I'm a believer of cotton now!

[tom_chang79]

My two Protanks started to show signs of leakage, so I figured it's time for a cleanout of my coil head and recoil and rewick...

I have a bag of cotton balls that I bought for wicking, failed miserably on my first attempt ladt week so I stowed it away for experimenting later, so I decided to pull it out for this recoil and rewick excersise...

First, I did a 10 turn around 1.5mm with 30awg kanthal, got about 2.7 Ohms, not bad, so I proceeded to start rolling a cotton wick, remembering that "less is more" concept that I've read here at ECF...

Wicked it through after installing the coil, added another layer on top for "flavor wick," all I can say is WOW! I don't know why I've been wasting all this time with silica wicks!!!

The flavor is amazing!!!


I usually vape no higher than 6W with my PT, tons of vape, good taste (finally got full flavor of my strawberry kiwi 50/50 pg/vg)... Kicked it up to 7W, no burnt taste, kicked it up to 8W, no burnt taste!!! It's hitting like a mini rba. The vape cloud is nowhere near my full size rba running at 10W, but I have never seen this much cloud and taste with my PT!!!

No leaks so far, but I do expect it to somewhat leak from the condensation inside the center tube, but it's not gurgling nor flooding...


I'm a cotton head now, no more silica for me!!!

 

[Trayce]

Congrats. I'm waiting on my Vamo and Protank II to arrive and plan to try cotton too. Nice to know you had a great experience with it. I thought I'd get organic undyed cotton yarn. What cotton balls did you get?

 

[mimifromnc]

I'm not as advanced as you and never attempted a recoil. But when I do dry burns, I replace the original top wicks with a bit cotton.

 

[tom_chang79]

Congrats. I'm waiting on my Vamo and Protank II to arrive and plan to try cotton too. Nice to know you had a great experience with it. I thought I'd get organic undyed cotton yarn. What cotton balls did you get?

I used some organic, bleached, from Rite-Aid... Didn't bother boiling it... Not because I trust it, just out of pure laziness...

 

[tom_chang79]

I'm not as advanced as you and never attempted a recoil. But when I do dry burns, I replace the original top wicks with a bit cotton.

You should give it a whack sometime, it's quite enjoyable, if you get an RBA, it would give you a lot of practice since you'll be making bigger coils and experimenting with different wicks (my SS wick was a total disaster)...

I've tried so far, SS Wick (no go, didn't have torch and the patience to keep trying the oxidation, even when I didn't get a short, I tasted metal in my mouth, did not like it at all), 2mm Silica, 3mm Silica, and Cotton (the one I made for my RBA was a disaster, didn't know what I was doing)...

I'm eager to try some cotton ropes in the near future, but I think so far, the cotton ball method is great, you can control how thick to make the wick...

I've always been able to taste my juice, but after using the cotton, didn't realize that it actually had stronger flavors... Still can't touch what my RBA does, even with Silica wick, but the RBA is probably making the vape taste better due to higher density of the vape production... I'm going to give cotton wick another try on my next tank refill in my RBA. As for my clearos, I'm gonna do cotton from here on, if I have to use new heads, just gonna chuck the stock coil and silica and salvage the head and fresh silicone gaskets that it comes with...

 

[Trayce]

I used some organic, bleached, from Rite-Aid... Didn't bother boiling it... Not because I trust it, just out of pure laziness...

Was that organic bleached... or did you mean unbleached? Cotton balls are usually sterile anyway, right? I was hoping if I used sterile cotton I could be lazy too. The yarn has to be boiled, from what I gather. Good to know it can be gotten from Rite Aid.

 

[haproot]

Very cool! Just gave it a try! I've been thinking about doing it, but that was the final push. Definitely wicks way better! I just used some rolled USP Absorbent Cotton from CVS. Just wicked it in the coil so it could move back and forth easy, cut the ends and fluffed it just a bit. Primed it with some juice, put the stem back on and away I went. Vaping great!

 

[tom_chang79]

Was that organic bleached... or did you mean unbleached? Cotton balls are usually sterile anyway, right? I was hoping if I used sterile cotton I could be lazy too. The yarn has to be boiled, from what I gather. Good to know it can be gotten from Rite Aid.

I've read people have boiled them to be sure, but I think if you get some sterile, organic, USP-grade cotton, you'll be fine... Hell, I was an analog smoker, I figured it can't be any worse than huffing burnt tobacco paper and other junk in my analogs...

 

[Trayce]

I'm not as advanced as you and never attempted a recoil. But when I do dry burns, I replace the original top wicks with a bit cotton.

I agree with tom_chang79! I've never built a coil either but how hard can it be, except that it's tiny. I already got some kanthal. Give it a whirl. The stuff is cheap so if you screw a bunch up, no worries. Just be sure to check the coil with a volt meter or PV (like the Vamo) to make sure it's firing evenly with no spots that are hotter than others. And you can't dry burn cotton, so if you try it out, you might want to practice with silica wick first. Otherwise you have to wrap the wire around something like a nail, then attach it to the head [er, after taking the nail out], and check it, before threading your cotton wick through.

