Introducing myself
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I'm not the one who posted the thread but, i've been thinking of getting an rdta since i'm starting to hate having to buy coils sure it's convenient but annoying af since you never really know how long it's gonna last. I could very well do with a "starter guide" or something so i can at least check if rebuilding is for me and how to do it.
www.steam-engine.org and www.ohmslawcalculator.com are two very valuable resources. You need the ohms law thing to make sure you're not overloading your batteries, and with a bit of practice, steam engine will give you a pretty good idea of how a coil design will vape. The ohms law issue is less important if you're using a regulated mod. but absolutely crucial on a mechanical mod. Tell me, please, what you're vaping now-- coil ohms, wattage, what kind of machine, and so forth-- as this will help me get you pointed in the right direction. There are a great many possible RDTAs out there, most of them at least passable. It may come down to appearance. I use, and like very much, the iJoy Limitless. I think I have three of them. You are quite correct built coils are much cheaper, at the expense of a bit of effort. One of the nicest parts is a burnt wick doesn't mean a new coil; you can often re-wick a built coil.
There will be some expense in the beginning for some small tools: you'll need a 510 connection ohmmeter ($5-50 depending on what you want), a coil mandrel (a buck or two on up, depending, and drill bits will work), some ceramic point tweezers (5 bucks to the sky's the limit), a small screwdriver set with phillips and hex points (<$10 at Home Depot) and a good pair of scissors are a minimum; on top of which you will need a spool of wire and some wicking material and, of course, an RDTA to put it all in.
Give me a shout back (be kind enough to quote this so I will know to go look for your response) about how you vape and we'll get started.
There will be some expense in the beginning for some small tools: you'll need a 510 connection ohmmeter ($5-50 depending on what you want), a coil mandrel (a buck or two on up, depending, and drill bits will work), some ceramic point tweezers (5 bucks to the sky's the limit), a small screwdriver set with phillips and hex points (<$10 at Home Depot) and a good pair of scissors are a minimum; on top of which you will need a spool of wire and some wicking material and, of course, an RDTA to put it all in.
Give me a shout back (be kind enough to quote this so I will know to go look for your response) about how you vape and we'll get started.
I’m using a smok 220w alien. Has Samsung 20r batteries and currently have a coil with 15 ohm running it at 58 watts atm
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Now that's alot of tools XD i'm mostly a regulated mod kinda guy (plus having to find an 0hm meter in canada might be tricky) At the moment i use an aspire evo75 mod (nx75) with a freemax fat scylla sv tank. I used the .25 coil that came with it and now using the .5, tbh besides vapor production i don't see enough of a difference so idk which i prefer but i use my .5 in temp mode (it's a SS coil) at 500F 45 watts (coil rated between 30-50 watts)
No idea what's the battery since the clerk at my vape shop just took one off their chargers and put it in -.- i know it's an 18650 though.
Welcome and glad you joined.
Agreed smoking does not compare with vaping, it's way better. I had the same experience with regards to nasty taste.
You know, I was watching my husband smoke last night, and I'm still a bit cranky and out of it? The only thought that went through my head was, "Wow, my vape tastes delicious." You know, this e-cig bit is kind of crazy for me. I actually think I'm becoming a nicer person, it's almost like I travelled back in time to before I became a rotten teenager, to a nice kid. Heh. Who knew about this backward journey? What the heck just came out of my mouth? It was optimism, which I usually haven't been as prone to as I could have been due to not smoking... I'm a very stubborn person, so I really had to get a good pummeling from my Higher Power via pain, which is sometimes my highest motivator, though I do have quite the pain tolerance. But from the moment I had to take steroid course number three, my mind became HIGHLY made up, and it's just making vaping easier and easier.
I might have to write some poetry, probably an ode to vaping
But yeah, today is going okay except I'm wiped.
And, thrilled I am vaping, no matter what!! I think I've reached the "I prefer vaping" milestone, which is great! No turning back!
Anna
I might have to write some poetry, probably an ode to vaping
But yeah, today is going okay except I'm wiped.
And, thrilled I am vaping, no matter what!! I think I've reached the "I prefer vaping" milestone, which is great! No turning back!
Anna
You know, I was watching my husband smoke last night, and I'm still a bit cranky and out of it? The only thought that went through my head was, "Wow, my vape tastes delicious." You know, this e-cig bit is kind of crazy for me. I actually think I'm becoming a nicer person, it's almost like I travelled back in time to before I became a rotten teenager, to a nice kid. Heh. Who knew about this backward journey? What the heck just came out of my mouth? It was optimism, which I usually haven't been as prone to as I could have been due to not smoking... I'm a very stubborn person, so I really had to get a good pummeling from my Higher Power via pain, which is sometimes my highest motivator, though I do have quite the pain tolerance. But from the moment I had to take steroid course number three, my mind became HIGHLY made up, and it's just making vaping easier and easier.
