IGO-W on Vamo v2

[IndubitablyMe]

Okay, so I'm very new to the world of rba and just... beyond confused. I've tried reading through the forums and a lot of it is Greek to me. So please be gentle and remember that I'm a total n00b at this.

So I bought an IGO-W from a local vape shop yesterday, and the people there were kind enough to help me build my first dual coil for it. Even though they were all very familiar with the atty, they were having issues building the coil for me. I don't know if it's because of restrictions with the Vamo or what, but they kept pulling out extremely low ohms. They had the hardest time even getting it above 1.0, and the Vamo needs 1.3 to fire (I think.) Eventually they got it to work after about an hour of tinkering with it, but the vapor production on it was very poor. I smiled and thanked them -- they had been more than gracious enough taking all that time to help me -- and I left.

When I got home, I tried building two more coils to see if I could figure out what had gone wrong -- no luck. The whole setup was wonky. The Vamo constantly misfired (which I've never had it do for anything else I've put on it) and it would show sub-ohms one second and then up in the 3s the next. And on top of that, when it DID fire the vapor production was extremely poor.

I tried again today and used the last of the wire that they supplied me with. But today I couldn't even get it to read above 0.7. I have no idea what the AWG is on the wire, I just know that it's super thin. I also don't really know what the wicking material is -- it seems "cottony" and crunches audibly when I squeeze it. Please don't make fun of my ignorance.

Anyhoo, does anybody out there have this setup, or have you used it in the past -- and if so... what am I doing wrong? How can I get good vapor production? (50/50 vg/pg) And most importantly, where can I buy more wire and what AWG should it be? I would prefer to pick it up at a brick and mortar because I'm leaving on a trip in two days and will be gone for over a week. I'd love to bring my new toy with me, but as of right now it doesn't even work. I've managed to destroy every working coil that has been built so far.

Oh yeah, and they did drill the holes a little larger so air flow is definitely not the problem. Thanks for reading my post, and I look forward to your responses!!

 

[Spacedoutart]

Hi. A few things I can chime in to help you with this guy...
The crunchy sounding wick is most likely a fiberglass style of silica.
Now onto the coil and build. So the Vamo can not fire a coil under 1.3 ohms.. So lets add .1 ohm just to make sure things are good. So if you want a dual coil with 1.4 ohm total. Both coils must be 2.8 ohms.
Do you have a multimeter? If so what I like to do to make this kind of build is to make my first coil with enough wraps to get close to the 2.8 ohm mark. Test it with the meter. Then connect it to one of the other post and the center post. Don't tighten the center post fully. Measure the resistance again. If it is too low - loosen the center post and move the coil to make the leg a little longer. or vice versa to lower the resistance. Once you have it at the 2.8 ohm mark tighten it down good. it makes a little kink into the wire then clip only the outer posts tail of the wire (the garbage part anyways)
Then build your second coil keeping everything the same (coil diameter, number of wraps, space between the wraps)
Then i actually take out the outer clipped leg from the first coil. This allows me to measure the resistance of the other coil without and combined effects of the first coil.
Repeat the build for the second coil. Once it too is 2.8 ohms, you can then attach the first coils outer leg. Take one last meter reading at the 510 connection to make sure you have 1.4 ohms total and then test fire. Just pulse the fire button lightly. If everything is correct then both coils will light up evenly and at the same time.
Add juice and enjoy.

Sorry if this is too long but I figured Id go through my hole process of building on the IGO-W

 

[IndubitablyMe]

Thanks for your reply! It hadn't occured to me that both coils should be built identically with the same ohms, and that they should be double the expected result. Kind of a "duh" moment for me. Oh well, all in learning. So I've been trying to rebuild using the old wire and it's working... sort of. The vamo is now firing and doing so consistently. I think I was being a little sloppy with the ends of the wire touching where they shouldn't touch. I'm still not getting a huge amount of vapor, though. Not nearly what I do out of, say, a Kanger Protank. But the taste tends to be cleaner, which is nice. The more times I mess with a particular wire, though, the muddier the taste gets. Is it possible that it's building up juice on it and the old juice is burning? I don't think the wick is burning, though it is getting darker. I replace the wick every time I rebuild it, but I'm completely out of wire so I keep using the same pieces that I've already cut. It seems I may only be able to order new wire online -- so I've read in these forums -- which is a bummer because I will be leaving town before it could even arrive.

Out of curiousity, when you use this atty do you do a direct lung inhale or do you suck into mouth and then inhale? I usually vape the latter way, but I've noticed that every build I've done so far has only had an acceptable amount of vapor when I do a really looong direct lung inhale. It isn't a huge deal, I just can't help but feel I'm still building the coils incorrectly.

 

[Spacedoutart]

It all depends on the airholes. I have dual 1/16th.. Its a direct lung inhale. quick video. not of setting it up though

IGO-W Cloud Machine - YouTube

 

[Spacedoutart]

Also being a silca wick u can dry burn and left over juice. it will leave the wick white.... the coil will always gain and lose the carbon buildup

 

[IndubitablyMe]

The airholes were bore pretty big -- don't know the exact bit that was used. It's really loose, though. A lot of air comes in. But I'm not getting clouds ANYWHERE near that big. It also seems to take a little bit before the coils start getting hot. Like if I hit the trigger then it takes a good 5 seconds to sizzle if it's cold. Takes a second or two of it's hot. And hitting it at 6v produces a medium-to-cool vape. With the dual coil it's reading at 2.4 right now. Maybe the wire just isn't very good? I have no idea.