Be safe and live dangerously. That's my motto.

 

[Trayce]

I've read people have boiled them to be sure, but I think if you get some sterile, organic, USP-grade cotton, you'll be fine... Hell, I was an analog smoker, I figured it can't be any worse than huffing burnt tobacco paper and other junk in my analogs...

Point taken.

 

[mimifromnc]

I need the right tools and most importantly the patience. I watched pbusardo on youtube do a recoiling on the EVOD (same head) and he made it look like a walk in the park.

 

[Trayce]

I need the right tools and most importantly the patience. I watched pbusardo on youtube do a recoiling on the EVOD (same head) and he made it look like a walk in the park.

Grimm Green has a demo on YouTube too. Let's face it... you're just wrapping wire around wick (or a nail or something), then spacing it out nicely with a dental tool or the like, making sure the outside coils aren't touching the sides of the head, and putting it back together (then testing, etc). I can certainly see how it would take practice (and I'm sure I'll screw up plenty of my first attempts.. and later ones too) but it's not rocket science.

 

[tom_chang79]

I agree with tom_chang79! I've never built a coil either but how hard can it be, except that it's tiny. I already got some kanthal. Give it a whirl. The stuff is cheap so if you screw a bunch up, no worries. Just be sure to check the coil with a volt meter or PV (like the Vamo) to make sure it's firing evenly with no spots that are hotter than others. And you can't dry burn cotton, so if you try it out, you might want to practice with silica wick first. Otherwise you have to wrap the wire around something like a nail, then attach it to the head [er, after taking the nail out], and check it, before threading your cotton wick through.

Be safe and live dangerously. That's my motto.

I placed the coil into the head before wicking the cotton through, just keep the coil on the nail/screwdriver/drill bit that you wrapped it around while mounting the coil back in, it will guarantee that the coil sits high enough in the well so that the wick can be later threaded through...

I wrapped my coil around a small jeweler's screwdriver shaft that had a diameter equal to the channel's width in the coil housing...

So after mounting the coil back into the housing, I screwed it back onto the base for some test firing and ohm checking with the eVic...

After I was satisfied with the resistance and glow, I unscrewed it off the PT base, and threaded the wick while the coil was still mounted in the housing...

One thing to note, I did check the resistance of the coil with the center post piece on, to be sure I had enough clearance for shorting, also, with the center piece on, it makes screwing the coil housing on/off easier... Just take it off when you test fire to see the glow!

 

[Trayce]

Thanks for all those handy tips! I'm looking forward to trying this!

 

[xtwosm0kesx]

When caught between a rock and hard place, the most ghetto of coil building connoisseur's wrap on a piece of spaghetti...

 

[SilverZero]

When caught between a rock and hard place, the most ghetto of coil building connoisseur's wrap on a piece of spaghetti...

Just remember to rinse off the spaghetti sauce first.

 

[Rickb119]

I've been using cotton for a few weeks now and love it. Started off using cotton yarn but found that after about 2 tanks (Protank 2) it started to gurgle. I tried adding more cotton in the coil, less in the coil, more for the flavor wick, less for the flavor wick. Still, only about 2 tanks then the gurgling. Not a big deal as it doesn't take long to recoil it, but thought I'd try something else. I'm now experimenting with cotton cooking twine (Bed Bath and Beyond). I did boil my yarn (probably didn't need to) and also the twine. It DID need to be boiled. 3 times before I got all the dye out. (Maybe I should buy some better twine?) Anyhow, the jury is still out as I'm only on my first tank with this stuff. My theory is that because the twine is much denser than the yarn, it will last longer. Time (and vaping) will tell.

Edit: I wrap my coils on a large needle (2 mm diameter) and then use a bead threading needle (Hobby Lobby) (and looks like this http://www.firemountaingems.com/itemdetails/H201039BS ) to pull the cotton through the coil. Work great!

 

[Trayce]

When caught between a rock and hard place, the most ghetto of coil building connoisseur's wrap on a piece of spaghetti...

First edible panties... next, edible coils.

 

[roasted]

Meanwhile, every time I roll a cotton wick from a cotton ball, it tastes like I'm vaping motor oil. I've tried (and failed) to build at least 30 heads now, only one of which was mildly acceptable.

How are you guys building them? Do you wrap the coil around a drill bit and then feed the cotton in? When you're ready to go, is the cotton easy to twist inside or is it pretty thick and hugging the coils tightly? I've tried every scenario I can think of. It's obvious I'm doing something wrong or else I'd have greater success with it, but as far as I can tell I'll likely keep buying Nova heads. At least that thing never lets me down.

 

[damthisisfun]

I use cotton too - one thing that concerns me a bit is that after I go through about 2 tanks on my Protank - and change out the wick - the cotton is BLACK....and the juice in the coil is BLACK......looks like the cotton is burning and not sure if that is healthy to be vaping cotton ash - NOW NOW - before yall go off and say "u smoked for years and now u worried about a little bit of ash.... I am just wondering if yall see the same or is just me?