ILeaf istick 30 questions

[Greenfish]

Ok, so here I am again with yet more confusion.
If anyone replies, please keep the language simple as I have not mastered Vaper eze yet.
For those of you who have been trying to help me learn and understand this new adventure, thank you! I have had several folks offering up advice and I am trying to follow and put your advice into trial.
Here is one example: I got my kool new istick 30 yesterday. Was so excited to rip the package open and hook it up to my kanger pro tank mini 2 only to be disappointed to get a burnt hit! Oh how nasty that is! I am happy to have a new toy but kinda bummed at the same time. From the way it is advertised, I should be able to turn down the voltage and or wattage to my liking but I figure out it has a mind of its own. Apparently, it reads the coil and sets the voltage according to what it sees. Too hot and I cannot turn it down past 4.2 volts and 5 watts. I can turn it up further that I would ever need it. There is the low down...My coil is a Kanger 2.2 in a kanger Protank mini 2. Its reading as a 3.5ohm coil ( I know they can vary and ohm or 2) and it fires it at like 4.4 volts, and 5 watts. I can turn it down to 4.0 volts (wattage remains the same) then goes right back to 4.4 for the next hit. It resets its self every time I turn it down. I can turn it up and it will keep the setting but I cant turn it down for more that 1 hit (already had a messed up coil so I played with it).
I put a new coil in (reads just over 3 ohm but its a 2.2), turn it down, same thing with burn taste. I can take real short (2 second) hits and it taste fine but the coil get too hot.
So, I take one of my ol stand by EVOD tanks, same coil, same setting on the battery and it works much better. Still hotter than I like but better (and uglier). Whats the dealio here? Why the difference in just a tank?

So...now, does anyone like this istick and what tank/coil set up can I get to make this unit more desirable for me to use?
Before you answer, please understand I am a busy fella and dont have time or desire to build coils. I did have one suggestion (thank you for that) to re use the old coils and put cotton in them which I might try in my free time and I am tired of spending tons of cash chasing the perfect vape.
Are the duel coils a good thing (I have heard they are) and can they be used in my Kanger tanks? I think I understand from reading other post that I could buy 2.5ohm coils to get a cooler vape. I am a flavor chaser and dont care all that much about the cloud although I think thel kinda go hand in hand to a point.
So.. there it is with all my confusion and frustration. any help will be appreciated for sure.
I also have to wonder why they put the charging port on the bottom. It is suppost to be pass through, right? To do that we have to lay it in its side.

 

[djsvapour]

I can easily imagine an iStick ripping through a PT3 coil in seconds. Once it's killed, it's killed.
Next time, put the iStick into watts (3 clicks, if it's in volts).
Scroll down to 5 or 6 watts and work up from there. You'll get a warning... sure

The bottom charging port is a gold-plated PITA. I hate charging mods on their side... I'm too lasy to take the tank off.

I am worried about your Ohm readings though... no wonder it's burning the life out of a coil. What are they supposed to be? If the iStick thinks it's 3.0ohms it's going nuke it straight away. Have you tried gently screwing the tank down a little. Too loose and it reads high and then "reaper-drones" your atomizer. (blasts it with firepower!)

 

[BrotherBob]

Might want to visit your local Vape store and talk to them about your problems. You seem to have many. The equipment you have should be fine (baring malfunctions which I kind of doubt). You just need to know how to manage it.

 

[Lannie]

I got your message on the other thread, Greenfish, but my husband is the one who uses the iStick 30 in our house, so I'm going to have him try to help you out, too, OK? He was a beginner with his just a few short months ago. His name is Fuzzy, but you can call him Rich.

~Lannie

 

[defdock]

The problem is with the istick reading the coil to high. The istick has a "sweetspot" ohms range to work fine, between .5 and 2.5ohms. When you install the coil into the evod or protank, make sure it's nice and snug screwed in, and that the tank is firmly screwed onto the istick.

Due to the "ghost drones" nature of flexing ohms on a regulated device, it's safer to run in voltage mode. The batter always delivers in volts, leaving the mod set to watts relies on the mods ability to read the coil correct and do the math to deliver "the right" voltage set to your watts. If you can get the coils to read correctly on the mod, I'd sudjest setting it to 3.7v and work up/down if the istick allows it(due to the ohm/volt/watts limitation of the mod)

 

[defdock]

Also due to the nature of spring loaded pins, try screwing and unscrewing the tank a few time, you will see the ohm reading jump all over the place.

