Ok I got this thing about 1 week ago. I make a micro coil, put in some cotton wick, the thing works perfect! So every day I make a different coil, try silica and it works great also. So everything I try works good and I am super impressed with this thing. Then all of a sudden It does not want to wick very well no matter what kind of wick I use, every few hits its burnt. So I think somehow I have a air blockage or something. I tear it completely apart. Make a new coil and wick.No matter what i do now I am getting burnt every few hits. I am filling from the top. Finger over the air hole cap on till it meets gasket then upside down to finish screwing cap on and then a few dry pulls and it works great for a few minutes and then not wicking again. So does any body have an idea what I am doing wrong all of a sudden? I tried more cotton,less cotton,1 single silica wick, 2 silica wicks, I am out of ideas
Hcigar Kayfun 3.1 problem
- Thread starter Lundude
- Start date
- th_trl_thread_readers 0
- Status
First to check is that you're not overfilling. KFs need an airpocket at the top to maintain proper pressures.
well I tried filling less and really no difference. I build the chimney coil with cotton today, worked great for about an hr then dry and burnt.If I give it a few primer puffs then it is ok for a few pulls, then back to burnt or dry. Something has definitely changed with this thing, I cannot figure out whats going on. it is about to be chucked in the junk drawer.
Can you take a picture of your base? So I can see wick wells. I had to file a tobeco clone down to get it to wick. Outside of that, when you stuff wick down on deck, are you pressing down on either side of wick wells?
Edit. I'll take it if you're not going to use it..
Edit. I'll take it if you're not going to use it..
There's a quick fix to KF dry hit by covering the air hole with your finger, while taking a vape. The technique is explained at around 6.02 of the following video:
This won't necessarily give you a permanent fix, but still worth watching.
-- Glenn
This won't necessarily give you a permanent fix, but still worth watching.
-- Glenn
sounds like the wicks are too long or thick and blocking the juice flow.
the juice channels on the sides of the head cannot be blocked or stuffed full of wick, the wick just needs to be long enough to touch the shelves but not packed full of wick with the chimney tube on. if you have to do more then just push the wick in a little at setup it may be too much.
when I first started using them this was my first mistake, a couple nice hits then dry, couple nice hits then dry. it wasnt until I laid off the wick a little that it started working correctly.
the juice channels on the sides of the head cannot be blocked or stuffed full of wick, the wick just needs to be long enough to touch the shelves but not packed full of wick with the chimney tube on. if you have to do more then just push the wick in a little at setup it may be too much.
when I first started using them this was my first mistake, a couple nice hits then dry, couple nice hits then dry. it wasnt until I laid off the wick a little that it started working correctly.
I thank you all for your suggestion!! I think my problem is too much cotton. I rebuilt again this morning,used what I think is not enough cotton.air flow is 10 times more free and so far so good,I will see what happens. Again thank you for your help. I get so much great info from this place.
Hmm, I was going to start a thread but did a search and lucked out and found this thread. The exact same thing happened to me, I've been vaping on my 3.1 for a few months now without the slightest issue, microcoil & cotton. Also have a rocket kayfun which is virtually the same thing. Suddenly over the last ~week, after months of perfection, it's giving me dry hits. And it's the most f'ed up "voodoo" magic going on, I've cleaned it, I've rebuild the coil over 15 times now, raised the coil higher, lower, more cotton less cotton, thicker, thinner, longer shorter, whatever the hell is going on, it will NOT go away. I can flood the chamber and still wont wick correctly. Doesn't matter if I block the juice channel or not.
The frustrating part, is the rocket is vaping like a champ still. Thinking maybe I suffered brain damage from vaping, I rebuilt the coil & wick several times, and even made some intentionally "bad" wicks, and it's performing just fine. Something is suddenly wrong with my 3.1 es, and I have absolutely no idea what could possibly be wrong.
My original setup involved threading the cotton, inserting the chimney, snipping the cotton about a centimeter above the chimney and pushing the wicks in so they rested across each deck with a gap between the wall to expose the juice channels. Mind you, even with them covered it worked flawlessly and I had never been able to get a "plugged juice channel" I've read about, it just worked no matter what I did. Later evolved into snipping the wicks shorter, maybe two millimeters in length above the chimney as that's as short as I can get them with my scissors, which made them about long enough to make the ends contact the base which seemed to wick even better (capillary action?). Also done wicks where I snip them short with the chimney off, position them and secure them with e-juice, then assemble which worked just as well only more time and labor intensive (takes only seconds with the chimney on to push the wicks in, expose the juice channels, and apply a couple drops around the coil).