I might have to write some poetry, probably an ode to vaping
But yeah, today is going okay except I'm wiped.
And, thrilled I am vaping, no matter what!! I think I've reached the "I prefer vaping" milestone, which is great! No turning back!
Anna
I agree. May not always feel my best but better than when I was smoking. Maybe more energy and not so irritated
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Ok, troops, here we go: first bring up steam-engine.org in a new tab. You'll see something like the below screenshot. If it looks different, check the tabs at the top of the page and click "Coil Wrapping" to get to this page.
Steam1
To the left, I have drawn a red rectangle around the first data entry block. "Material and Profile" describes the wire you want to use: Kanthal, Stainless, Titanium, whatever, and it's shape, be it round, ribbon, twisted or parallel, etc. "Diameter of Wire" is the gauge wire you are using. Once you set the AWG, the diameter in mm will set itself. "Setup" is the number of coils you intend to build in the atty; single, duals, quads, whatever. "Target Resistance" is the coil ohm value you want to finish with. If you're using more than one coil, the system builds the individual coils so they total that number; whereas a single coil will hit it by itself.
Center, in the green rectangle, is further data entry for the contemplated coil set. The important one is "Inner Diameter" which is the size of mandrel you wish to wind it on. You can use anything you like for this, provided the finished coil(s) will fit in the atty, but you need to know what the diameter is as an increase in diameter also increases the length of wire in each wrap. I said you can use drill bits, and you can; bits are made from very exact diameter wire. If you're more comfortable in inches than millimeters, you can change by clicking the tick box marked "Imperial Units" above the red rectangle. Don't worry about leg length much unless you are using conspicuously long or short (like a postless designed deck) coil legs; 5mm is a pretty good approximation for nearly everything.
Now we get to the good stuff: To the right, in the blue box, is a lot of good information, but the important part tells you how many wraps you need to make your required resistance using the wire, leg and mandrel sizes you specified to the left. The bolded face, in the example, is showing 11.82 wraps, which can't be done. The two lines below show possible wraps depending on how you intend to mount them. "Full" wraps are commonly used for singe coil applications; the coil legs will point in opposite directions (like this: ---0--- ) and the coil mounts between the posts. "Half" wraps are usually used mounting dual (or more) coil sets, where each coil is one one side of the posts only. Both legs on a half wrap coil point the same way ( ===0 ). It further shows "13/12" for the number of wraps. If you look at the top of the coil, with the legs pointing away from your face, you will count 13 loops. From the other side, with the legs pointing at you, you will count 12. The small type numbers to the right show the actual value of the wrapped coil, since you can't make an 11.82 wrap design. Note also, in the example, the actual value shown is about twice the desired resistance. That's because the specified setup is dual coils. It's a derivative of Ohm's Law that, when current passes through parallel resistances, the total resistance is half the value of either (or 1/3 of the value of 3 identical ones, and so forth). It is very important both (all) of your built coils are as close to identical as you can make them. Don't mount a set of duals with one coil at 1Ω and the other at .5Ω. Seriously. Don't. On a regulated mod so doing won't be dangerous, but it will mean Steam Engine can't predict what the actual resistance will be, or how the coil(s) will behave.
And the really good stuff is in the yellow box, low right. It describes the "heat flux," or how much heat energy is pumping out from the surface of your coil in milliwatts per millimeter squared (mW/mm²). This is where the program derives its predictive ability for new and untried builds. if you click the up/dn arrows to change the heat flux, the mod power figure moves in tandem. The deal is, once you find the right heat flux that gives good results for the juice you're using (good favor, adequate cloud, not too hot, etc.) you can get the same (ish) results by adjusting your mod's power to produce the same flux, no matter what your coil build may be. Moreover, once you know the range of heat flux where you like your vape (temperature, mostly) you can see where (about) to set your mod to put you close to the sweet spot when you're trying a new build.
One other point I want to make before we leave here is, back up in the blue box, you'll find an entry called "Heat Capacity." There's a complex explanation in thermodynamics about it, but the bottom line is, the bigger that number, the slower your coil will heat up and cool down. If you're got a massive coil, for example, you might want to button on for a second before you start your draw, to get some vapor right at first; and you might want to button off just before you stop inhaling, to help cool the coil a bit and make your wick last longer. Using thin wire, and a small coil, you may choose to do the opposite. Don't worry about it in normal use, but if you have a build you think is good, but you're not getting the results you think you ought, that number may hold some troubleshooting clues.