With the tank fully seated, press any button and the resistance should do its final calculation and give you "what it reads"

 

[Fuzzy Thunderbear]

Yo Greenfish! Wifey told me to come over here and talk to you because the iStick 30 was my first mod back in June 2015 and I am still using it daily. I have about eight different toys here, one of which goes up to 200W, but I have never gone above 18W on any of them (although Wifey got me to take a direct lung hit off hers at 40W - ptooie!). I am a Tootle Puffer (a low watts guy) and probably always will be. I also have an iStick TC40W and don't use the TC (temperature control) function. The iStick 30 is my favorite of the bunch. The first tank I put on it was an Aspire mini, but because they used 2.5-Ohm coils and didn't hold much juice, I soon changed to KangerTech Protank-II with 1.8-Ohm coils and that is still where I am keeping it. They have better airflow than those minis too. With a new atomizer (the coil/wick doohickie), I start at about 8 Watts, and as the wick starts to get dirty, rather than changing out for a new one, I just bump the Watts up a couple until, by the end of the month, I am at about 14 Watts. When that starts to not taste so good, then I put in a new one. Some people get only three-five days per atomizer; I get about a month per. There are a few other little secrets to that, but I'll save those for if-and-when you want to know.

I do not understand why your iStick would misread your coil resistance unless the atomizer wasn't screwed in tightly. The iStick has a reputation for being good and reliable. One of the things you must be very aware of, with any tank/mod combination, is that you screw the atomizer into the tank base tightly, then screw the filled tank onto the mod snugly (do not over-tighten or you might crush the connector pin). You must make a good solid electrical connection, or the on-board VOM (volt-ohm meter) in the mod might misread the coil resistance and will then make erroneous settings. You can do your own calculation using Ohm's Law (stick around - we will teach you that stuff). In any case, if you go that route, be aware that your calculations might point out errors in the on-board VOM reading, but they shouldn't be off by more than a couple hundredths, and this is due to the tolerances of the parts used on the circuit board (e.g., a 100-Ohm resistor with a tolerance of 20% can be 80-120 Ohms, which will introduce errors, but they should not be off by the amount you mention above.). You got a burned coil right off the bat? Toss it and put in a new one. Once those wicks are toasted, and you're not into rewicking or making your own coils, just put a new one in because you cannot get good taste once the wick has been fried (blackened).

I hope this has been of some help. The people on this forum tend to be nice and very helpful, so stick around.

P.S. I just noticed @defdock put a couple posts in here too and he's been here a long time, so listen up. If any of us can be of further help, let us know.

 

[Greenfish]

I can easily imagine an iStick ripping through a PT3 coil in seconds. Once it's killed, it's killed.
Next time, put the iStick into watts (3 clicks, if it's in volts).
Scroll down to 5 or 6 watts and work up from there. You'll get a warning... sure

The bottom charging port is a gold-plated PITA. I hate charging mods on their side... I'm too lasy to take the tank off.

I am worried about your Ohm readings though... no wonder it's burning the life out of a coil. What are they supposed to be? If the iStick thinks it's 3.0ohms it's going nuke it straight away. Have you tried gently screwing the tank down a little. Too loose and it reads high and then "reaper-drones" your atomizer. (blasts it with firepower!)

Wow, you folks are fantastic! Way too much for me to process at one time for sure.
The coil is supposed to be 2.2. It seems the longer I use it, the higher the reading gets. Right now its reading 3.3ohm. I did change to watts mode and it keeps the setting I set. It makes its own mind up on volts mode. One thing I have found today is if it hit it with the led off it actually hits nice and allows me to turn the power up a little before the VAPE gets warm. If I hit it with the led light on, it goes into overdrive and seems to double the power. If this is the way its supposed to work, I can get used to that and make sure the light goes out before another puff or take a real short drag at least. If no one else has this problem, I may need to return it as defective.
I bet the first several times I hit it, the lights were on and giviy me that extra shot of power and killing the coil.