Feels like I've been dreaming with how bizzare this thing suddenly performs, on a rewick it performs fine for awhile, but as the tank level gets lower it always seems to rewrite the laws of physics and defy the design of the kayfun. Last night I build a fresh wick, filled it up, vaped for awhile then went to sleep. 11 hours later wake up, and instantly dry hit and you can hear the coil still hissing after I let the button go for several seconds (happens with a wick drying out, not enough juice to cool it down).
I found a replacement 3.1 base I had received in the mail sometime ago (had a faulty fill valve, which I plugged with silicon tape and hadn't touched the replacement) so I'm going to just give in and try that and see what happens. I really can't find any proof it's my build, so something else is going on.
The frustrating part, is the rocket is vaping like a champ still. Thinking maybe I suffered brain damage from vaping, I rebuilt the coil & wick several times, and even made some intentionally "bad" wicks, and it's performing just fine. Something is suddenly wrong with my 3.1 es, and I have absolutely no idea what could possibly be wrong.
My original setup involved threading the cotton, inserting the chimney, snipping the cotton about a centimeter above the chimney and pushing the wicks in so they rested across each deck with a gap between the wall to expose the juice channels. Mind you, even with them covered it worked flawlessly and I had never been able to get a "plugged juice channel" I've read about, it just worked no matter what I did. Later evolved into snipping the wicks shorter, maybe two millimeters in length above the chimney as that's as short as I can get them with my scissors, which made them about long enough to make the ends contact the base which seemed to wick even better (capillary action?). Also done wicks where I snip them short with the chimney off, position them and secure them with e-juice, then assemble which worked just as well only more time and labor intensive (takes only seconds with the chimney on to push the wicks in, expose the juice channels, and apply a couple drops around the coil).
Feels like I've been dreaming with how bizzare this thing suddenly performs, on a rewick it performs fine for awhile, but as the tank level gets lower it always seems to rewrite the laws of physics and defy the design of the kayfun. Last night I build a fresh wick, filled it up, vaped for awhile then went to sleep. 11 hours later wake up, and instantly dry hit and you can hear the coil still hissing after I let the button go for several seconds (happens with a wick drying out, not enough juice to cool it down).
I found a replacement 3.1 base I had received in the mail sometime ago (had a faulty fill valve, which I plugged with silicon tape and hadn't touched the replacement) so I'm going to just give in and try that and see what happens. I really can't find any proof it's my build, so something else is going on.
Necrosis, I feel your pain. I've got the same issues with a KFL+, I have had good luck sometimes with a quick sharp and short draw for a second to restore the juice flow. I'm not really sure why. I might even take a dremel to it. ;-/
Well, I put a coil in the replacement base with my standard wick setup, virtually the same as the old base's setup pictured below, and am now on my third tank and it's performing flawlessly. I can at least conclude, for now, that something must be going on with the base and not the chimney, tank, or the o-rings up top. Only thing I can think of, is maybe the fill hole plug lost it's air-tightness causing the pressure system to misbehave, but it's not like I have gotten any leaking out the fill hole so I don't know. Whatever it is, something changed after a few months to make it stop performing.
Snapped a couple shots of the old base after taking it off when it started dry-hitting in less than half a tank. It's not like the wicks moved and plugged anything, the channels themselves didn't suddenly shrink, not evident but the o-ring looks fine.
In the end, I'm at least glad I'm not the only one who experienced this mystery. It means I'm not crazy, and perhaps other complaints and reviews with complications may not be user error at all. For now the old base is getting shelved, don't feel like dealing with it for now. Maybe in the near future I'll pick up that pmma spare parts kit from fasttech, since it includes all the parts minus the base, and mess with it. Perhaps being able to see everything, albeit frosted, might make things more evident.
Snapped a couple shots of the old base after taking it off when it started dry-hitting in less than half a tank. It's not like the wicks moved and plugged anything, the channels themselves didn't suddenly shrink, not evident but the o-ring looks fine.
