having trouble with my first TC Mod

[dirtymoon]

Hi all,
I have been building Goblin mini RTAs for a long time and I've been using them with a very basic Smokjoy CFiber 100W battery. I thought it was time to move towards a temperature controlled battery and picked out the Eiffel T1 160w. I chose it for it's good price and the Qi charging. For those of you that don't know it tests a new coil and sets it up automatically. If using a TC coil it automatically switches to TC mode.

I did my first build with Ni200 the same as I always have with Kanthal. I made 2 coils with 26 gauge and did 6 wraps. When tested with my multimeter it reports 0.8ohm. When I put it on the T1 it just says Atomizer Short and reports 0.08ohms. It will work with a single coil if I make about 8 wraps but the Goblin doesn't work anywhere near as well with a single coil.

I thought the battery was faulty but when I make coils using Kanthal it reports the correct resistance and works perfectly in Wattage mode. Am I doing anything wrong? Is it worth me buying a different coil material?

 

[Saintskinny51792]

I would try SS316 or TI. They have lower TCR but higher resistance. Do you know the specs of minimum resistance in TC for your mod? If you misread .08 as .8 it may seem fine but your mod may only fire to .1 in TC mode.

.08 seems about right for dual ni200 build if memory serves... but I only did a few nickel builds and switched to Ti1 then SS

 

[Saintskinny51792]

Hi all,
I have been building Goblin mini RTAs for a long time and I've been using them with a very basic Smokjoy CFiber 100W battery. I thought it was time to move towards a temperature controlled battery and picked out the Eiffel T1 160w. I chose it for it's good price and the Qi charging. For those of you that don't know it tests a new coil and sets it up automatically. If using a TC coil it automatically switches to TC mode.

I did my first build with Ni200 the same as I always have with Kanthal. I made 2 coils with 26 gauge and did 6 wraps. When tested with my multimeter it reports 0.8ohm. When I put it on the T1 it just says Atomizer Short and reports 0.08ohms. It will work with a single coil if I make about 8 wraps but the Goblin doesn't work anywhere near as well with a single coil.

I thought the battery was faulty but when I make coils using Kanthal it reports the correct resistance and works perfectly in Wattage mode. Am I doing anything wrong? Is it worth me buying a different coil material?

building with Ni200 is WAYY different than with kanthal'your ohms will be much lower than your used to so you may have to do extra wraps or increase inner diameter of your coil. To get to .8 with ni200 you would need 206 wraps with 2.5mm ID lol a 3.5 mm ID 6/7 wrap coil is about .03 ohms... according to vaporcalc

There is a bit of learning involved with temp control but its worth it IMHO... NO FEAR OF DRY HITS lol if your iffy just get the SS Wire and you can use it in Temp control or reg wattage mode.

DONT USE NI200 OR TITANIUM IN WATTAGE MODE!! IT CAN RELEASE BIG NASTY GASES YOU DONT WANT TO BE INHALING!

 

[dirtymoon]

building with Ni200 is WAYY different than with kanthal'your ohms will be much lower than your used to so you may have to do extra wraps or increase inner diameter of your coil. To get to .8 with ni200 you would need 206 wraps with 2.5mm ID lol a 3.5 mm ID 6/7 wrap coil is about .03 ohms... according to vaporcalc

There is a bit of learning involved with temp control but its worth it IMHO... NO FEAR OF DRY HITS lol if your iffy just get the SS Wire and you can use it in Temp control or reg wattage mode.

DONT USE NI200 OR TITANIUM IN WATTAGE MODE!! IT CAN RELEASE BIG NASTY GASES YOU DONT WANT TO BE INHALING!

Thanks for the info guys. I can't increase much more than 8 wraps as the deck is so small. I will try the SS.

 

[dirtymoon]

update: I have just managed to fit 13 wraps on a pair of coils in my RTA and the resistance is still below the 1 Ohm min for this bat. I have looked in to whether it supports SS coils but can't see anywhere that it does. Would Titanium have a significantly lower resistance?

 

[GeorgeS]

If you are building your own coils, I'd suggest you surf over to:
Wire wizard

there you can quickly learn how different gauges, ID, windings and wire types can effect the resistance of your coil.

Most (if not all) TC mods have a MINIMUM and a MAXIMUM resistance that they will operate in TC mode. Some mods will ether not fire at all or "kick you out of" TC mode and into Watts mode if the coil falls outside of the usable resistance range.

TC mods got their start by supporting Ni200 exclusively and later added Ti-01 and often times some type of SS. Many of the modern mods support all the above along with user entered TCR settings so that virtually any wire which resistance goes up along with the temperature of the wire can be used.