 

[Grimwald]

Coils can vary. I once had a 5 pack of kanger coils. They were all stamped as 1.8 but all showed 2.5 on my meter. If you have another mod or meter to check the ohms you should try that. If the coil seems to work in the evod but not the pt mini, perhaps there is a bad o-ring or something on the pt mini.

Now about the formula:
volts squared divided by ohms = watts
or
volts = square root of (watts times ohms)
Your istick will attempt to balance this equation.

so if you set it for 5 watts and it reads the coil at 3.5 ohms then the volts will be 4.18.
If it can't get a good read on the coil--coil is loose or something--then the volts will jump all over the place as it tries to keep the equation in balance.
So wattage mode might not be best. Just for this situation, I would try voltage mode by pressing the fire button 3 times fast and set it down at 3.2 volts and work up.

 

[pluviose]

Hi there again Greenfish - was about to reply on the other thread, but i found this!

Glad you got the iStick30, i got one for Christmas and love it! It has all you'll need.

I had the same thing with the PT2 coils, the ohms creeping up by use (even after dry-burning when changing wicks). Like you, i was shying away from the coil-building thing, thinking it's too much fuss etc. etc.
HOWEVER, this monday i got some kanthal wire in town (for an RBA - diff. story), and i got curious if i could re-build the little PT2 coils too. I had a few popped ones which i hadn't thrown out yet.

It turned out it's even easier than the re-wicking thing (which i told about in your other thread), literally just a few minutes - i found this guide, very easy to follow:
Getting Started: Rebuilding a ProTank atomizer

Also this, to calculate the number of wraps according to diameter etc. to get the desired resistance: Coil wrapping | Steam Engine | free vaping calculators

The only "tool" you need is the iStick 30 to check the resistance, and you already have that - and a small plier or tweezer.

The rest can be pretty much improvised from stuff laying around in every household - i used a broken bit of a foodmixer's 'leg' as a mandril (to roll the wire around), as it came closest in diameter (1.9 - 2 mm, roughly) to what i figured i'll need, but a nail or anything will do. Pre-heated the wire to orange glow before 'wrapping', with a lighter (i don't have a blowtorch) - but even that is not necessary, i think.

I made 6 new coils this way, all turned out between 1.6 and 1.8 ohm - that was the range i was aiming for. I used 0.3 mm kanthal wire, got a 10 m spool for € 5 - will last forever.

it all sounds a lot more complicated in writing than it really is, give it a try! I mean if even i got it right at the first go, then it's really foolproof and easy.
Also, for me as an ex-roller, it's a good 'replacement activity' - rolling up the 'perfect' cigarette was part of the habit, and wrapping 'the perfect coil' sort of makes up for the loss of that. And something new i learnt. Saves money too, and spares you from the "down to my last coil" anxiety.

----
Edit/ re: the dual coils - i tried them on my second week of vaping, didn't like them at all. Found them much too warm for my liking, also they were spitting / popping like crazy (still don't know if it was a bad batch, or normal business). Also, i think they only work with the PT3 / mini PT3? And you can't re-wick or re-build them easily. (I took one apart, even that was near impossible..)

Edit II / another thing, did you make sure there's no build-up of liquid on the contact points (battery / both ends of the adapter)? Wipe them dry regularly with those cotton bud thingies or rolled-up tissue paper.

 

[Maiar]

My isticks never show anything more than a .1 difference from what the coil should be unless it's the odd wonky coil.
And I know the old 20 watt version of the istick was unreliable as to how much power you set it to versus what it actually pumps out, but the 30 watt version claimed to have fixed that and I haven't noticed it using more power than I set it to for anything. Except my isub g that is. 10w is barely enough to fire that coil, yet it performs at 10w on my istick 30 the same as it does on my istick 50 when it's set to 15w. Which I always thought was weird, but i never really thought much about it because if I put my subtank mini or my nautilus on either one, they perform identically at identical power levels. No differences in performance. And the isub g blows ... so I don't even use it.

 

[Lannie]

Oooh, I love my iSub Gs. Maybe you got a bad one? Or I just don't know how bad they are? ROFL! They work for me, though.