In the end, I'm at least glad I'm not the only one who experienced this mystery. It means I'm not crazy, and perhaps other complaints and reviews with complications may not be user error at all. For now the old base is getting shelved, don't feel like dealing with it for now. Maybe in the near future I'll pick up that pmma spare parts kit from fasttech, since it includes all the parts minus the base, and mess with it. Perhaps being able to see everything, albeit frosted, might make things more evident.
Necrosis, just looking at that picture there, how far is your coil sitting above the air hole? Also that looks like A LOT of cotton, you could do with a bit less. That was my problem at first, my IDEA of "just right" was WAY too much ha. Couldn't hurt to make sure your coil isn't too close to air hole and take out about 1/3 of your cotton.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Really?
Come on everyone, there is always an answer with something like this.
It is an SS Device. little can change physically unless it is dropped hard.
So:
Flooding - To little wick material - Wick not properly set to channels(gaps) - Air leak into tank
Poor air flow - Restriction in air intake tube(bore) restriction in stack/chimney including wick blocking - top o-ring shifting and blocking Tip opening.
Dry hits - To much wick material - wick material blocking juice channels - Air flow restriction causing lower vacuum through chamber
Juice is drawn in through Variable negative pressure in the tank as a draw is taken.Venturi vacuum overcomes tank vacuum. Pressure drops of as draw ends and air replaces removed e-liquid.
Come on everyone, there is always an answer with something like this.
It is an SS Device. little can change physically unless it is dropped hard.
So:
Flooding - To little wick material - Wick not properly set to channels(gaps) - Air leak into tank
Poor air flow - Restriction in air intake tube(bore) restriction in stack/chimney including wick blocking - top o-ring shifting and blocking Tip opening.
Dry hits - To much wick material - wick material blocking juice channels - Air flow restriction causing lower vacuum through chamber
Juice is drawn in through Variable negative pressure in the tank as a draw is taken.Venturi vacuum overcomes tank vacuum. Pressure drops of as draw ends and air replaces removed e-liquid.
That coil is sitting about 3mm above the air hole. I experimented with different heights on that too but found it wasn't making any significant difference. I normally prefer to have the coil closer to the hole as it tends to produce more vapor and a slightly cooler draw.
Not sure what you mean by less cotton, are you referring to length or width? I have very thin long fingers, so I have an easy time working with cotton and I keep it extremely fluffy and that thing is saturated. If I dried that wick and twisted it up, it would be significantly thinner than the coil. I've using thicker amounts of cotton that required twisting it to get it through the coil (rip tripper style), and they still wicked fine but don't produce as thick vapor and flavor, so I keep them thin and uber fluffy (more pbusardo style). Going too thin seems to lead to poor wick:coil contact, because it feels like a side of the coil without sufficient contact gets too hot, and this is evident in the taste as well as the kayfun itself getting significantly hotter to the touch after a few vapes.
Edit: Looking back at the photo, I can see why you might think they could be too thick. Those tails, however, are fluffed up intentionally about 3-4x the original thickness. Combined with the bend required to go down to the deck, once saturated and vaped on, it's hard tell. I find this creates more space between the fibers, and makes for some additional capillary action with less material that hits even harder with flavor.
If it's length you're referring to, then I don't think 1/3rd could reach the bottom of the deck. The shortest I've ever gone was the tails just barely touching the deck (has to be done before screwing the chimney on), but that cant be an issue because I've done wicks with almost twice the length completely filling up the entire deck cavity and actually being wedged in somewhat, and those performed just fine too whether they would block the channel or not! And that's with the tip of the wicks being wedged into the small space between the deck wall and chimney, if that makes sense.
In the end, though, that very device I had been vaping between 5 and 15 ml of juice daily, rarely having the same wick in longer than a day since I switch flavors like a schizophrenic. If nothing, I am confident in the skills I developed in making a microcoil and cotton wicking it up
Simply stopped performing one day no matter how many coils I rebuilt and no matter how I did the wicks, and then I put in a replacement deck and no problem. The photo is my favorite wick setup because it performs beautifully and it's the fastest and most consistently reproducible setup for me. Same thing is in my new deck and boy is it performing! My rocket is still going with that same setup as well at the moment.
