How Long Does Your Wick Last?

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menace66

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Oct 1, 2015
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Now testing out spaced coils. 5 wraps of Kanthal 24AWG for 0.5ohms. Let's see how it goes.
 

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menace66

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Oct 1, 2015
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Both your Spaced and your Non-Spaced coils look great. And the Amount of Cotton looks to be Right.

Let us Know which one you prefer.

I will need a few days to see how long these will last. Will update this thread again. And 1 of my tanks with a certain juice is lasting 4 tanks now. The rest last abt 2 tanks still. I am guessing the juice plays a big part in how long my wicks will last.
 
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menace66

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Oct 1, 2015
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Well. It seems spaced and open coils did not matter much. I would say maybe open coils helped my wicks to lasts 10% longer. Its just the nature of the juices that screws up my wicks fast.

I threw in a titanium coil and i am up to my 5th tank now on the same wick and still going strong. Peered inside and saw that my wick was still as good as new. Although i prefer the flavour from a Kanthal vape, i can make do with the taste from Ti. At least I will cut down a lot of tims from coil building. :)
 

Sm0keydaBear

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Aug 13, 2015
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Honestly, I don't have a Subtank mini so I can't comment on that but, I've never had to rewick any builds I've had. The cotton works great all the time, japanese organic cotton pads and I don't dry hit them. Your coil looks saturated so I doubt there is a problem with the juice flow. Everything looks like it should be in order. Spaced or non-spaced coil should not affect the life of the wick either.

EDIT: Try a vertical coil with the wick wrapped completely around the coil instead and see if that helps.
 

mekks082

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Sep 24, 2012
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I build a subtank mini for my wife (old style with juice channels on deck) and after 4-5 days that thing is NASTY! whole wick is black and taste gross.

I was thinking about taking a dremel to it, so more juice can get in.

I really need to find her something else that works good (rba, tank, no leaks, easy fill like subtank).
 

Sm0keydaBear

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Aug 13, 2015
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Fyi, one thing I noticed when I was using an iStick 10w, I don't think the coils were getting hot enough to fully vaporize all the juice. When I took a couple of my coils I had been using apart, the cotton was black and very stiff. What I believe that the reason causing it was, was the coils taking a bit long to fully heat up to allow for effective heat to vaporize the juice, thus resulting in juice that had been under the effect of not being heated up correctly to vaporize being caked into the wicking material. Once that happened, the atomizer would taste fine for a bit, then suddenly it would taste like burnt ejuice, except it was not burnt, it was under vaporized.

Right now I'm running 100 watts to .15-.2 ohm dual coil setup and have had not a single issue with this problem. When done with several tanks of ejuice and checking the wicking material and coils to see if their appearance has changed (for health concerns,) when there is still ejuice in the wicking and giving it a "dry burn," the cotton still comes out white as brand new.
 

defdock

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I don't own a subtank but I rebuild all of my friends coils ect. Between 2 buddies, their wicks last between a week and 2 weeks for the subtank. One buddies derringer needs rewicking every 3 weeks, I rewick mine once a week...

It really depends on how much you use things.

In all honest, I try to shine a light into the wick on the side of the coil and see if I can see the "core", if the center looks dark or black, I know to change it.
 

Sm0keydaBear

Senior Member
Aug 13, 2015
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I don't own a subtank but I rebuild all of my friends coils ect. Between 2 buddies, their wicks last between a week and 2 weeks for the subtank. One buddies derringer needs rewicking every 3 weeks, I rewick mine once a week...

It really depends on how much you use things.

In all honest, I try to shine a light into the wick on the side of the coil and see if I can see the "core", if the center looks dark or black, I know to change it.