 

[t8kiteasy]

The airholes were bore pretty big -- don't know the exact bit that was used. It's really loose, though. A lot of air comes in. But I'm not getting clouds ANYWHERE near that big. It also seems to take a little bit before the coils start getting hot. Like if I hit the trigger then it takes a good 5 seconds to sizzle if it's cold. Takes a second or two of it's hot. And hitting it at 6v produces a medium-to-cool vape. With the dual coil it's reading at 2.4 right now. Maybe the wire just isn't very good? I have no idea.

You need to get the resistance of the coil down a little more from 2.4,go down to about 1-1.5,in that area.

 

[IndubitablyMe]

Well I ended up getting the total resistance down to around 1-point-something and it worked for a while (rather poorly, I might add) and then it began going wonky on me again (bouncing between sub-ohm and 5-6 ohm) so I ripped both coils out and started anew. In searching the interwebs I found a video from a guy who said he prefers a single coil in the IGO-W and I said, "what the hell, I'll try anything at this point." I cut the wire I was using to attain 2.8 ohms and wrapped it 4 times (instead of the 6-7 had been) and now it's cranking out vapor at 1.4 ohms. It hits quickly when I pull the trigger -- no more waiting 5 seconds for it to start producing a decent vape.

So I came up with three conclusions. 1) I wasn't getting the resistance equal between the dual coils, and therefore one was always burning hotter than the other. 2) My Vamo, even at 6 volts, has a hard time heating dual coils as quick as I'd like. and 3) I actually prefer the single coil. Not only am I getting better vapor production -- which admittedly was probably my own fault in regards to the dual coil -- but I'm using SUBSTANTIALLY less juice and battery doing so. I went through about 15 ml and almost two whole 18650 batteries today.

So long story short I had a pretty trying day, but now I understand the process and the science better than before, I've gotten pretty good at wrapping single coils, and I now love my IGO-W. Juice has never tasted so clean!! And no random dry hits like I get from time to time (or very frequently, depending) on just about every other device I use. Highly recommended to any other n00b like me!

 

[IndubitablyMe]

Perhaps the reason I can't get the dual coil to work well on this mod is because it's not powerful enough with a single battery? I've read and heard that it's much more powerful with stacked 18350 batteries. I don't have any 18350 batteries to test, though. Thoughts? Anyone have experience with this scenario?

 

[t8kiteasy]

Well I ended up getting the total resistance down to around 1-point-something and it worked for a while (rather poorly, I might add) and then it began going wonky on me again (bouncing between sub-ohm and 5-6 ohm) so I ripped both coils out and started anew. In searching the interwebs I found a video from a guy who said he prefers a single coil in the IGO-W and I said, "what the hell, I'll try anything at this point." I cut the wire I was using to attain 2.8 ohms and wrapped it 4 times (instead of the 6-7 had been) and now it's cranking out vapor at 1.4 ohms. It hits quickly when I pull the trigger -- no more waiting 5 seconds for it to start producing a decent vape.

So I came up with three conclusions. 1) I wasn't getting the resistance equal between the dual coils, and therefore one was always burning hotter than the other. 2) My Vamo, even at 6 volts, has a hard time heating dual coils as quick as I'd like. and 3) I actually prefer the single coil. Not only am I getting better vapor production -- which admittedly was probably my own fault in regards to the dual coil -- but I'm using SUBSTANTIALLY less juice and battery doing so. I went through about 15 ml and almost two whole 18650 batteries today.

So long story short I had a pretty trying day, but now I understand the process and the science better than before, I've gotten pretty good at wrapping single coils, and I now love my IGO-W. Juice has never tasted so clean!! And no random dry hits like I get from time to time (or very frequently, depending) on just about every other device I use. Highly recommended to any other n00b like me!

When the res. is changing like this it means you have a hard short in the build,coil touching the deck,wires touching.That is why you had problems with the dual coil build.

 

[IndubitablyMe]

I tried my best to sort out the wires. It's tough with the amount of available room inside of the atty housing. I think that you're right, though, and will definitely try again when I get some more wire and have ample time to play around with it. The amount of juice and the severe battery drain associated with the dual coil was a little disheartening, though. As of now I'm very happy with the single coil.

 

[t8kiteasy]

I tried my best to sort out the wires. It's tough with the amount of available room inside of the atty housing. I think that you're right, though, and will definitely try again when I get some more wire and have ample time to play around with it. The amount of juice and the severe battery drain associated with the dual coil was a little disheartening, though. As of now I'm very happy with the single coil.

I'll give you the easiest way to build a dual coil on the Igo-W.Wrap two coils with the exact same number of coils on each.Make one lead longer than the other,coming off the wrap,to make it easier to put each wire thru the post at a time.When the first coil is in place pul each lead upward tightly to the post,when you have it in place,each lead should be pointed upward.This will help hold it in place and make it easier to find and cut,or twist off.With the second coil slide the leads thru the holes and this time bend those leads to the side and try and keep the positive post lead lower than the first coil in place,so it does not go thru the actual coil itself.Now hold each coil in place and start tightening each screw,DO NOT,screw them down all the way or it will break off the lead and cause a hard short.Screw them down just until you feel a little resistance and you see the lead move in one direction.Last use a flat head screwdriver to lift each coil off of the deck,and do any adjustments that are needed to spread each coil out on each wick.Put it on a device and fire it(no water,no juice)if the coils burn evenly from center out,there are good to go,if not,just nudge the coils to adjust and fire again.

 

[IndubitablyMe]

You make it sound so easy Definitely think I'm up to the challenge, and want to get it right, just running out of time and materials as it stands. Thanks for the advice!

 

[t8kiteasy]

You can get a 100ft. roll of Kanthal from ebay for $4.50 and depending on length of silica you want,a 25 ft.section of 3mm is $18.