Personally, I'd start with wire types your mod natively supports. The 'SS' option (if there is one) might be a mixed bag as some manufacturers have sketchy or no documentation as to WHAT SPECIFIC TYPE of SS wire it supports. (you may get lucky and the OEM actually spelled out what wire and what TCR the wire should have)

When it comes to TC wire, the larger the wire - the less resistance it will have. Some wire types have higher native resistance than others. (just about everything has higher resistance than Ni200)

 

[dirtymoon]

If you are building your own coils, I'd suggest you surf over to:
Wire wizard

there you can quickly learn how different gauges, ID, windings and wire types can effect the resistance of your coil.

Most (if not all) TC mods have a MINIMUM and a MAXIMUM resistance that they will operate in TC mode. Some mods will ether not fire at all or "kick you out of" TC mode and into Watts mode if the coil falls outside of the usable resistance range.

TC mods got their start by supporting Ni200 exclusively and later added Ti-01 and often times some type of SS. Many of the modern mods support all the above along with user entered TCR settings so that virtually any wire which resistance goes up along with the temperature of the wire can be used.

Personally, I'd start with wire types your mod natively supports. The 'SS' option (if there is one) might be a mixed bag as some manufacturers have sketchy or no documentation as to WHAT SPECIFIC TYPE of SS wire it supports. (you may get lucky and the OEM actually spelled out what wire and what TCR the wire should have)

When it comes to TC wire, the larger the wire - the less resistance it will have. Some wire types have higher native resistance than others. (just about everything has higher resistance than Ni200)

Thanks for your detailed reply. I am en electrician by trade so I have understood how length of wire, size of wire and number of strands/coils can effect resistance for a long time. I am obviously a bit clueless about the resistance of materials like titanium as we don't tend to use materials like this when wiring circuits so the web site you have provided me may prove to be useful to me in the future. However, it seems like my mod only officially supports Nickel and there is no TCR adjustment. Like I said in my first post the battery instructions states that it will automatically set itself by testing the battery for the first 3 seconds of firing so I am unsure whether this means it can adjust itself to support Titanium or whether it's only to check whether the coil is Nickel/Kanthal. I have read in a customer review that a guy is using titanium but I have for the time being decided to play it safe and have purchased 30 gauge Nickel which should push my coils below the minimum of 1 Ohm.

 

[OhTheAgony]

update: I have just managed to fit 13 wraps on a pair of coils in my RTA and the resistance is still below the 1 Ohm min for this bat. I have looked in to whether it supports SS coils but can't see anywhere that it does. Would Titanium have a significantly lower resistance?

Yeah, 28g grade 1 titanium comes in at around 0,5ohm for 8 wraps with a 2,5mm ID. I usually take two strands twisted together at 3mm ID and those usually come in just under 0,4ohm.

Good luck

 

[dirtymoon]

I was even more committed to getting TC working earlier today. I didn't turn my mod off properly after a quick vape at work and had a total melt-down in the middle of a meeting. My acrylic bell-cap actually melted in my pocket (see pic). Can't believe some people argue that TC is a waste of time. This could of caused injury as well as the embarrassment which it did.

The 30 gauge wire arrived today and I did 8 wraps on twin coils with 3mm ID. Its reporting 0.09 Ohms but working!!! I'm very pleased with it now. 220 Centigrade seems similar to the 35 Watt which I was using. This Nickel seems maluable though and at 30 gauge it can break easily when tightening the terminals. Hopefully they won't work loose.

 

[BlackCRX]

I know this is kinda late, but you should look in to tempered nickel. It is much easier to build on than annealed, especially at 30 gauge. 30 gauge annealed nickel was super springy from what I remember. Tempered nickel is much stiffer and closely resembles kanthal in terms of firmness and stiffness when wrapping coils

The tempered nickel will have a very slightly lower resistance which might not even be detectable, but my DNA 40 vapor shark did register a difference in resistance between annealed and tempered.

 

[Saintskinny51792]

I was even more committed to getting TC working earlier today. I didn't turn my mod off properly after a quick vape at work and had a total melt-down in the middle of a meeting. My acrylic bell-cap actually melted in my pocket (see pic). Can't believe some people argue that TC is a waste of time. This could of caused injury as well as the embarrassment which it did.

The 30 gauge wire arrived today and I did 8 wraps on twin coils with 3mm ID. Its reporting 0.09 Ohms but working!!! I'm very pleased with it now. 220 Centigrade seems similar to the 35 Watt which I was using. This Nickel seems maluable though and at 30 gauge it can break easily when tightening the terminals. Hopefully they won't work loose.

Awesomeness! How you liking the TC Vape? Just so ya know you may be able to use To in Ni200 mode, the temp will be off by a certain amount but some people simply start low and adjust the temp (*read by mod*) to suit there vape. I say it like that bc when set to, let's say 400, since its set for nickel it will cut off/throttle down power when resistance jumps x ohms. X being the ohm difference between Nickel at room temp and nickel at 400°. Since Ti has a lower TCR your temp will be (I think) higher that what nickel would be after the increase of X ohms. I personally have never done this for more than a few tokes to test the diff in vape at a certain temp in two TC modes using the same wire. But that being said it did work on my Isticks