I dunno if you caught what I was saying in the previous post, but if the core of your wick is black, that means you're not giving the coils enough heat, in some way shape or form. The blackness (and someone else posted this or told me this) is caused from the juice not being completely vaporized effectively. Like I was saying, it happened to me before, but now that I have switched to my mechanical mod and using the correct ohm coils on it, not a single wick for me has turned black. Another thing of note, with my iStick TC40w, Ni200 coils were turning black and I thought the coil was burning up, but found out after a closer inspection that the coils were not heating up quickly enough. After speculation of this, I ran an Ni200 coil for far longer than I normally would have to see what would happen and bam, the black gunk on the coils began burning off giving an awful flavor. Essentially, the gist of this all is, the coils need to be the correct ohms for the correct mods, or juice will be ineffectively vaporized and begin to turn black and get gunked on coils and wicking.
 

mekks082

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Sep 24, 2012
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I dunno if you caught what I was saying in the previous post, but if the core of your wick is black, that means you're not giving the coils enough heat, in some way shape or form. The blackness (and someone else posted this or told me this) is caused from the juice not being completely vaporized effectively. Like I was saying, it happened to me before, but now that I have switched to my mechanical mod and using the correct ohm coils on it, not a single wick for me has turned black. Another thing of note, with my iStick TC40w, Ni200 coils were turning black and I thought the coil was burning up, but found out after a closer inspection that the coils were not heating up quickly enough. After speculation of this, I ran an Ni200 coil for far longer than I normally would have to see what would happen and bam, the black gunk on the coils began burning off giving an awful flavor. Essentially, the gist of this all is, the coils need to be the correct ohms for the correct mods, or juice will be ineffectively vaporized and begin to turn black and get gunked on coils and wicking.

Now that you mention... My wife runs like 3.3-3.5v and does not like it any higher. I normally build her coils around 1.1-1.2 due to the face shes using an older v2 provari and can not go any lower. Maybe I should make her ditch the provari and build her lower coils to offset the low volts.
 

Vapenstein

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Oct 4, 2010
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once a week, try to stretch it to two if I can. I can taste it when it starts to go. Sometimes I feel like it needs rewicked before the week is up, sometimes you can stretch it to a second week. That’s alternating between two tanks, several tanks a day. One of the tanks gets a new build on Monday and the other tank gets rewicked on an alternating schedule.
 

jacob bonilla

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Sep 4, 2015
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depending if I'm only vaping 1 juice or multiple. 1 juice 2-3 days at max. multiple 2 days at max. it's not so much that it's burnt but the fact that my coils get gunked and diminishing flavor. before I would burn my wicks like nothing so i'd change them out daily or 2 days no matter what. my coils last a while I'm running on I think this is going to be my 2nd week maybe even 3rd week I had my current coils in I just dry fire them works nice
 

edyle

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Oct 23, 2013
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My wick last about 2 - 3 days. Change wick but did not change my coil. Usually will pulse my coil till it become red, release the fire button and dip it into water. The gunk will completely removed after 2 to 3 times of dipping. Conclusion is i change my wick twice a week, my coil last for a week.

what wire do you use? 34 gauge?
 

DaveP

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May 22, 2010
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I'm using Egyptian cotton that I bought from my vendor on sale. Kho Gen Do Japanese cotton is better, but this was cheap and better than Sally's or the drugstore organic stuff. It's the juice that determines how long a wick lasts for me. Most of my juices are clear to slightly tinted, so wicks last longer. I still re-wick at no more than a week. When I change, only the part under the coil is black, with some crusting on the coil itself.

I've intended to try some rayon, but I'm overstocked with the Egyptian and the Sally's box of organic stuff that I haven't been pushed to go buy the Sally's rayon.

ETA: Last night I re-wicked with Sally's cotton coil (the blue box). It's a clean and flavorful vape and it's fine, combed well, and a heck of a wicking material. It's better than I remembered it. I'm probably going to put the rest of my Egyptian cotton in the last resort box for when I'm out of everything else. My box of Sally's cotton coil is still almost full after many months of use. It's probably the best buy out there for quality vs quantity.
 
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