My money is on something not sealing properly messing up the pressure system, either the fill hole plug getting lose or perhaps I unscrewed the center pin one too many times and something got screwed up (this is the design where tightening the center pin will cause that larger piece holding one of the coils screws to rotate, and I do recall reports of people breaking something with that). That or voodoo magic
Not sure what you mean by less cotton, are you referring to length or width? I have very thin long fingers, so I have an easy time working with cotton and I keep it extremely fluffy and that thing is saturated. If I dried that wick and twisted it up, it would be significantly thinner than the coil. I've using thicker amounts of cotton that required twisting it to get it through the coil (rip tripper style), and they still wicked fine but don't produce as thick vapor and flavor, so I keep them thin and uber fluffy (more pbusardo style). Going too thin seems to lead to poor wick:coil contact, because it feels like a side of the coil without sufficient contact gets too hot, and this is evident in the taste as well as the kayfun itself getting significantly hotter to the touch after a few vapes.
Edit: Looking back at the photo, I can see why you might think they could be too thick. Those tails, however, are fluffed up intentionally about 3-4x the original thickness. Combined with the bend required to go down to the deck, once saturated and vaped on, it's hard tell. I find this creates more space between the fibers, and makes for some additional capillary action with less material that hits even harder with flavor.
If it's length you're referring to, then I don't think 1/3rd could reach the bottom of the deck. The shortest I've ever gone was the tails just barely touching the deck (has to be done before screwing the chimney on), but that cant be an issue because I've done wicks with almost twice the length completely filling up the entire deck cavity and actually being wedged in somewhat, and those performed just fine too whether they would block the channel or not! And that's with the tip of the wicks being wedged into the small space between the deck wall and chimney, if that makes sense.
In the end, though, that very device I had been vaping between 5 and 15 ml of juice daily, rarely having the same wick in longer than a day since I switch flavors like a schizophrenic. If nothing, I am confident in the skills I developed in making a microcoil and cotton wicking it up
Simply stopped performing one day no matter how many coils I rebuilt and no matter how I did the wicks, and then I put in a replacement deck and no problem. The photo is my favorite wick setup because it performs beautifully and it's the fastest and most consistently reproducible setup for me. Same thing is in my new deck and boy is it performing! My rocket is still going with that same setup as well at the moment.My money is on something not sealing properly messing up the pressure system, either the fill hole plug getting lose or perhaps I unscrewed the center pin one too many times and something got screwed up (this is the design where tightening the center pin will cause that larger piece holding one of the coils screws to rotate, and I do recall reports of people breaking something with that). That or voodoo magic
Last edited:
Simple but serious question. You Are actually reading the final resistance on your builds aren't you?
Some people get so comfortable building, they stop checking.
Things Can go aery and shorts or opens can occur in the system itself.
If you don't check, you don't know for sure.
There has to be a simple reason and once found you may feel like kicking yourself for missing it. I have....more than once.
Some people get so comfortable building, they stop checking.
Things Can go aery and shorts or opens can occur in the system itself.
If you don't check, you don't know for sure.
There has to be a simple reason and once found you may feel like kicking yourself for missing it. I have....more than once.
Haven't taken the small screws out for cleaning, probably a good idea if I'm feeling confident enough I wont drop them and lose em forever.
And yes sir, I always check the resistance since I build on a zmax.
Noticed that with the center screw removed, the top piece is completely loose, including the plastic insulator part. Couldn't take a sharp enough high-res photo to make it visible, but there seems to be a sliver of a gap on either side that piece. Possible that it's could cause a leak, since juice on the deck would be exposed to that opening, connecting straight to the drip chamber below. If that opening was normally air locked by chance with the placement of the plastic, it could explain why there is a problem with the pressure system. The placement would chance every time the center screw is re-secured. On the replacement base, the plastic doesn't budge.
And yes sir, I always check the resistance since I build on a zmax.
Noticed that with the center screw removed, the top piece is completely loose, including the plastic insulator part. Couldn't take a sharp enough high-res photo to make it visible, but there seems to be a sliver of a gap on either side that piece. Possible that it's could cause a leak, since juice on the deck would be exposed to that opening, connecting straight to the drip chamber below. If that opening was normally air locked by chance with the placement of the plastic, it could explain why there is a problem with the pressure system. The placement would chance every time the center screw is re-secured. On the replacement base, the plastic doesn't budge.
