anyway. At any rate, this chore is dwarfed by the nagging need to pull off a top cap and drip every 4-8 hits off a dripping atomizer. I think for my first Genesis I'm going to get a richman, what do you all recommend?
the richman is a decent geni for the price.
as for the tilting I only have this problem on a new battery in my mechanical. on my vv mods It will vape all day sitting on the table standing up
as for the tilting I only have this problem on a new battery in my mechanical. on my vv mods It will vape all day sitting on the table standing up
I use a solid 500 mesh wick and I never have to tilt. Of course I do it naturally and I usually set it up to where the wick is on the bottom side of the tank when slightly tilted to vape. The only time I really pay attention is when it's almost empty I hold the wick in the little puddle of juice. but no tilting needed other than to make the last puddle sit where the wick is.
What should the specs be on #500 mesh, wire diameter and open spaces. Im confused because they seem to differ a lot from place to place. Just want to make sure I buy the good one. Thanks.
No it's uniform at least what I get from the manufacturer. It covers more area of the wick and brings the heat, also less hot spots to deal with.
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