On to an example. I'll use Qc's numbers since he mentioned wire type. Look at the below screenshot and you will see I have set the data entry blocks for 28ga SS316 round wire, dual coils, and a 3mm mandrel. The desired resistance is set for .5Ω.
Steam2
As you can see, we get the answers of 9 full wraps or a 10/9 half wrap to make that resistance value and, if we want 120 heat flux (cool and thin vape, on the low side of acceptable) we set the mod for 25 watts. But suppose we want it warmer? Changing nothing but the heat flux-- I'll bump it to 180, which is nice and warm, maybe a bit hot for sensitive people-- the coils are identical, but the mod must be set at 38 watts.
Steam3
And a final example: loo what happens when I change nothing but dual coils to single.
Steam4
The number of wraps cuts in half, to 4 full or 5/4 half, the heat capacity cuts in half to 17-- it's a much more responsive coil, heating and cooling a lot faster-- and to keep the same heat flux and produce the same juice results, we have to cut the mod back to 9.5 watts.
I am sure you can see this is complex, and all inter-related. Change one thing, and everything else moves with it. It looks confusing, I know, but it's actually much easier in practice. Once you build your first vapable coil-- a giant milestone in every coil builders life, I still remember my first-- you can tweak them a bit, see how the numbers move and the field results change. Then you will understand a lot more about what SE is telling you. Truly, it is a marvelously flexible tool.
Neither is it all tht hard to get a good one, even at first. The coil set-- either of them, but duals are better-- I used as an example will work just fine to more or less match Qc's vape. Nd won't find it any harder. Just change the wire type to round Kanthal A1 and use wither 28 or 26ga wire, that'll come pretty close to where Nd is now as well.
Finally, safety: I am a lot less worried about both of you using regulated mods. You can use the ohmmeter on the mod to guard against a dead short, although I still recommend a separate ohmmeter to check the mod against. Wicking your coils is also a learned technique I have not even mentioned. A good rule of thumb is, if you want cotton, less is more. If you use rayon, pull the coil full and thin the tails. You'll both have questions, now and again when you try it. Fire away and good luck.
This seems like the most fool proof guide i've seen i know i haven't quoted you directly to tell you this but thanks you ALOT and i really mean ALOT ahah i actually became more curious after reading this guide Might get a tank that does both next month (in case i don't get into it in the end at least i'd be able to use the tank)
Again thank you and this makes me proud to be part of this community, you guys are awesome ahah
Might get a tank that does both next month (in case i don't get into it in the end at least i'd be able to use the tank)Again thank you and this makes me proud to be part of this community, you guys are awesome
ahahhttps://www.ebay.com/itm/122491342069 what do you think of this clone? Seems many people say kayfun is good though need to find out how prone it is to leaking
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I'm guessing you were talking to me ? If so i don't buy off ebay too many clones + can't import tobaco products in canada which means no tank no mod no juice (might get lucky but it's too much of a gamble).
I'll have to buy either on a canadian site or like i thought to do and buy in a vape shop which i like to since it supports local shops.
A lot of us buy from fasttech which ships out of China and i've bought a lot of hardware from the US.
We can't import nicotine products, but we're okay importing the hardware. On the shipping packet if it mentions it's an electronic cigarette device it will occasionally get the full inspection, but there's no reason for them to confiscate it. You pay the duty, if needed, and get your stuff.
I know in Quebec there are some special laws so maybe that's why it's wonky over there. But I think that has more to do with B&Ms than the federal mail service.
Yeah it's not really about the mail service but more about customs i've heard alot of bad stories with people that had to pay huge amounts to get their stuff, i don't have that kind of money fact is i can barely afford to vape as it is. It's a personnal thing too since i prefer to encourage local vape shops to fight against those crazy illogical laws we have in quebec (which are the worst in canada atm)
Ok I built my first rta, the pharaoh but the taste is muted. At first I soaked the wick in a juice I don’t like and boy I could taste it. I used 26g ni kandal wire or whatever. It may be the juice possibly as it’s usually darker but atm it’s clear. So far there’s no leaks which is a plus. It’s at .835 ohm according to my device and I’m using it at 101w
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It works out to 8+ volts, I found it really weird too. If I vaped that i'm pretty sure i'd burn off all my nose hairs.
He might mean Nikrothal (NI80)?
Nichrome 80. Was trying to do my memory
I do believe it’s the juice it doesn’t smell like it usually does. But I did 6 spaced wraps. They aren’t perfectly spaced top or bottom is spaced and the other may be touching a bit
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May as well buy that one from China $15.52
I have 2 x SXKs. They are OK, but the V5 has some annoying features, mostly the airflow ring getting wedged.
My two were about $30. Two from China for the price of one on ebay... even if you can be sure it's really the SXK.
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