I thought you were crazy at first as I couldn't remember a problem with my HCigar kayfun, but wouldn't you know, it happened this Sunday. I filled my HCigar after cleaning it with my grandmaster from 5p and I was experiencing something very similar to the OPs problem. Was most unfortunate as I didn't remedy the problem till well after I vaped the tank. I tried 3 different wicking options and 2 coils and just gave up on it.
It's working great now, but I'm not sure what the culprit was. Would love a definitive answer so I could easily correct it in the future
It's working great now, but I'm not sure what the culprit was. Would love a definitive answer so I could easily correct it in the future
Call me crazy, or maybe just stupid, but I think I'm having my face-palming moment finally. I think my problem may have simply been the result of too tight of a draw. I like a tight draw, and over the span of a few months it may have increasingly gotten tighter to the point that it was too tight and simply not delivering enough air to the coil. Would also explain why the second base was performing normal, it happened to be set to a looser draw. Tried vaping with a super tight draw on the secondary base, made it about halfway through the tank before it started doing the dry hits. Opened it up and made it airy, and it's doing fine.
Hadn't been thinking about the draw until I revisited my steam turbine clone that's unusable due to air flow that's impossibly tight (literally, two pin holes that wont even fit a paperclip, and I don't have the means to bore it out). If I draw hard on it, like I'm trying to collapse a lung, it hits fine. But a slow draw on it is instant dry hit, simply not enough air hitting the coil (to give you an idea, it would take between 10 and 15 seconds to get a mouth full of vapor). And the only real difference, in this case, between the kayfun and genesis design, would be that drawing harder on the kayfun can flood the device in addition to the dry hits for that extra level of confusion and frustration.
Everything's adding up, if anyone else having problems can recall any changes to their air flow, it might help clarify things. Got a stomach bug right now and cant really taste my juices apart from sweet, cinnamon, and menthol notes respectively, so I'm just leaving things be.
Hadn't been thinking about the draw until I revisited my steam turbine clone that's unusable due to air flow that's impossibly tight (literally, two pin holes that wont even fit a paperclip, and I don't have the means to bore it out). If I draw hard on it, like I'm trying to collapse a lung, it hits fine. But a slow draw on it is instant dry hit, simply not enough air hitting the coil (to give you an idea, it would take between 10 and 15 seconds to get a mouth full of vapor). And the only real difference, in this case, between the kayfun and genesis design, would be that drawing harder on the kayfun can flood the device in addition to the dry hits for that extra level of confusion and frustration.
Everything's adding up, if anyone else having problems can recall any changes to their air flow, it might help clarify things. Got a stomach bug right now and cant really taste my juices apart from sweet, cinnamon, and menthol notes respectively, so I'm just leaving things be.
Greetings; I've only been doing KFL (clone) builds for a couple weeks, so i'm not expert, but to my eye it looks like there is too much cotton either side of the coil.
Have you seen pictures of builds where the cotton, wetted with e-liquid, is about as thin as a 2 mm or 3 mm strand of silica? Instead of fanning it out the way you've got it, i'm talking about a more conventional wick placement, where the cotton strand runs downwards, parallel to the coil screw, then along the deck.
There are pictures describing this sort of wick placement in the following thread (which goes on to talk about using an extra long length of cotton, and folding the ends back on top of the coil -- this works great btw!):
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/rebuildable-atomizer-systems/508564-kayfun-russian-wick-setup-works-great-me.html
-- Glenn
Have you seen pictures of builds where the cotton, wetted with e-liquid, is about as thin as a 2 mm or 3 mm strand of silica? Instead of fanning it out the way you've got it, i'm talking about a more conventional wick placement, where the cotton strand runs downwards, parallel to the coil screw, then along the deck.
There are pictures describing this sort of wick placement in the following thread (which goes on to talk about using an extra long length of cotton, and folding the ends back on top of the coil -- this works great btw!):
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/rebuildable-atomizer-systems/508564-kayfun-russian-wick-setup-works-great-me.html
-- Glenn
Well, to be fair, the amount of cotton is really dictated by the juice mixture and viscosity. That amount of cotton would be overkill for something like Boba's Bounty (100% VG)
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