On a different note, and nothing to do with the iStick 30, but those Protank coils seem to read higher and higher resistance the dirtier they get. When mine would get to reading too high, that's when I took them out, rinsed them, dry burned them (I had the silica wicks, so they can be burned without charring), air dried them for a couple days, and then put them back and the resistance would be back in the right neighborhood again. After a few of these cleanings, the resistance just wouldn't go back to "normal," and I assume it was because the wire was just too gunky. I have arthritic hands, and recoiling these is out of the question, but if you have young fingers, it shouldn't be too hard. I've seen several videos that make it look really easy.

I know you said you didn't want to recoil, and I totally understand. A replacement pack of them isn't that expensive, and if you can clean them once or twice (or thrice), then you'll get a bit more life out of them.

~Lannie

 

[David Wolf]

Wow, you folks are fantastic! Way too much for me to process at one time for sure.
The coil is supposed to be 2.2. It seems the longer I use it, the higher the reading gets. Right now its reading 3.3ohm. I did change to watts mode and it keeps the setting I set. It makes its own mind up on volts mode. One thing I have found today is if it hit it with the led off it actually hits nice and allows me to turn the power up a little before the VAPE gets warm. If I hit it with the led light on, it goes into overdrive and seems to double the power. If this is the way its supposed to work, I can get used to that and make sure the light goes out before another puff or take a real short drag at least. If no one else has this problem, I may need to return it as defective.
I bet the first several times I hit it, the lights were on and giviy me that extra shot of power and killing the coil.

What LED light?? The Istick 30W doesn't have an led light. Are you talking about the display?
Read everything fuzzy thunderbear wrote above to make sure your coil and base is fully seated, no way your 2.2 ohm coil should be reading 3.3 ohms. Either bad coils or your Istick is malfunctioning if everything is seated and making good connection. Like others said you will typically read within 0.1 to 0.2 ohms of the coil stamped resistance

 

[Grimwald]

For a pt 2 mini or evod, you are using the ego adapter...so maybe that's the problem.

 

[mcclintock]

Due to the "ghost drones" nature of flexing ohms on a regulated device, it's safer to run in voltage mode. The batter always delivers in volts, leaving the mod set to watts relies on the mods ability to read the coil correct and do the math to deliver "the right" voltage set to your watts. If you can get the coils to read correctly on the mod, I'd sudjest setting it to 3.7v and work up/down if the istick allows it(due to the ohm/volt/watts limitation of the mod)

The problem is the minimum power is 5 watts. If the current voltage setting is not sufficient to make 5 watts, it will increase it. If he wasn't using a 5-6 watt atomizer, wouldn't be a problem.

The 2.5 ohm coil won't help this, and is actually thinner wire and handles less power than the 2.2 ohms.

I once measured a Protank coil out of the box and it measured high, but was OK once I installed it and ran some current through it. Contact issue.

I've also seen the eGo adapter have bad contact until I screwed it down tight. Despite the spring-loaded pin -- must have been the thread side contact.

 

[coilburner]

The istick 30 was only goes down to 5 watts OR 2 volts. So you reached the limit. If your getting burnt hits at 5 watts you might want to try a lower ohm coil so you can turn the watts down, heck 5 watts might be low enough with a lower ohm coil. Also try a different coil, it shouldn't be reading it that high anyways.

 

[Fuzzy Thunderbear]

I was pondering how anyone could possibly get burned hits with 5 Watts... then it occurs to me to ask what none of us have bothered to ask yet: How long are you holding the fire button?

 

[Foggy Road]

For a pt 2 mini or evod, you are using the ego adapter...so maybe that's the problem.

This! The ego adapter that came with my istick 20 used to make it go crazy!

 

[coilburner]

I was pondering how anyone could possibly get burned hits with 5 Watts... then it occurs to me to ask what none of us have bothered to ask yet: How long are you holding the fire button?

He said its reading it at 3.5 ohms. Ya think that might have something to do with it?

 

[mcclintock]

I think actually setting it to controls watts rather than voltage might work better. If you haven't tried putting a high ohm coil on volts mode at low power on an iStick or similar, you won't be familiar with how it acts. If it sees 3.5 ohms in voltage mode, it WILL up the setting to 4.2 volts to produce 5 watts -- and it won't set it back to a lower voltage once that starts making more than 5 watts. But in watts mode, it will keep trying to make 5 watts. I don't know if it will keep up with quick changes of resistance, though.

Try cleaning the mini Protank threads or maybe even take a wire brush to the adapter.